The Neighbors

When I first moved to Japan several years ago, an apartment was arranged for me in Kawasaki City. My new employer, which had hired me without so much as a telephone interview, was kind enough to locate and pay some of the more ridiculous fees on the apartment prior to my arrival.

After landing and getting in touch with the company, I was given instructions on where and how to meet a representative to take me to the apartment. As we walked from the station, he pointed out some of the neighborhood’s highlights – numerous restaurants, department stores, and just down the block from my new residence, a building full of yakuza.

“Don’t worry about them,” I was told. “They do not mess with people in their neighborhood. You don’t bother them, they will not bother you.”

Fair enough, I thought.

In the 15 months that I lived there, I only had two instances of direct interaction with my neighbors. The first occurred as a friend, who also lived in my building, and I were walking passed the yakuza’s place. An eager young gangster sidled up next to us and stated with great pride and careful enunciation, “I...am...Japanese...gangster!”

My friend replied casually, “yes, we know.” At that the young man dropped away and walked back to the small group of associated that always stood outside the building. They greeted his return with a verbal haranguing clearly audible as we proceeded toward the station. Although my understanding of Japanese was limited, it was clear that the young man had breached some article of protocol.

Over the next several months, that young gangster would scurry quickly inside at the sight of my or my friend’s approach.

Across the street and just around the corner from the yakuza’s place was a small coin-operated laundry which I used because of it was nearly always empty of patrons and it was close to my place. The shop held only washers and three driers. Unusually for this place, all of the machines were engaged, so I was shuttling back and forth between my apartment and the laundry. This was quite common and I had no experience with or fear of anyone taking my clothes. I returned to the laundry to find one of the other patrons emptying his clothes from a drier. I thought my timing was quite good since I was on my last load and needed the drier. He finished and I began moving my clothes to the now empty drier. Just as I finished and slotted the coins to start the drier one of the yakuza came into the shop.

He watched as I started the machine, then looked up to the top of the machine. I had not noticed, but on top of the machine was a blanket resting comfortably atop the half inch of dust and lint. I tried to explain to the best of my limited Japanese ability and, seeing that fail, through a series of grunts and pantomime that I was not responsible for the current location of the blanket. Thinking I had conveyed the my meaning adequately, I returned to my apartment.

At the time I thought my laundry should have been dry, I returned to the shop. The machine in which I had left my clothes was empty. They were not on top of the washers, as would sometimes happen on particularly busy days in the laundries around the neighborhood. I looked through in the other driers, but could not located my clothes. Then I glanced into the trash can at the rear of the shop. There were my clothes, still wet. I surmised that this was the result of the phone call the young yakuza was hastily making when I left the shop earlier.