Who was Saint Patrick? Nobody seems to care. All I see is green, and all I hear is cheers! Needless to say this isn't about some dead guy canonized by the church, nor is it about drinking, though that will take a roll in this episode. You see March 17th is not only a day to lose yourself in drink and swirls of green attire, it's also my mothers birthday, and today I was feeling a little glum, as both her and I are alone in a foreign country, feeling the weight of our lonely paths in this world.
I asked her what she was doing.
"Nothing. You?"
"Same. I want to go out, but I don't drink so..."
"Well you should go out anyways."
"Well alright then."
It's amazing what a word of encouragement can do. If you haven't discovered this yet just try it. But be careful, you take a morsel of responsibility for what people do with that little push... Not much, not even 1/3, but some part. This is what makes our words so powerful, and what should make us feel and use that power with the highest degree of care and attention. For words are cheap, they say, meaning that they are easy to bring into the world, unlike other actions such as building or destroying, which are more difficult, especially the former kind.
So, taking her advice I decided to look up some events on meetup.com and I found exactly what you'd expect on a day like this, an international Saint Patricks day meetup inside a bar, what else? And in Shibuya no less, the very heart of commotion in Tokyo where the famous crossing you've all seen in pictures and television. The busiest street crossing in all the world in fact, where sometimes as much as 2,500 people cross at one time. I can't really say why its this way, perhaps the marketing was just that good from the get go and it became the place for all foreigners to be and take selfies. There are a ton of things to eat and bars to slug through thats for sure.
Just like a good German I showed up early, only by three minutes to be fair, but early non the less, and by Shibuya standards I suppose it might as well have been 30 minutes because the bar was empty save a single janitor mopping the floors.
"I'm here for the meetup." I told him. He looked at me like I was the police with a warrant for his arrest. Shaking his head with wide eyes and shaking hands.
"Come back later." He replied. His eyes remaining bulged out of his head as he returned to his mopping. I would notice later that he was shaking the entire night, I could only conclude that he was either hypothermic or on some kind of drug. So I took a stroll around the block, passing by an endless array of bars and shops with people pooring in and out of them, avoiding each one with the same level of knowing disregard that I have for all such places in the world now that I no longer drink or even party to any discernible level. It's a strange thing to have been drawn to such "mean taverns", as Rumi called them, for so long, and now to be repelled by them instead.
Eventually I grew wary of the noise, hustle and bustle and returned to the Oak Bar, where the gathering was to be held. There was a foreigner outside of the bar now, accepting people in, charging them the fee to enter and also for an all you can drink wrist band. Which was 1000 yen and 1500 yen respectively. Since I was a first timer and since I sent a message on Instagram to them beforehand the 1000 yen fee was waived. When he tried selling me the all you can drink pass I told him I don't drink he looked at me sideways.
"Well, the soda's and even water are 600 yen, so you might as well get the pass." He said, and so I did. $10 for a night on the town was not a bad deal when unlimited soda was involved. I’d likely need the sugar and caffeine to stay up late and be social. Either one of them on their own is a powerful drug.
Entering the bar again it was now filled halfway with people, mostly men, with id say 20% of them being women, and only two of them anywhere near my age. Not that it mattered to me anyways, I hadn't come to get laid, I'd come for company. So, I dawned my rainbow poncho and sat at the far end of the bar, watching as the foreigners surrounded the two Japanese women, getting progressively drunker, and less respectful, though the ladies hardly seemed to mind. I got to thinking that they were actually very used to this sort of thing as Id seen them on the previous gathering photos. Events are not free to post on Meetup.com and there is a market for young women and men to show up to them and simply act the part of unaffiliated people hopping the bars. It’s not like Couchsurfing back in the good old days, which was free and the meetings filled with nearly broke adventures looking for connection. Those times have passed it would seem.
It wasn't long before a very handsome young Japanese man entered wearing a saint Patrick’s day shirt from Dublin Ireland, I waived him over to the open seat next to me and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that he spoke incredible clear and precise English. His name is Tatsuya, he's a freelance English Teacher here in Tokyo and spent several years abroad studying English. He frequents meetups such as this to keep up his skills and to find people who might join him and his students to converse in English. We spent about two hours there talking and getting to know each other before the scene around us wasn't worth the stay and we left, heading for another place which was much nicer.
We decided on a billiards spot some three floors up, where for the first time in almost five years I had some beer. Now before you lose your shit and start sending me invitations to get faded, as many of you seem to keep doing, know that it was a 0.0% beer. Though it was an interesting sensation to drink again, I did not enjoy it, as I still became drunk somehow, and felt sick afterwards. Perhaps it was only psychosomatic, or it was my body remembering the horrors I inflicted upon it via drugs and alcohol for nearly 11 years straight, and was reacting in kind. The body keeps the score after all, and the it remembers in real time when the opportunity arises, real or imagined.
We didn't play the classic America way in which the balls are set into a triangle whose tip faces the other side of the table where one shoots from, and the first ball you get in is your type, striped or solids. Instead we played the diamond version in which either person can shoot the next ball in order of its number so long as the other player misses their shot. So if they miss the 1 ball, you can hit it, and then if you make it you go to the number 2, if you miss they do number 2, and so on. This form of playing allows for any player to win, and in essence makes the number of balls you get in meaningless. Tatsuya got almost all of them in the first game, but sunk the last ball in before the one before it, meaning he lost. So we played again in the first style I explained and he still won, so I payed for the game and the drinks as a gift for his victory as well as for the good time we had together. He was my only friend in Tokyo after all.
We left the Billiards place and by that time it was approaching midnight when all the trains would stop running until 4:30 AM, so we exchanged contacts and he invited me to a gathering he would be holding soon. I happily agreed and we parted ways. It was a good night and I'm glad I decided to go out, even though I had to step back into the mean roadhouse of old. Drinking that 0% beer was a good reminder of why I stopped as well. I lost so much of myself because of it, gaining only the madhouse of experiences one simply cannot acquire sober. It's a funny thing to enjoy those memories, while at the same time recognizing the damage it caused both to me and those around me. That’s what life is all about though, you live and you learn through freewill decision. Either you accept the responsibility of your choices and grow enough to change, or reject them and fall ever deeper into the hell’s of the irresponsible. The choice is ours.