![]() ![]() She opened the closet with another whoosh. Sliding the doors closed behind us, Cho informed me the table was a kotatsu. In the center of the room rested a low, rectangular table. Half the floor was inlaid with straw mats. Pushing the next set to the side with a satisfying whoosh, she brought me into the soft light bathing what was now my room. We padded down the cold hall-no central heating in old Japanese houses, Cho explained-past several sets of paper-thin sliding doors that Cho told me opened into the living room, dining room, and kitchen. Copying Cho, I removed my sandals, placing them with the toes pointing toward the front door. A staircase led off to the left, a hallway to the right. Behind it, a stone path through bushes and trees, a dreamland in the chilly mist, even a short, rounded stone lantern so self-effacing that I almost tripped over it-and didn’t mind.Ĭho slid to the side a set of exterior doors. At Cho’s command, the driver halted before a simple wooden gate. The high-rises disappeared, replaced by Japanese-style homes, their gray-tilted roofs triangular and regal against the gray-blue sky. Then, “Boy, do I let office bullshit get to me.”Ĭho spoke to the driver, who somehow squeezed his vehicle down an eensy side street. I said, “Man, I saw beer in vending machines.”Ĭho coughed. ![]() As the neighborhood became department stores and high-rises, Cho pointed out the post office, the natural foods store who but Cho could locate a natural foods store among the high-rises of Tokyo? Her fingers beat a moody rat-tat-tat against her briefcase-a sound directly contrasting the confidence of her maroon nail polish. Cho lit a smoke and used it to light one for me. We inched through a congested shopping street, storefronts as well as open-air stalls. I didn’t expect it to feel like a home.ĭespite her openhearted greeting, Cho was silent as we pressed our way through many people and then more people to the mobbed sidewalk. I didn’t expect Cho to embrace me quite so hard or for as long as she did. After a smoke-long epoch, one of the purposeful, passing Japanese broke away from the sentence with a brisk stride and a familiar, “Girl!” Leaning my backpack against a post, I had a not-Camel, wishing I was wearing warm shoes instead of sandals, and watching well-dressed men wearing gray or black suits and carrying briefcases-had to be the proverbial Japanese salarymen-and fewer women in dark blue or black they formed an endless sentence punctuated by neon green pay phones. I consulted my scribbles and asked a uniformed guard for the nishi guchi. There was the rumble of mass transit, a diesel smell, all familiar reminders of Southeast Asia with two notable exceptions: the crisp air and beers in vending machines. The acres of tilled earth gave way to towns, a metropolis, and eventually, Ueno Station. For an hour, overcast sky and patches of green and brown earth crept by, smooth green hills in the distance. I hadn’t spent fifty dollars on transportation for the two months I was in Thailand. In the long line for the ticket to Oo-way-no, I nearly panicked with the understanding that the train-spelled U-e-n-o-was going to cost me nearly fifty bucks. I wanted to, when we parted in Bangkok, but-no. Funny, in all the time we spent traveling together, we never once hugged. I had the startling desire to embrace her. Write this down.”Ĭho interrupted herself with a cough, and then fired off the instructions to get me to a train station in Tokyo, “Oo-way-no. A moment later, she was in my ear with, “Hey, girl! Boy, I’d love to-but I’m going into a budget meeting. I settled for a random brand, about three bucks, and found a pay phone. I passed through Japanese Immigration and Customs-Mother Mary, was that beer in a vending machine? Swiftly, I looked to buy some Camels. Narita Airport-an orderly haze of white tile. As soon as lightly-accented English announced that the in-flight beverage service was ending, I couldn’t stop myself, I chowed down on the peanuts I’d managed to avoid throughout the flight. Probably because I left my cigarettes in the boarding area in Bangkok. ![]() It was super hard not drinking on the plane, Bangkok to Tokyo. (Trigger warnings for smoking cigarettes, bulimia, compulsive overeating, anorexia, references to alcoholism.) After they travel together, Cho invites Carlie to visit her in Tokyo, where Cho is a high-up in her family’s department store chain. In Thailand, Carlie is taken under the wing of the Japanese-American Cho Yamashita. Over six months of travel, the Lonely Planet path of hook-ups, heat, alcohol, and drugs takes on a terrifying reality to the young survivor. The first-person narrator is Carlie-a seventeen-year-old incest survivor who steals $10,000 and runs away to Asia. ![]() This excerpt takes place at the tail end of the 90s, and picks up a third of the way through the novel. As Far As You Can Go Before You Have To Come Back by Alle C. ![]()
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