Yokohama nights

“She a friend of yours?” I ask, gesturing toward the girl grinding with an older, sweaty American businessman as he awkwardly contorts his mis-shapen carcass in a grim parody of dancing while 50 Cent blares over the sound system. My friend’s response is lost under the heavy bass, but I can tell from her expression that her answer amounted to something like “hell no.” The couple moves so close to where we’re standing that if I were to reach my arm out and flick my wrist I could probably soak the tool in Guinness, a thought which I consider for a second. Well, if I pretended I tripped … No, I put my drink down on the table next to me so I won’t be tempted.

We’re at a club in Roppongi, a section of Tokyo notoriously known as a hangout for desperate foreigners, as well as home to innumerable restaurants, bars, dance clubs, pink rooms, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs, massage parlors and other places good for either hanging out with friends or engaging in a wide variety of semi-legal prostitution. It also houses most of the foreign embassies in the city.

The relative seediness of Tokyo nightspots can be judged by how forcefully the black guys pushing for the strip clubs try to get you inside. In Shinjuku or Shibuya, they hand out fliers or might even grab your hand and try to walk you into their club (“Nice titties, reasonable price”). Here in Roppongi they just about pick you up and carry you inside. But we’re not here for titties, no matter how reasonable the price. We’re here because it’s our friend Telly’s birthday, and we’re going to help her get drunk and pass out in the coatroom.

“So what do you think about Japanese girls?” asks the guy who’s got me cornered into a conversation with him as he grins slyly and nudges my elbow. God, I hate this question, not only because it asks me to make a gross and unqualified generalization, but also because the kind of guys that usually ask it strike me as potential sex-offenders who are trying to impress you with their English, or hit on you, or both.

“I don’t know, I haven’t seen any since I’ve been here,” I reply.

“You … haven’t seen any?” he asks, confused.

“Yeah, I haven’t been able to find any. I mean, I thought they would be all over the place, but so far none. Is there somewhere they all go to hang out or something?”

“Eh, I don’t think I understand.”

“Excuse me, my hands are melting,” I say, and start walking away. Asshole.

While flipping channels one night a while ago, I saw Telly on a TV show where Japanese comedians had about two minutes to make the guests laugh (as the only non-Japanese guest on the show she won easily since she couldn’t understand most of what they were saying), followed by a segment in which she did a cancan dance dressed in an enormous, feathery cabaret outfit. She still won’t tell us why she did it or how the opportunity came up, and since she’s barely conscious and having trouble standing, I don’t think I’m going to find out now. But I decide to catch her anyway as she loses her balance from a standstill and tumbles backward.

“No, really, I’m OK,” she tells me reassuringly as I steady her. Uh huh.

The girl I was flirting with earlier is now dancing with someone else while I pretend to be interested in the conversation around me, all the while thinking about how I should stop wasting my time trying to be clever and just learn how to dance. I glance back at the floor and notice my roommate, Chris, at the bar talking to a different beefy, middle-aged gringo (like I said, Roppongi is full of them, but they’re not all decked out head-to-toe in denim and Mardi Gras beads like this one is) who I remember seeing on the train ride over here. Since Chris looks like he’s having fun and the guy is scowling I can only guess that Chris is jerking him around some. Under the pretext of getting a drink, I walk over to see what they’re talking about. Chris is a lanky Australian whose goal in life is to one day punch a dolphin, but at the moment he’s busy cockblocking this stupid beaded cracker as he tries hitting on a Japanese girl young enough to be his daughter.

“Wow, ‘cause we were on the same train and now we’re here at the same bar, that’s so weird!” Chris says in a voice dripping with fake enthusiasm and his best attempt at an American accent, trying equally hard to suppress both his natural Australian pronunciation and undisguised contempt for the guy, “You haven’t changed a bit since I last saw you.”

The guy mutters something and waves dismissively, visibly annoyed that he’s been interrupted, or because he knows he’s being openly mocked, and tries to go back to hitting on the girl. But Chris is relentless, asking him where he’s from, what he’s doing in Japan and a host of other equally asinine questions in order to annoy him with his overbearing friendliness.

Suppressing a smile, I order a Guinness and continue listening in on the conversation until the guy gets angry when Chris jovially asks if his wife knows where he is and walks away, at which point the bartender is back with my drink. Strangely enough, my Guinness looks a lot like a shot of Tequila, but it probably only seems that way because I’m drunk. Since I’m not picky, I down it and order another Guinness, this time pointing at the tap to be sure.

I leave the club around six and follow the sea of depressing humanity back to the station, everyone staggering and weaving side to side as they pick their way through the pre-dawn dark. As I wait for the train, I wonder if anything I did last night corresponded to the stated goals I wrote to pad my study abroad application essay. Hmm, probably not, I think, but then it’s not like anyone means any of the shit they write for that thing anyway.

Scott Matthews is a junior in the College and an associate editor of The Georgetown Voice. He wants to die the way he lived his life-smothered in gravy.