The CTM Chronicles - Bar Row

The streets outside the base were dark and deserted. Narrow houses flashed by, small shops, a gas station, a shuttered convenience store where a neon sign blinked green and red. Chuck drove fast, like he knew where he was going, but when I asked him if he did he said this was his first sortie outside the base.

We bumped over two sets of railroad tracks and down a hill. Here and there a street lamp threw a pool of light. We passed a man pedaling a bicycle and one lone guy walking by the roadside.

As if following an internal homing signal, Chuck whipped the Toyota through the narrow streets, a sharp left turn, a hard right, then through an alley at white-knuckle speed and across an intersection in front of the Fussa train station. At this hour the trains were idle, but a line of taxi cabs waited outside the station, the drivers passing the time sleeping or smoking cigarettes.

Another right and we found our destination: Bar Row, as GI’s called it, a place that came alive when the sun went down, a place of shadow and mystery, a place prowled by American boys for thirty-five years, ever since the Japanese surrendered. By day Bar Row was completely unremarkable; only when night fell did the Row look like a place where any pleasure was possible, for the right price.

I didn’t know all this then, of course. That night, what was left of it anyway, I didn’t know a thing other than that I was dead tired and afraid that Chuck was going to kill us both.

Bar after bar, the symmetry broken only by an open air noodle stand or tea house: Sheba, the Golden Cock, the Spur, the Last Peacock, the Pink Pussycat, Nikita’s, Charlemane, Mespotamia, Bogart’s, and the Snowy Mountain Cabaret. Most of the bars had shut down, but the noodle stands were open and serving; I caught a quick glimpse of men in business suits hunched over steaming bowls.

We cruised slowly up one street and down the next. Garish neon light reflected off the wet street. “We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Chuck said. “Hey, here’s one that looks promising.” He parked in front of the Purple Rose.

Before we reached the door a short, tired-looking woman of indeterminate age was jabbering at us in Japanese and waving both arms. She pointed at Chuck, then me, then the Toyota, making it clear by her vehement gestures that we weren’t welcome and that the Toyota was parked in a No Parking Zone.

“OK, OK,” Chuck said. “No sweat, I’ll move it. But then can my friend and I get a beer?”

The woman shook her head. “No Americans,” she said in English.

“What do you mean, ‘No Americans’?” Chuck said. “My money’s good and I’m extremely thirsty.” Chuck towered over the woman by a foot and a half, but when he tried to go around she blocked his way. Looking right in Chuck’s face she said, “I call the police. You get trouble, big trouble, mister.”

Chuck stepped back and pulled a wad of American dollars out of his pocket, mostly singles, but he held it under the woman’s nose as if it represented a small fortune. “I want beer,” he said. “Here’s my money.”

Just then the door of the Purple Rose swung open and two beefy Japanese guys with flushed faces came out to see what was going on. Three other men were sitting at the bar. The guy nearest the door had a thin, unfriendly face and I interpreted the look he gave us as one of pure hatred.

“No Americans,” the woman repeated. “Japanese only.”

Chuck looked at the woman, at the two bouncers, and then, smiling broadly, raised his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, people,” he said. “It’s cool. No reason to create an international incident. We’ll boogie.”

We got back in the Toyota and pulled away. Chuck waved at the woman and the bouncers, all nice and friendly, while muttering, “You ain’t seen the last of me, motherfuckers,” under his breath. “No Americans. What kind of twisted bullshit is that?” Chuck turned down an alley and parked. “Be right back,” he said. While he was gone it started to rain again. My head felt as if it was about to explode; my eyelids scraped painfully across my eyeballs. A cat scampered down the alley. Rain drummed on the hood of the Toyota.

Chuck returned, soaked from the rain, and handed me a flower pot. “What’s this for?” I asked. “Just hold it,” Chuck said, jamming the Toyota in reverse. He stopped on the street opposite the Purple Rose and got out with the pot. “Bad idea, Chuck,” I said, knowing exactly what he was about to do, and that no word from me could stop him. He fired a perfect strike that shattered the opaque plate glass window. As we sped away I saw the man with the unfriendly face framed in the broken window.