I Call Shotgun
I stayed in two places around Lake Biwa - two accommodations both attached to cafes - and yet they could not be more dissimilar.
In Otsu, only two stations from Kyoto, I stayed at a capsule hotel above the train station. The cafe it was next to was a very big, industrial-style space with exposed concrete walls and a large terrace. It was the type of place families spent Sunday afternoons enjoying long lunches and work colleagues met to have drinks on an early Thursday evening. The hotel itself was clean with all the amenities of a Japanese capsule hotel - private space, cheap laundry and free pyjamas.
In Hikone, I stayed at a small guesthouse above a neighbourhood cafe. In the already small town of Hikone, getting to the guesthouse from the train station consisted of a bus ride followed by a short walk. It was fifteen minutes to the nearest convenience store in an area that was otherwise pretty suburban. There were only eight beds available and, despite the cafe owners living in an adjoining house downstairs, there was a live-in guesthouse manager running a massage studio in one of the the three rooms of the upstairs guesthouse.
The cafe was the type of place that you’d only know about if you knew the owners - there was limited signage and the owners seemed unfused sitting on the verandah all day. The plywood walls were covered in knickknacks and memorabilia, with large tubs of pickled plums perched against them. There was also a small bathroom at the end of the cafe, the only one in the building. This meant that if I wanted to bathe in the afternoon I’d have to walk through a few tables of diners, towel in hand, to get to the bathroom. Despite the limited cafe attendance, each day I chose to wait and shower in the early evening when the cafe was closed.
On my second night in Hikone I was preparing to go to sleep. I took the stairs down to the dark, empty cafe dining room. I began brushing my teeth in front of the sink and mirror which sat next to a cafe table. A soft drizzle had started outside and fell quietly against the window as I peered around the empty room. A row of small, green succulents and cactuses in terracotta pots ran along the inside edge of the windowsill. There was a miniature sculpture of a bicycle made out of bent steel beside the plants. Next to that was a dot painting about the size of a piece of paper. A model aeroplane was placed on one of the stairs going up to the guesthouse, followed by a small Buddha statue, a disused film camera and an old black-on-white number plate. The face of a grand antique clock hanging on the wall behind the bar tick-tocked in time with my teeth brushing. It hung beside various paintings and a small drinks menu.
The sound of ticking from the old clock began to crescendo. The bell tolled. Then again. Then eight more times. Looking through the mirror, I glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. It was ten o’clock. The sound of the clock had drawn my attention to the wall it hung on - the grotesque Lucian Freud print beside it, the tree landscape hand-painted on canvas, the guns on the coat hook, the small drinks menu. Wait. What was that? The guns on the coat hook? I spat the remaining toothpaste out into the sink.
I turned around and walked close to the wall where I saw the firearms hanging. On a rusted coat hook a pistol was hanging from the trigger guard in front of a shotgun hanging off of the same hook. Surely these weren’t real. Japan had strict gun laws - stricter than Australia - police hardly ever carried them. You wouldn’t find firearms in a small guesthouse in the suburban part of a small town in a seldom visited area of Japan.
I inspected the weapons. The shotgun had “Made In China” written on a label stuck on it. I deduced that it must be a toy gun because they weren’t making real guns in China. But then again, what did I know about gun manufacturing? Come to think of it, guns were almost definitely made in China. But these guns looked quite plasticy. I decided they must be fake. I wanted to look a bit closer. I began very slowly lifting the pistol off of the coat hook. Despite deciding that I would only be touching these if I was certain they were fake, I still acted with care and earnestness. As I began lifting the pistol, the trigger became stuck on the coat hook and was slowly being depressed. Realising this, I swiftly readjusted the angle I was lifting the weapon from and got it off of the coat hook.
I made a mental note to point the gun to the ground the moment it was freely in my hands. That’s what they did in the movies. And I had it on good authority that that was also the safe thing to do. But then again, that was only with a real gun. And I wouldn’t be holding this gun if I thought it were a real gun. As thoughts continued swirling in my mind the weight of the pistol was being realised in my hand. It was hefty and heavy. The weight of the gun and the weight of the decision to take it off the hook became clearer when I read what was engraved on its side. “U.S. 9mm M9-BER520201.” “WARNING: READ MANUAL BEFORE USE. RETRACT SLIDE TO SEE IF LOADED. FIRES WITHOUT MAGAZINE.”
So it was a real gun. My heart began to palpitate more intensely, I was now well ahead of the tempo of the ticking clock. I carefully placed the gun back on the hook, as I had found it, washed out my face in the sink and headed back upstairs.
I got into bed as contradicting thoughts and logic loops began making their way in and out of my head. It was almost impossible to get a gun in Japan so it just seemed so unlikely that a civilian would have one, even as an ‘antique’. But even if a civilian did, it would be used for hunting and there was nowhere close by for such an activity. And if a civilian did had a gun for hunting, they wouldn’t use a pistol. And even if a civilian did use a pistol for hunting in an area where there was nothing to hunt, they wouldn’t leave the gun outside an unlocked case. And even if a civilian did store a pistol on a coat hook, a pistol which they used for hunting in an area where there was nothing to hunt, they wouldn’t leave it in a cafe under a guesthouse without any cameras around. And even if a civilian stored a pistol they used for hunting on a coat hook in an unmonitored cafe underneath a guesthouse in an area where there was nothing to hunt, they wouldn’t hang it next to the large sliding doors which were never locked and could be easily accessed at any time of night.
These were questions and thoughts that would go unanswered. I laid in bed, trying to get to sleep, as the rain grew stronger and poured down against the bedroom window.
