On the train Big Gobi took out his small gold cross and rubbed it against the side of his nose. Polishing the cross helped him when he felt dizzy, he had discovered that as soon as they arrived in Japan. It kept him from being confused, it kept his hands from wandering. Big Gobi continued polishing the cross all the way to Kamakura.
They left the station and began to walk. Quin said they should have looked for a bus but Big Gobi didn’t hear him, he was dreaming. After an hour or thirty years, a mile or two or ten thousand miles, they reached the end of the continent, the eastern shore of Asia. Quin was walking across the sand but Big Gobi didn’t move. He was staring into the distance.
Hey, he whispered. Hey where are we?
The sand was hot on his feet, his mind was a jumble. Below him there was a nearly deserted cove, ahead only the endless stretch of the sea.
Hey, he whispered. Where is everybody?
Big Gobi sifted sand through his fingers. He turned away so that Quin couldn’t see his face.
Where are the parlors? he whispered softly.
Quin rubbed himself with a towel.
Which ones, Gobes?
The ones for tattooing, the ones they have on the beach. They were always talking about them when I worked on the freighter.
Liberty port. Yokohama.
I don’t know the name of the place, but it’s where they have the jukeboxes. You know, the jukeboxes with colored lights where the girls stand around and jiggle their things.
Yokohama.
Well where is this?
Kamakura.
Well what’s it for?
How do you mean?
I mean is this a beach or is the other one a beach?
Both of them. One’s for swimming and one’s for whores and tattoos. Aren’t you going to take a swim?
Big Gobi shuffled down to the edge of the water and put his big toe in. Cold water made him feel lonely. He dragged himself along the shore kicking sand, wondering why things never happened the way he wanted them to, never, no matter how long he waited and waited.
His foot touched an oyster. He pried it open, gazed at the pale, swelling meat.
There was a reason why those things never happened, and he knew exactly what it was. He was afraid. That was why he hadn’t gone ashore with the other sailors from the freighter, and it would have been the same today if they had gone to the other beach, the one not for swimming. He would have been afraid, too afraid to do anything.
Yokohama. Quin had been there in the navy. Probably he’d been there a hundred times and knew all about it.
Big Gobi sipped the juice from the oyster, poked the soft meat with his nose, sucked, swallowed it. All at once he jumped in the air.
He was running back up the beach, running as fast as he could, running so hard his legs ached. He fell down on his knees near Quin and scooped up a fistful of sand, threw it down, scooped up another. He pawed with both hands, pushing the sand behind him through his legs. He knew Quin was watching him but he was going to say it anyway.
Hey, he shouted. Hey this is a nice place for swimming.
He stopped digging. Why was he yelling like that when Quin was only a few feet away? Quin would think something was wrong. He leaned forward and rested his elbows at the bottom of the hole he had dug. He tried to grin.
I like it, Quin. I like it a lot.
He was whispering now, but Quin smiled and nodded, a warm smile that made him feel better.
Glad you do, Gobes. I was wondering what you were thinking while you were walking down there.
Were you, Quin? That’s funny, because I had an idea just then, just now I mean. I was walking along thinking how much I like this beach and that got me thinking about the other beach you were talking about, and then I remembered you’d been there and knew all about it, I mean you know, you’re a friend so why shouldn’t I ask you?
Big Gobi hung his head.
That was my idea, he whispered.
Right, Gobes. Sure. Let’s hear about it.
Well you have to understand it’s not much of anything, I mean I even feel kind of silly bringing it up but it’s just that I’ve never done it before, I mean gone right up and said it, said what you have to say, and if there were any misunderstanding I’d feel terrible.
About what?
Me, Quin. Me. I mean just suppose she didn’t know what I was talking about, suppose she got frightened or something and started backing away.
Who started backing away?
The girl jiggling her things in the colored lights. I mean what do you say to a girl at a time like that? Let’s fuck? Something like that?
Just a minute, Gobes, let me get it straight. Where are we, Yokohama?
That’s the place.
All right. We’re in Yokohama and we pass a tattoo parlor and come to a bar where there are a lot of whores standing around. One in particular is over by the jukebox keeping time to the music. I mean she’s bouncing and they’re big ones and you know she’s ready the second you walk in. Is that it? Something like that?
Big Gobi whistled.
That’s it. That’s the place all right, and she’s the one I’m talking about.
Quin nodded. His face was serious. Big Gobi leaned on his elbows, his chin on the sand, and waited. When Quin didn’t say anything he was afraid he had upset him.
Thinking about Yokohama, Quin? Thinking about the other times you went there?
No, Gobes, but listen. Have you ever had a girl before?
No.
Never?
Well I mean I never left the ship the year I worked on it, you know that. And where else would I have found a girl?
I don’t know. On the bus trip maybe.
Well maybe, I mean I suppose I could have if I’d ever left the bus but I didn’t. I mean I got off lots of buses lots of times, but I always got right back on another one again. And before that I was in bed with my shoulder and after that I worked on the farm at the orphanage. The only girl I’ve ever really talked to, I mean the only girl who’s ever talked to me, was the nurse who gave me the water injections in the army.
All right, Gobes, that’s settled. Done. Finished. Tonight we’re going to Yokohama and have a session.
What?
It’s on the way home, more or less. We might as well drop in and see what’s doing.
Tonight?
Sure.
One of those places?
Sure.
The one jiggling in the colored lights?
Sure.
And maybe you’ll help me speak to her?
Sure.
Just like that?
Just like that.
Big Gobi jumped into the air. He yelled, he danced, he spun up and down the beach collecting driftwood from Chinese rivers and Manchurian forests, dancing down a beach on the edge of Asia finding wood for a bonfire in the sun.
Hey, he shouted. Hey hey hey.
Women hey.
Oysters hey.
Hey hey hey.
Late that night, his lips torn and his neck scratched, his back bearing scars, Big Gobi staggered into a train bound for Tokyo, a veteran of the campaigns on the Yokohama waterfront, that narrow strip of land where hordes of invading sailors streamed ashore every night to do battle with a handful of brave whores.
The ferocious adventurers came from every corner of the world. There were Burmans and Chadians and Quechuas and Lapps and Georgians swearing in a hundred tongues and brandishing a thousand varied weapons, every conceivable kind of knife and pick and sword and bludgeon and pike. Between them they were missing every part of the human body. They had warts in every combination supplemented by a multitude of tattoos and moles, birthmarks, miscellaneous discolorings, and wounds both old and new, generally treated but often only recently scabbed. They were a desperate army with only one goal, a night of unlimited plunder after weeks at sea.