Hard Rain

and
    pressure from Tatsu's Keisatsucho on the other.
    But I'd go to the fight tomorrow and collect whatever intelligence I
    could. I'd feed it to Tatsu as a consolation prize for my bowing
    out.
    The clock's second hand swept past the twelve. I unloaded a final
    flurry of elbow strikes and stepped back. The adrenaline dump was
    largely depleted, but I still felt tense. Usually a workout helps with
    that. Not this time.
    I found a partner and drilled leg attacks for another hour. After that
    I stretched and headed for the shower. I was glad this was going to be
    over soon.
    Part ".
    Music reveals a personal past of which, until then, each of us was
    unaware, moving us to lament misfortunes we never suffered and wrongs
    we did not commit.
    Jorge Luis Borges
    Nine.
    That night I took a long, wandering walk through Tokyo. I was restless
    and felt the need to move, to let the city's currents carry me where
    they would.
    I drifted north from Meguro, keeping to the backstreets, the alleys,
    the lonely paths through lightless parks.
    Something about the damn city continued to draw me, to seduce me. I
    needed to leave. I wanted to be able to leave. Hell, I'd tried to
    leave. But here I was again.
    Maybe it's fate.
    But I don't believe in fate. Fate is bullshit.
    Then what'?
    I came to Hikawa Jinja in Hiro, one of the scores of Shinto shrines
    that dot the city. At perhaps thirty square meters, this shrine is one
    of the smaller, but by no means the smallest, of these solemn green
    spaces. I walked through the old stone gate and was instantly
    enveloped in comforting darkness.
    I closed my eyes, tilted my head forward, and inhaled through my nose.
    I raised my hands before me and extended my fingers like a blind man
    trying to determine where he has found himself.
    It was there, just beyond the limits of ordinary perception. That
    feeling of the city being alive, coiled and layered and thrumming all
    around me. And the feeling that I was alive as part of it.
    I opened my eyes and lifted my head. The shrine was built on a bluff,
    and through the trees at its periphery I could see the lights of Hiro,
    and of Meguro beyond it.
    Tokyo is so vast, and can be so cruelly impersonal, that the succor
    provided by its occasional oasis is sweeter than that of any other
    place I've known. There is the quiet of shrines like Hikawa, inducing
    a somber sort of reflection that for me has always been the same pitch
    as the reverberation of a temple chime; the solace of tiny nomiya,
    neighborhood watering holes, with only two or perhaps four seats facing
    a bar less than half the length of a door, presided over by an ageless
    mama-san, who can be soothing or stern, depending on the needs of her
    customer, an arrangement that dispenses more comfort and understanding
    than any psychiatrist's couch; the strangely anonymous camaraderie of
    yatai and tachinomi, the outdoor eating stalls that serve beer in large
    mugs and grilled food on skewers, stalls that sprout like wild
    mushrooms on dark corners and in the shadows of elevated train tracks,
    the laughter of their patrons diffusing into the night air like little
    pockets of light against the darkness without.
    I moved deeper into the gloom and sat with my back to the honden, the
    symmetrical, tile-roofed structure that housed the god of this small
    shrine. I closed my eyes and exhaled, long and complete, then
    listened, for a while, to the stillness.
    When I was a boy I'd gotten caught stealing a chocolate bar from a
    neighborhood store. The elderly couple that owned the place knew me,
    of course, and informed my parents. I was terrified of my father's
    reaction, and denied everything when he questioned me. He didn't get
    angry. He nodded slowly instead, and told me that the most important
    thing for a man was to acknowledge what he has done, that if he fails
    to do so he can only be a coward. Did I understand that? he had
    asked.
    At the time, I didn't really grasp what he meant. But his words
    induced a burning shame, and I confessed. He took me to the store,
    where I offered a tearful apology. In the presence of the owners, his
    visage had been stern, almost wrathful. But as we left, while I
    continued to weep in my disgrace, he had briefly and awkwardly pulled
    me to his side, then gently laid his hand on my neck while we walked.
    I've never forgotten what he told me. I know what I've done, and I
    acknowledge all of it.
    My first personal kill was of a Viet Cong near the Xe Kong River,