Advice from a Friend

Soul of Japan

1

 One evening, after a remarkably long faculty meeting at St. Joe's, I dropped into Terrell's to relax. Eric was sitting at the table near the faux fireplace. He noticed me and shouted my name. I had wanted a quiet drink, but with Eric yelling at the top of his lungs, I had no choice. 

"Sit down, sit down, Charley. I finished it." 

"It?" 

"Something completely different." 

Ayumi came over to take my order. "Chardonnay and a plate of assorted cheeses."

 "And put it on my tab, Ayumi," Eric insisted. 

Now I felt compelled to read his something different work, despite my brain being drained by the endless faculty meeting.

"This story is completely different," he said, pushing the manuscript toward me. 

"From what?" 

"You know, the usual travelogue tales. This story will elevate you. To a spiritual and psychological plane—one that transcends the ordinary." 

"All that in just four pages?" I interrupted before he could take me to yet another level. 

"I'm going in a totally new direction with my writing. Read it."

Ayumi brought the wine and cheese. "Keep the wine flowing," Eric said. 

"Alright, I'll read it. But I don't want you hovering over me."

 He opened the newspaper he had taken from his briefcase and, with exaggerated focus, began working on a crossword puzzle. 

2

Indulge me and imagine yourself in the following situation.

One night, you go out eating and drinking with a colleague from work. He guides you along the back streets of the Noge district of Yokohama until you come to a sushi shop. "The master serves the most delicious sushi I've ever tasted," your colleague boasts. 

You go inside and sit at the counter before the glass case with fish stored on ice. 

"Let's have a beer first. Later, we'll switch to sake," your colleague suggests. He orders the beer and then asks what kind of sushi you like. You confess you have never eaten raw fish before. 

"And you feel a little nervous?" he asks, and with a mischievous gleam in his eye, he adds, "Leave it to me." 

You start off with the safer, saner sushi choices. Maguro, a slice of tuna on rice, melts in your mouth. You move on to bolder choices once you've washed that down with copious amounts of hot sake.

 "How about uni?" your colleague suggests in a breath heavily scented with wasabi mustard. 

"Why not? What is it?" 

"Sea urchin." "You mean those round things with all those sharp spines sticking out?"

"Don't worry. We won't be eating the spines." The master places the uni sushi on your plate.

 With sake-induced bravado, you shove the sushi into your mouth. To your surprise, the taste delights and tantalizes your taste buds. You tell your colleague, "Order a couple more."

So it goes as the evening wears on. One after another, you sample different varieties of sushi --aji, anago, ikura, ika, saba. The names of which flow into one ear and out the other. The sake numbs your cheeks, and the sushi stretches your stomach outward. "Enough!" 

"One more. Just one more," Your colleague urges. He beckons the master over and rattles off a string of Japanese words. You're only able to pick out two: "Odori ebi." 

"I'm going to give you a glimpse into the soul of Japan," your colleague announces. Even in your numbed state, you can't help but chuckle at the idiocy of the statement. "The soul of Japan? Does it taste anything like fillet of sole?" 

The master stands behind the counter, impervious to your witticism in English. He waits for your colleague's nod before placing a huge bowl in front of you.

You peer through the sides of the bowl. Inside, finger-sized shrimp dart and wiggle, struggling for breathing space and frightened by your gaping face, which the curvature of the bowl has turned into a grotesque death mask. The shrimp squirm in frantic attempts to seek the shelter of rocks. But in the bowl, there are no sanctuaries. 

The master lifts one up for your approval. You stare at it and marvel. The only shrimp you've seen were frozen. You dropped them into boiling water or sautéed them in a deep frying pan with vegetables. But here, you see a living creature held in the fingers of a detached god. Of course, your thoughts may not be that dramatic, particularly when the sake has deadened your rational mind.

 "Your glimpse into the soul of Japan," your colleague whispers into your ear. You start to laugh, but the laugh freezes in your throat. The master has pulled the head off and peeled off the shell. Your first impulse is to run out of the shop, but you can't do that, can you?

 "Here!" the master says and holds the squirming shrimp up.

"Dip it into soy sauce," your colleague prompts and refills your sake cup. 

You force your squeamish fingers to take hold of the shelled crustacean. It moves, and you nearly drop it. You cup it in your hand. It arches and writhes like the hairy caterpillars you held in your hand when you were a kid playing in the backyard. The remembrance causes the sea urchin in your stomach to regrow spines. 

"Eat it before it dies," your colleague urges and smiles conspiratorially at the master. A tittering of laughter accompanies your colleague's words, and you realize that the eyes of the other customers are riveted on you. No backing out now. You inform your brain that you're about to send undead food down to your stomach. You shove the writhing shrimp into your mouth. The freshness and sweetness take you by surprise. You begin chewing with vigor. 

"No, no! Swallow it." Before your throat and esophagus have a chance to mull over the prospect of accepting a half-chewed wriggling shrimp into your bodily system, you swallow it. Quickly, you wash it down with sake. And you don't refuse the refill.

"Another one?" your colleague asks. You make a lame joke, "One glimpse into the soul of Japan is enough." "Ah, but one glimpse is never enough. Someday, you must go to Terrell's Bar for a glimpse into your own soul." You wonder if he hadn't drunk one too many cups of sake. 

3

 I finished reading and reached for my wine glass. 

"What do you think, Charley?" 

 "Interesting." 

"Is that all? Just interesting." 

"OK. Your descriptions were great. The sea urchins regrowing spines."

 "You didn't like it."

 "Eric, I enjoyed it." 

"What didn't you enjoy about it?"

 "You said the story would take me to a higher level." "Right."

"Terrell's Bar a higher level?" 

"What's this about Terrell's Bar?" Terrell set a shot glass filled to the brim in front of Eric. 

"Eric wrote a story." I handed the final page to Terrell. 

"Go to Terrell's Bar. Now that's the kind of writing I like." Terrell returned the page back to me. "Another sketch?" 

"No, kind of a prologue to the novel I have in mind." 

"Novel," I said, surprised. I handed Terrell my empty wineglass. Terrell chuckled. "Sure, it ain't ole Jack talking." 

"No, I got a novel inside me. I got to get it out of my head." 

"What's the story going to be about?" I asked. "Life and death." "Life and death! Ain't no life and death in Terrell's Bar. Only love." Terrell rushed off to take orders at another table. "Life and death's a bit broad," I remarked. "Perhaps you should narrow it down."

"It's all jumbled up in my head right now. But for sure, a lot of the characters you'll recognize."

 "Am I in your novel?" I made a mental note never to reveal any more of my dysfunctional peculiarities. 

"Don't worry, Charley, you won't recognize yourself. The way I see it now, a lot of the action takes place inside the minds of the characters."

"Why in the mind? We're living in Japan. So many great locations for the story to take place." 

"No, Charley, the mind is where the action takes place."