Thursday afternoon, July 6th
Next order of business: the U.S. Consulate.
I hop back on the bike and pedal over to the Consulate. Located a short ride away, and just outside of the park, the Consulate was built on what must be some of the most expensive residential real estate in the city today. As they say, to the victor belongs the spoils.
When I start to park my bicycle near the front gates of the Consulate, a police officer rushes towards me with a long nightstick, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin.
In broken English, I’m shooed away: “No park bicycle here!”
Halfway down the block another police office waves to me.
I push the bike towards the second officer and am directed to a visitor’s parking area around the corner. Once the bike is parked, I walk back to the entrance where an old guard is encased in a bulletproof glass box. He reminds me of the boy in the bubble.
I try to open the door, but it’s locked. The old guard points to the door and mouths something.
“What?”
He makes a poking gesture with his finger. It’s then that I notice the intercom. Pressing the button, I ask the guard in Japanese if he’d let me in to talk with one of the officials.
“Who do you want to talk to?”
“Anyone!”
The door buzzes, and I reach for the handle to open it. It is like trying to roll a boulder away from the entrance of a tomb.
In the five or so years since I last visited the Consulate, security has been beefed up. Where there were only one or two officers dressed like ordinary beat cops milling about the entrance before, there are now half a dozen cops in riot gear, standing sentry around the premises. In the past, you could pop right in whenever you felt like it and shoot the crap with the consular staff. Since 9-11, however, the State Department has turned this low priority target into Fort Knox.
Once inside the bulletproof box, I tell the guard that I need to discuss a legal matter with the consular staff.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No.”
The old man sucks air through his teeth and says it might be difficult.
“I assure you this isan emergency.”
The guard makes a call, relaying what I have told him to someone inside. Hanging up, he instructs me to put my bag and other items on a tray. These are passed through an x-ray machine. I’m then told to walk through a metal detector.
Having leapt through the flaming loops of American vigilance, I am now allowed to pass through a second armored door and onto the grounds.
The consular building itself is set back off the road beyond a well-manicured Japanese garden with a rivulet of water flowing through it. There is yet one more set of bombproof doors to get buzzed through before I am able to speak to a frail Japanese spinster quailing behind another wall of bulletproof glass.
Christ, these people are prepared for Armageddon.
The woman asks me to take a seat, which I do, sitting across from a pair of large photographs of two of the most dangerous people in the world: President George W. Bush and his toady, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Two more years. Two more years.
After staring at the shit-eating grins of “W” and Condi for half an hour, I am finally greeted by a barrel-shaped, middle-aged Japanese woman. She introduces herself as Ms. Satō.
I relay my story in brief and beseech the woman for the Consulate’s help. Ms. Satō takes some notes as I speak, and, when I’m finished, says that my timing couldn’t be worse: most of the consular staff are away from the office, busy packing up their things. Transfers are conducted in July and the new appointees won’t be arriving for several days.
After telling me to wait a little longer, Ms. Satō goes back through a door, made I suspect of kryptonite, where I can see her talking to a tall, balding man in a pink polo shirt. The man glances briefly my way and shakes his head. Gesturing to his watch, he dismisses himself. A moment later, Ms. Satō emerges from the Holy of Holies.
“You are American, aren’t you?” she asks.
“Would I be here if I weren’t?”
“Ah, yes, I don’t suppose you would. It’s just that Mr. Barker, the consul-general, told me to check. Do you have some ID, your passport, for example, with you?”
“No,” I say. “The police confiscated everything.”
She then explains that there isn’t anything they can do for me now. As a consolation of sorts, though, she hands me a thin printout published by the State Department: Guidelines for Americans Arrested in Japan.
God bless, the U.S of A!
