Between the Devil and the Dusk, page 1
First published in Great Britain in 2024 by
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Copyright © 2024 Patrick Ireland
The right of Patrick Ireland to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This work is entirely fictitious and bears no resemblance to any persons living or dead.
ISBN 9781835741610
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
“Some people are always dreaming of travel and adventure in order to give themselves airs and an aura of heroism in other people’s eyes. Then, when they find themselves in the middle of an adventure and in peril, they begin to think, ‘What a fool I was. Why on earth did I put myself in this position?’.”
The Iron King by Maurice Druon
Contents
Part One
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Part Three
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Part Four
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Epilogue
Part One
Chapter One
I had, of course, wanted to be based in Tokyo, where loud neon lights can fry your retina from a casual glance and pounding sound rays can blind your ears upon impact. Before submerging into the city’s foreign fuzz, your senses are totally masked in this unique ambience. Tokyo is the most densely packed place on the planet – a city so vast its metropolitan population of 38 million is over a dozen times greater than some nations. A city with its own concrete consciousness where ideas and identity appear to be tripping to infinity. Yes – Tokyo is a unique speck from the other billions of settlements on the hurtling rock we all call home.
The July rain violently rattled the plane delivering me to Tokyo. Its turbulence on our descent shook us like ragdolls so completely that, for a moment, I thought the terrible convulsions would rip apart and disassemble the craft in mid-air. My jet-lagged mind could almost imagine the small round windows slipping from their rubber sheaths, the fuselage following momentarily afterwards, the floor falling away as the plane broke up, and my seatbelt gracefully uncoupling as I plummeted into oblivion.
The landing bell pulled me back to reality with a clang. I peered out the rain-clotted windows framing an endless glow from a sea of shimmering kaleidoscopic rainbows. Soon our steep descent brought the rapidly approaching cityscape into view. I braced myself for reanimation after the exhausting, almost twelve-hour flight into Haneda Tokyo International Airport.
Haneda is the main international artery into the heart of Japan. It is built on reclaimed land dragged from the sea depths over a span of six decades. Our plane circled over Tokyo Bay like the many other aluminium vultures readying to regurgitate their passengers from every corner of the globe in an unbroken cycle since US Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his Black Ships opened Japan to the West by gunpoint on 14 July 1853. The airport has three distinct terminals built over decades. Their individual styles range from a 1950s theme of austere Soviet-style concrete, to a 1980s refined and practical post-modern approach, to, finally, a terminal like a steel cathedral filled with shimmering, jittery glass. The latter was my plane’s temporary home.
I was shell-shocked from jet lag and dehydrated by the flight’s pure caffeine diet. After stumbling off the plane to an immigration booth, an agent scanned both index fingers and took my photograph for an instant check across dozens of global databases to confirm that I – Michael Brown – was not a known terrorist. Having passed the test, I propped myself up against a nearby pillar to wait for my luggage. Finally, luggage in hand, I entered the arrivals lounge and searched for a sign with my name on it. And there it was – a Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (otherwise known as JET) company sponsor held one up with my name on it. I connected with him and was then hurriedly daisy-chained from one JET volunteer to the next across the terminal. It felt like we were out-of-place refugees dancing a mis-stepped waltz. Dozens of top eateries along the terminal edges called out to my empty stomach like sirens. But there was no time for that. Like toddlers, the JET company sponsor briskly chaperoned us out of the terminal and onto a bus bound for Tokyo. Settled on the bus, I glanced around. Some of my soon-to-be classmates acted like a kinetic bundle of nerves edging on mini breakdowns. Others simply dozed during the final one-hour journey to Tokyo. I joined my dozing companions.
When I came to and looked out the window, the Tokyo night was a blaze: a whirl of people and video screens. The city seemed to thrash to its own beat. It was lit up so brightly it almost denied the night’s hard-won throne. Each street was a canvas of crowded faces. An infinite number of skyscrapers assaulted the heavens and flanked us as we pulled up to Keio Plaza Hotel – a man-made giant with polished brass doors glinting like gold and a white-gloved doorman who ushered us in as gracefully as a ballerina. Like a herd of wrung-out Vandals, we dragged ourselves in with weak abandonment.
In my five-star hotel room, I began to regain my composure and organised my basic facilities to prepare for the first day of the JET programme’s three-day teaching assistant orientation the next morning. I ignored the no doubt helpful 300-page manual at the bottom of my bag. There was no way I could tackle that now. But after my second cigarette of the night, my daily routine, I had become too awake and hotwired on their cocktail of nicotine and adrenalin to contemplate sleeping. My two JET roommates seemed to have little interest in anything other than sleeping and had made it clear that my pacing-puffing presence was nothing more than a growing annoyance. So I decided to visit the bar for some liquid refreshment that, I hoped, would help me sleep later.
Chapter Two
The truth be known, I don’t know why I decided to pursue the JET assistant English teacher programme. Perhaps my main goal had been to avoid “real” work and put off growing up for as long as practically possible. After frantic internet searches and hurried enquiries, I found no better way to do this then escaping to the other side of the globe on someone else’s – in my case, the Japanese government’s – dime.
I had applied for the job the previous October, five months ago. I was due to finish my master degree in English Literature the following July. As graduation grew closer, I sank into deep melancholy knowing I could no longer avoid real-life responsibilities and challenges. During this stressful time, I accidentally learnt about the JET programme after clicking on a cultural exchange internet link. When I discovered the programme could last for five years (if I was lucky), the offer became even more tempting. Anything to avoid returning home and spending my days dodging my father’s disproving gaze and my mother’s incessant preaching. In fact, my mother had been very suspicious of the programme. Before I left for Japan, she bluntly stated that a programme taking only three days to learn the basic tactics for teaching a foreign language to children sounded like a scam to her. She went on to point out that I had zero natural skills for languages, and the Japanese language structure was not even close to English. I had, she noted sharply, no knowledge of my host country’s social code, which had customs the polar opposite to mine. I, of course, ignored her prescient warnings.
Chapter Three
I was glad I had the chance to go out for a night on the town in Tokyo before the shock and awe of the three-day teaching course
Johnny informed me halfway through a hard handshake that the rest of my temporary weekend family would soon be scattered to every corner of Japan’s five-island archipelago. We noted how they were either currently immobile from jet lag or comatose from nerve-jolting culture shock. Either way, they just wanted to crawl into bed, hoping that the old proverb “it will seem better in the morning” would prove true.
Johnny was the one exception to our colleagues’ temporary narcoleptic condition. Two, if I included myself. We were the only ones up for some nocturnal antics. I noted how the half-a-day flight had seemed like a mere roundtrip drive to the corner shop for this live wire. I felt that if he plugged his fingers into the nearest wall socket, his energy would easily light up Tokyo with enough spare energy for Japan’s 125-million-person basic household needs. The lucky bastard wanted to go and see the big city instantly, despite the fact he was based there for the next year, less than an hour from our hotel. This was a man who obviously never spared a moment of life navel-gazing and could energise the least energetic of people in the blandest of circumstances.
So, mentally drained and physically unstable, we set out to get lost in the city’s oriental wonders and sample its delights. For me, this meant basic drinking. For Johnny, any of the city’s varieties of exotic flesh would do – and by the avalanche of innuendos he was dropping, that meant any girl or boy. The most severe warnings of our JET keepers regarded the hazards of getting stranded in the Russian roulette of Japanese public toilets running from ultra-modern self-cleaning to simple toilet paperless shitholes in the ground. This situation seemed comical next to the real chance of being sold into white slavery, something that occurs to this day in some parts of East Asia.
We had neither the urge nor ability to stray too far from the hotel. As the night neared 10:00p.m., the crowds increased, streaming with mostly oriental faces, an occasional Caucasian, and an ever-rarer face of the darker vintage. We finally arrived at the fabled red arches of Kabukichō – the largest red-light district in Asia (if not the whole world). They shimmered like a beacon of sin beckoning us onwards. We dodged and wove through the crowds. Many focused solely on their phones, having long before become numb to the novelty of the decadence and moral degradation of the place. Hawkers gave out flyers while calling out in sharp Japanese and broken English to entice passers-by into their lairs. Voluptuous manga girls with micro miniskirts and endlessly promising smiles stared down dead-eyed from fifty-foot billboards, coyly beckoning in silent gap-toothed titillation horror. Below, their blood-and-flesh sisters obliviously paraded the streets in the same sexy cloud as their billboard siblings. Hostess clubs lined the streets, the predators fluttering their eyes from professional posters. Here, people, both males and females, earn their living by offering paid companionship to those too busy and unable to connect with others in the real world. Instead, they pay for the illusion of enticements by companions with movie-star looks and promise-filled smiles. Signs blazed for every sex fetish from peep shows to bathhouses, their banners covering brick building walls like dense barnacles. Like kids in a candy store, Johnny and I eagerly walked through the rambunctious chaos. The ubiquitous smiles couldn’t hide the misery of the perpetrators, second only to their prey. Everything was for our shallow amusement, making us the most guilty of parties. Ironically, a few streets uptown, local politicians campaigned passionately, besieging street corners to entice passers-by with fake truths and inflated promises like their contemporaries the world over. A companion piece to what we found inside the red arches of Kabukichō.
Finally, we turned into Golden Gai – the most famous drinking spot in the Shinjuku special ward. There was no lack of bars, but space was conspicuously rare. Many bars sat less than ten people, some accepting members or regulars only. Others only catered to privileged clientele like jazz enthusiasts or exploitation film connoisseurs. Everyone sat in ramshackle rows like dozens of tiny private enclaves in the world’s greatest metropolis.
As there was no place or welcome for us, we pushed onto the main road where Western-franchised eateries lined both sides. They had the look of chain bars strung with metres of too-bright LED lights. Their plastic leather seats gave off an odorous smell and a continuously cracking sound as ass cheeks repositioned themselves. There was as much authenticity there as in fast-food restaurants the world over. Here, the people were mostly tourists made paranoid from jet-lag and too much sake. They had chosen the fast-food familiarity of this place for fear of losing their way if they dove deeper into the city. Besides these lost souls, huddles of off-duty workers from nearby hotels and shops congregated in groups, their uniforms dishevelled and politeness absent, avoiding home for any number of reasons.
We eventually found ourselves by neither want nor accident in a bar with a light mixture of Western decor and heavy Japanese beverages. The place was opposite the Hanazono Shrine – the Mecca where businessmen go to pray for success in the new year. Our lethargic flight limbs had finally reached the limits of reasonable walking distance from the hotel. The air was thick with a dozen foreign lingos, all as meaningless to us as they would be to monkeys. Air-conditioned wheeze left beer glasses clammy. Cigarette smoke (its nicotine scent brewed with dozens of ethnic fragrances), perspiration and hints of alcohol-laced desperation layered the atmosphere. The beer was dense and strong. We found a table and sat down, circling each other with fractured and strained conversation as we tried to find insights and exploitable weaknesses. Rain began streaking the windows next to our table. Looking out, we saw pedestrians quickly unsheathe their umbrellas and erect them like a choreographed dance in some well-rehearsed performance. Their umbrellas came in many styles and patterns. Some were sturdy black, others a mere practical extension for the weary businessman, a shield from life’s mundane miseries. There were also small, impossibly cute, domed cartoon animal umbrellas, whose oddly shaped ears caught the rain and deflected it onto their owners just for giggles. As the rain increased, so did the fast-forward of cars and mopeds – car tires screeching and mopeds dodging the collage of people crossing the street before disappearing out of view to carry on with their lives. In the distance, we could hear the din of a politician canvassing support for the next election from his sound truck, its battery of speakers fighting nature’s rage and, more importantly, general voter apathy. His efforts seemed to be naught due to living in a country so polite that the main political party has had no proper opposition for over half a century, such is Japan’s society’s general level of almost total conformity.
We sat there watching the outside scene while downing our drinks and verbally circumnavigating each other like boxers in a ring. The weariness of twelve hours’ air travel followed by a dazed bus commute into Tokyo made the effect of the alcohol we were consuming rapid and heavy. Our slurred conversation was testament to that.
‘Can you fucking believe it? The next year is going to be pretty much an all-expense-paid holiday in Tokyo, one of the world’s largest playgrounds!’ Johnny raved.
This was the sort of man who didn’t try a lick to contain his excitement for debauchery while sober, so when half pissed, his hedonism was infinitely multiplied.
‘Speak for yourself. I get shipped off down south to god knows where the day after tomorrow. Hell, I can’t even pronounce the place yet, and it took me the best part of an hour to find the region on a map.’
‘Is it a city, town or village?’ His excitement having decreased.
