RuKsaK

Some books have almost broken my arm at the end of them – splintered my bones and tendons right through to my metaphysical bits. I put them down and the reverberation into me is so strong that I’m often shocked to have no limbs torn or my skeleton unshattered. Well, not really – but they give my brain - choose any other word you find appropriate in place of the brain here – you might want to try soul, as I tend to at the weekends – you might use heart, but I won’t – books don’t give you bigger muscles or stop the death fast food can deliver. Anyway, there’ve been a small bundle of books that have given my brain such a slap that its geography has been altered. I’ve closed my eyes for a languid second or two on these moments and tried to gauge who I’ve become. My map of whatever-it-is™ in my head, or floating somewhere, is shifted, and I carry a set of extra smirks, added glumnesses and peaces, different voice tones, and the like, there afterwards. One or two of them made me more suspicious of life than any book should, some made me revel in being a gorgeous pig – one of them may have made me a better person. How can I be sure when they delete the previous myselves so well?
------
I read a book about six months ago that wasn’t one of these. It was good though, and a lot of the characters walked around my head. One of the characters was a highly efficient and affable guy with one arm. He was obviously a symbolic contrast to the other characters’ inabilities to be decent people. This bloke had had his arm blown off and become a poet, or something, but the most important thing is that he could do anything as well as a two-armed person – in fact better than the other people in the book. He could put on a tie, get dressed, make great sandwiches. He even did things for fully-armed characters in the book. It was a good way to show how emotionally inept the others in the book were. I thought about this character a lot and thought about how I could take a limb off a character to make a point. Maybe remove a Casanova’s cock – have this Romeo eunuch charm loads of women while a bunch of dickful characters did nothing but wank all the time. I could call this story ‘Soggy Romeo’ – I didn’t go there though because the book I read had done it so much better, and he hadn’t even written an arm-breaker.
------
About month after letting that book fall back onto the shelf fairly smoothly I was making some toasted raisin bread. We’d just moved to Seoul and didn’t have a toaster, so I held a piece in some tongs and flickered it over the gas cooker flame. When one was done I wanted another piece. I don’t like unmelted butter on toast though and didn’t want to eat one and then make another. At that moment the happy armless guy from the book came to mind – if he could tie his tie, then I can butter toast with one hand and tong-heat the next slice with another. So, I prised open the lid of the butter getting it slathered up my palm. The knife got slippery and the butter was too hard to spread. The toast got divided into useless mush and the knife fell from my hand a couple of times. By the end of this I’d burnt the piece in the tongs and my toast was fucked.
------
I got extremely irate with the author, irrational:
‘You fucking Japanese cunt! What a fucking metaphor! Some made-up bastard has ruined my breakfast here. I’ve got shit to clean up and nothing to eat. Cunt! Cunt! Cunt!’

It was my first experience of a metaphor-spoiled meal. It had a weighty effect which took me on a journey – a real journey, with less point than a standard-issue metaphor – it was a perfect metaphor, pickled deeply over time in stupidity.
------
I couldn’t get over the fact that someone’s lying metaphor had bricked against my raging morning appetite. It was a disturbance which couldn’t go unrevenged. I resolved to find the writer and confront him. There was no way a guy could tie his tie with one arm, and a metaphor can’t work if it’s not real – everyone knows this. A metaphor has to be at the bottom of a pit of reality somewhere to work and this one had burnt my toast.
------
I spent two weeks trying to tie my tie with one arm and it couldn’t be done. Each attempt at near strangulation and ligament strain made me more and more angered.

This anger was fuel to my attempts to track the writer down. I used my job to help me, pretending I needed to interview him for my company. My pitch was that the interview was in the name of building Japanese-Korean friendships through English. That wasn’t true though, but through convincing his secretary I was the only point of contact necessary I managed to keep it quiet from my boss. I also didn’t tell my wife.
------
Finally, I arranged a meeting for the interview. I compiled a list of deranged questions which would lead him to admit he was a liar.
‘Do you not think metaphors ruin a breakfast?’
‘Lies about one-armed men can drive a man to near madness. Please discuss.’
‘What the fuck were you thinking?’

We arranged to meet at Tokyo airport. I lied to my wife, saying I was doing overtime on the Saturday. I had bought a cheap return ticket and was meeting his secretary at my terminal, and then she was taking me to his hotel. I planned to fly back in the late afternoon. I’d be home from my crusade by supper.

The secretary was there of course, standing with supreme efficiency. I barely noticed her existence though. I’d finally reached my revenge point – the destination to where mangled toast and his lies had taken me. After this I could dash back to my life – leave his metaphor stranded. As we went to the taxi rank his secretary started talking in amazingly precise English – not a sloppy verb clause or jagged phoneme in sight. And then, right at the point we were exiting she did it. She whammed up a dead end, a turnaround. She said something to which I could only return immediately – something which meant I’d never meet him and never get my revenge – he would get his.
‘Mr. RuKsaK – if you wouldn’t at all mind when you meet Mr. Harimuki, could you please shake his left hand. His right is a prosthetic arm and he prefers to feel a person’s grip.’
------
On the plane, having made not a single excuse for my about face and walk back into the airport, I planned another journey, an easier one:
‘I’m off to buy a fucking toaster when I get back.’

All I’d needed, for the whole trip, was a machine for toasting raisin bread.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

The reacharound