Akihabara/Meeting Alex

In the morning, I get up. Renato is ready to go. Wearing that one suit that he wears to his meetings with people. It’s something I am beginning to notice in Japan. People often wear the same clothes, generally have one nice outfit. Which is lucky for me, because I only brought one with me. I walk out of my bedroom, through the laundry room, into the house. The living room is asleep beneath a blanket of cool, pale light. It’s let in by the sliding doors, it’s coming through the transparent curtains. Renato talks with me at the table while I eat the morning yogurt (Okaasan makes this yogurt herself, I don't know what it’s made of, it’s bland until you put in honey and bananas). I have put the honey into the yogurt, laying it out in a spiral, the way I store the garden hose below the window outside of my house in Spokane. I have sliced the banana into inch-fat circles. I have an inch-fat banana circle impaled on the tip of my spoon. We need to walk to the station soon, we need to get there by 10:00. The time now is 9:30. The station is about 15 minutes away. We’ve walked there before together. Yesterday. But when the phone rings and speaks, the plan changes, and now Okaasan and Otoosan are coming back from their tennis game, they’re going to drop us off at Musashi Sakai station. The door knocks. It gets open. There they are, with their visors. No rackets though. I’m not finished eating. I finish quickly. Wash dish quick. Brush teeth quick. I get in the back seat saying, sorry sorry sorry sorry. And then Musashi Sakai is there again; a building that I have seen on the LIFE game board. I know that once I’ve held this place in my hand, upside-down. Renato and I walk through the maze of up stairs, down stairs, lefts and rights, stairs that go up and down, and then we get to the platform. I have put 2000 yen more on my Suica, my train pass, just to be sure. The train hisses politely coming in. Something becomes airtight somewhere. That sound is there. The doors open and in twenty seconds we are leaving Musashi Sakai, standing on the train toward Akihabara, Electric City. But it wont be electric city in the morning. It’s too hot and too bright. It is hot again. We’re going to meet Renato’s Welsh friend from older school days in England or Scotland. We meet him outside the main exit of Akihabara station. This is Alex. Short dark hair. Fair skin. Some eyes above his white dress shirt. His eyes are blue. His cheeks are red despite his fairness, like he’s cold. Like he’s got something in there. Our goal is to sell back Alex’s little laptop computer because he just got one for free. Now he’s got four and doesn't need all of them. “My apartment looks like the bloody Batcave!” (he said bloody, right? I saw Boondock Saints!) So we go around in the heat, back and forth, in and out of computer stores. They are more like aisles, the stores. Akihabara is a place where tiny electronics sellers have tiny stores all over at every turn on both sides of the street and up ontop of those stores and on top of those stores, more and more stores. You can buy all kinds of cheap (and expensive) junk here. Renato pulls a little device that beeps when you whistle (so you can't lose your keys) off its stem while Alex watches another computer guy frisk his tiny laptop. There’s a little squeeze whistle that comes with it too, so if you can’t whistle yourself, here you go, use this thing, the squeeze whistle. The guy frisking Alex’s computer now is a lean bean computer nerd. He’s offering 4000 yen for the computer, about 40 dollars. Our offers so far have been: 100 yen ($1), redirected, redirected, 0 yen ($0), and now, this. This is good enough. Renato has been having to help. Alex has lived here for four years but can’t really speak Japanese, “What is he saying?” to Renato. Alex works as an English teacher for something called Gabba. Anyway, the guy wants Renato’s information, why? I don't know, it’s not his computer, but he insists. He says he’ll need 40 minutes for the inspection. We go to the ‘Excelsior’ Café (which seems silly to me, the name) to get some lunch. A potato salad and tomato and some other meat sandwich is what I buy for 350 yen. Alex has, along the way, along our long walks around into old video game cartridge stores and action figures collectable places, some really cool stuff has been seen this morning, but it’s also hot, it’s tiring. But Alex. He's bought a Transformers action toy and opens it up at Excelsior café at the table. Renato and Alex and turning this ice cream truck into two robot-killing robots. “They’re supposed to be twins.” In the show, they speak with ebonics, which Alex says became controversial, but shouldn't have. Renato has a meeting soon, so he’ll be leaving. It’s 2:00. Renato, Alex, and I walk back to Akihabara Station with one less computer and one more action figure and say our goodbyes. I am alone on the railway after Renato gets off in Shibuya or somewhere. Next: Musashi Sakai, is what it says on the screens in the train.