29. Camp Chitose
Here is how it looks to Eddie from his seat in the back of an army truck after he and Ivan are picked up at the railway station: first, a town of pub bars; then over a river into some trees and stop at a road-block where driver and passengers are checked, the road-block's left & right guard rails are raised, the truck goes through, and Eddie sees open flatland filled with tall radio towers. The terrain is volcanic, lots of sandy soil with wild grass and low bushes, and, in the distance, white-capped mountains.
About a mile inside is Main Camp - a set of barracks and wood buildings for living and army functions, entered by another check gate.
"Tight security," Ivan explains. "You'll see why, at work."
In their barrack, Eddie is happy to see no double-beds. The beds are side by side and at foot of each is an Army combination lock box and between the head of each bed is stand-up clothing locker against wall.
"The Security Agency keeps their guys in good accommodations," Ivan comments.
They set out to report for duty, 10 minutes walking a dusty road toward a distant building. Approaching, Eddie notes it is surrounded by a wire fence impossible to climb over. They enter at guard gate. A guard examines their new ID, takes fingerprints, and after a minute passes them through.
Eddie thinks What will they use me for?
30. The Purpose and Operation of the Building
1952 is the peak of the Cold War. The USA has surrounded Russia & China with spy stations like Camp Chitose and staffed by the secretive Army Security Agency. The building is about 80 feet (c.25 meters) square, its outer walls concrete with flat roof, from which many radio antennas extend.
Going into the building, Eddie notes inside, on his right, a long room of open cubicles. Each cubicle has a stand-up apparatus with dials and switch controls, and before each one a soldier sits listening with earphones. On the desk to the soldier's right is a wide-spool tape-recorder activated by foot. The room is very bright from overheads.
On Eddie's left, off the corridor is a smaller room where several soldiers sit at a table each one listening to a tape and writing it down. Further into the building Eddie comes to what will be his office.
He will learn that the tall radio towers out in the fields are picking up messages on every wave frequency. The one's of interest are fighter pilots communicating with each other, military chatter, and of most interest, messages from the fighting front in the Korean War.
The soldiers in the long room with the bulky earphones are listening each to his assigned frequencies. These men have been trained to recognize messages of military value. Especially with fighter pilot messages, they are alerted by pilot code names that initialize a message - usually a Russian word like Vostok or Troika or Kremlin. They have schedules of the times the messages will be broadcast. And when a soldier starts to hear a message he has been assigned to, his foot hits the Go and starts the tape recorder.
The taped messages are brought to the room of the men who listen and write down every understandable word. Then the long-hand sheets go to the analysts who sift through, filtering out potentially valuable information. This will get transmitted to the central office in Washington DC, where top guys will make head or tail of it and policy decisions will be made based on the information. Sometimes the interpreted data goes directly to commanders in the field in Korea. Thus the need for speed and security. Here is where Eddie will come in.
31. Eddie, the Computing Machine Guru
Up till now,the big bottleneck in speeding the information flow was securely transmitting it to Washington. The early computing machines at Harvard started with Eniac in 1939. By 1952 the Army had purchased a model machine, informally called Maniac. Eddie had trained on a Maniac at the 42nd Street Recruiting Station and he is one of the few computing machine gurus - able to set up and troubleshoot, to insert programs, to put the info into the computer language and to transmit. He is also a record-breaking speedy touch typist, important because the Maniacs are hooked up to electronic typewriters and the typewriters use a Maniac's word processor program to put the freshly typed text on a screen and to allow the typist to edit by deletion and insertion of words or transfer of blocks of text.
At Camp Chitose, the Maniac has just arrived and now, shortly after, here is Eddie, its guru. First day on the job, he opens secret orders that inform his initial actions: to set up computer communication and start transmitting data - typing the material into the machine, converting it into computer language for transmission & security, and electronically transmitting to Washington.
At one week on the job Eddie receives orders informing him he is promoted to Sergeant. It means a 3rd stripe on his sleeves and salary raise to nearly $300 a month with overseas perks. In 1952, in Occupied Japan, for a 20 year old not yet college graduate it is big.
By 1 month he has got the operation running smoothly with 3 soldiers under him doing the scut work - as he calls the routine typing and the cleaning up. In addition, on his own, he has fitted out one electronic typewriter for his writing use.
Meanwhile Ivan works as senior analyst because of his prior experience and language skill, and he receives a promotion to corporal.
The building is operating 24 hours with soldiers on 8-hour shifts. Eddie and Ivan have 9 AM to 5 PM duty. Evenings and weekends they are out on pass in Chitose town.
32. Sin Town of North Japan
Eddie's first plan is to find a house off base so he may have Ryo. He is studying Japanese but finds it difficult.
Eddie and Ivan hitch into town and hop off at what is called Whore House Bridge over a river, which runs from the western mountains to the Pacific and separates farmer fields and sparsely populated north Chitose from the GI Sin Town. Crossing the bridge, they are greeted by several pimps- boy sans - as the older men are called.
One says,"Hey, Joe! Good pussy! Three buck - good fuck!"
"The guy's a poet; dontchya know it?" quips Ivan.
Eddie appreciates now, what a good bargain Ivan got at Camp Zama with the old mooses at a buck a fuck. He does not know exchange rates and asks how much it is in Jap currency.
"Official rate 360 yen to dollar," Ivan says, and Eddie exclaims "Three bucks, a thousand, eighty yen!" to which Ivan immediately adds "Yeah, Mr Mental Marvel, but these guys are getting up to one-thousand yen for our dollar on the black market."
Eddie asks how come the wide spread from official rate.
"The Jap man and woman on the street can't get US dollars any other way than the black market because the government don't allow. So these pimps and other smart guys sell their dollars to gangsters at the inflated rates and the gangsters get even more from rich Japs who need US dollars."
Eddie is learning economics in Occupied Japan.
The pimp takes them to a ground-floor-only wood building that looks like it would burn down in 2 minutes if you struck a match. He slides the entrance glass-frame aside and they enter on a long corridor - maybe 50 feet (c.16 meters) -, Eddie estimates, and, on each side, sliding shoji wood-frame doors - the shoji white paper inside wood frames - that can slide open to the small, tatami-floor cubicles from where various huffings & puffings and sqeals indicate action.
Ivan comments out of the side of mouth: "It's a Willow Run."
"Willow Run?"
"Yeah, Henry Ford's production-line car factory, a single shed covered a span of two-thirds by one-fourth of a mile(*).
(* 1 kilometer by a little les than a half kilometer) This is a production line too. but more human scale." He looks at Eddie quizzically and says, "I thought you are a college kid. Didn't you ever read Communitas by Paul and Percival Goodman?
Eddie does a blank face. He is learning human scale from being in Occupied Japan.
The pimp stops near the end of the corridor and says in slightly loud voice "Moshi-Moshi!" and the doors of cubicles on both sides slide aside and two very cosmeticized faces smile gold teeth at Ivan and Eddie. Ivan, always the quipster, says to Eddie "Apres vous, Pierre! You first. I don't like the look of the moose on the right - that leer about her mouth could be the brain siph(ylis). The moose on your left looks just off the farm - OK. If we're gonna get sex disease, might as well get it from a healthy lookin' moose, Buddy." He explains to the pimp that Eddie and he will both fuck the same girl. It looks to Eddie like the pimp does not like it but, nothing he can do so he tells each girl the good and the bad news, and the bad-news girl slides her door closed while the good-news girl gives more gold smile, and bows Eddie in.
It is a quick fuck - off with clothes, in and out, bang-bang, with the usual hubba hubba. Eddie is in a hurry anyway; he wants to investigate the town. So he doesn't keep Ivan waiting long.
As he comes out of the room, Ivan says, "Boy! The speed record for the short-time moose!" He goes in and is in and out in as short a time.
Back on the street, Ivan says "So now you know why Whore-House Bridge. And Willow Run."
The town seems to Eddie to be all pub bars. He asks Ivan "What goes on in the pubs?"
"Be a scientist, guy! See for yourself, and I'll come too."
Eddie chooses the next pub which has a neon Swanee River and pushes through its wild west swinging doors, Ivan after. Immediately he sees that every soldier in the joint is Negro. Ivan grabs his shoulder, speeding their exit.
"Segregated! One of the benefits of democrazy from the good ole U S of A." Ivan comments. "I better find you the right pub for us."
A block later they see a flashing light sign that reads Copacabana above its black felt padded doors. Ivan turns and goes in, Eddie after. Entering, Eddie sees two g-string only girls acting as door openers while a boy-san at a window tells the girls when a soldier is about to enter. The boy-san, a middle aged man in happi jacket, shows a full set of gold teeth. "Welcome, Joe! Here nice girl, good drink, stripper!" He clutches Ivan's sleeve and leads him to an inner booth where two girls, each facing across a table, make room for them. To Eddie, the girls look in their early 20's and are wearing low-cut gowns. Immediately, an older mama-san comes, carrying a baby with Caucasian features on a sling at her front. She is in a nice red gown and the baby sucks on a rubber pacifier.
Eddie is surprised to hear perfect English: "What will you two gentlemen like to drink?"
"Beers for us," says Ivan who is doing the drink ordering.
"And won't you like to treat the girls?"
Ivan thinks a moment. He knows whatever he orders, he and Eddie will be charged overpriced whiskey shots for the girls' colored water. So he says:
"Whatever the girls like," which gets giggles.
The mama-san signals a boy san and transmits the order. Ivan says, "Won't mama-san sit with us for a little and share a drink. She smiles, and Ivan - a good make-out man, gets up from his place and pulls a nearby chair over for her to sit at the head of the table.
A conversation ensues in which they find out the mama-san is owner of the pub and also the Only of a U.S. officer at the camp, who is father of the baby. Eddie notes she is a woman of quality because she avoids identifying the officer. An idea comes: "Ma'am, I am looking for a small house for my Only. May I ask if you know anyone who is offering one for rent?"
"Yes, I know one very well. I am. It is a nice, newly built house, just right for a soldier and his Only. You may see it any time. I like a person like you to be my renter."
Eddie thinks, Mission accomplished. They stay to watch the stripper and Eddie learns that any of the girls - except Mama-san - can be had for the short-time walk to an upstairs fuck room at 3000 yen, the equivalent of $10. Ivan, who knows everything, whispers in his ear,"If you want an upstairs short time, you ask the girl to dance and make your proposition on the dance floor and you go upstairs then and there. And if you see a girl dancing with a guy, you just go and ask Will you change partners and dance with me. It's a code phrase and all the GIs know it."
Ivan is more interested in Mama-san and is making an educated pass, coochi-cooing her baby. He discovers that Mama-san loves Hollywood movies and files it for later use.
Later, as they head back to camp, Ivan says, "That mama-babe is gonna be my dish of sukiyaki." But Eddie is only thinking of next Sunday when he has a date to meet Mama-san and see the shack-up shack, as he has already named the place he envisions for him and Ryo.
33. The Shack-Up Shack
Sunday morning, Eddie goes without Ivan to see the shack. But first to the Copacabana. It is not yet open so he rings outside buzzer. A few minutes and the door opens and there is Mama-san herself, in a business-woman brown suit with a wide-brimmed Paris-creation hat.
She says, "We'll get there by riksha."
Recalling the riksha with a Chinese coolie from the movies, Eddie wonders how long it will take. He follows Mama-san down the street to a telephone. She makes a call and minutes later a bicycle-driven ricksha turns the corner. Eddie notes its rear seats 2 and has cloth windows. The driver is a muscular guy in warm jacket for the very cold late April in the more north latitude. Mama-san gets in, indicates Eddie should sit beside her, gives a command and off they go - across the river and into the trees - Eddie thinks, recalling the Hemingway novel.
Over the bridge and 5 minutes into the farmland area, they come to a field where a wood house stands looking like it was hammered together yesterday. They get out and Mama-san has the riksha wait as she leads Eddie on a path through the field of just-cut grass and open sandy ground with small volcanic rocks.
The house does not have a porch, it is entered directly from the path through the usual sliding entrance of opaque glass panels and the front has one up-down sash window. He quickly estimates it to be about 20 feet (c.6.5 meters) wide in front and 30 feet (c.9.5 meters) to the back. Mama-san takes out a key, flips the lock and pulls the door sideways toward herself. They enter a small vestibule with cement floor. Eddie knows this is where you park your shoes. They step up to the shiny board floor and on his right he sees a front kitchen and to left in the rear, separated by a large, now open sliding doorway, an inner room. The kitchen has a sink basin and shiny metal counter but no running water by faucet as he's used to. Instead a pump is over the sink. Mama-san gives it some up-down action and water fills the basin. "Good for drinking too," she says.
In front center is a rectangular, walnut-color wood table with 2 chairs that, Eddie guesses, would only support slim people. A potbelly black stove with cooking grill on top and upward pipe through the ceiling is hands reach from the table. "It burns coal, wood, paper," says Mama-san. "It will keep your Sundays warm in our cold winters."
He follows her into the bedroom, which has a 4-poster and bed spring on 4 wood legs in the left corner The floor is tatami and Eddie recalls Miss Ali back in the Bronx always going on about how good tatami is to walk on with bare feet or sleep on because of the resiliency and natural grass smell, and safe because you could drop anything on it including your body and no damage.
In right corner off kitchen he inspects a hole-in-floor Jap squat toilet with a shower head on rubber hose from the ceiling. Ivan already told him what to expect in a Jap house where everyone uses a nearby public bath.
In the bedroom is a rectangular depression in the floor - about 3 by 5 feet (c.1 by 1.5 meter). Mama-san explains "It is kotatsu, especially useful in our cold winters. Go, sit on its ledge and let your legs dangle."
Eddie does so, dangling his feet for comfortable sitting.
"You fill the bottom with sand and, from October to March, you burn charcoal at the bottom and it warms your body and you can buy a table to fit over the top so you can sit on the ledge and eat or work in cold weather, even in summer especially at night, with good warmth and even cook small things and boil water for tea or coffee."
Eddie made up his mind as soon as he walked in. The rent is 5000 Yen (about $15) a month and he will need to buy furnishings and fuel. There is no refrigerator. (It wouldn't be needed October to March)There are electric outlets he will need for his electronic typing.
"I'll take it." He hands her five 1,000 yen bills and she hands him the key.
34. Ryo Installed
Next day, Eddie sends a telegram: "Have house; do travel. Send Reply", translated into Japanese with instruction to come to Chitose. And he wires 36 thousand yen, or about $100.
Then he receives a Western Union: "Kashikomarimashita. Getsuyobi ni, gogo go ji ni Chitose eki ni mairimasu. Danna! Okane, arigato gozaimasu".
Ivan translates: "Understood. Will arrive at Chitose Station, Monday 5 PM. Thank you, my master, for the money."
"What master?" Eddie asks.
"You, you fugger! You got a fuckin' slave". He leers. "And I mean fucking."
To continue reading, now, click 14.35 Shacking Up
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