Hard Rain

potential customers "Hai, irasshiae! Hai, dozo!," of
    squealing schoolchildren being mobbed by the legions of pigeons that
    make the complex their home. Someone was shaking an omikuji
    fortune-telling can, full of hundred-yen coins deposited in the hope of
    good tidings. Incense from the giant brass okoro wafted past me,
    simultaneously sweet and acrid on the cool air. Clusters of people
    stood around the censer, pulling the smoke onto those parts of their
    bodies they hoped to cure with its supposed magical properties. One
    old man in a fishing cap gathered great heaps of it onto his groin,
    laughing with gusto as he did so. A tour guide tried to arrange for a
    group photo, but waves of passersby continually obliterated the shot.
    The giant Hozomon Gate herself stood silent through it all, brooding,
    dignified, inured by the decades to the clamor of tourists, the frantic
    photographers, the guano amassed on her eaves like wax from immolated
    candles.
    I headed west. The din receded, to be replaced by an odd, depressing
    silence that hung over the area like smoke. Outside the tourist-fueled
    activity of Sensoji, it seemed, Asakusa had been hit hard by Japan's
    decade-long decline.
    I walked, my head swiveling left and right, logging my surroundings.
    Hanayashiki amusement park sulked to my right, its empty Ferris wheel
    rotating senselessly against the ashen sky above. The esplanade beyond
    was given over mostly to a few pigeons that had wandered there from the
    nearby temple complex, the occasional flapping of their wings echoing in
    the surrounding silence. Here and there were small clusters of
    homeless men smoking secondhand cigarettes. A mailman removed a few
    envelopes from the back of a postal box and hurried on, as though
    vaguely afraid he might catch whatever disease had decimated the area's
    population. The owner of a coffee shop sat diminished in the back of
    his deserted establishment, waiting for patronage that had long since
    vanished. Even the pachinko parlors were empty, the artificially gay
    music piping out of their entrance ways bizarre and ironic.
    I turned the corner at the end of the street I was looking for. A
    heavily built Japanese kid with a shaved head, his eyes hidden behind
    sunglasses, was leaning against the wall. I made him as a sentry. Sure
    enough, at the other end of the street, there was his twin.
    I walked past the first guy. After a few steps I turned my head
    casually to look back at him. He was watching me, speaking into a
    radio. This was a quiet street and I didn't look like one of the
    pensioners who lived in the neighborhood. The call felt, routine
    somebody's coming, I don't know who.
    I walked on and found the address an unremarkable two-story building
    with a cement facade. The door was old and constructed of thick metal.
    Three rows of large bolts ran across it horizontally, probably attached
    to reinforcing bars on the other side. The bolts said Visitors Not
    Welcome.
    I looked around. Across from me was a blue corrugated shed,
    ramshackle, its windows caved inward like the sunken eyes of a corpse.
    To the right was a tiny coin laundry, its three washers and three
    dryers arranged facing each other in neat rows as though set out to be
    taken away and discarded. The walls were yellowed, decorated with
    peeling posters. Spilled laundry powder and cigarette butts littered
    the floor. A vending machine hung tilted from the wall, advertising
    laundry soap at fifty yen a packet to customers who might as well have
    been ghosts.
    There was a small black button recessed in the mud-colored brick to the
    right of the building's door. I pressed it and waited.
    A slat opened up at head level. A pair of eyes regarded me through
    wire mesh from the other side. The eyes were slightly bloodshot. They
    watched me, silent.
    "I'm here to train," I said in curt Japanese.
    A moment passed. "No training here," was the reply.
    "I'm judo fourth dan. Your place was recommended by a friend of mine."
    I said the dead weightlifter's name.
    The eyes behind the slat narrowed. The slat closed. I
    waited. A minute went by, then another five. The slat opened again.
    "When did Ishihara-san recommend this club?" the owner of a new pair
    of eyes asked.
    "About a month ago."
    "It took you a long time to arrive."
    I shrugged. "I've been out of town."
    The eyes watched me. "How is Ishihara-san?"
    "Last I saw him, he was fine."
    "Which was when?"
    "About a month ago."
    "And your name is?"
    "Arai