# Traincrash Nights - True Story



## Amnesiac (Jun 21, 2019)

Went out for a walk and some fresh air one evening on the outskirts of Tokyo, met up with a very drunk middle-aged man who decided that I needed to go to Roppongi, and found myself in a smoky British pub called "Maggie's Revenge," listening to an Australian band, making small talk with the lead singer's Chinese girlfriend while drinking Mexican beer until, during the break between sets, the singer stormed down from the stage and made a scene, and having lost my friend in the fray, ducked out of the pub and entered a basement bar with lush, white carpet and dim lights, run by a painfully polite Pakistani gentleman. I sat for four hours with a large, shaven-headed man in a sheer white silk shirt, though which I could see that he was illustrated with tattoos that spanned wrist to wrist and covered his entire back. I pretended not to notice that he was Yakuza, and we talked about America and he practiced his English until he looked at his Rolex and muttered something about a meeting and after paying our tab from a massive wad of bills, shambled off into the throbbing crowd of people in the hot night filled with music and light. Out of cigarettes, I located a vending machine that sold Marlboros and bought two packs for the equivalent of seven dollars in Yen. I turned from the machine to find myself faced by two young women with extraordinarily dilated pupils who, in a torrent of giggles and a mix of Japanese and English, invited me to a party that was being held two blocks away. We passed a Buddhist temple tucked between a peepshow and an adult bookstore, making our way up a majestic flight of stairs to enter a house full of light, pulsing bass, and packed wall to wall with well-dressed people dancing, talking, laughing, and having drinks and drugs. The girls disappeared and I found a place in the kitchen away from the main crowd and had a beer while standing next to two girls who were kissing passionately, completely oblivious to anything but each other while the house filled with the sickly sweet odor of hashish and I rubbed my sleepless eyes, tossing the rest of my beer in the sink and worked my way out of the house and down the stairs to go back to the temple and look at the cherry blossoms that were wafting down softly until I was startled by the sound of squealing tires. I re-entered the main drag just in time to see a black Porsche plunge through the showcase glass wall of a luxury car dealership. All was silent for a few seconds until, with another squealing of tires, the Porsche sped backwards, onto the street, and catapulted into the night. I walked six blocks to the subway station and let the train take me back to the outskirts while the pre-dawn darkness slipped past in a blur with my forehead rested against the cool glass and I slipped in and out of sleep-deprivation dreams that lasted milliseconds until it was time to switch from the JR line to the Odakyu line. I wanted on the outdoor platform feeling faded and wrung-out while the sun rose over the ugly industrial city, a fat blood-red orb that made my weariness all the more jagged. I stopped off the train at my stop, ducked into a kiosk and paid the equivalent of three dollars for a tiny cup of unspeakably bitter black coffee. I descended the stairs of the train station and walked the four blcks to my apartment while the shuttered shops and fish markets began to come alive, the street filled with salarymen on their way to work. I turned the key to my door, and stumbling for the bed, pondered how thin the lines between dreams and reality can be, and fell into a dreamless sleep.


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## Bard_Daniel (Jun 23, 2019)

Hey Amnesiac!

I just wanted to say that I really liked this anecdotal snippet of life. This, for me, reads like Kerouac (I love his work) and I think you've got the nuts and bolts of this thing secured down tight. The style is great, the seemingly unmonitored (but in-fact carefully placed) pace of the piece is great and I think you've got the structure down pact. I also very much enjoyed it and felt that it has a lot to offer. 

Thanks for sharing!


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## Kevin (Jun 23, 2019)

Now there's a story worth telling. 

One long paragraph could be pedantically carved/separated by someone. 
Oh, and 'until' is spelled with the 'n' included. 
Mmm. Might be good for _you_ to comb through/remove the nits as it were. 'Discipline'...


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## Amnesiac (Jun 23, 2019)

Thanks, Kevin. I hate making typos... I appreciate that.


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## Winston (Jul 21, 2019)

Good, vivid piece with detailed writing.  But I could have used even more detail.  There's a lot going on, and you could have easily doubled the length without diluting a thing.  
And like Kev said, it could benefit from a liberal application of a format scalpel.   

In my day, I frequented the canned coffee machines.  Did they have those in Tokyo when you were there?  One side hot coffee, one side cold?  Super convenient, they were.


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## Amnesiac (Jul 23, 2019)

Yes! Canned coffee was AWESOME! Both hot and cold. Loved the Royal Milk Tea, as well. Awesome stuff...

I lived there from 87-97.


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