The Word I’m looking for is Kōfuku

I hadn’t thought about Tom in almost a year. I hadn’t seen him in ten. But up he sprung in front of me while I was waiting for the train at Nishi-Oyami station. Not in front of me, but you

understand.

What was I doing out in rural Japan? Does one need an answer to that question? Okay, I was looking for happiness. A little yellow mailbox that brings happiness. That’s what the American told me. It was in a bar in Osaka. He came up to me, I was alone, he introduced himself, konnichiwa. Americans have a way of finding each other. I answered like I was sitting alone at a bar in a foreign country. He was eager but polite. I kept it monosyllabic. He ordered the same thing as I did and asked if I thought Osaka was a happy place. I said no happier than any other place. Then he told me about the mailbox. Why? I looked like someone looking for happiness. Or maybe that’s conjecture.

Well I found it. It’s right there, just behind the platform, in a little square garden. Tall and

bulbous, like a fire hydrant’s older brother. What the American didn’t tell me was the mailbox doesn’t give happiness, it delivers. There’s only a slot. A drop box. Happiness is for someone else. Well shit, I thought, looking out at Mt. Kaimondake. It sure was a mountain. I returned to the platform, without any idea how long it was until the next train. I put my chin in my hand like anyone in the foreground of a mountain in rural Japan would. That’s when I saw the vending machine. It was out in a field across the track, beyond the railing. It looked like a scarecrow. It was blue. Someone surely must be looking for it, I thought. Maybe it fell out of a delivery truck. There is a road next to the rail. But vending machines are heavy, it would’ve had to roll and roll

and plant itself upright. I couldn’t figure it out. I wanted to figure it out. So I went over. I walked

right up to it. It was brand new, untouched, short on cash. There’s no way it rolled out of a

moving truck. I put a quarter in. A dull thud, no little cha-ching. Of course. Its plug laid there

alone like a dead snake. That’s when I thought of Tom. He tried to save a bat once. Snake. Bat.

That was enough.

It was midnight and the cafe was closed. I went for a smoke in the alley out back and there it was crawling along the pavement. Bats can’t take off. They have to drop and swoop to fly. Tom carried it up the fire escape in a dust pan and tossed it like a bouquet. It hit the ground. But it lived. A man with a white beard walked by and assessed the situation immediately. He knew what he was doing. He said he’d take the bat to his office around the block, it was on the sixth floor. The bat was saved, I think. But we never got our dust pan back. I said goodbye to the vending machine and returned to myself.

Eventually the train came. I watched the vending machine shrink smaller and smaller in the shadow of the mountain. But then, the mountain eventually disappeared too. It was three and a half hours back to Osaka. I felt like it was just the right moment to lean out the window and smoke a cigarette, with a gin sour to wash it down. But that would never happen. You can’t open the windows. Or smoke. So I sketched it out in my notebook. I’d only just taken up drawing, so it took me almost the entire ride. When I got back to Osaka the first thing I did was find a lighter. There was a kiosk on the platform, with postcards out front. As I smoked it hit me, I could mail Tom the sketch. In the yellow mailbox. I have wonderfully sentimental ideas when I smoke. Yes, I’d get right back on the train, after a piss of course. I’d carry Tom all the way there and bring him happiness. But at the end of my cigarette I remembered that I didn’t have his address. I didn’t know where he lived. In fact, I’d never once been to his apartment. He could’ve been homeless for all I know. Were our lives that shallow? I have terribly depressing ideas after I smoke. No, I was only being silly.

A week later in that same bar I thought maybe it was for the best. I was getting to the age where you could say things like, I can’t sit that long anymore, my knees you know. On my second gin sour, I saw on the little corner television, a news story. A group of high school boys had planted a vending machine in Oyami. Why? I don’t know, but it got me terribly upset. Christ. You can’t even enjoy a thing like that anymore.