Don Quixote & Ground Zero

Don Quixote is like a Mal-wart on speed, Nippon-style. Honto, the place is about the size of your living room, if your living room were seven stories tall and packed with stuff for sale. Don Quixote sells DVDs, CD’s, small electronics, clothes, makeup, suits, perfume, food, costumes, toys, and luggage.

Ah, yes, luggage. Having sent my pilot’s case home with David, I was left (as my choices for Hiroshima-bound luggage) with a briefcase, two enormous suitcases, and a gym bag. Okay, any of them would have worked really, but the briefcase, for a five day trip, is really not practical. And the enormous suitcases? Well, I’ve dragged the enormous suitcases halfway across Tokyo, on and off JR trains and through various Metro stations, and you know what? I’m not anxious to do it again. They’re sort of like battleships, the enormous suitcases. They’re the big boys that you hold in reserve. You don’t pull them out and put them in the water just to do a little fishing on the lake, you know? So, the enormous suitcases are closet-bound until I travel the world again.

On my way out the door this morning, I did briefly consider using the gym bag. I considered the gym bag because I tripped over it on my way out the door. In fact, my gym bag is already packed with the following: A pair of long johns, a bottle of water, my spare gaijin card and Konami sports club member card, an extra pair of socks, pen and paper, and two cans of tuna. Now, why is my gym bag packed with this motley assortment of things and placed near my front door? Well, let me tell you, yesterday, there were three earthquakes. That’s right, three. After the first one, I thought, Yeah, no big deal. Earthquake. Yawn. The building gave itself a gentle shake and then settled right down. The second earthquake had me a bit worried. Of course it probably lasted no longer than the first, but it seemed to go on much longer of course. I got a bit nervous, so I got up and wandered around the house for a bit until the building (and I) settled down.

It was during the third earthquake that I thought: Hmmm, if I have to make a break for it, evacuate the building, I’d better have some warm clothes, a bit of food and money, and some ID. The gym bag already had the water and my gym ID in it. I added the rest of the stuff after a mini scavenger hunt around my apartment, sort of like Steve Martin does in The Jerk. (Do you remember that scene, when he’s leaving home and he’s going around saying, “That’s all I need...Just this car door and nothing else...” Well, that was me, in my little cell of an apartment: That’s all I need, just these two cans of tuna and this pair of chopsticks. I don’t need anything else. Nothing else....except these long johns...and that’s all I need...)

Ah, so, yeah. I didn’t want to disassemble my gym slash earthquake preparedness kit, so I went to Don Quixote to buy luggage. Don Quixote was not my first stop. Actually, yesterday I went to Kita Senju to look at the Tokyu Hands for luggage. Tokyu Hands is kind of like a crafts store...but they have luggage. (No part of The Brain really understands what the rationale behind the inventory in any given store in Tokyo is. And, come to think of it, that same inventory selection gene must have gone bad in Japan’s museum curators because, honto, in Shinjuku, there is the Tobacco and Salt Museum...) Um. So, yeah. I did find my suitcase at Tokyu Hands--for nearly 20,000 yen--which was about 15,000 yen too much for The Brain to consider.

The Ex-Student had introduced me to Don Quixote in Shibuya or Shinjuku (Shinjuku, I think...maybe) on the day we “went to dating” there. (Yes, shopping = dating in Tokyo. It’s sort of like how “drinking = friendship” in Japan--and, come to think of it, all over the world, really.) Don Quixote in Shinjuku is crazy crazy crazy--which is why I didn’t go there. I mean, Shinjuku itself is crazy cubed, and DQ there is like a concentrated little pocket of crazy. It was loud and overwhelming, tiny and packed with things and people.

I didn’t go the the Shinjuku Don Quixote. Instead, I went to the Shimbashi Don Quixote. The Shimbashi DQ is near Ginza, and I happen to know where it is because the Ex-Student took me there as well one night when he was looking for some new porn to take back to his hometown. (Don’t ask.) Unfortunately, the porn selection at the Shimbashi DQ was slim, so we ended up in some nearby sex shop, but at least I knew where the Shimbashi DQ was.

I went back there today.

It’s the start of the holiday here in Tokyo, so I was expecting the place to be ichiban crowded, but there were only a few people there. I looked at their selection of suitcases. There were a couple of good ones for too much money and a couple of bad ones for very little money and I am not a comparison shopper, so I short-circuited a bit. To short-circuit the short-circuiting, I wandered the store, looking at various things, then I came back to the suitcases, determined to choose one. Unfortunately, The Brain hadn’t yet made up our mind, so I wandered around the store some more, chose a lamp and returned to the suitcases. I kicked the wheels on a few pilots cases and asked the suitcase guy if they had the one I wanted in red. They didn’t. The Brain, miffed, led us up to the seventh floor, then back down through each of the levels. On the fifth floor, I almost had to console The Brain with some Anna Sui perfume, but after a reminder that we don’t actually wear perfume, I came back to the suitcases and decided that I was just going to pick one.

I picked one. It cost 5,000 or so (about a night of drinking--sans a cab ride home) and has wheels. It’s as plain as can be (a desirable trait in a suitcase), and it hold my stuff and that’s all I need. Just this suitcase with wheels and nothing else...

As you know, I’m going to HIroshima. I had planned to meet up with the Ex-Student once there, but that plan has all but fallen through. Luckily, the trip wasn’t planned around seeing the Ex-Student, it was planned around seeing Ground Zero, Japan.

A few years ago after Richard Feynman died, I went to Ground Zero in New Mexico, to the Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated. I don’t know what I was looking for then, maybe some part of the earth that had been wiped clean by the destructive needs of man, by the destructive impulses of men.

Ground Zero Japan is Hiroshima. People ask why I am going to Ground Zero, and the standard answer is that I am from New Mexico. Guess where the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was from. Yes, that's right, from New Mexico. That is the standard answer. But there is, of course, another answer: I have to return to Ground Zero.

Why?

Ah.

As is always the case when I am lost, I return to Ground Zero.

I’m asleep now in the dream that is my waking life.

Tokyo, I mean, seems like it has always been my reality and I no longer feel its power to scrub the layers of protection from my psyche. In fact, I find myself seeking ways to add layers of protection. I avoid eye contact with strangers. I eat too much. I sleep too much.

I have, for the moment, suspended the drinking. Drinking gets dangerous when I am seeking to protect myself. It’s not that I worry about drinking too much and that being another layer of protection. No, it’s that I worry about turning drinking into an artificial way of scrubbing away the layers of protection, of removing inhibitions. I don’t want to drink to feel, I just want to feel.

At times, I’ve been lonely and uncertain in Japan, and--wait for it--I relish the feeling. But that is an addiction too, that love of loneliness and uncertainty. Hiding is an addiction. Adding layers of protection is an addiction. To an addictive personality, everything has the potential to be an addiction. Sugar. Smoking. Drink. Sex. Comfort. Loneliness. Depression. Sadness. Sarcasm.

The return to Ground Zero will remove these things, will have the effect of thrusting me into an uncertain situation that I will be forced to navigate. That will shake me awake, open my eyes, allow me to see again.

I want to leave the old me in Japan, at some shrine or temple that has the power to purify such leavings. Ground Zero is the symbol of that purification. It is the interface between destruction and the intense desire for peace.