When it Rains in America
Chapter 3: Buzzing
Notes: Appearance and title from Howie Day, the coolest musician ever. He records himself on stage for his own backup vocals and writes cool songs and makes live techno remixes. Australian, beautiful voice, kick ass songs. Why isn't this guy rich yet?
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She was, at first, wary of the drink that the pirate man had set down in front of her.
"What's this?"
"Coffee."
"I don't like coffee."
"You'll like this. I don't know anyone under the age of 20 that doesn't like this stuff."
Mamimi took the cup and gingerly sniffed. "Smells like coffee. I don't like coffee."
"Try it. I bought you it and it's not exactly cheap."
She gently took a tiny, tiny sip. With that, Mamimi discovered that she really loved coffeehouse drinks.
"Good?"
"Hmm, raspberry."
"Doesn't taste like coffee, does it?" The pirate smiled.
Mamimi liked his smile right away. He had a real big smile and he never actually grinned. When he looked happy about something, most of his teeth showed. With such a long and skinny face, it looked like he was smiling from ear to ear.
She sipped at the still hot coffee and closed her eyes letting the flavor roll around over her tongue and teeth before she swallowed it. Perfection. It warmed her. Her sore body felt better already from the sweet taste and the caffeine in her blood system.
The drink was so hot that she felt the steam blowing out of her mouth. She felt like a big dragon that had had its daily dose of lava to keep its magical, mystical fire-breathing up to snuff. Was the back of her throat glowing melted metal red? Was the steamy breath she felt coming through her nose really smoke and snoot?
She took another sip of the super sweet coffee and contently let her questions drift away.
The pirate man had taken her to a little place he called a coffeehouse. She didn't know what it really was but they obviously sold coffee, but had lots of weird art on the wall that featured naked women and cubes. Also, the place had a stage with unbalanced wooden chairs surrounding it. All these chairs were unbalanced where if she shifted her weight from one side to another the chair would rock a little bit.
She wondered if someone methodically filed down two of four legs of each chair because she thought every single one clacked and rocked when someone sat down in it. She used to wonder about that at school too, when she'd bothered to show up, because all the desks had uneven legs too. Did the janitors sneak in at night and do it to annoy teachers and children for the day?
The stage had a lot of strange equipment and wires like snakes on it. Mamimi wondered if electrical shocks were just an evolved version of a snake bite.
"What is your name?" asked the pirate man.
"Mamimi." She watched a few people begin to seat themselves in front of the stage. "I got just got here a couple days ago."
"That explains why you don't have anything with you."
Mamimi reached down at her side but her body suddenly tensed up for a moment. "Oh no. . ."
"Hmm?"
"My backpack. I left it at the bridge. I used it for a pillow and forgot about it."
The pirate man shrugged, despite the fact she had her entire livelihood stored in that bag. "If you go back and get it, it won't be there. It'll already be stolen."
"But I thought that didn't-"
"Didn't think it happened in America? Welcome to California. It's only a fraction of the real world."
"I suppose I'll just have to get a new pillow."
She wasn't too worried about being stranded with only her clothes, a camera, and some film and pictures in her pockets. It shouldn't take long to find her boyfriend. A boy with the powers of Achilles with a bat should be easy to find. Tasuku would be as radiate and glowing like an ethereal being descending from the skies, swinging his bat like an avenging Fury swinging her sword.
Money would never be a problem for them. She would be making money the second a smart agency saw her beautiful pictures. Either way, she'd be so content with him that even if they lived in a cardboard box, she'd be as thrilled as any princess in the richest, biggest castle.
A singer was up on the stage now. A lot of cat-calls and wolf-whistles followed.
"I like this guy. He just put out an album that wasn't as good as his live stuff but for a boy who sold his soul to Sony Music, I'd say he's still a fine musician."
The pirate man pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and snapped open a kerosene lighter, getting the lid to flip open and start the flame at the same time. It was a trick Mamimi never could master no matter how many times she tried to flick it open or squeeze the lighter until the top snapped open. A trick done a million times in movies, a simple trick that few people could ever do.
"And he doesn't curse in his records. I hate that," the pirate man continued.
"What is your name?" Mamimi asked.
He took a deep breath on the cigarette and didn't answer.
"Tell me your name."
No answer.
The singer was strumming his guitar. What type was it? Oh, yeah, an acoustic guitar. It wasn't the type that Haruko or Naoto had. It didn't have the flashy, glittering colors that the guitars that had saved the world had. This guy just had a plain, wooden one.
". . . Buzzing and I'm flying, everyone's trying too hard . . . "
"Did you hear me, pirate man?"
"Call me pirate man. I don't care." He looked and sounded agitated and his eyes didn't meet Mamimi's. "What's a name than what you are just called? It's none of your business."
"If it doesn't matter, why does it matter if I know?"
"It matters to me."
Mamimi suddenly felt a terror run through her. The adrenaline and worry had bypassed the caffeine or maybe the caffeine had aggravated it. The realization said that if this man left, she would be totally alone until she could Tasuku, and she had no idea how to get to any baseball stadium or even which one would be the right one to find her boyfriend.
"I am Samejima Mamimi."
". . . Step outside, it's colder than hell . . ."
The pirate shrugged, trying to look disinterested by focusing all his attention on the singer.
". . . But I'll make sure you're terrified . . ."
Mamimi recalled all the ideas in stories about how telling someone your name was like giving power over you to someone else. Maybe it was symbolic or something like for sharing your heart or love or trust or friendship or memories or experiences (which could be the same as memories) or similarities in personality or similarities in life or just conversation.
Or maybe he was just a leprechaun.
"Are you a leprechaun?"
The pirate whipped around her. "Where did that come from?"
"If a leprechaun gives out his name then someone can get a wish from him and a pot of gold. Or a cereal. I don't remember." She wasn't too worried about that detail though because she felt like she could really go for some cereal, which was something she didn't get to eat very often for breakfast unless she was over at the Nadaba house.
". . . www-dot-smashed-in-the morning-dot-com . . ."
"I'm not a leprechaun."
". . .Stiff drunk revolutionary . . . "
The pirate man strangely dug the cigarette into the palm of his hand where it hissed. Or the flesh must have hissed because fire does that.
There was the faint smell of burnt flesh and Mamimi suddenly could vividly recall the smell of minor burns on school children as they fled around and the vivid smell of burning hair, tinged with smoke and the sadly pleasant smell of burnt wood and there was the sound of cries and the building collapsing and sparks flying and a boy, no an angel, saying, "Are you ok? Take my hand!"
The stranger let out a little grunt but calmly tossed the butt over his shoulder, where some tired employee glared at him but headed off to get a broom and dust pan.
"What was that for?" Mamimi asked.
The Pirate man flexed his hand. "Chicks dig scars on a guy."
". . . I'm buzzing for you, baby . . ."
"What are you here for, Mamimi?"
"My boyfriend. He came to America to play baseball."
"And? Is that all?"
She hesitated, not sure if it was ok to share her love life with a near total stranger. "I came to see him. Naoto told me he wrote about having a girlfriend. I don't know. He never wrote me."
Was that a twinge of doubt that had crept into her voice?
"And you're coming to win him back?"
"He knows me. He can't have forgotten me."
He shrugged. "Fame and big breasted blonde bimbos can wipe away memories. Leaving your country means leaving your life behind and your life is an accumulation of everything you know. Did he ever contact you? At all?"
"No."
Mamimi realized she had drunk all of her coffee. She became enthralled with the way there was some sticky wet sugar that clumped at the bottom of the cup.
There had been no doubt in her mind. She didn't allow it. Now she had time to stop and only then did some dark thought creep into her mind. She tried to fight it back into oblivion, the place it had come from, but the harder she wrestled with it, the more it became lodged into her brain until it felt like it would burst from her forehead like the robots in Naoto's head.
She quickly touched her forehead just to make sure.
The singer quietly crooned into the microphone, like a man into the ear of his lover, "In the future, packages will be sent-"
Mamimi closed her eyes and silently begged, Tasuku, please do not leave everything of your life behind. I'm still a memento.
"- To distant worlds, on beams of light."
Send me packages of clouds that you find in Heaven, she thought. Send me a halo, send me ambrosia from Mount Olympus. Send me you.
The singer slowed down from his previously up-beat song and his guitar strumming felt more hypnotic. His voice seemed to echo Mamimi's sadness as he sang.
The pirate man tapped her on the shoulder. "Are you done with your inner monologue?"
She stared blankly.
"Do you want to ever try?"
"Try what?"
". . . I was alive from the first . . ."
The pirate man rolled his eyes. "Try to find him. You said he plays baseball, right? Just look up his name in some newspaper. Ask someone. He can't be that hard to find."
". . . Now I'm denied by the ghost of you. . ."
The pirate man grabbed her hand and jerked her out of the chair and ran to the door, trialing Mamimi behind him like a flapping flag in the wind or a flailing rag doll.
"We have a mission to steal and sneak out way around the country to find your One True Love!" he babbled. "It's now a matter of true love or hearts breaking and I will not stand by when I have nothing better to do. Come, faithful mopey girl!"
Mamimi was confused but she was ok with what was happening. It sounded like they were going to find her blessed baseball player and that's all that matter. How to do it was only a minor detail in her world.
"Just take a photograph and." It was the last line she heard from the singer and it echoed within her ears and through her middle and inner ear all the way up to he brain where it echoed greatly within the confined of her skull and it drowned out those dark thoughts.
It was a sign. Not quite a prophecy but it was something she could go by. She made sure her camera was secure around her neck and she patted her pants pockets to make sure she had some film and her pictures. This line was an arrow for her to chase after or a clue and she was going to make sure she was prepared for whatever it meant.
The pirate man leapt onto his motorcycle, where a cop was trying to finish writing a ticket before he could start and take off. Too bad he never finished writing that ticket.
They whipped down the street, right down the wrong lane. They laughed and whooped now that they were full of hope and purpose and ideas of their quest.
The pirate man slowed down for a stop light. He looked over his shoulder and said, "By the way, my name is Atomosk."
Back in the coffee shop, Mamimi never heard the rest of the line Howie Day hadn't finished. It which went, "Take yourself a photograph and laugh at me. And laugh at me."
Notes: Appearance and title from Howie Day, the coolest musician ever. He records himself on stage for his own backup vocals and writes cool songs and makes live techno remixes. Australian, beautiful voice, kick ass songs. Why isn't this guy rich yet?
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
She was, at first, wary of the drink that the pirate man had set down in front of her.
"What's this?"
"Coffee."
"I don't like coffee."
"You'll like this. I don't know anyone under the age of 20 that doesn't like this stuff."
Mamimi took the cup and gingerly sniffed. "Smells like coffee. I don't like coffee."
"Try it. I bought you it and it's not exactly cheap."
She gently took a tiny, tiny sip. With that, Mamimi discovered that she really loved coffeehouse drinks.
"Good?"
"Hmm, raspberry."
"Doesn't taste like coffee, does it?" The pirate smiled.
Mamimi liked his smile right away. He had a real big smile and he never actually grinned. When he looked happy about something, most of his teeth showed. With such a long and skinny face, it looked like he was smiling from ear to ear.
She sipped at the still hot coffee and closed her eyes letting the flavor roll around over her tongue and teeth before she swallowed it. Perfection. It warmed her. Her sore body felt better already from the sweet taste and the caffeine in her blood system.
The drink was so hot that she felt the steam blowing out of her mouth. She felt like a big dragon that had had its daily dose of lava to keep its magical, mystical fire-breathing up to snuff. Was the back of her throat glowing melted metal red? Was the steamy breath she felt coming through her nose really smoke and snoot?
She took another sip of the super sweet coffee and contently let her questions drift away.
The pirate man had taken her to a little place he called a coffeehouse. She didn't know what it really was but they obviously sold coffee, but had lots of weird art on the wall that featured naked women and cubes. Also, the place had a stage with unbalanced wooden chairs surrounding it. All these chairs were unbalanced where if she shifted her weight from one side to another the chair would rock a little bit.
She wondered if someone methodically filed down two of four legs of each chair because she thought every single one clacked and rocked when someone sat down in it. She used to wonder about that at school too, when she'd bothered to show up, because all the desks had uneven legs too. Did the janitors sneak in at night and do it to annoy teachers and children for the day?
The stage had a lot of strange equipment and wires like snakes on it. Mamimi wondered if electrical shocks were just an evolved version of a snake bite.
"What is your name?" asked the pirate man.
"Mamimi." She watched a few people begin to seat themselves in front of the stage. "I got just got here a couple days ago."
"That explains why you don't have anything with you."
Mamimi reached down at her side but her body suddenly tensed up for a moment. "Oh no. . ."
"Hmm?"
"My backpack. I left it at the bridge. I used it for a pillow and forgot about it."
The pirate man shrugged, despite the fact she had her entire livelihood stored in that bag. "If you go back and get it, it won't be there. It'll already be stolen."
"But I thought that didn't-"
"Didn't think it happened in America? Welcome to California. It's only a fraction of the real world."
"I suppose I'll just have to get a new pillow."
She wasn't too worried about being stranded with only her clothes, a camera, and some film and pictures in her pockets. It shouldn't take long to find her boyfriend. A boy with the powers of Achilles with a bat should be easy to find. Tasuku would be as radiate and glowing like an ethereal being descending from the skies, swinging his bat like an avenging Fury swinging her sword.
Money would never be a problem for them. She would be making money the second a smart agency saw her beautiful pictures. Either way, she'd be so content with him that even if they lived in a cardboard box, she'd be as thrilled as any princess in the richest, biggest castle.
A singer was up on the stage now. A lot of cat-calls and wolf-whistles followed.
"I like this guy. He just put out an album that wasn't as good as his live stuff but for a boy who sold his soul to Sony Music, I'd say he's still a fine musician."
The pirate man pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and snapped open a kerosene lighter, getting the lid to flip open and start the flame at the same time. It was a trick Mamimi never could master no matter how many times she tried to flick it open or squeeze the lighter until the top snapped open. A trick done a million times in movies, a simple trick that few people could ever do.
"And he doesn't curse in his records. I hate that," the pirate man continued.
"What is your name?" Mamimi asked.
He took a deep breath on the cigarette and didn't answer.
"Tell me your name."
No answer.
The singer was strumming his guitar. What type was it? Oh, yeah, an acoustic guitar. It wasn't the type that Haruko or Naoto had. It didn't have the flashy, glittering colors that the guitars that had saved the world had. This guy just had a plain, wooden one.
". . . Buzzing and I'm flying, everyone's trying too hard . . . "
"Did you hear me, pirate man?"
"Call me pirate man. I don't care." He looked and sounded agitated and his eyes didn't meet Mamimi's. "What's a name than what you are just called? It's none of your business."
"If it doesn't matter, why does it matter if I know?"
"It matters to me."
Mamimi suddenly felt a terror run through her. The adrenaline and worry had bypassed the caffeine or maybe the caffeine had aggravated it. The realization said that if this man left, she would be totally alone until she could Tasuku, and she had no idea how to get to any baseball stadium or even which one would be the right one to find her boyfriend.
"I am Samejima Mamimi."
". . . Step outside, it's colder than hell . . ."
The pirate shrugged, trying to look disinterested by focusing all his attention on the singer.
". . . But I'll make sure you're terrified . . ."
Mamimi recalled all the ideas in stories about how telling someone your name was like giving power over you to someone else. Maybe it was symbolic or something like for sharing your heart or love or trust or friendship or memories or experiences (which could be the same as memories) or similarities in personality or similarities in life or just conversation.
Or maybe he was just a leprechaun.
"Are you a leprechaun?"
The pirate whipped around her. "Where did that come from?"
"If a leprechaun gives out his name then someone can get a wish from him and a pot of gold. Or a cereal. I don't remember." She wasn't too worried about that detail though because she felt like she could really go for some cereal, which was something she didn't get to eat very often for breakfast unless she was over at the Nadaba house.
". . . www-dot-smashed-in-the morning-dot-com . . ."
"I'm not a leprechaun."
". . .Stiff drunk revolutionary . . . "
The pirate man strangely dug the cigarette into the palm of his hand where it hissed. Or the flesh must have hissed because fire does that.
There was the faint smell of burnt flesh and Mamimi suddenly could vividly recall the smell of minor burns on school children as they fled around and the vivid smell of burning hair, tinged with smoke and the sadly pleasant smell of burnt wood and there was the sound of cries and the building collapsing and sparks flying and a boy, no an angel, saying, "Are you ok? Take my hand!"
The stranger let out a little grunt but calmly tossed the butt over his shoulder, where some tired employee glared at him but headed off to get a broom and dust pan.
"What was that for?" Mamimi asked.
The Pirate man flexed his hand. "Chicks dig scars on a guy."
". . . I'm buzzing for you, baby . . ."
"What are you here for, Mamimi?"
"My boyfriend. He came to America to play baseball."
"And? Is that all?"
She hesitated, not sure if it was ok to share her love life with a near total stranger. "I came to see him. Naoto told me he wrote about having a girlfriend. I don't know. He never wrote me."
Was that a twinge of doubt that had crept into her voice?
"And you're coming to win him back?"
"He knows me. He can't have forgotten me."
He shrugged. "Fame and big breasted blonde bimbos can wipe away memories. Leaving your country means leaving your life behind and your life is an accumulation of everything you know. Did he ever contact you? At all?"
"No."
Mamimi realized she had drunk all of her coffee. She became enthralled with the way there was some sticky wet sugar that clumped at the bottom of the cup.
There had been no doubt in her mind. She didn't allow it. Now she had time to stop and only then did some dark thought creep into her mind. She tried to fight it back into oblivion, the place it had come from, but the harder she wrestled with it, the more it became lodged into her brain until it felt like it would burst from her forehead like the robots in Naoto's head.
She quickly touched her forehead just to make sure.
The singer quietly crooned into the microphone, like a man into the ear of his lover, "In the future, packages will be sent-"
Mamimi closed her eyes and silently begged, Tasuku, please do not leave everything of your life behind. I'm still a memento.
"- To distant worlds, on beams of light."
Send me packages of clouds that you find in Heaven, she thought. Send me a halo, send me ambrosia from Mount Olympus. Send me you.
The singer slowed down from his previously up-beat song and his guitar strumming felt more hypnotic. His voice seemed to echo Mamimi's sadness as he sang.
The pirate man tapped her on the shoulder. "Are you done with your inner monologue?"
She stared blankly.
"Do you want to ever try?"
"Try what?"
". . . I was alive from the first . . ."
The pirate man rolled his eyes. "Try to find him. You said he plays baseball, right? Just look up his name in some newspaper. Ask someone. He can't be that hard to find."
". . . Now I'm denied by the ghost of you. . ."
The pirate man grabbed her hand and jerked her out of the chair and ran to the door, trialing Mamimi behind him like a flapping flag in the wind or a flailing rag doll.
"We have a mission to steal and sneak out way around the country to find your One True Love!" he babbled. "It's now a matter of true love or hearts breaking and I will not stand by when I have nothing better to do. Come, faithful mopey girl!"
Mamimi was confused but she was ok with what was happening. It sounded like they were going to find her blessed baseball player and that's all that matter. How to do it was only a minor detail in her world.
"Just take a photograph and." It was the last line she heard from the singer and it echoed within her ears and through her middle and inner ear all the way up to he brain where it echoed greatly within the confined of her skull and it drowned out those dark thoughts.
It was a sign. Not quite a prophecy but it was something she could go by. She made sure her camera was secure around her neck and she patted her pants pockets to make sure she had some film and her pictures. This line was an arrow for her to chase after or a clue and she was going to make sure she was prepared for whatever it meant.
The pirate man leapt onto his motorcycle, where a cop was trying to finish writing a ticket before he could start and take off. Too bad he never finished writing that ticket.
They whipped down the street, right down the wrong lane. They laughed and whooped now that they were full of hope and purpose and ideas of their quest.
The pirate man slowed down for a stop light. He looked over his shoulder and said, "By the way, my name is Atomosk."
Back in the coffee shop, Mamimi never heard the rest of the line Howie Day hadn't finished. It which went, "Take yourself a photograph and laugh at me. And laugh at me."