I have never been comfortable in groups or in any kind of collective action with others, so I didn’t become a member of any student groups, but I did support the movement in a general sort of way and tried to do what I could within my own private circle. As time passed, however, and internecine warfare between the student factions grew more and more violent and senseless—an apolitical student was murdered in the classroom we often used, for example—many of us became disenchanted. Something criminally wrong had wormed its way into the movement. The positive power of imagination had been lost. I felt this strongly. As a result, when the storm passed, all we were left with was the bitter taste of disappointment. Uplifting slogans and beautiful messages might stir the soul, but if they weren’t accompanied by moral power they amounted to no more than a litany of empty words. That was the lesson I took away from those events, a lesson that has only been confirmed by everything I have seen since. Words have power. Yet that power must be rooted in truth and justice. Words must never stand apart from those principles.
From that point on, I shifted my focus once again, this time to more private things—namely, the world of books, music, and movies. For a considerable time I worked at night in the Kabukicho area of downtown Tokyo, where I encountered a wide variety of people. I don’t know what Kabukicho is like these days, but back then it was a fascinating place, with sketchy characters of all kinds clustered on every corner. These were interesting and fun times, but things could also get intense and even a little dangerous. Whatever the case, though, I’m pretty sure I learned more about life in its many forms and grew appreciably wiser hanging around such a lively place with its motley—albeit rough and occasionally unsavory—crowd than I would have in a college classroom, or with a group of people much like myself. In short, I became streetwise. That gritty environment was a much better fit for me than university life would have been. I just couldn’t get into studying.
* * *
—
As I was already married and working, I had passed the point when a college degree would have been helpful. Nevertheless, since the Waseda University system at the time allowed credits to be purchased on a course-by-course basis, and I had accumulated almost enough to graduate, I managed to find time outside work to attend classes and finish within seven years of when I started. In my final year, I enrolled in a course on Racine taught by Professor Shinya Ando, but my spotty attendance meant I was bound to fail, so I went to his office. “With a wife and a full-time job, I have a hard time getting to class,” I explained, whereupon he came all the way out to my club in Kokubunji to see for himself. “Yeah, you’ve got it pretty rough,” he said, and gave me the credit I needed to graduate. I don’t know how things are today, but back then there were quite a few bighearted professors like that. Can’t remember much about his lectures, though （sorry!）。
For three years, I ran my jazz café in the basement of the building near Kokubunji Station’s south exit. We attracted enough customers to start paying back our debts, but then, quite suddenly, the owner ordered us out, saying that he wanted to make the building bigger. Resigning ourselves （he really screwed us over, but if I get into that there’ll be no end）， we looked around and found a place in Sendagaya in downtown Tokyo. It was brighter than our Kokubunji digs and big enough to install a grand piano for live performances, but that also meant that we had to borrow more money, so we couldn’t take it easy. （Not being able to “take it easy” seems to form the leitmotif of my life!）
It was thus that I spent my twenties laboring from morning to night to pay off debts. All I can remember of that decade, in fact, is how hard I worked. I imagine others have a lot more fun in their twenties, but I had neither the time nor the money to enjoy the “sweet days of youth.” Still, I read whenever I had the chance. Life might have been hectic and things might have been rough, but the joy I took in books and music never wavered. That, at least, was something no one could take from me.
As the end of my twenties approached, our Sendagaya jazz café was, at last, beginning to show signs of stability. True, we couldn’t sit back and relax—we still owed money, and our business had its ups and downs—but at least things seemed to be headed in a good direction.
I have no special talent for business, nor am I particularly friendly or social, which makes me ill suited to deal with customers. Yet I do have one redeeming feature—I work my butt off when I’m engaged in something I like. This, I think, is why our café did pretty well. Jazz was one of my great loves, after all, so I was basically quite happy with my work. One day, however, it hit me that I was pushing thirty. What I thought of as my youth was coming to a close. I remember how weird that feeling was. “So this is how it is,” I thought. “Time just slips away.”