(Final Draft)

Rapid Tokyo Transit

He had become a pusher; not the American type that fished for junkies on the streets of poor, black neighborhoods, but the Japanese type that prevented bottlenecks from disrupting the daily schedule of brokers at the Tokyo Stock Exchange with those of the NASDAQ. He shoved a white-collar worker on his way to the cubicle farm into the subway car, although it was on the brink of bursting. But it would not surprise him if a dozen more of them could be packaged. The disheveled Daesu, his fellow pusher, gestured to him to come and help on the other side of the door. Daesu was at risk of being fired. He said something in Japanese to Daniel. The only Japanese words that Daniel knew were arigato and sake, but he did not need to ponder over the meaning in Daesu’s Japanese gibberish. Daniel trotted over to the other side of the door and grabbed another Japenese in a business suit by the arm, who desperately tried to fit through the door. As he pushed him, he inconspicuously twisted his arm in a way that elicited a faint yelp from the Jap’s mouth.

The last train left the Akihabara station. Daniel’s shift was over. The Yellow Wave had been especially intensive on this particular day. The Yellow Wave was the term that was internally used among the foreign Tokyo Metro employees to describe the rush hour. Daniel walked over to the optimal, in terms of lean manufacturing, staff room, where he needed to drop off his suit before leaving. He entered the miniscule room and thought of how proud Toyoda must be. It smelled hospital. The location of every single object had been thoroughly considered. Then reconsidered, removed and replaced. Then reconsidered once more and so the cycle had gone on and would continue to go on. The traditional water cooler had been replaced by small bottles, similar to those hamsters would drink from, attached to the door of every employee’s locker. This apparently saved each employee 23.7 seconds daily, and the company 105 yen, on account of the fact that there was no waiting in line for water. An artificial, to avoid the need of watering, plant stood in the corner for, as his boss Mr. Takashi called it, recreational purposes. Daniel walked over to his locker. He unlocked it and put his hat with the Tokyo Metro emblem in it. Isamu was standing next to him, carrying out the same procedure. He was one of the security guards of the Akihabara station.

“Heard the boss was coming tomorrow?” Daniel asked him.

“Konnichiwa, Smith-san,” Isamu replied.

Daniel cracked his first smile of the day. He started to take off his suit, which belonged to the Tokyo Metro. He noticed Isamu unholstering his handgun. Isamu noticed him. Daniel noticed Isamu noticing him. Daniel cracked another friendly smile, triggering Isamu to nervously toss the gun in his locker and throw the door to it shut.

Daniel still remembered the pale lady sitting in the living room when he came home from school on that day that his classmates had stolen the teacher’s Prozac pills; the teacher had had a nervous breakdown and so the class had been dismissed early. The pale lady was drinking tea, as his father introduced her to him, not as a mother but as a friend of his. The six-year-old Daniel remembered her not because she was Japanese, which was a rarity in Austin, Texas. But he remembered her because his father’s friends, unlike this one, used to be males with ties and suitcases. His father explained that the lady could not speak English. Daniel’s six-year-old mind could not comprehend that possibility and so he asked her if she knew Bruce Lee. The pale lady only smiled in response.

The inexplicable news came the next morning, as Daniel and his Japanese cohorts stood in a perfect line in the staff room. Daesu, the same Daesu that was at risk of losing his job, had been transferred to the Ōtemachi station. The transfer was the equivalent of being promoted to CEO of Dow Jones from working as the McDonald’s mascot Ronald McDonald. The extremely short Mr. Takashi delivered the news. He spoke in English; something that had only been experienced by Daniel during his job interview. This was very strange, considering that Daniel was the only foreigner in the room. But what made it even stranger was that Mr. Takashi barely could utter a sentence in English.

“We can all learn from Daesu,” he stuttered.

Daniel paid no attention to Mr. Takashi, but instead glared at Daesu. Although his fellow pusher tried to conceal his ecstasy, no one in the room mistook the gleam in his eyes and the slight rise of his cheeks. Mr. Takashi then asked everyone to leave the room except for Daniel. Yes, give me an explanation for this decision, Daniel thought. Perhaps April Fools’ Day comes in February in Japan? Tell me that this is some sort of sick joke.

“Daniel, this is not some sort of sick joke,” Mr. Takashi affirmed.

Daniel’s mouth would only let the ensuing profanities come out of it for he was no longer in God’s household back in the States. It replaced Takashi’s classification, Mr., with those normally reserved for convicted rapists and pedophiles. Daniel charged Takashi and slammed him down to the floor. However, his biological blackout only affected his central nervous system, causing both his fists to switch to autopilot. The battering turned Takashi’s face into a distorted mush.

“Are you listening?” Mr. Takashi asked Daniel, who awoke from his daydream. “I think that Daesu has demonstrated his competence and efficiency. If you could also show the same kind of ambitious spirit…”

Daniel gritted his teeth. His fists were still clenched as a result of his daydream. He was able to push any passenger through the doors and into the subway cars, regardless of their girth! He knew exactly where to apply just the right amount of pressure to cause a chain reaction in the interior of the subway cars, causing all passengers to snugly fit! He faced the Yellow Wave with absolutely no fear nor hesitation! Daesu always became stressed out in such situations. Always!

Mr. Takashi sighed. “I know how your people think of work ethic but you must adapt now.”

“Naturally,” Daniel forced out of his mouth. As Mr. Takashi walked out of the room, Daniel bowed at a 30-degree angle instead of the usual 40-degree bow.

Daniel still remembered the suitcase with four combination locks in a row that his father would take with him on those days that he went on business trips. He did not mind staying at his uncle’s house. His uncle had always lived in his own dream-world. But he had been good-hearted man and had he also not been a senile alcoholic he probably would not have revealed to 12-year-old Daniel that he was the result of one of his father’s business trips to Japan. Daniel had not been able to process this information for he could not grasp the concept of being a bastard.

The next day Daniel could not believe his ears. Finally, the tide began to turn; an American was replacing Daesu. Daniel had a Heinz Ketchup stain on his shirt that would not come off. But it did not matter because neither would his smile.

Carson was the American’s name. He and Daniel sat during their lunch break at a table at the McDonald’s restaurant that was located in the subway station.

“Missed McDonald’s?” Daniel asked Carson.

“Huh?” Carson said, while turning his head to show an hearing aid on each of his ears.

Daniel had not noticed that Carson used hearing aids.

“Both ears?”

“Huh?”

“Both ears?”

“Grenade exploded next to my head during the war,” Carson explained while stuffing his mouth with a bite from his cheeseburger.

Daniel put down the two French fries that he was about to eat. “Next to your head?”

Carson nodded. “I guess it was a stroke of bad and good luck. Bad luck considering that only one in every twelve Chinese grenades actually explode.

“And the good luck?”

“That it was made in China. So no worries. My cranium remained intact. Would’ve been different if it was one of ours, you know.”

There was a moment of silence. The smile that would not come off finally came off as Daniel scowled.

“Want to know what happened to my hand?” Carson asked straightforwardly and rolled up his overly long sleeve only to reveal that he was missing his left hand.

Daniel looked at the mutilated stub, evoking his gag reflex. He tried to conceal his reaction by coughing faintly and covering his mouth with his fist.

“Tried to save a little girl who had fallen down on the tracks. This was during my days at the New York Metro of course. She was stuck in the subway door. Don’t know why the emergency system did not react. Or no one else for that matter.”

Daniel opened his mouth to say something but no words came out.

“Train began to move. So I tried to push the girl free to the other side, onto the platform, you know. I succeeded. But I can’t say the same thing about my hand. Got stuck in the door. The train did not stop. No one pulled the emergency break. There was no room for my hand as the train entered the tunnel. Next thing I know, I got this.”

Carson showed his stub.

“The state of New York would not let a one-handed man continue working due to security measures or policy or whatever. So I lost my job and moved to my brother over here.”

After a short pause Carson chuckled.

“My wife divorced me shortly after the accident. Know what she tells me when I ask her to explain why?”

Daniel shook his head.

“I lost my wedding ring along with my hand.” Carson guffawed.

Daniel looked down on his burger and fries. There was a moment of silence.

“ How did the Japanese allow you to… You know. Maybe it was for the best that you didn’t contin…”

“Hey! I saved a little girl’s life. God wants me to be a pusher.”

Carson did a pushing motion with his right hand and left stub and Daniel could not help but to think of the Biblical Matthew, whose stories he would hear about from Father Bob in the Austin Church of Hope.

Daniel still remembered the crispy, onion flavored Doritos potato chips that he struggled to pack between the Wonder Bread slices on the day that the phone rang. He had almost panicked and looked around the kitchen in the same way a caveman would. He could finally localize it under the living room couch by tracing the ringtone. The nurse on the other end explained that his mother had cancer, but no one to take care of her. The 41-year-old Daniel knew what type of cancer it was back then. But today, two years later, he could not remember if it was thyroid cancer or pancreatic cancer.

The Yellow Wave officially ended at 21:00 the next day, as the last train unloaded its passengers. Daniel had no sweat running down his forehead that evening for the first time in years. Carson had worked on the other side of the tracks, where the trains traveled in the opposite direction. Glass, insulating the noise from the track on the other side, was the only thing separating them. Daniel smiled as Carson noticed him. He pointed at his watch and waved goodbye, receiving a wave from Carson in response. If that particular one out of every twelve Chinese grenades had not exploded during the war, Carson would have been able to hear the incoming train. Daniel could only stand and watch as Carson’s right hand was severed by the force of the leading subway car.

The hospital smell was familiar. Daniel watched through the window Carson in his hospital bed. Daniel yawned as he looked at his American friend. Carson was hooked up to a myriad of machines. His blank stare would be able to fool anyone that he was dead, had it not been for the electrocardiograph. Daniel remembered seeing an old photo of the notorious Jesse James being buried with his hands folded over their chest. Carson looked very similar to him at this moment, as he hopelessly tried to clench his stubs for prayer.

Daniel banged his fist into the coin slot before ramming his shoulder into the snack vending machine. He looked at the Snickers bar that was stuck in the machine and sighed. He headed down the corridor, looking at the patients in the rooms that he passed; a nurse helping an old man walk to the toilet, a pale lady with a doctor standing next to her bed, another old man who… Daniel stopped. He turned around and looked into the room with the pale lady again. The doctor was checking the pulse of the lady. Daniel’s presence caused the doctor to turn around.

“We’re stopping symptomatic treatment. Her choice,” the doctor told Daniel. “You know her, sir?”

Daniel shook his head.

“Please leave.”

“Daniel…,” the pale lady muttered before smiling lightly.

The fact that Daniel was not wearing a tie generated a lot of attention in the staff room in the morning. Daniel’s eyes, peas in relation to the huge bags under them, were focused on Isamu, the only other person in the staff room. Isamu put on his Tokyo Metro hat, picked up his handgun and struggled to put it in his holster.

“Give me the gun,” Daniel said, disrupting the silence.

“Smith-San, what are you asking?” Isamu said with his eyes fixed to the inside of his locker.

“Give me the gun.”

Daniel left the staff room with Isamu’s gun tucked into his belt. He walked along the rails to the end of the platform and looked at his watch. A moment later, the Yellow Wave flooded the station and another moment later a train arrived at the station.

The train operator had, at gunpoint, run for his life as Daniel had commanded. Daniel was now alone in the cab, looking through the glass window to the adjacent car. The passengers were either checking their watches or shaking their heads. Daniel knew exactly what he would do. He had seen hostage-takers in movies, who always used hostages as human shields in the hopes of getting the upper hand. It usually worked until a SWAT team led by Bruce Willis gassed them out or until Tom Cruise sniped them from a distant point at the eleventh hour. Daniel was smarter than that.

He opened the door to the adjacent car. Everyone turned their eyes to him. He lifted the gun he had in his hand and put it against his temple.

“I will shoot myself if you do not do exactly what I tell you,” Daniel calmly explained.

The passengers looked at each other in complete silence.

“I’m serious. I will shoot,” Daniel reassured them.

A bald man in a business suit looked down at his watch. Daniel saw this and fired his gun toward the roof of the car. Shrieks erupted from the passengers of the adjacent subway car. The passengers in front of Daniel only reacted by pushing themselves to the back of the subway car. Some of them dropped their bags and suitcases to the floor.

“I’m serious!”

Sweat ran down Daniel’s forehead, as he put the gun against his temple again.

“Hey you!”.

The bald man pointed at himself.

“Yes, you. Where do you work?”

“Nichigin; Bank of Japan. I have family.”

“You have a family, huh? Listen, you will take time off work, okay? A week. No, a month. And.. And you will take your family to.. uhm.. the Bahamas. Understand?”

The bald man nodded. Daniel backed into the cab. He fumbled with the buttons until he pressed the one that opened the doors to the train. Passengers from the other cars ran out of the train.

“Now, you go. The rest stays.” Daniel indicated with his gun for the bald man to leave. A woman attempted to inconspicuously walk out as well.

“I’ll shoot myself! I’ll shoot myself! I swear I’ll shoot myself!”

The woman stopped. The fainting noise pattern of footsteps from passengers running toward the exits of the station was disrupted by loud footsteps running toward the train. Daniel looked out of the windows and saw police officers at a distance moving toward the train. He pressed the button that closed the doors of the train.

“Daniel Smith, stay calm!” a voice boomed throughout the station from a megaphone.

“You still have capital punishment in this country.”

There was no response from the passengers.

“Good,” Daniel said and took a seat.

“Daniel Smith, do as we say or we will be forced to shoot,” the voice from the megaphone boomed.

Daniel cracked a smile, while still holding the gun toward his head. “Shooting someone who threatens to shoot himself,” Daniel muttered and started laughing.

“Put down the gun Daniel and we will not shoot.”

“How often do you visit your mothers’ grave?” Daniel asked the passengers.

The passengers did not answer. Daniel shook his head.

“Tomorrow I’m going to visit my mother.”

Daniel still held the gun to his temple and stood up. He turned around to the station, where police officers hid behind trashcans, pillars, corners and every other possible object that they could find.

“Last chance, Daniel. Put down the gun. We will shoot.”

Daniel took a deep breath.

Daesu had not expected to return to his old station only a few days after his transfer. But he had run to the Akihabara station as soon as he had heard the news about a former subway pusher taking hostages. He knew that the Tokyo Police would want to question him, considering that he had been a pusher in the Akihabara station. So as a loyal Japanese, Daesu wanted help. There was a large crowd gathering when he arrived at the Akihabara station. He saw that the empty station had been taped off, as he stepped off the escalator a moment later. A police officer stood by the warning tape.

“No one is passing this perimeter,” the Officer declared.

“I used to work here as a pusher,” Daesu explained.

The officer was going to open his mouth to answer when a loud gunshot echoed through the station. Perhaps the firing of the gun would have been avoided, if the officer of Japan’s Special Assault Team, who had snuck up on Daniel, had noticed the seven bullets from Isamu’s gun lying on the dashboard in the cab of the train.