January 13th, 2007
A lengthy account of the Tokyo real estate market (part 2)
After two weekends of searching for homes in my sweet triangle and finding very few possibilities, I acquiesced and decided to broaden my search to areas farther away, consenting to listings as far away as Koenji, which while still within a twenty-minute bicycle ride to Shinjuku, probably the better part of an hour to work. This would mean commuting via train, and the loss of my currently accruing commuter allocation. In turn, I lowered my acceptable upper bound for rent to 625 dollars a month. There’s nothing wrong with Nakano and Koenji, on the contrary they’re quite fashionable, trendy, cheap places to live and still within easy distance of Shinjuku. Being farther west on the Chuo line, however, they make all of the easy access to central Tokyo via bicycle that I enjoy now, more of an ordeal.
The first listing was billed as being near Nakano station, and having a spectacular view. It was rather nice, but unfortunately much smaller than the first floor rental in the same building, and a good twelve minutes’ walk from the station, something that’s a lot more important when you stop going everywhere by bicycle. At least it was clean, however.
The second place in Nakano I visited was much closer to the station, and near a shoutengai (small merchant street) just off of Waseda dori. Unfortunately it was on the sunken ground floor and had a lovely north-facing view of the the front shrubbery, leaving absolutely no sunlight whatsoever. It was pretty small too and felt a lot like a converted basement bedroom of Rachael’s parents’ that I slept in once. This tomb was ruled out before I even took off my shoes and as such didn’t bother to take any pictures.
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The last place I saw was in Koenji, and the path to the building was magical. Apparently a long arcade runs underneath the Chuo line from Koenji to Asagaya, and the way in between is spotted with incredibly cheap bars, restaurants, and vintage stores. I could easily imagine unwinding at any number of friendly watering holes on the way home, negating even the worst of workdays with bouquets of cheap suds and the charming, stylish youth of Tokyo. But the real peach was the house itself. This was another one of those incredibly old, hardly maintained buildings that just screamed, “beat”. The stairwell was littered with trash, the antiquated interior sliding doors paper-thin, and all of the metal was in a various state of corrosion. Even the bathroom light was out, so it took the flash of my camera to give me an idea of what state the place was in. Nothing felt evil or dangerous though, it was more of just a very worn, very old part of the city left to the young and struggling artists. The owner of the building was obviously aware of all the strikes against it, for the rent was less than I was currently paying, and fitting despite how close it was to the station. A little too close, actually. The room was on the third floor and only about a good fifty feet from the elevated tracks of the Chuo line. Since it wasn’t right in front of the station I didn’t hear any whistles, but the trains rolled by every sixty to ninety seconds, and they were certainly hard to miss. I almost felt the old building rock slightly when an express rocketed by. If you’ve ever seen The Blues Brothers, you’ll have an idea of what it’s like, honestly.
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The icing on the cake of this place though was the treasure I discovered in the kitchen closet. The previous tenants had apparently left behind three large photo albums and a bunch of negatives; what seemed like ten years’ of past discarded for the future. It was fascinating, I could hardly believe that it wasn’t scripted. There, in that cold, empty, beat house was over a decade of memories, a vault of life. It started with a clean-faced, bright-eyed boy at high school graduation, all of his friends and family crowded around in celebration. The suits were spotless, the smiles were genuine, and the world lay full of promise and hope.
After high school the protagonist gradually grew his hair out, in successive collections his look became more punk, and through their late teens and early twenties the friends formed a band. The beaming grins were replaced with nonchalant expressions accentuated by an appearance of the finger or the occasional moon. Rehearsels and gigs at local bars were recorded as the group tried hard to get by. Through the same pages and albums, one girl from the graduation photos appeared more and more prominently: a trip to Disneyland, holiday at Nara. Eventually they seemed to be living together, sharing the fight through an ambigous time. But towards the end of the catalog grinning faces were fewer and farther between, and the pictures didn’t all make into albums, some just in shoe boxes or the original sleeves from the print shop.
I guess in the end things didn’t work out the way anybody expected. The Blue Hearts broke up, the J-Punk boom of the early nineties ended, and so did everyone’s vision of what it should all be like. If those memories were cherished ones they certainly wouldn’t be left behind in an empty house, so it seems that it in end it must of have been a rough falling out. It’s kind of sad, if you really think about it. But the finding of such a striking slice of someone else’s intimate history was surreal and riveting. I almost wish I hadn’t found any better rentals just so I could take that beat pad by the train tracks and inherit that legacy. I’m positive I would end up writing the most fantastic of books from it. But it didn’t work out that way, so it stays just a naked brush with raw, wet humanity.
