As a stranger in a land as strange as Japan where enduring and satisfying human relationships can sometimes be difficult to come by, necessity often forces you into tenuous friendships with people you might not associate with otherwise. More often than not, the only thing bringing a group of gaijin together is the aversion to drinking alone.

It was no different with me. 

I had an odd collection of drinking buddies, like a drawer full of mismatched socks, I had picked up over the years. We would meet, get shit-faced on cheap beers at gaijin watering holes or, better yet, pig out at inexpensive izakaya with all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink deals, and score the occasional skank.

I have to admit it had been fun in a sophomoric sort of way for a while, but it could never be a fraction as fulfilling as the time I was now spending with dé Dale, drinking Zacapa and meeting, beautiful women, yes, but also getting to know men who were going places and doing things with their talents and connections. Shōhei and his partner, for instance, would open an upscale restaurant in a years’ time that would be the launching pad for a chain of fine dining establishments located throughout the Kantō and Kansai region,[1] making the two of them millionaires many times over and celebrities in their own right before their mid thirties.

And talking about bending reality, in those first few months alone since dé Dale and I had become friends, my mind had already been twisted into a pretzel. No one had, or ever would, come nearly as close to influencing how I lived or thought as the Frenchman did over the next several years. He would lead me out of the labyrinth of frustration my life had become.

“By the way, I have to go to Tōkyō next week for a show,” dé Dale said, leaning in close, his voice becoming a whisper. “I’m going to be meeting some mates from Colombia.”

“Colombia?”

“If you’ve been a good boy, Santa may pay you an early visit this year.”

If my face had been lit up like a pachinko machine before with that first sip of Zacapa, I wonder what it must have looked like when I learned that it was going to snow this spring: Jackpot!

“Won’t be cheap,” dé Dale said, taking a sip of his rum, “but I assure you it will be well worth it. Interested?”

Interested? Like a kid eager for Christmas morning, I was. I nodded my head, yes.

[1]The Kantō region includes the Tōkyō metropolis and six neighboring prefectures—Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Chiba, and Kanagawa. The Kansai region lies in the southern-central part of Japan’s main island Honshū and includes the prefectures of Mie, Nara, Wakayama, Kyōto, Ōsaka, Hyōgo, and Shiga.

The first posting/chapter in this series can be found here.

Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.