The Long Highway Pt. 06

There was one time Akemi showed awareness the city can be unsafe.

She was going to the cooperative studio where she paints. It was a Sunday morning. I offered to accompany her- I wanted to. She agreed but not for me to come in. She wanted to paint, not hang out.

Her space on the third floor has two doors, an outer one which is always open and an inner, green one, that requires a key. She found both unlocked and looked perturbed. Had someone entered while she was out? Were they still there?

She let me go in after all. I looked around. We found no one. I checked between her canvases, ones she'd finished, stored upright in racks, and other places an intruder might hide, and the coast seemed to be clear. But Akemi looked genuinely uneasy then, and frankly I was glad. She has to learn the importance of staying on guard.

"Things happen." Yeah, that phrase comes to mind, the terrible one repeated by the old woman outside the subway station, witch (I think I described her as one in chapter 4A) who spoke too familiarly, even intimately as I waited for Akemi to arrive by the elevated train, join me in the chilly night air.

The stranger in her shapeless dark overcoat might only have looked old. Maybe she was just worn to that wrinkled grey state by life experience, some of it unspeakable, I suspected. I'd guess sixty plus but forty-five was also possible. She spoke with an Eastern European accent I couldn't place. Gypsy? I sensed less that she'd endured harm herself so much as inflicted it on others, at some point making the kind of decision which leaves you with nothing to fall back on but cynicism. Maybe she'd been forced to sell her children or something. Who knows?

I didn't mean to get into writing about her again, but when she comes to mind I get carried away. She was freaking scary, and the fear- the worst kind, of something you wished never to see- doesn't fade much over time, only a little if at all.

"Things happen." I'm convinced she enjoyed saying that, thinking about it, and you bet the words really spooked me. The exact phrasing remains engraved in my head. She spoke in a portentous tone, her gaze distant as if focused on other worlds, afterlife, spirit realm or what have you, as if making a prophecy she wanted to come true. She'd enjoy Akemi getting fucked up was the feeling that came through strongly.

It was a nippy night. The wind made my eyes tear. I saw the soothsayer through a blur, which made her look even worse, not only gazing upon but of another world. Her colors in the dim light were all dark browns and greys, her eyes milky, with the reflection of clouds in moon light night and- I know this sounds ridiculous- they were wild. Worse still was the calm they conveyed. You sensed from her a terrible certainty, a wisdom, the weight of all the bad things that can and do happen in human lives, tragedies beyond understanding, stuff ordinary people like you and I can't grasp; only her kind can.

If my reaction seems exaggerated, chalk it up to the circumstances. No one else was there but her and me. A closeness, almost intimacy arose between us. It made my skin crawl. I'd been standing outside too long. Trains were few and far between at that hour. My thoughts had been driving me slightly crazy even before the hag came along to state them out loud.

"Pretty girl like that. Things happen."

I found the intruder loathsome, wished she were wrong but knew otherwise. She was like part of my brain I didn't want to see, if that makes any sense. Knowledge.

Akemi can fend for herself, but there are some situations when all the pluck in the world won't help.

We'd gotten a late start to the cooperative studio across town. Leaving the house took longer than expected. Her friends were there and the timing got complicated. I was asking about a word and that slowed things down further. My presence was an obstruction again (as I had felt it to be in Tokyo- see subway scene last chapter). I was trying to learn Akemi's language, seeking held from Akemi's friends- sucking up to them? yeah, that too maybe, a little- and they just wanted to go out.

Akemi on her own in her jeans in the painting studio on a quiet Sunday morning, her focus only her art work. I saw her dreams that brought it to life also made her vulnerable; she was wide open, had to be (anyway seemed to be). An innocent look came over her, a look wholly unselfconscious yet completely winning on top of her physical attributes, the way her hair fell, so smooth, black, catching the light from the window; it flashed and would attract someone across the way glancing from other buildings. There was a courtyard in between, an untended spot with stuff left there, including a mattress box spring long rusted out, but a window gazer catching sight of Akemi from the distance might be crazy enough to put a pair of binoculars in store.

"Crazy" is a word I've applied to myself in relation to Akemi but I know it fits others as well and to a goddamned tee.

She changes into her paint clothes there in the one room studio.

Akemi work space is small but open, completely lacking in clutter. It faces south and light that poured through the windows that morning centered on her, like a dancer, and of course on her painting. That's a place to reflect freely, generate new work- yes, dream on canvas.

The question remained of who had opened the door. Maybe someone else from the cooperative had. But why had they gone in Akemi's place, and would they be back?

Even though it turned out no villains were lying in wait last Sunday and I understood Akemi wanted me to leave so she could paint free of distraction, I felt glad I'd come with her, checked things out, actually wished I could all the time, but no such luck. You just have to hope for the best.