It arrived with a thump and a glare from the cook and then a slightly less menacing thump of the smaller plate of goyoza, though this was the most dangerous thing in the room, but I didn’t know that yet. The Ramen congealed in its own pork and fermented cabbage goo. A red film covered the surface testament to the chili powder having been added to give it a kick. The goyoza seemed to have that perfectly gooey have crescent shape and burned to a crisp base required of all good pot stickers. Looking at it for a moment and satisfying myself that the meal had achieved the required ambient oiliness I dug in.
I gave the ramen noodles a good loud sucking slurp combination since this is considered good manners in ramen shops. The chili pepper gave my throat a nasty biting back for good measure. Dangling from the ceiling in the corner of the restaurant was a 21” flat screen TV. A samurai drama seemed to winding up with the hero fighting twenty or so bad guess singlehandedly. “Good on him,” I thought. I’m sure there must have been a good reason to gut and slash the fuck out of twenty or so people. If you’re the hero every death is justifiable whether it be by Katana or Glock. The violence drew my attention to the other end of the restaurant.
At the end of the counter sat a low dense energy being, the meanest energy I had ever encountered. Nothing really set him apart from the rest of the sad sack salary men at the other than his suit was little nicer and he always wore dark Ray Bans.
He was very short, maybe 5’3, but very intense, compact in a pit bullish sort of way. He was the only person I ever saw the cook actually show any respect to. He drove a black Bentley that was usually double parked in various places around the neighborhood, but mostly in front of the massive pachinko palace down the street from my apartment building. The only other time I’d ever seen him outside of the ramen shop is the time I’d gone to the local sento, a Japanese style public bath.
On Saturdays I jogged in the morning and played tennis with a friend of mine in the afternoon to get a little exercise beyond my daily bicycle commute to work. I also have a couple of tattoos which means the traditional hot spring resorts (onsens) in Japan were out for me since tattoos are automatically associated with the Japanese Mob or Yakuza. Some Sentos allowed anyone in the baths, tattooed or not. He was coming out of the building as I walked in. The automatic doors had parted allowing his as per norm shaded eyes to exit. I stepped aside to let him pass and with a slight nod he walked into the parking lot. That was it. He was always the most interesting guy in the place considering no one ever spoke to me even to practice their drunken English.