Coffee for Ghosts

By Basil Borica

A misanthrophic English teacher stumbles through life in a foreign city.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Basil Borica
• Release date: Aug 5, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386200062

Basil Borica

Basil Borica is a pen name. The author was born in the United States, lives elsewhere, does odd jobs, and writes for his own enjoyment.

Book preview

1. Coffee for Ghosts

Coffee is important, probably the most important thing. Not cheap coffee, of course. Not the bitter concoction offered by most restaurants in this country, nor the homogenized, globalized lattes and cappuccinos offered by Moongold and its various imitators. Fine coffee, preferably Blue Mountain or Brazil, brewed by the cup, with careful attention to detail and the satisfaction that comes from doing things right.

A good cup of coffee, or better yet, several cups, would set him right for the day. Not only would it provide the wakefulness that was no longer the reward of a good night’s sleep and a reasonably healthful lifestyle, it imparted a sense of calm, of serenity. This in spite of the caffeine that he knew was speeding up his heartbeat and altering the chemical functioning of his brain.

Regardless of his caffeine consumption, his pulse was, had always been, slow. Too slow, doctors sometimes told him, though he didn’t believe them. He should have taken it as a sign of good health, the result of a lifetime of regular exercise. He chose to view it instead as an indication of the tenuousness of his being. He was, he felt, barely alive.

You’re like a ghost, she had once told him, you haven’t much existence, not realizing how true the words rang, how sharply they cut into him.

2. Otaku and Eggplant

In a shop that sells used CDs, he peruses German progressive rock from the 1970s.  He comes across a CD by a group named Eggplant. He has never heard of them, never seen any of their CDs before. Looking at the back of the CD, he sees that the original long-playing album was released in 1972. A good year for the music he likes. On the front is a drawing of an anthropomorphic eggplant, floating in space and smoking what appears to be a marijuana cigarette. The back also shows a drawing, this time of four eggplants playing instruments: drums, bass, guitar, and organ. There is no song list, no band line-up.

He ponders. Should he buy it. It looks promising, but for him many things that look promising disappoint. Particularly CDs, particularly recently.

Joachim. The voice is low, the name said quickly, intensely, hissingly. Glancing to his left, he sees the young man who has spoken. He looks to be, in the local parlance, an otaku. A person whose life is consumed by one particular thing. Usually something obscure, unappreciated by the imperceptive masses. Otaku are invariably male, emaciated, unwashed, and lacking in social skills. It occurs to him that this description also fits himself, save the unwashed part. He feels a shock of recognition looking at this otaku, as if he were seeing himself.

You are Joachim, says the man again.

I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake, he tells the man. My name is Calvin.

Calvin, replies the man, considering the name, seeming to roll it on his tongue and taste it. Most ironically chosen. A good alien.

Alien? asks Calvin, confused.

Yes, alien, a false name.

Pardon me, the word is alias. Alien has a different meaning.

Ah. The otaku sucks air in through his teeth. Please forgive me for committing the discourtesy of speaking to you wrongly. Anguish at his failure is evident in his expression.

Oh, don’t worry about it, Calvin hastens to reassure him. A very common mistake. But I don’t know what you mean by an alias. My name actually is Calvin.

Is it? questions the otaku. His face assumes a shrewd expression, and he eyes the CD in Calvin’s hands. You are examining this CD. Calvin nods in agreement. This fact is not in dispute. This is coincidence?

Yes.

Looking as you do, this is coincidence?

Looking as I do? Calvin is confused. Do you mean looking at the CD in the manner in which I’m looking at it? Or do you mean having the appearance that I have?

I’m mean your face. It has changed barely much, despite you are clean shave and short hair.

Has changed from what? Since when?

You try to fool me, says the otaku. You are dismembering.

Dissembling, Calvin corrects him. Although dismembering might not be a bad idea, he thinks.

I know you are Joachim, the other says. The bassist of Eggplant. We have been waiting a long time for you to back. You must make more music.

I don’t make music, Calvin explains. I can barely hum.

You will make more music, the otaku states with an air of finality.

Excuse me, I must be going, says Calvin. This has been a very interesting conversation. He takes the Eggplant CD to the counter and pays for it, making sure to get a stamp on his service card. Seventeen more purchases of a thousand yen or more each will entitle him to a thousand yen discount, a generous reward for loyal patronage. On his way out of the store, he crosses the path of two more apparent otaku. They glare at him with maniacal intensity.

3. A Force of Unnature

Slipping through the back door of the school he works at, Calvin finds himself face to face with Toriyabe Leader, who is about to leave. Hello, he says. Actually, the greeting he uses translates literally as I humbly crave your pardon for disturbing you with my loathsome presence, but hello more accurately captures the spirit. Hello, replies Toriyabe Leader dutifully, but winces involuntarily, an uncharacteristic lapse of her usual placidity. With dismaying clarity, Calvin sees the thought that flashes through her mind. Stalker.

People in this country have a habit of appropriating English words and using them inappropriately, Calvin reflects. Their use of stalker is one of the more vivid examples. Women, at least the women who work at this English school, apply it to any foreign male who seems even slightly abnormal. An abnormal foreign male is one who doesn’t, unreservedly and without prompting, recount all the details of his daily life. The women expect to be entertained with stories about drinking and traveling to Thailand, and dissertations on the merits of the latest popular movies. Any man who attempts to have a serious conversation, or who prefers to remain silent, is clearly an unbalanced person, a stalker.

Stalkers are quickly identified, and their identities are disseminated to all staff members with commendable rapidity. Although conversations with stalkers are to be avoided, stalkers are not exempt from the obligation to respectfully render a hello on entering the school and a goodbye on leaving it. Even those staff members who have absolutely no desire to converse with the teacher must be given their due.

You are always early, says Toriyabe. Somehow, it sounds more like an accusation than a compliment.

Yes, it’s a pathological condition I have, confides Calvin. I’m trying to break it.

Toriyabe shakes her head in bafflement, and pushes brusquely past. That’s the way it usually goes with me and women, thinks Calvin. I make witty comments, and they run away.

He drifts past other staff members who decline to acknowledge his existence, punches in on the computer, and wanders into the break room.

I admire Addrina so much! Rupert is telling Wendy. Addrina is a pop singer known mainly for her semi-erotic music videos. She’s so daring and she’s not afraid to challenge people’s thinking.

Oh, I agree, says Wendy. She’s such a strong, daring woman.

Calvin elects not to participate in this conversation. He could point out that if Addrina truly challenged people’s thinking, they would take this amiss and wouldn’t buy her CD’s. She wouldn’t be the fabulously wealthy but daringly unconventional jet-setter she is today. Rupert and Wendy wouldn’t welcome this perspective, even though it might challenge their thinking.

Hey dude! This greeting comes from Saul. Hey, is that your watch, or is it just a thing on your wrist?

It’s my watch, Calvin answers. I wear the face on the inside of my wrist because it’s easier to keep track of time that way without students noticing.

You know, I knew a guitarist who wore his watch that way so he could time his solos. We played together in my first band. Saul then began to recount the band’s history to Calvin for the forty-third time.

There are moments in life when one actually is saved by the bell. In this case, the bell signaling the start of the next class session. It rang, and the teachers filed out the door toward their rooms, most of them radiating a palpable apathy. Mariko and Junko skirted Calvin and eyed him warily on their way out. He heard them muttering something in Japanese about his being quiet and strange before they moved out of range.

Calvin surveyed the wreckage in the break room. His fellow teachers could be counted on to leave a plethora of debris behind them. Most of them could also be counted on not to know the meaning of the word ‘plethora’, despite being paid handsomely to teach the English language. The table was a wasteland of magazines, newspapers, food wrappers, textbooks, bottles and cans of varying degrees of emptiness, and pieces of food ranging in size from particles to slabs. Perched precariously on one corner were a can of Royal Milk Jelly Coffee and an empty tuna mayo rice ball wrapper, irrefutable evidence of Archibald’s presence at some point during this day.

As Calvin was in the process of deciding that an attempt to clean the room would be futile and would only lead to frustration when it was made a mess of during the next break, the door was thrust open with such velocity that the wind it generated almost knocked him off his feet. A newcomer to the school might have been startled or even shocked by this sudden and seemingly unnecessary display of force, but to a grizzled veteran such as Calvin it merely presaged the entrance of Kibishigawa Manager.

That worthy individual marched hyper-briskly into the room, instantaneously calculating the scope of the disorder and transfixing Calvin with an icy glare that seemed to imply that he was completely responsible for the mess.  Calvin replied with the sangfroid that made him the bane of so many of his co-workers, and the disappointed Kibishigawa set about cleaning up.

Methodically sorting through the various items covering the table and considering thoughtfully the value and utility of each was not her style. Anything that wasn’t a school textbook was ruthlessly crammed into the waste bin. Calvin perused her physique as she bustled about the room, no longer paying him any notice. He and other male teachers had noted that while she possessed a slender and shapely body, she moved in such a rigid and tightly controlled manner as to rob herself of all sensuality. Even so, she at times stirred the fantasies of some of the more imaginative teachers.

Trying to ignore the typhoon of motion that was Kibishigawa Manager, Calvin slid open his drawer and pulled out a packet of URC Blue Mountain Blend coffee. Inside the foil packet was an elaborately constructed paper coffee holder containing enough coffee for one cup. Fetching his cartoon-pig cup from the cabinet, Calvin pried open the top of the coffee holder, taking care not to tear the delicate filter pouch. He pushed in the flaps at each end that maintained the coffee holder in a rigid, eye-shaped configuration. He perched this construction on top of his cup with perhaps unnecessary gingerness, and began to pump hot water from the massive water heater/thermos into it.

All the while, Kibishigawa careened back and forth behind him, at times coming perilously close to colliding with him. Calvin suspected she would have liked to knock the coffee cup out of his hands, although she would never have allowed herself to commit such a breach of professionalism.

Two and a half fillings of the coffee holder sufficed to fill his cup almost to the point of overflowing, for Calvin was one who didn’t believe in waste. Of course, he mused, there are probably very few people who do believe in waste, but some people practice it so actively as to make it seem a creed. Coffee of such high quality had to be enjoyed with chocolate. Dark chocolate, of course, for Calvin was not a barbarian. Having fetched his chocolate from his drawer, he settled down with it to prepare for his day’s classes. With a final glare and a bit of thrashing around at the waste bin, Kibishigawa departed the room, leaving Calvin temporarily in welcome solitude. With his URC Blue Mountain Blend coffee, a blend of 10% Blue Mountain coffee and various Latin American coffees. The other coffees were carefully chosen to complement the Blue Mountain, with the result that URC far outshone other Blue Mountain blends on the market. After exhaustive research, Calvin had discovered that URC was an acronym for Uncommon Relax Coffee. The Uncommon Relax Coffee and the chocolate would, Calvin hoped, steel him for the day ahead.

4. Ale at the Old Goat

Have you come across any new music? asked Archibald over pints of ale at the Old Goat after work. Calvin showed him the Eggplant CD, and Archibald’s eyebrows arched in surprise.

I’ve never heard of them, he confessed, a rare admission. He stared at the CD more intently, as if by doing so he could divine something of the nature of the music contained on it.

They’re German, Calvin offered.

Then they’ll probably be difficult to listen to. Very cerebral but not very accessible. Of course, the English make the best progressive rock. He handed the CD back to Calvin. Let me borrow it after you’ve listened to it a few times.

Sure, Calvin answered. While I was looking at it, an otaku type started talking to me about the band. He apparently thought I was the band’s bassist, now living anonymously.

Maybe he was taking the piss.

No, I’m pretty sure he was serious. I thought it was funny at first, but in the end it was annoying. I thought he was going to follow me home at one point.

Every foreigner in Japan gets told he or she looks like some famous person at least once during their stay here.

Yes, but I was mistaken for an extremely obscure person, by an apparently unbalanced one.

Well, that’s fitting, I suppose. Delivered with a smirk.

They were interrupted by the delivery of two orders of mushroom quiche, the most palatable item on the pub’s menu. The establishment compensated for its culinary shortcomings by serving excellent ale and possessing an astonishingly comprehensive library of British rock music, mostly from the 1960s and 1970s. The occasions on which they couldn’t play a request from Archibald or Calvin were rare indeed.

Do you know this? Calvin asked the owner, Takeda-san, showing him the Eggplant CD. For the second time that night, a music authority was forced to concede ignorance.

Never heard of them, said Takeda. Let me ask the Hammer. The Hammer was his partner, whose prodigious collection of LPs comprised over half the pub’s music. He spoke little English and had been, according to one rumor, a full-contact karate fighter. His face showed no signs of battle damage, but much of it was obscured by a heavy beard, and his ears were covered by his longish hair and therefore not available for inspection.

The Hammer doesn’t know it either, reported Takeda on returning. I’d play it, but I’ve got a lot of requests right now. He gestured around the room, which had just been filled up by a large group of Japanese and foreigners, all of them considerably younger than Calvin and Archibald.

They’ll be wanting new music, mused Archibald as Takeda returned to the bar, which means two-note bass lines and no guitar solos. And so it did.

The music drowned their joy, and then the conversation of those around them drowned out their own. They left shortly after, having finished their quiche and pints.

Down two flights of stairs and out the front door, they almost ran into a pair of otaku who were gaping at the Old Goat’s sign. The otaku peered at them intently as they passed by.

I can’t be completely sure, said Calvin, but I think they were two of the otaku who were watching me at the CD store today.

Archibald laughed at him. You’re imagining things. All otaku dress alike, and are probably indistinguishable to the untrained eye.

True, replied Calvin, but they don’t usually hang out in Shibuya. They probably risk getting beat up by coming here. There seem to be a lot of aspiring toughs about.

As always, the streets of Shibuya teemed with people, most of them young, and many wearing what they believed to be the latest in urban street gang fashions. The hard faces and strutting walks they attempted were less convincing their apparel.

Dangerous looking men, noted Archibald.

This guy in the bear costume looks more dangerous, said Calvin. Ahead of them a man in a cute, non-ferocious bear costume was standing in front of large drugstore waving to passersby, apparently part of a campaign for some ursine product.

5. Training

Waiting for the next train on the Yamanote Line, Calvin watched the businessmen out of the corner of his left eye. He had just missed the last train, and was first in line. As was usual at Shibuya Station, a queue had quickly formed. The two businessmen had come after that. Apparently averse to taking their rightful place at the rear of such a formidable line, they had parked themselves a few steps to Calvin’s left. As they chatted animatedly about the trying day they had had at work and the extent to which their imperceptive bosses failed to appreciate their sterling merits, they eyed the line, and Calvin in particular. They radiated a palpable sense of superiority and entitlement. We are businessmen, and we take precedence over non-business entities and foreigners. Calvin knew that when the train arrived they would try to jump the line, but he was prepared.

A pre-recorded voice came through the platform’s speakers, heralding the arrival of the next train and reminding the honorable passengers that said arrival was fraught with danger and entreating them to be careful. In particular, they should refrain from placing their faces or other delicate body parts in the path of the oncoming train, and should not try to board the train until it had stopped and the doors had opened. Calvin had come to realize that the latter part