A Wild Sheep Chase

The Rat’s words had reached me from a small town on the northern tip of Honshu, smack in the middle of Aomori Prefecture. According to my book of train schedules, about an hour from the city of Aomori. Five trains stopped every day, two in the morning, one at noon, two in the evening.

I’d been to Aomori several times in December. Frigid. The traffic signals freeze.

I showed the letter to my wife, wife at the time, that is. All she could say was “poor guy.” What she probably meant was you poor guys. Hell, it makes no difference now.

I tossed the novel, around two hundred pages, into my desk drawer without bothering to read the title. I don’t know why, I just didn’t feel like reading it. The letter was enough.

I pulled a chair up in front of the heater and smoked three cigarettes.

The Rat’s next letter came in May the following year.

The Rat’s Second Letter (Postmarked May, This Year)

Last letter I think maybe I was a little too chatty. Even so, I’ve forgotten completely what I said.

I changed addresses again. Some place totally different from any place I’ve been up to now. It’s really quiet here. Maybe a little too quiet.

In a sense, I’ve reached what is for me a final destination. I feel like I’ve come to where I was meant to come. What’s more, I feel I’ve had to swim against the current to get here. But that’s nothing I can pass judgment on.

What lousy writing! It’s so vague you probably have no idea what I’m talking about. Or maybe you think I’m reading too much meaning into my fate. If that’s the case, then the blame is all mine.

I want you to know that the more I try to explain to you what’s going on with me, the more I start to digress like this. Still, I’m in good shape. Maybe better shape than I’ve ever been.

Let me put things more concretely.

Hereabouts, as I said earlier, it’s incredibly quiet. There’s nothing to do around here, so I read books (I’ve got enough books here to last me a decade) or listen to FM music or to records (got a whole lot here too). It’s been ten years since I listened to so much music. To my surprise, the Rolling Stones and Beach Boys are still going strong. Time really is one big continuous cloth, no? We habitually cut out pieces of time to fit us, so we tend to fool ourselves into thinking that time is our size, but it really goes on and on.

Here, there is nothing my size. There’s nobody around here to make himself the measure of everything, to praise or condemn others for their size.

Time keeps on flowing unchanged like a clear river too. Sometimes just being here I feel my slate has been cleaned, and I’m all the way back to my primal state. For example, if I catch sight of a car, it takes me a few seconds before I realize it’s a car. Sure, I must have some kind of fundamental awareness that it’s a car, but it doesn’t quite get across to my immediate waking consciousness. These experiences have been happening to me more and more lately. Maybe it’s because for a long time now I’ve been living by myself.

The nearest town is an hour and a half away by car. No, it’s not even a town. Imagine your smallest town, then reduce it to a skeleton. I doubt you can picture it. I guess you’d have to call it a town anyway. You can buy clothes and groceries and gasoline. And if you get an urge to see other human beings, they’re there to be seen.

All winter long the roads are frozen and almost no cars come through. Off the roads, it’s damp, so the ground is frosted over like sherbet. When there’s snowfall, it’s impossible to tell what’s road and what’s not. It’s a landscape that might as well be the end of the world.

I came here at the beginning of March. Driving through the thick of it, chains on the tires of the jeep. Just like being exiled to Siberia. But now it’s May and the snow has all melted. From April on, the mountains were rumbling with snowslides. Ever hear a snowslide? Right after a snowslide comes the most perfect silence. Complete, total silence. You lose almost all sense of where you are. It’s that quiet.

Sealed off in the mountains all this time, I haven’t slept with a woman for the last three months. Which isn’t bad, as far as that goes. All the same, if I stayed up here like this much longer, I know I’d lose all interest in people, and that’s not something I want to do. So I’m thinking that when the weather gets a little warmer I’ll stretch my legs and find myself a woman. I don’t want to brag, but finding women has never been much of a problem for me. So long as I don’t care—and staying here is living proof that I don’t care—then sex appeal’s easy, not a problem. It’s not a big deal for me to put the moves on. The problem is, I myself am not at ease with this ability of mine. That is to say, when things get to a certain point, I lose track of where I myself stop and where my sex appeal begins. It’s like where does Olivier stop and Othello begin? So midway when I find I’m not getting a return on all I’m putting into the situation, I toss everything overboard. Which makes problems for everyone all the way around. My whole life up to now has been nothing but one big repetition of this after another.

But this time I can be grateful (really, I am) that I don’t have anything to throw overboard. A great feeling. The only thing I could possibly throw overboard would be myself. Not such a bad idea, throwing myself overboard. No, this is getting to sound pathetic. The idea itself, though, isn’t pathetic in the least. I’m not feeling sorry for myself. It only sounds that way when I write it down.

Moan and groan.

What the hell was I talking about?

Women, that’s right.

Each woman has a drawer marked “beautiful,” stuffed full of all sorts of meaningless junk. That’s my specialty. I pull out those pieces of junk one by one, dust them off, and find some kind of meaning in them. That’s all that sex appeal really is, I think. But so what? What’s that good for? There’s nowhere to go from there short of stopping being myself.

So now I’m thinking about sex pure and simple. If I focus purely on sex, there’s no need to get all bent out of shape whether I’m feeling sorry for myself or not.

It’s like drinking beer on the shores of the Black Sea.

I just went back over what I’ve written so far. A few inconsistencies here and there, but pretty honest writing by my standards. All the more so because it’s boring.

I don’t even seem to be writing this letter to you. Probably the postbox is as far as my thinking goes. But don’t get on my case for that. It’s an hour and a half by jeep to the nearest postbox.

From here on, this letter is addressed to you.

I’ve got two favors to ask of you. Neither is in the particularly urgent category, so whenever you get around to taking care of them is fine. I’d really appreciate it. Three months ago I probably couldn’t have brought myself to ask anything of you. But now I can. That’s progress, I guess.

The first is a sort of sentimental request. Meaning it has to do with “the past.” Five years ago when I skipped town, I was in such a confused hurry, I forgot to say goodbye to a number of people. Specifically, you and J and this woman you don’t know. I guess I could probably see you again to tell you goodbye face-to-face, but with the other two I know I’ll never have the chance. So if you’re ever back there, can you say goodbye to them for me.

I know it’s a selfish request. I ought to write them myself. But honestly, I’d rather have you go back there and see them for me. I know my feelings will get across better that way. I’m including her address and phone number separately. If she’s moved or married by now, then it’s okay, you don’t have to see her. Leave things at that. But if she’s still at the same address, give her my best.

And be sure to give J my best too. Have a beer for me.

That’s one.

The other favor is maybe a bit odd.