East is East (54 page)
Authors: T. C. Boyle
He honed the blade once more, a deadly whisper, steel against concrete.
While we live, death is irrelevant; when we are dead, we do not exist. There is no reason to fear death.
A small matter. He studied the back of the guard's head, the arm that hung limp in the muted light from the hallway, and then he drew in a breath, lifted the thin cotton hospital gown to expose his
hara
and felt for the place, for the
kikai tanden,
for the spirit awaiting release. He held that breath and turned the blade, turned the shiv, the sword, to his flesh. One beat of the heart, two, and then he drove it in with all the strength he had.
It was like a punch, a terrible hammering blow, but worse, far worse, hot and invasive, a pain like nothing he'd known: he'd swallowed molten lead, burning lava, he was nothing but sweat and a brain. And a will. He drove deeper and he couldn't stand it; he slashed across, dragging the blade, hacking, and his arm locked with the shock of it. Again and again, forcing himself, digging deeper, on the edge of blacking out. And then he was giving birth, his own pale intestines bulging at the hole he'd torn in himself, the heat and the pain and the limp still arm of the guard still framed in its pitiful light ⦠and the smell rose to his nostrils then, the heat of his blood and the corrupt rank fecal stench of the mud, the mud that had cradled him and brought him down â¦
And then suddenly he felt his
hara
liftâit wasn't actual anymore, it wasn't wet and hot and heavy in his hands, it was as light as air. He was going, but not to the city of Mishima and J
Å
ch
Å
, not to the city of his
ojisan
and his mother and all the generations of samurai and kamikaze and the pure unimpeachable Yamato race. No. He was going to the City of Brotherly
Love:
there, only there.
He closed his eyes. He was already home.
A portion of this work first appeared in
Rolling Stone.
The author would like to thank the following for their assistance: The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; the University of Southern California; Tom Rohlich; John McNally; Rob Jordan; Kevin McCarey; David McGahee; Marie Alix; Clarence, Sarah and Dodds Musser; and Len Schrader.
T.C. Boyle is the bestselling author of
Water
Music, Budding Prospects, World's End
for which he
won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1988,
The Road to Wellville, The Tortilla Curtain, Riven Rock,
A Friend of the Earth
and
After the Plague.
His fiction
regularly appears in
The New Yorker,
GQ,
Playboy
and
Esquire.
He now lives near Santa Barbara in California.
BLOOMSBURY
Talk Talk
Dana sits in a courtroom with her legs shackled as a long list of charges is read out. But there has been a terrible mistake â she didn't commit any of these crimes. She and her lover Bridger set out to clear her name and find the person who is living a blameless life of criminal excess at her expense.
The Inner Circle
In 1939 on the campus of Indiana University, a revolution has begun. The stir is caused by Alfred Kinsey, a zoologist who, behind closed doors, is a sexual enthusiast of the highest order and as a member of his âinner circle' of researchers, freshman John Milk is called on to participate in experiments that become increasingly uninhibitedâ¦
Tooth and Claw
This collection of short stories finds Boyle at his mercurial best. Inventive, wickedly funny, sometimes disturbing, these are stories about drop-outs, deadbeats and kooks. With a unique deftness of touch and a keen eye for the telling detail, Boyle has mapped the strange underworld of America.
After the Plague
After the Plague
is a masterful collection of short stories â tales that superbly veer from the psychological to the slapstick, from surrealism to satire, once again proving him to be one of America's most formidable writers
Drop City
Star has travelled to Drop City to be free from society's constraints, but when the hippies decamp to the wilds of Alaska where they intend to live off the land, the group runs into trouble, unexpected friendships are made and dangerous enemies are born.
Riven Rock
Shortly after marrying Katherine, Stanley McCormick suffers a nervous breakdown, is diagnosed with a tormenting sex mania and is imprisoned in the forbidding mansion known as Riven Rock. Stanley is confined for the next twenty years, yet Katherine remains strong in her belief that one day he will return to her whole.
World's End
Walter is a dreamer, and a lover of drugs, alcohol and speeding on his motorbike, until he crashes into a barrier and loses his right foot. Walter is a descendant of Dutch yeomen and since the day of the accident he has been haunted by their ghosts and becomes determined to find his father who deserted his family years ago, and to uncover the secrets of his ancestors.
Visit
Bloomsbury.com
for more about T.C. Boyle
Novels
Drop City
The Inner Circle
Talk Talk
The Women
When the Killing's Done
Riven Rock
The Tortilla Curtain
The Road to Wellville
World's End
Budding Prospects
Water Music
A Friend of the Earth
Short Stories
T. C. Boyle Stories
Without a Hero
If the River Was Whiskey
Greasy Lake
Descent of Man
After the Plague
The Human Fly
Tooth and Claw
Wild Child
This paperback edition first published 1996
Copyright © 1990 by T.C. Boyle
This electronic edition published in 1990 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the
following copyrighted works:
The Way of the Samurai
by Yukio Mishima, tranlsated by Kathryn Sparling.
Translation copyright © 1977 by Basic Books, Inc., Publishers.
âI don't care if it rains or freezes' by Don Imus. © Imusic, Inc., 1981.
âAin't No Mountain High Enough' by Nicholas Ashford and Valerie Simpson.
Copyright © Jobete Music Co., Inc., 1967
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the
publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY
Bloomsbury Publishing, London, Berlin and New York
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
eISBN 978 1 4088 2680 5
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