I got to Chiba early that day, so had time to kill before I met my wife and friend. I worked at a kindergarten teaching English, and kindergarten finishes at 3pm. My wife had an office job and usually finishes at 5 or 6 or so, and my friend was working in a high school and usually got off a little after 6pm. His actual finish time was much earlier than that, but I think he self-imposed Japanese pressure onto himself to stay later. (Some of his Japanese colleagues didn’t feel that pressure, but never mind that.)

This is going to sound weird, dear Reader, but I have this thing where I don’t like to enter places I don’t know well by myself. I don’t know why. Nothing is going to go wrong I know, I just have this irrational apprehension to entering the unknown and not knowing the lingo or whatever of what to do, and this is in many many situations where there is no lingo or whatever of needing to know what to do. Whatever. In certain situations I push through and do it anyways, in order situations, I go to a place I know, life goes on and no one is affected in any real way.

So anyways I had time to kill, and I had been to this Chiba Hub a few times, but only with friends. It was a new Hub at the time, and didn’t really have the feeling of the other Hubs I had been to had. It wasn’t crawling with sex-crazed male foreigners wanting to pounce, it was just a chill place where you could get a drink. I had never been there by myself, but on this day I was feeling especially courageous, so even though I couldn’t see inside from the outside (which makes a place easier to enter obviously), I bravely walked down the stairs to the entrance, and went in.

At this time I don’t think my Japanese was that bad, but for whatever reason I did get a little nervous when needing to speak to people I didn’t know, especially if I thought that person was cool or cute or something. My mission was to tell the staff that there was only one of me, and that while I don’t smoke, I wanted to sit in the smoking section, because the non-smoking section was hidden away in the back, and the smoking section was in the main part of the bar. I wanted to be with the people and people watch when I was there. So I go in, and with a goofy smile I said there was one of me, and that while I didn’t smoke, I would like to sit “around here” (easier to say in Japanese than the smoking area), and all was good in the world.

I took my book, Herman Hesse’s Narcisus and Goldmund, and put it on my table, and went to the bar for a drink.

It was during happy hour, and the Rum and Cokes were cheap. So I would have a Rum and Coke. They were called Cuba Livres, which I guess is a Rum and Coke with lime in it or something. I only knew Rum and Cokes from the Canadian television series Trailer Park Boys, and so when I had one, I thought that I was a cool dude. I order it, and maybe obviously, I pronounce the “livre” part as it is said in Japanese, which is “libure” (yes dear Reader, I am being whimsical with my l’s and r’s, I’m that kind of guy). The friend I was meeting always hated that pronunciation for some reason, and would always try to pronounce it in Spanish, which the staff could get, but it was always a little weird to me. That may have been due to my mere bilingual nature, and not being accustomed to many languages always around me.

So I got my Rum and Coke, I think I got a salmon pizza or something like that too. Then I went back to my seat, where my book was waiting for me.

I probably tell this story to a million people a day, but I always had this vision of me reading some awesome book by myself at a bar while life goes on around me, and I am so enamoured in my own cool world, that I become a part of the scenery for others. It sounded smart and intellectual and wise to me. Imagine me in the background of Billy Joel’s Piano Man music video (the 80’s one, not the 70’s one).

I could never actually do it though. I was always super conscious of how fast I was inhaling what I was eating and what I was drinking. After a page or two I would look up to see who was around me, what was going on and all that. I thought it was cool to be able to read 50 pages non-stop in a crowded place because it was something that I could not do.

But anyways, I got into a good groove. Sips of Rum and Coke, a pizza slice here and there, reading a few pages, and looking up and stealing glances at pretty women every now and then. Gracefully of course though, no leering. (As as silly aside, I learned the word “leer” from Pokémon”. )

The Hub was still quite empty still, but another Western foreigner also entered the Hub, and took a seat quite close to mine. This was not something that I wanted. Some foreigners miss being back home where you could just go to the bar and make a new friend, talk to strangers, have drinks and have a gay old time. I was most definitely not in that stage in my life. At the time I thought I was over it, but in hindsight, I hadn’t gotten there yet. I wanted to exude an aura from afar, and not be disturbed by something so horrid as me being in a conversation. He’s probably here just to get laid or complain about Japan and his ALT job or something like that I thought to myself. No thank you! So I ignore the guy, pretend to not see him, and actually get into my book a little more. There was no more pizza to routinely eat anyways.

And then he started talking to me.

“What are you drinking? Do you recommend anything?”

“Sorry?

“Do you recommend anything. Haven’t been here before.”

“Ah, I like the Rum and Coke, it’s cheap now and the J size is pretty big,” I say as I point to my glass.

“Where’s that on the menu? Oh, under on this happy hour menu? Wow, they got quite a lot. Cool, thanks. I’ll let something. Cheers!”

And I’m back into my solitude. My wife and friend still shouldn’t be free for another hour, and I have some more time to exude auras.

As he is ordering his drink, I notice he looks like some sort of business man, or at least he does not look like a fellow English teacher. He’s not wearing a suit, but there’s something about the way he is dressed that gave me that impression. I was wearing a dress shirt myself, but his didn’t look like it cost only 2,000 yen, and he seemed more natural in it than I did. He also had one of those haircuts that sort of works. My hair as it grows seems to always be in a different form of chaos that kind of works but does not really. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he got his haircut every three weeks or so. He looked like he knew who he was. He didn’t look not annoying, don’t get me wrong, but he didn’t look like me in that semi-cool awkward way.

To cut away for a second, Dear Reader, I am not sure if you have read Narcissus and Goldmund, but one thing I must tell you is that my brother did not like it. He thought it was pretentious. My brother is a good smart man, and I will not say anything ill of him or his intelligence, so I am not trying to put him down in any way, but merely say that this book is not universally loved by people from all around. I love it. Maybe I am pretentious though. The book is about two men, Narcissus and Goldmund. One is a monk or whatever, living the religious life, and the other is a vagabond who sleeps with farmer’s wives and daughters and anybody else really. I think they represent two ideals for Hesse. The disciplined and pure life only answering to God, and always thinking with love in the centre to the highest possible philosophical peak, and the other wanting to drink and be merry and make love and be free to roam the earth. I don’t think he painted either is a very romantic way. There was the love making, but there was also the poverty and the times when things did not go right. Narcissus’s life in the monestary seemed pure, holy and enlightened, but also stale and a waste. Perhaps Hesse thought it was a dilemma that we all face, and he wanted to personify two strong desires of the soul.

Anyways, it was a novel that I loved, and that I thought most others would not like, and in my pretensious mind would not “get”. I was on a bit of a high horse if I am going to be honest.

And then, as I am getting into the book, ignoring the guy beside me with what looked to be a Moscow Mule, making small glances at the women that I found to be pretty, the guy looks at me again and says, “it’s a good book eh? I think it’s one of Hesse’s best, but not his very best.”

Much like with the construction worker on the bus in Surrey many years ago, I was taken aback. With any cool guard that I may have had completely down, I could really only give a genuine, “you’ve read it??”

And he laughed and said, “yeah I used to love Hesse. Read a lot of his books. This one is later when he was becoming a little more abstract yeah. It’s fun to think about, this battle between the soul and the body. Funny that he didn’t split the mind up either. What do you think?”

And I honestly have no idea what I said in return, but I know it wasn’t very smart. He carried the conversation quite well.

“Have you read Knulp? How about the Glass Bead game? That one is my favourite, but it is probably everyone’s favourite. Once you get over those first hundred pages or so it really opens up. You can tell that he wasn’t trying to please and didn’t mind how dry he made it at the beginning, he just wanted to get so much out there while he still could. That’s how I see it at least, but I’m not an expert, just liked the guy a lot when I was younger.”

More meaningless replies from me in the interim. I think I mentioned Demian and World War I. It is a story for another time, but Demian is a book that got me back on track in life when I was 18 or 19.

Then, who I assume as his friends enter the bar, more businessman-type Westerners and they see him, so he concludes our conversation as such, “Haha, I bet you didn’t think that you’d run into someone else who has read this book, yeah? Sorry to disturb you, always nice to talk to someone about books sometimes.”

And with that he was back to his table, entertaining his friends. I forget, but I imagine they were talking about things like what people write on their LinkedIn pages. Maximizing efficiency and being rich and whatever else.

The Hub was getting more crowded, and I got word from my wife that she would be finished work soon. I thought I had time for one more Cuba Livre, and so I ordered another, jumbo size of course.

As I left, I looked over to the guy to say it was nice meeting him, but he was in another moment having another conversation. I leave the Hub, the cool or cute staff say thank you. I may have said thank you back. I walk up the stairs into another moment where I will have dinner with my wife and our friend.

It was a decent solo pre-drink session. Pizza was always good. Good Hub times.