Harajuku Sunday (5 page)

The summer passes in sweet succession and then August arrives.
 
Up north, the air is already crisp, as crisp as the cheerful gleam in Soren's eye, as he plans out the delicious details of his 25th.
 
If there is one talent this individual can be said to have, if there is one area in which he must be recognized as a past master, his skills superlative, it is in the art of throwing a truly legendary party.
 
And in this activity, Soren is energized and on a mission; he walks around all day his phone buzzing, working out the details of who will be there and who must be shut-out, who will help him organize and bring bottles and arrange for trays for appetizers, and what exactly the perfect time and date is among the three hundred immediate acquaintances and some seven hundred friends of friends, taking full account of all the news and up-to-the-minute changing plans of the immediate preceding days.
 
We have known each other for a full year now and out of our synergy, we have built up something great.

"And yo, Ritchie, sorry to break your heart, but I've been hearing your girlfriend is seeing another guy."

"Uh, okay, Soren, whatever you say," I call back, opening up a cardboard box of Absolut.
 
We are busy preparing for the event in his apartment.

By now Soren has figured out it wasn't going to happen between him and Dominique, but she and I are not quite a number, either.
 
Soren's messing around with me, displaying a mock resentment that perhaps serves to clear the air.
 
Yet I stop what I'm doing, trying to figure out what his devious mind has come up with this time.
 
"So who's she seeing?"

"Wait, I thought she's not your girlfriend?
 
What do you mean, 'who's she's seeing?' Why would you care? Why is this any of your business."

"Stop being a tool, Soren. This isn't amateur night at the Apollo."

Soren would play it out longer, maybe even for multiple days, but he's just located a legendary Brazilian caterer, an aunt-figure who deals completely exclusively with fellow Brazilians.
 
Soren had had to find a go-between, but now he's going to get otherwise unobtainable food, a legendary master of unattainable culinary traditions working exclusively for the Brazilian community and their immediate friends, legendary food for his party and he needs to confirm it's going to absolutely go through.
 
Thus he lets me in on what's he's heard straightaway, "Shan, dude.
 
Chinese Shan."

I laugh.
 
I mean, I literally laugh out loud.
 
Of all possibilities, this is the most ridiculous.
 
Tom, Bernie, Rick, Herrera, I could list a thousand names of people who might have the slightest of possibilities.
 
But Shan is a fresh-off-the-boat Mainland Chinese from
Shanghai
poor as dirt university student with a bad hair-cut and ill-fitting clothes.
 
He barely even registers as a proper expat; he's a scholarship student who always checks out when people head to a proper bar.
 
If he paid the slightest attention to MTV, then maybe in ten years, he'll be remotely hip enough to even talk to a girl.
 
But this is clearly just a weak joke.
 
"Shan?!
 
Chinese Shan?
 
That guy is a fricking coolie!"

Soren retorts, "Reliable sources.
 
Anyway, I will provide details as soon as I bring back the food!"

I dismiss Soren's story from my mind within moments of his leaving.
 
Despite two years of being exposed to metropolitan sophistication, Shan not just dresses funny, but his pathetic attempts to unleash cool American slang just end up turning into a train-wreck ("Where you at, my homies representing?") and some American is just looking at him like, "oh my god, that's just terrible."
 
Shan, is in short, decidedly the most uncool and ridiculous of potential contenders for even a passable let alone an exotically hot American girl, and he has absolutely no chance for a chick like Dominique or any other American girl for that matter.
 
I return to my Fruits magazine, to looking agog at strangely dressed Japanese subculture-types, but am interrupted not long thereafter by the arrival of the first partygoers.

"Yo, yo, yo, let's get this party started!
 
Ritchie, represent!" It's Herrera.
 
The evening kicks off with Herrera and Max and the rest of the boys tumbling in.
 
They're a little rougher around the edges, a bit urban, but they're absolutely the best sort of people with whom to start a party.
 
And fair to say, Herrera's entire
L.A.
group is supposed to show up that night, something like twenty people taking a group vacation together, package tour, the possibilities are endless.

"The obaasan then gives us a bill for four mahn!
 
We were like, what the hell?"
 
Some prune-faced izakaya owner had gypped the crew cold-facedly.
 
It ended with them skipping the tab and fleeing into the uncaring night.
 
More people start to stream in.

"Do you think we can go up to
Sendai
?
 
Oh, I want to go to Niseko this season dude."

"He said Lexington Queen was way cooler, but you know, I've never been there…"

"Laney's been doing boatloads of drugs lately. She better stop or..."

The party has begun.

Alcohol begins to flow.
 
I have an ice-cold Heineken in my hand, and I'm catching up with people from around the scene when Soren gets back, this time with two delivery boys carrying the much-anticipated Brazilian food, the holy grail.
 
It's an outrageous success; people are immediately talking in louder voices and instantly surrounding the food grabbing for plastic forks and paper plates.
 
Beef, pork, chicken barbeque; appetizers, no two alike, that are folded dumplings of meat and beans and spices; black beans and rice; iced cocktail mix—everything just has this glow of freshness and savor that you just can't get in Japanese cuisine.
 
The stuff really is unbelievable; we are literally salivating over what we have been missing.
 
People are drinking, smoking, chatting with each other, getting introduced.
 
Soren dims the lights, and now the swarm of people becomes relentless.

"Oh, hey Dominique!
 
Thought you said you might not…"

Dominique walks in.
 
We make eye contact, but then she looks away.
 
Green eyes.
 
Soren is standing near the door, so he hugs her, they cheek-kiss, and I don't feel any special need to go welcome her.
 
Her elevator ride also had all of Herrera's Puerto Rican crowd who had as promised were visiting Japan; actually the entire entourage needs to use two elevators, and they're flooding in, they're all dressed up to go clubbing, uniquely Latino and clubkid and glam.
 
They end up enclaving in an entire bedroom, Soren's spare room, and now we have easily one hundred fifty people in one, if somewhat large, apartment.
 
White-hot intensity.
 
The volume is deafening. I take a breather in Soren's bedroom, and he's there too, cuddling with two girls who are obviously quite drunk.

"Hey, Ritchie, how's it going dawg?
 
Meet the two Melinda's!"

"It's Alinda," corrects one of the girls.

"Whatever.
 
Toyota
brought them here from
Oklahoma
, they're in
Japan
for a week!"

One of the girls has her own private stash of marijuana, and she rolls up a joint, which people pass around while listening to rock music.
 
And then, maybe because of the marijuana smoke in the air or maybe just because there's been so much going on out and about these days, Soren and I fall to talking. The girls get bored; they're just not interested in politics and What It All Means.
 
They try to cut in a few times, and then give up, have their own private discussion, some intense clarification of What We Think about some third girl, not present.
 
The cacophony of party noise floods in, then, as somebody—Herrera—comes by to pay his respects, followed not too long afterwards by Tucker, one of the new friends on the scene, an aspiring club promoter.
 
Time stands absolutely still; one's concentration is completely focused.
 
I want to ask about Soren's new job responsibilities, how he feels about turning into the
Man.
 
But he denies it; everything I know about him is just wrong; it's a media/branding company, they're Left.
 
The four of us are just going back-and-forth.
 
We come to agree to that we just have to disagree, Herrera and I are bright young idealists, and there's nothing that will crack Soren and Tucker’s essential cynicism.
 
Night of the Wolfeans, tho' it's already been done.
 
"Party like it's the last party you'll ever have."
 
And then we go out to the main room.

Irish car bombs, shot-glasses of whiskey dropped into pints of Guinness and gulped down and crazy good gin and tonics made with real Bombay Sapphire, amidst a table of people standing around trying to make a competition out of drinking.
 
Vodka jello shots.
 
Vodka and tonic.
 
Fuzzy Navels.
 
Tequila Sunrises. I underestimate the alcohol's strength.
 
The party is now reaching a peak, as many people packed into one apartment as possible, it being impossible to get anywhere except by squeezing through, body by body.
 
Soren steals a pair of bongo drums from one of his friends and starts beating them, high as a kite.
 
He is chanting out rhythmically, improvising a kind of strangely skillful reggae chant.
 
Some girl with glitter on her cheeks is trying to speak something into my ear, but I can barely hear her, the music is too loud.
 
It's something about
Toyota
's internship program that plucks little interns out of
Oklahoma
and brings them to big bad
Japan
.
 
Alinda, right.
 
And outside, the cityscape of
Tokyo
is spread out like a carpet of stars, glimmering and flashing, the hustle of commerce on the main thoroughways, the steady constellations of dwelling places and office towers and fervent beat of the city where everyone is astir.

It may be 3am or so when I decide to take another breather, this time finding an unoccupied room, lighting up a cigarette, and sprawling back on a coach.
 
Herrera's group says they want to go out to 911 and GasPanic.
 
I'm thinking about tagging along when the door opens and Dominique walks in.

"Hello, stranger," she says.

I pause for a second, but suddenly sober decide I'll play along.
 
"Thought you were ignoring me."

She seems surprised.
 
"Why would you think that?"

"Oh, I don't know.
 
Haven't been returning texts or phone calls lately."

"No way.
 
Sorry about that."
 
She walks over to the coach, sits down next to me, and a second later, my lips are on hers, we're all over each other.
 
After about five minutes, we pull apart, catching our breath on opposite ends of the couch.

"So, how have you been Ritchie?" she asks.
 
"I can't believe you haven't been calling."

I give a little laugh.
 
"Oh, just the way things have been.
 
You know a total party boy like me…."

We smile, heaving apart on the couch and catching our breaths.
 
Things are going to turn out okay.
 
But right at this moment, Shan walks in, and within moments comes over, and with completely machismo, sits next to and starts to cuddle with Dominique.
 
So I'm like thinking inside, "wow, it's true!"
 
Dominique makes some resistance, looking at me for a fearful second, but doesn't really stop the dude.
 
I look over and say, "you make me feel sad."
 
And the strangest expression crosses Dominique's face, she looks as terrified as if I had threatened her very life.
 
I walk out the door.