IV.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to say what the major contributing factors are to the crisis of that mad, terrible summer. The simple passage of age reveals that youth, burning with passion and dreams for what they will do with their lives, inevitably clash with each other with a terrible force that comes from mere inexperience. But more simply speaking, it is not the wild crazy riots erupting in China on the anniversary of some wartime atrocity nor the “Tokyo prep school scandal” of the donor clashing with the established teacher at Tokyo's top international school that sets the mood for things: rather, it is simply the terrible, oppressive heat.
That year is a scorcher. In June comes two one hundred degree days; July has a week of them. August never drops below ninety, and then the heat just kept going. September's temperatures are those of a typical summer's July, and there was no cool and refreshing breeze until the very last day of October, Halloween, when the heat finally broke into an autumn that came fully seven weeks late. With this intense, solar radiance pouring into the urban heat island of Tokyo, all reflective surfaces miniature suns, and the humidity and temperature skyrocketing, the almost palpable waves of heat flowing through concrete walls and intervening trees to hold you in its insufferable grasp, meltingly hot, it is no wonder that the situation is fully primed for an explosive cataclysm. Melting melting melting. We are melting into agonizing heat. That inescapable heat—against which weak Japanese air conditioning units can barely keep up—is like a primeval force, a hated enemy that one meets at every corner. You go left, heat. You go right, heat. Every second stretches into agony, sweat pours from every pore, yet the heat is inescapable. Shimmering and simmering and slithering in broad waves, the heat engulfs one; the heat floods one. You can't think straight. One hundred ten degrees and rising, feeling nothing shy of one hundred fifty.
“Hey boys and girls, do you like to learn English?!”
There is a kind of male personality, not terribly cool, not terribly smart, but bright enough in its own way to specialize in an intellectual niche of its own, that is attracted to Japan and Japan alone. These kinds of Japanophile boys, and they aren't really fully men, let's be fair, are usually all right to deal with if they have a bit of boyscout in them or an easy-going temperament, but some for whatever reason of personality or background, find themselves caught up in the bizarre uniquely unique mix of Japanese identity such that they become almost a parody of themselves; if they are political without being canny; if they are just macho enough to understand what they aren't but not so macho as to avoid being an English teacher in the first place, well then they turn into a sort of nerdy Japanophile artificially cheerful about teaching middle-school kids English, at worst wearing an American flag bow-tie and perpetual glued-on smile, “English is fun,” “English is easy,” “let's all learn English today,” the famous so-called 'English language monkey' or ‘backpacker punk on a lark’ getting his two thousand a month.
In the normal passage of things, these people would always inhabit the niche they do, living out their days in Japan with Dumiko their pregnant thirty-six year old Japanese girlfriend, their half-breed children, and their semi-impoverished existence giving way to a life drear and utterly hopeless in some forgotten road-end of lost Japan. What sets the situation into motion, however, is the arrival of Soren a few years prior and his wild, alpha-male partyboy ways, his loud and continual contempt of these “Genki [=Perpetual Cheerful] English Teacher Monkeys,” and the simmering social outrage that I had detected as early as our first meeting, now, finally, can have its way.
Who knew that Redd (English language monkey extraordinaire) would feel such self-hatred and know in some small way that everything Soren said had a point? Who could have told that Julian grew up all his days in Witchita dreaming of all the easy Japanese girls who would drop into his lap and of his clever little intellectual niche he could finally parlay into some kind of cool only to be a half-failed filmmaker? The only thing we knew is that there were these types of individuals, and that for them, Japan was Supposed to Have Been the way they thought it was going to be. But here was the same prep school jock and football hero taunting them as at home, and apparently getting all the girls. Here they find Soren, still cool, still unreachable, still getting all the girls. For them, Soren was the root of all evil, and now, finally, the day of the nerds has come; the hour of the revenge of the geeks has arrived, and they can strike back with all of their repressed fury, so confident and powerful as they choose to do so on the Internet.
"WHOS THE HOTSHOT NOW, COWBOY???"
I remember distinctly the first moment when I hear of the nerdboys' opening salvo. The reason why is because ever since the fiasco with the police cars and Fannet calling me into the embassy, I am walking on eggshells and terrified that any moment, Japanese police will rush out of siren-screeching vehicles and apprehend me for some unknown crime that I haven't committed. Just as I felt a strange surge of guilt after Dominique ran out of the apartment, I feel somehow unsettled and wrong, as if I had done something wrong, as if I'm missing something important. How did Shan find Dominique again? Where are all these accusations and charges coming from? What is this talk of a coffee that Shan denies so eloquently by pointing out that he's never had coffee at all? It is with a shiver of terror that I read the first thread on the online bulletin board where the nerdboys are organizing against Soren; the wording and anonymous posters' names seem almost to allude to me.
“So what REALLY happened on that day...”
“Rockstar rockstar rockstar. Drugs? Or knife-wavers?”
“And oh, I hope I don't crash my car again...”
Because the posts and log-in names are ambiguous, for no less than six hours I feel this incredible wave of terror that everyone is turning on me, and that for some reason, everyone thinks I've committed some kind of crime. I find myself logging on and using an anonymous Internet handle (just as the commentators are all anonymous), trying to speak obliquely to cover myself, when in fact, actually, everyone is talking about something completely different; for some strange, bizarre reason, everyone is actually turning on Soren. The accepted rumor is that Soren has committed some kind of crime. Apparently, everyone thinks he's pulled a knife or something, and nobody is at this point even talking about Shan, who is the one who is in fact accused by police.
Soren doesn't have to say anything. He has in fact been reclusive for several weeks now, and of course online accusations don't add up to criminal charges. But what is great about him; and this is a beautiful moment; what is truly awesome about this individual, such that everyone will remember it for years to come, is that Soren, slowly figuring out that the majority of people believe that he is the one charged with a crime, instead of denying things, decides to pretend to completely admit doing it. He decides that he doesn’t actually give a rat's ass about Internet nerds typing furiously online and he’s going to pretend he actually did the crime!
“Yo S*O*R*E*Nstyle here. I know you've all been hearing static lately about me layin the law down on one of my bitches. But don't get your panties in a twirl; this is just the price of the game—don't hate tha player, hate tha game. I know haters gotta hate, but South Side Crew don't take bones from NEone. If a jigga' makin his way in the world, u all gotta get to the SIDE if you can't STEP UP!!!! ---SORENs*T*Y*L*E”
For no less than two minutes I sit there looking at the bulletin board post agog, physically unable to move a muscle in my body, as almost everyone else who sees is, thinking up and discarding all the dozens of theories of what might be going on (somebody impersonating Soren, Soren having flipped, one of the nerdboys writing something earlier that was misinterpreted, etc.) before realizing exactly, precisely what Soren is doing—and how inspired it truly is. Soren, sitting in his lonely tower and feeling in a perverse mood, has decided purely out of utter and overwhelming contempt for the nerdboys and Beta-male Witchita Japanophile English teacher monkeys with American flag bowties, to lie right through his teeth and claim to be the one who assaulted Dominique. He is doing this because he is totally safe—in truth, there are no police charges that he is the one--so in this zone of freedom offered by the Internet (and this is one final factor in all this; the technologies are just so new and poorly understood, this is around the turn of the century), Soren can come off a thousand times more brash and insouciant than even the Great Persona he projects in real life
Redd: "Soren, you need to shut up, right now. Everyone is really pissed off at the way you act, coming to this country and giving everyone a bad name like we're all here to just hit on Japanese girls. Your actions are completely unprofessional and now you appear to be admitting to have committed acts of violence against a fellow expat. Take a moment to consider the ramifications of your actions and how it affects how foreigners are treated in this culture."
Redd, poor simple Redd unsophisticated and proud of his teaching certification, five feet seven and one hundred ten pounds, so excruciatingly aware of just who he is, naively and unthinkingly blunders into warfare tricked by the simplest of strategems.
"Dude, maybe everybody doesn't want to become a genki English teacher dipshit. Some of us actually know how to act around girls, and actually can pick up in countries other than Japan. And don't think every girl who coos and says how cool you are actually believes it, you stupid McDonald's fry clerk.”
“Soren, your behavior is exactly in life with the serious legal charges that have been levied against you. Your behavior time and again has caused concern to many people, not just me. When you behave in this fashion, all of us have to pay the price in the impact to our reputation and indeed, our treatment by the people so kindly hosting us in this nation. If you have indeed assaulted someone in your apartment, I strongly encourage you to turn yourself into the police and confess your crimes. Maybe in this way you can at least to some degree ameliorate the impact of your actions.”
“Listen you stupid A.L.T. You are not even a teacher let alone the lawyer you think you are. I have no idea why you think you are regarded as some kind of professional, when all you are is just another backpacking punk-on-a-lark who's discovered a clever way to make a half-way decent salary without too much effort. Go back to being a tape-recorder: all you are is a trained monkey who speaks when and only when the Japanese teacher allows you to.” (etc.)
In the first few weeks of the Great Expat Cyberwar, it seems that the nerdboy/anti-Soren coalition is going to win. Soren has made one critical misstep—posting originally under a recognizable log-in, (S*O*R*E*Nstyle) he assumes that everyone else that steps in will pay the same courtesy. Instead, his log-in is immediately under assault by seemingly dozens, even hundreds of separate people, but who may in fact only be just an obsessive, dedicated cadre of the loser coalition generating multiple accounts. Or, of course, it may not be; there are, actually, literally scores of people that Soren has offended or insulted in some way over the previous two years, and some of these people, having gotten wind of the unfolding crisis, log-in just once or twice to put in a bad word against Soren. The first thread, the one on which Soren first clashes with Redd, is just six or seven people with a total of seventy or eighty page views. In two weeks time, page views for threads involving Soren and Redd are totalling over two hundred, on average, and by the end of the month, as soon as either party (or their closest allies) post something, immediate emails are being flashed around Tokyo, and the thread is immediately viewed upwards of seven or eight hundred times within a matter of hours. The snowballing is self-evident and the drama has five hundred people enraptured the first week; pushing five thousand by week two. Then people (always anonymous, quite possibly sock-puppets of Redd or Julian) start putting up pictures of Soren—a car crash they claim is his and Photoshopped Soren heads on monkeys or other absurd situations, sometimes half a dozen or more a day, such that the entire site goes down and has to be reinstalled due to sheer bandwidth consumption. Coalitions war on each other, dissolve, reorganize, start up anew. It seems every single weirdo and nutcase in Tokyo, every little weird guy with a psychological tic, comes out of the woodwork to point out various flaws or outrages committed by Soren or his gang, every wrapped-up nutjob or freakcase, every loser and weirdo. And this is true; this isn’t hyperbole; I actually see some of these people shortly later, and it’s like every mental defective, Tourette’s syndrome weirdo, and mental hiccup in Tokyo is out. These are people who couldn’t pull in a Parisian brothel! And even I am drawn into this battle, not quite an ally of Soren, but certainly a clarifier of the worst charges; I think my stature within the expat community rises because I do my part to put out some of the easier-to-put-out fires; I am to some degree a person of moderation and diplomacy, despite the initial awkwardness when I thought people were accusing me.
Redd: “The problem with Americans is that they think they can just barge into anywhere and start taking over. What's true for foreign policy is true for individuals. As an Australian, I know there are certain culture differences that each country respects and obeys that American people just can’t...”
There are certain generalized topics—international politics, religion, sexual mores—that draw in just about everybody and whose page counts and viewer numbers exceed even the usual Soren vs. Redd sniping. In these battles, the line between the two sides becomes blurred, such that instead of AB vs. CD, it's A vs. BCD or ABC vs. D and many one-time posters. There are even these extremely rare times when Soren and Redd actually agree on something or at least find a common ground on which to respectfully disagree. It becomes this regular thing; this habit of our days to jump online once a day during lunchtime or at a coffeebreak, on some weekend afternoon between other responsibilities and see what fresh outrages have erupted, and everyone jumps in; I mean really everyone. Julian the filmmaker makes it his specialty to write ambiguous posts that at first sight aren't what they really are. Trashy fast-talking ditzy American girls post off-topic remarks, completely missing the point. But it is at the same time that I begin to learn what genuine hatred is, because Redd, despite all voluminous posting, is not really offering up actionable critiques of our old gang, things we have done, or organizations in the world that appear in the news. Rather, his rage is really a function of the fact that he really is a loser and does not have any particular skill, quality, or achievement that he can be proud of. I think he knows who he is; I think he feels a considerable amount of self-hatred at the person he has become: a late twenties middle-school assistant language teacher making eleven hundred yen an hour to grade his thirteen-year-old students and the mannerisms, put down by the tenured Japanese teaching staff, lectured on his teaching style, and with the artificial personality of a forcibly and perpetually cheerful “Hey boys and girls!” English assistant that he has been for so many years. This itself, of course, is not truly contemptible. What is contemptible is that what his writings show is that he really wants everyone else in the world to be like this too. He wants a world in which there are no achievers, no excellence, no urban sophisticates or dangerous sex appeal. No crazy parties and drama that leaves you almost spending the night in jail. Everyone will become a lower-middle class Ozzie expat with a fat girlfriend. And when he starts attacking me; when he makes these outrageous claims about things I have said or done at parties that he wasn't even invited to, I feel my teeth grit; I feel myself go on edge.
By the third month of the Cyberwar, mid-October, the student government types—Tokyo's Coordinators for International Relations, decide to step in. Ours is not actually the only crisis unfolding that overwhelming, suffocatingly hot summer. Some random American girl who ends up staying in Japan for only four months has some fit of hysteria and claims a Japanese or Chinese was waiting for her on her balcony.
"I came home… and he was standing there right at the balcony. It was him! That Chinese guy who pulled out a knife on Dominique!"
I can never quite understand where the believability factor kicks in, but the community being what it is, rumors again start to circulate. “Soren's friend” Shan (who ironically is actually the only person charged by the police; Soren is completely behind any claims he is under investigation or has committed any crimes) is now everywhere, is seemingly lurking behind every park tree and inside every trash can, ready to leap out and slash innocent girls newly arrived to Japan. With all that sentiment in the air, impetus for the “Town Hall meeting” comes from two individuals Liam, a genial Tokyo City international affairs coordinator (overseeing the young foreigner community in Tokyo) from Dublin, and Melanie, the artsy printmaker and design fanatic who's going out with Julian. (Julian, who by the way abuses his powers as volunteer website manager for the official Tokyo bulletin board to hack into accounts on the main expat bulletin board.) Liam and Melanie between the two actually have enough pull to notify all aggrieved parties, including the socially-absent Soren as well as Redd himself. So the emails go out, and on a Friday evening we assemble at the international affairs office in Ebisu city.
"So I'd just like to start this off by thanking everyone who took the time to come out tonight. I know that there were a lot of fun things you could be doing and that everyone had other plans and places to go this evening, but the fact that you would all come out shows how much you value the community and how much you care about the extended family that we really are.
"Now I've been asked to deal with the matter of personal safety first—I've had a conversation with the security office at the U.S. Embassy…"
(Does Melanie throw me a quick glance here?)
"...and they have reassured me that nobody's safety is in peril. There were some charges involving an individual menacing with a knife, but the matter seems to be simply a domestic dispute and the person charged with the crimes is being handled by the Japanese police. There is no reason for anyone here to feel that they are going to be personally targeted or threatened."
A voice calls out from the back of the room. "But how about my friend Judy? She had an entire laundry load disappear off her outside clothesline last Thursday. The people here are perverts."
Melanie looks up, ever so slightly, in frustration. "Look, we live in a city of twelve million people. In every major city of the world…"
"No, no, no, what we're trying to say is that people don't feel safe here. There's something wrong with Japan."
The room dissolves into a bunch of separate arguments and competing yells, but Melanie is able to restore order again.
"People, please, this is not the forum in which we discuss the totality of Japan. We just need to deal with some of the wilder of the rumors going around, realize that we're all here for each other, and share whatever it is information that we do have. Now if you need to talk one-on-one with me later, if you're not comfortable with this free-for-all public forum, that's fine too. We can't order any two people to talk.” Redd and Soren sit in opposite corners of the room, glowering. “I'll be here all tonight, and I'm ready to talk about whatever issues you're facing, even if it's just a matter of you wondering how you can get cable and Internet hooked up. Now right now, I think Liam wanted to talk about another issue facing us?"
"Thank you, Melanie." The cheerful Irishman gets up and faces the dining tables. "Now as some of you have heard, there's been a number of incidents online in which people have been posting personal information and private photographs in a public setting.” Soren's face twists; some things have crossed the line. “We know that there is a lot of frustration out there, and there have been things going on in the past that weren't always the correct way to act, but… some people are feeling that certain things being said are out-of-hand and possibly even against the laws here in this country. We all know that regulations differ from country to country and customs are always greatly different, but I thought that was exactly why we came here. Tolerance; respect for others; understanding—there is no nationality that has a monopoly on any of these."
“How about basic free speech?”
There's an anonymous cat-call from somewhere in the back.
"Friends, let's not argue principles but examine feelings and look for solutions. If a person can write something online, that doesn't mean they should."
“That's exactly the problem Liam! There are people who would never say something face to face, but they're putting it on the bulletin board because they can get away with it.”
I find myself agreeing. More voices erupt.
"How about the Death List Shan wrote? People are genuinely concerned about their safety!"
Soren smirks. Finally average individuals are realizing that he is not the one who is being accused of any crime. Liam shrugs. "I do not know anything about this. What is strange is that everybody seems to know somebody who knows somebody who's heard of it, but nobody's ever actually personally seen or heard anything like that from out of him themselves. In any case, just like Melanie, if you need to talk to somebody in private, you can come talk to me, and I hope we can all come together as a community and not panic out on everybody all the time. Especially if you're just arrived, I am sorry if you feel like you are entering a vortex, things are not usually like this." Liam sitting down near me and looking flustered, comments, "Man, people don't know the half of things."
"Certain people are using the situation for their own ends," whispers one of the other CIRs.
"There was a time, you know, when you had to have a master's in Japanese or something to be able to work here, you had more of a stake, it wasn't just party as hard as I can for two years and get out."
"Some people think it was a little strange for a girl to just have her panties flying around in the sunshine on a first floor balcony and then get mad when they disappear. Has anybody actually seen this prowler of hers?"
"What are you trying to say? That she's to blame for the sex crime?!"
"After the Blair thing, you know, we must err on the side of safety. I don't want to see that happen on my time here. I would feel responsible."
"You're a misogynist! You don't understand what..."
The meeting goes on in its plodding, bureaucratic way, although the real conflict, the one between Soren and Redd is on everyone's mind. We all maintain this polite fiction that recycling separation, residency registration, and embassy notifications are what we all assembled to learn about. But finally the meeting ends, and Liam announces that there will people going to the local restaurant to have dinner and drinks for anyone who wishes, and lo and behold, both Redd and Soren in their separate groups join this general procession, though with definite distance between them. The evening air, hot and muggy, is just another one of those crazy prolonged heat wave nights that we still don't know the end of, but the walk to the restaurant is not far, and here we begin to eat and drink, noticing, of course, when Soren walks by and finally sits down next to Soren to launch the face-to-face confrontation so delayed and inevitable.
“Hi Redd. How are you doing?”
“Hi Soren, how professional of you to come out tonight.”
“Well I certainly wouldn't miss the chance to hear your opinions said to my face for once...”
Soren's wit does not desert him. For two hours they argue, matching each other drink for drink, and some stay and some go, but the hours on the clock pass by into the small hours of the morning. Redd is beginning to get confused. Julian swims in and out, insulting Soren and then walking off, too chicken to sit down and hear a retort. Finally, at three a.m., and a reliable witness reports there might be a gleam in his eye, Soren goes off to buy beers for everybody at the table, except Redd, and this is entirely calculated; this is just one final calculated gesture of somebody who is definitely very drunk directed at somebody he has already left in a smoking heap that night; and finally, Redd erupts, he's totally lost control, he swings his arms wildly and knocks Soren's stein of beer over, spilling liquid all over.
"See, I told you! I told you everyone! That guy is a psycho!" yells Soren. And his victory is complete; Redd, as a result of this wild arm-swinging, is now going to be characterized as a beer-stein throwing, truly violent psycho drunkard alcoholic. Redd is screaming and out of control, and his face is completely red, and Julian's girlfriend Melanie finally intervenes; she comes over to soothe h