I was simply too drained from the long flight and jetlag to make sense of anything.
These memories from three years ago had a tendency to gurgle back up whenever I ate here. This was the first real Japanese meal I had ever eaten in Japan. After my bags where dumped off in my equally dumpy little cave of an apartment my handler brought me down here for
dinner. He was even kind enough to teach me the word in Japanese for Dutch Treat (betsu betsu) since there was no way in hell he was paying for my meal.
I thought of this as I took a bite of one of the gyoza. As the slimey meat filled dough ball slid down my throat it got hung up in a wad of early winter phlegm that had been forming since about mid-October. My breathing stopped as well, but I didn’t panic. A few gulps of water would push it on through, I thought. But the water just sat on top of the gooey mess. Now I was drowning as well. For some reason I didn’t want to die in front of all the salary men and the nasty cook. I stood up and made my way towards the restroom. I started to cough and the water sprayed out of my mouth all over the back one of the salary men. This was good because at least I had their attention as something other than an exotic zoo animal or circus freak. Maybe one of them might realize that I was possibly going down for the third time here. I continued staggering towards the restroom hoping, praying that I could cough the rest of this shit up before I died. But as I passed the end of the bar my legs went jelly and I was down one knee. The last thing I saw was a pair of Ray Bans staring at me intently.