Voice Three: Giorgio
The train pulls into Kagurazaka, and from the platform I see a foreign guy shove a big-ass kanji dictionary into his backpack and stand up. He was sitting next to this Japanese girl playing Game Boy - she's wearing cowboy boots and blue jeans so tight they follow the tops of her thighs down before heading up her waist. The old Japanese man in front of me moves to the side to let the foreigner off the train, but I don't. I edge forward, brush past both of them, and snag the seat next to the girl. I glance over - her rack is huge for an Asian - and I notice she's playing Tetris. Awesome. I can talk Tetris, even in Japanese.
I lean back and hope she's going to the end of the subway line. I wait till after the next stop, when she's in between levels, then smile and say, "Tetris wa sugoi ne?"
She glances up, startled, her bangs flying to the side of her face. Then she laughs nervously, nods and says, "So ne." She has perfect teeth and cheeks like porcelain.
In the corner of my eye, I see her pause the game. I lean my head to the side, look at the ceiling, and say in Japanese, "When I was a kid, I played Tetris all the time."
"Honto?" she says. Then she tilts her head and tries to speak English. "Ah ... where ... your hometown?"
"Cincinnati. In America, near New York." I trace a map on my hand.
"Reary? New Yoku? Ah, my brother do ... did homestay there. Four years ... eto ... Four years ..."
"Ago?"
She nods and smiles. "Ago, so."
"Did he like it?" I say, and we have a banal conversation about America just the same as the ones I have everyday at my English conversation school. I ask the questions I know she can answer and correct enough of her speech to make her grateful but not frustrated. Then, when she's leaned the Game Boy against her belly and put her hands on her lap, I go for the finisher.
"By the way, your English is very good."
She laughs, shakes her head, and waves a hand in front of her face. "No, no, no. I need study more Engrish."
"Ah, well, please teach me Japanese, and I will teach you English."
"Reary?"
And, before she gets off at Takadanobaba, I have her cell phone number and a date for me and my buddies to meet her and her friends: Friday at 9:30 in Shinjuku. With any luck she'll be staying over at my apartment within the month.
Getting girls is so much easier when you don't share a language. Back home it doesn't really matter what you say - the girls already know you just want to sleep with them, even when you don't. (But what can a guy really offer besides sex, anyhow? Girls can talk all they want with their girlfriends.) Here, though, they give you a chance, because you can teach them something, and so they trust your words are as good as your smile.
