Chapter 4:

Good Times With Cities

Letter From Yokohama


The train finally arrived at their destination. Lucille and Regina, amid a crowd of a few dozen people, stepped off the concrete platform and into the wider world. Lucille took it all in, enjoying the mellow flavor of a young summer in bloom. Upon seeing the city blocks and neighborhoods ahead of her, Lucille let out a wide smile - she felt like she had been transported to another world. Banners and red paper lanterns stretched over the street, tiny storefronts and shops selling a wide-range of knick-knacks and souvenirs successfully kept the megacorporations in the rest of the city at bay, and best of all - there were very few cars. Hundreds of people walked down these city streets, strolling along, no hurry in the world.

“Can you believe it, Regina?” Lucille asked, spreading her arms wide. “This must be what Kyoto feels like.”

Regina just scratched her head. “Lucille…this is Chinatown.”

An imperial-looking dragon gazed down at Lucille from the massive ornamental gate at the entrance to the area as if to chastise her. Lucille supposed both of them had a point.

“Yeah, I guess deliberately confusing China for Japan might not be the best idea…for a number of reasons.”

“China’s pretty neat, though,” Regina said, tilting her head to get a better look at the colorful dragon.

Fortunately, Lucille did not have enough drinks in her to get political, so she nodded at Regina’s words. She recalled memories from her early childhood when China was just the place where they built everything. Made in China - such a simple phrase could bring her back to the lazy summer days of elementary school. She tried to dig a hole to China in her backyard back then; the kids in the cartoons made it look so easy. Needless to say, she never made it to that large country on the other side of the world.

But she was here in Chinatown now, at least. And it was indeed a pretty neat gate. As they passed underneath it, Lucille hoped that a Shaolin gong would go off, but all she got was rap music blaring out of someone’s muffled speaker in their backpack as they passed by. Lucille didn’t mind, though. The sight of the river cutting through the city lifted her spirits, and as she looked around, everybody around her seemed glad to be here.

Lucille kept her head held high as she walked, taking in all the sights. Every building seemed to consist of three stories - the store on the bottom, with two floors for living areas above them. Cheap air conditioners jutted out of these top floors; they sputtered and groaned but did their best. The area wasn’t entirely empty of vehicles; a few trucks remained parked in front of stores as workers wiped their brows in the summer heat and unloaded fresh oranges and mangos. Lucille almost forgot that stores that only sold a single product still existed. In the span of a few minutes, she passed a fruit shop, a vegetable shop, a fish vendor (was that the right phrase?), and even a butcher complete with chickens hanging from hooks.

And the knick-knack stores! The stuff they sold was likely fake, but it was authentically fake - there’s a key difference. Lucille spotted clothes for both her own city’s basketball team as well as for the rest in the league. Rappers pointed at her from the front of shirts; musicians sang to her from another. Normally, Lucille could find every single one of these products under a single roof in a big, global emporium the next suburb over, but just seeing all these different stores made the rest of the world wash away. She stepped back in time to when artisans existed, when everybody knew the butcher, the tailor, the cobbler, and the blacksmith.

Well, to be fair, Lucille knew she was romanticizing a bit, especially with that last one. The people at these stores all worked hard, and for someone like Lucille, who - a) didn’t have a job and b) would likely push paper for someone the rest of her life - it was hard to not daydream about another life of working yourself here. But then Lucille reminded herself that there was no need for another life - she was living her own right now. Once again, Regina had a good point about enjoying the things right in front of her.

Upon getting halfway down the area, Lucille couldn’t help but laugh. A giant mural of a fantasy monk took a colorful leap across the side of a building. This warrior-priestess looked off into the distance, gazing into a field of stars. Lucille skipped up to her and did something she always wanted to do.

“Hai-ya-ku, hai-ya-ku!” she called out, continuing to laugh. Regina was in no position to hurry up, however. She had lagged behind while Lucille pranced about, and was only now catching up to her. Regina placed both hands on her knees and panted heavily, looking like she was about to dry-heave.

“Just how out of shape are you?” Lucille teased, placing her hands on her ships.

Regina finally caught her breath. “I might move slow, but it’s only because I don’t have to move for anybody.”

She then stepped out of the way so a delivery man carrying a big crate could get through. As Lucille just chuckled and shook her head, Regina gazed at the mural and let out a whistle.

“I hate to say it, but this trip might’ve been a good idea after all,” Regina admitted. “It sure beats watching television all day. But can we stop to burn?”

“Not with this many people around,” Lucille answered. “And c’mon. Not to stand on my soapbox here, but you literally just burned like half an hour ago.”

Regina let out a sour groan, then smiled and gazed back up at the mural again. The two women stood there for a long while, taking in the content smile of the warrior under a sky full of stars.

“I hate to say it, but you’re right, too,” Lucille said. Regina just gave her a quizzical look, so she continued. “Japan’s fun and all, but we have fun things here, too. And I tend to overlook that sometimes. I guess, deep down, one of the reasons I like Japan is that it makes me appreciate my own life more. All those little moments in slice of anime that make me feel all nice inside…they can happen right here where I’m standing, too.”

Lucille and Regina continued to stand under the light of the summer of the sun. After a little bit longer, though, Lucille’s stomach rumbled.

“I knew that muffin could’ve been better,” she said as she cracked a smile. “I wonder how the convenience stores around her compare to Japan.” Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be a 1:1 comparison - Japan had those big chains as well as the superior version of 7/11 (but did they have bring your own container days for slushies?), while Lucille and Regina were about to frequent a local, independent store. This store sat on the bottom floor of yet another three-story building; Lucille tried to imagine a day in the life of the owner.

When Lucille woke up, she applied for jobs, then read about Japan, read about anime, then watched videos about Japan, then watched anime. But the man who lived above his own convenience store - he had to wake up early to handle the morning shipments. Did he slowly smoke a pre-dawn cigarette as the sun rose? Did he read the paper while waiting for the first customers to appear?

Read the paper. More memories of elementary school came back to her - Lucille used to read the sports sections in the daily suburban paper until her interest gradually faded. Fortunately, Regina led a revival in her love of basketball, but the newspaper never quite made a comeback. Why not? It seemed pretty comfy, just sitting in a chair, one leg over the other, a cup of coffee next to her, as she flipped through the headlines, the box scores, the daily funnies. It would reduce the time she spent looking on her phone, as well as the possibility of getting distracted by the thousands of other things on there.

Yes, today would be the day Lucille started reading the newspaper again. She strolled inside the store and found the stand right next to the entrance. With excited eyes, she gazed at the first newspaper.

当地男孩帮助无家可归者募捐食物

“Huh,” she mumbled. “I don’t know what I expected.”

After that temporary setback, she found an English-language paper. The wanderlust came to her again; maybe she would drink tea instead of coffee in her daydream this time. Without further ado, she read the headline.

MISSILE STRIKE KILLS SIXTEEN IN KYIV; FIFTH ATTACK THIS MONTH

“....aww, man.”

How could reading the news ever be fun?

Lucille took a deep breath and sighed. “Regina, we’re at that age where we could go off to war. Do you think you could just go out and fight for your country and all that?”

After a moment of contemplation, Regina placed a calming hand on her shoulder. “Lucille, I’m just a fat stoner from the suburbs. I don’t even like ordering pizza over the phone.”

“No kidding,” Lucille simply said, supposing her own answer wasn't that far off.

“Hey, I’m not actually that fat. Your stomach is the one growling, after all.”

And indeed it was. Fortunately, Chinese restaurants could be found anywhere they looked.

A lot of thoughts went through Lucille’s mind while eating damp crab rangoon at the restaurant. War, recession, debt, and disease affected her own life, sure. But some of those ills also touched the life of the man who ran the convenience store. Those ills, in one shape or another, affected everybody who strolled through Chinatown that day. Through the whole city. Through her own suburb. Through the state, through the country, through the world.

And if that was true, that meant the four horsemen also touched Japan. Her Holy Land was not immune to the evils currently facing the world. Lucille tried to stop the flood of thoughts, but they just kept coming. If her Holy Land was not immune, then it was not a Holy Land. It was just another country that happened to have a cool aesthetic to it. People there also couldn’t afford to move out; also had to lock themselves down; also had to watch as Mariupol fell.

She pinched the bridge of her nose, a frown spreading across her face. She felt like she was on the verge of something big and unpleasant, like she was about to cross a threshold that would forever destroy something she held very dear to her. Her life and worldview were built upon shaky foundations; the world kept threatening to knock them over, but right before it could deliver the final blow, the waitress returned and Lucille found a convenient punching bag to direct all her growing bitterness and insecurity towards.

The waitress just shook her head and walked off as she delivered the separate checks. Feeling sweet catharsis, Lucille dropped the exact amount of cash on the check and wiped her hands of the whole affair.

“No tip?” Regina asked as she finished counting her dollar bills.

Lucille just shook her head. “We waited an hour and a half for soggy crab rangoon. The plates weren’t even clean, and the roof’s been leaking next to me this whole time.”

Regina nodded in understanding, since everything Lucille had just said was actually true. “But still…no tip? You gotta give in order to receive, remember?”

The doorbell rang as the two departed. Now that it was mid-afternoon, Lucille waved a hand in front of her face as the summer sun threatened to cook it. “The restaurant didn’t give me anything.”

“What about your heroes in college, though? Would Emerson or Thoreau not leave a tip?”

Lucille knew that Regina was merely egging her on, but she took the bait anyway. “Thoreau got arrested for not paying his taxes, you know.”

To be fair to Big T, he refused to pay as a protest against the spread of slavery and the Mexican-American War. Lucille refused to pay that tip because of bad service and as an outlet for her own self-loathing. There might’ve been a bit of a difference there, but Regina didn’t need to know-

“I lost this in Fallujah.”

The homeless man from the train station sat on a bucket down the sidewalk, blocking their path. Lucille immediately turned around-

“Hey, where’s my tip!” the waitress cried out, having followed Lucille out of the door. She waved the receipt angrily and blocked Lucille from fleeing. With the waitress on one side and the homeless man on the other, Lucille’s only options were phasing through the brick wall of the restaurant or escaping into the street. But right as she stepped off the sidewalk-

“Hey, you’re the girl who didn’t tip for her muffin!”

The cashier from the station stood in the middle of the street and pointed an accusing finger at her. “Oh, c’mon!” Lucille cried out. “You being here doesn’t even make any sense!”

But she was there, and a small crowd had formed. Lucille was going to hold her ground, but then a few people held their phones out, ready to film. Regina, bless her heart, was reaching for her own wallet. With a heavy heart, Lucille realized she was definitely not the kind of person who could go off to war. She elected to come down on the side of not getting canceled to death.

After letting out a huge sigh, she gave the homeless man, the waitress, and the cashier ten dollars each.

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