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by Tom Bradley
"Just our usual one, with
the white stripes painted black
and the stars replaced by
the skull and cross-bones."
--Mark Twain's suggestion for a Philippine flag
Midnight Mass has just finished at the cathedral of a
certain large Japanese city. Among the crowd of
shriven faithful who empty with placidity into the
street are two American automotive executives, one
skinny and one fat, both tall, both from Michigan.
They're in town pursuing gargantuan joint-venture
deals with the Ichinuki Motor Corporation, and are
being seen to by the eldest son of Mr. Ichninuki
himself.
These Americans are on the elbows of their lovely
wives, but not for long. Late as it is, they are
expected to spend the next few hours bonding with
their various Japanese counterparts. Nothing naughty
will be done, they assure their wives: just a bit of
compulsory watered-down Suntory whiskey guzzling at a
boring but elegant little bar nearby.
"You understand, dear," the tall one says. "In this
country, it's the only way men can speak frankly with
each other. No ladies allowed, all very sexist, and
so on. But it's the culture, and interesting, right?
And the wives, who have tagged along, clear across the
Pacific, to learn about kimonos and flower arranging,
do understand. Automotive joint venture is a most
delicate affair.
A couple of black stretch-limousines wait in the
shadows at the cathedral's side gate. The first
contains Mr. Ichinuki the Younger, who emerges, greets
the American automotive executives coolly, and directs
them to the second limo. Then he ushers the wives
into the first, and sends them back to their lovely
suites at the Marriott.
After the wives have had the chance to be driven well
out of sight, a liveried chauffeur opens a silent
black door, and reveals a couple of bewildered
Filipina virgins, huddled and quaking in the vast back
seat. Before the Americans close in on them, these
creatures crane their perfect necks to get a glimpse
of God's house.
Exploited and abused as they are, they've managed to
wring this concession from their boss. Only girls
who've been "behaving themselves" are allowed to come
near the cathedral. Being from the Shinto tradition,
their Yakuza slave masters have no concept of communal
worship, and assume that points will be tallied in the
heavenly score book if the faithful simply approach
the precincts. So they see no reason to allow the
Filipinas to enter the hallowed presence.
The fat auto executive climbs in, panting, not
necessarily from the exertion. "You ladies surely do
smell pretty tonight," he guffaws. "Just like a
breath of fresh, clean air." He lays hands on the
tinier one, a pubescent child with bright golden eyes.
"Honey, I'm god-damned if you're not the spitting
image of NBC's Connie Chunk!"
She screams in revulsion, shoves him away, and bolts
out the door, pushing past Mr. Ichinuki, the younger,
who is waiting on the sidewalk, according to cordial
Japanese custom, ready to wave and bow until the
honored patrons drive out of sight.
His face inscrutable, he gives a subtle nod to a
fleet-footed thug riding shotgun in the limo. This
human cheetah chases the golden-eyed girl about half a
block, and stops her with a flying tackle. She
screams again as her beautiful face scrubs into broken
glass and gravel in the gutter.
"Looks like that one's out of commission for the
night," says the fatter American automotive man. "I
guess we're going to have to double up now." He
clears his throat and raises his voice. "I hope this
means we get a fifty-percent discount!"
That broad hint is lost on Mr. Ichinuki, the younger,
for he's gazing thoughtfully up at the steeple,
examining the Roman gallows affixed at the tip of such
a prideful pinnacle.
* * * *
"Body of Christ, eh Love?" murmurs a middle-aged
Filipina who looks exactly like Imelda Marcos. Not
only could she be the real Imelda's twin, but she has
mastered the identical hyper-emotional acting style:
the cheeks that can flush or blanch at will, the tear
ducts seemingly connected to faucets in her pockets.
She is none other than Imelda II.
It's the next Sunday at the local Yakuza office, and
she's dressed in her best outfit: a vulgar sequined
dress, precisely the same shade of pale turquoise
which swathes figurines of the Virgin Mary in Catholic
churches.
In her pudgy hand, which is spangled with glossy vinyl
fingernails and pinchbeck rings, she clutches a
wadded-up white rag. She's trying to stuff it between
the gorgeous but lacerated lips of the golden-eyed
girl who bolted from the Americans in the
stretch-limo.
"This is as close as you're getting to communion for a
long, long time," murmurs Imelda II in Tagalog. Her
upper body is powerfully developed, and she's holding
down the girl with one hand while trying to gag her
with the other.
The victim has been allowed neither to bathe nor
bandage her cuts and contusions. She is barely
recognizable under the ground-in gravel and broken
glass from the gutter where she was tackled.
In English she moans, through teeth shattered, but
clenched nevertheless to fend off the gag, "I'm sorry,
Den Mother, I'm sorry! I won't run again! It's just
that the old American smelled so bad, like poisonous
gas! I couldn't help it, I couldn't breathe!"
The den mother calls her attention to certain soothing
sounds which echo down the corridor from a back room.
The other white slaves are rehearsing a lovely
offertory hymn in four-part harmony plus descant,
accompanying themselves on their rickety guitars.
"Your big sisters and brothers sing for you," whispers
Imelda II, with the mechanical cadences of someone
who's just doing her job. "They've been through this,
and I as well, and we survived. You will, also. It's
part of the burden of being a grown-up lady. So,
don't spoil their song with unhappy sounds from your
own throat. Bite this rag. It's better than chewing
your tongue off, right? And we wouldn't want to alarm
the neighbors."
Even while struggling to insert the wad of greasy
fabric, Imelda II theatrically averts her eyes, to
spare herself the sight of such pitiful pleading.
Soulfully, she gazes out the window at the otherwise
nice residential neighborhood in which this mob
clubhouse is blatantly located.
It being Sunday notwithstanding, this is a regular
business day for such a hard-working organization.
Dozens of thugs, in their conspicuous costumes and
tattoos, brazenly punch in and out with bags full of
drug money and crates of contraband handguns purchased
on the mainland from corrupt People's Liberation Army
officers.
Some neighborhood housewives are gathered around a
laundry pole next door. With open scowls, they survey
this scene over the back yard fence, and express their
resentment.
"This street is getting very busy lately, isn't it,
ladies?" one of them says, and the others all concur.
Meanwhile, their husbands slink off with golf bags
bigger than themselves, to the driving range for the
week's few minutes of pleasure, heads hidden behind
slumped shoulders, fearful eyes averted from those of
the invaders.
"Pray now to the Blessed Virgin for forgiveness,"
intones Imelda II.
"I'd rather pray to God the Father," replies the
golden-eyed girl, trying to be brave. "Please, Den
Mother, may I?"
"Of course, Love," she says, magnanimously. "And I'll
join you."
As they say the Lord's Prayer together in Tagalog, the
fleet-footed thug who tackled the girl last week
approaches from the opposite corner, his stockinged
feet whistling along the quaintly traditional tatami
mats. He's a sallow reptilian man, with glazed eyes,
like a taxidermist's plastic inserts. Over his head
he swings something wet, which whizzes and whirrs and
flings off moisture that splats in arcs against the
walls: a wet, knotted knee sock. (It hurts more than
dismemberment and can even cause internal
hemorrhaging, but doesn't bruise the goods.) He
closes in on the child very slowly, to add suspense to
the horror.
The closer he gets, the wider her golden eyes grow.
She starts to shriek and convulse a bit, in
anticipation of the mistreatment.
"There, there," smiles Imelda II. "It's not quite as
much fun as running down the sidewalk in the cool
nighttime like a wild puppy, is it? But it's better
than being back in our homeland. Be strong now, and
the old man might not have you deported."
Then she turns to the lieutenant and snarls, in fluent
Japanese gutter dialect, "Okay, okay, Godzilla.
You've made your point. Hurry up and get this Jezebel
chastised. It's almost time for mass."
Tom Bradley's stuff is at Salon.com, Exquisite Corpse,
3am, McSweeney's, Gadfly, nthposition, the2ndhand,
Poets & Writers Magazine, and is pretty much smeared
all over the web, like the hair on the walls in that
movie that made Robert Blake famous.
Tom is the author of five novels: Kara-Kun/Flip-kun,
Black Class Cur, Killing Bryce, The Curved Jewels, and
Acting Alone, which carries the following blurbs on
the back cover:
"I found Acting Alone to have an incredible energy level."
--Stanley Elkin, author of A Bad Man
"The contemporaries of Michelangelo found it useful to
employ the term 'terribilita' to characterize some of
the expressions of his genius, and I will quote it
here to sum up the shocking impact of this novel as a
whole. I read it in a state of fascination,
admiration, awe, anxiety, and outrage."
--R.V. Cassill, editor of The Norton Anthology of
Short Fiction
Reviews of Tom's books, links to his online
publications and audio performances, plus a couple of
hours of recorded readings, are posted at
http://tombradley.org
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