Interview with guy wearing sunglasses on the last train home

Primate trauma and the Tao of cool foreigners in Tokyo

Two of my oldest friends from The Dales came to visit me. One lives in Kobe, the other was visiting him, and then they collectively descended upon me in Tokyo. The visiting friend had a checklist of cliché demands: maid cafes in Akihabara, Harajuku, and, inexplicably, a fucking thing he’d seen on tv about a tavern in Utsunomiya where actual monkeys bring you your hot towels.

We went all the way to the Kayabukiya Tavern, two hours each way, just to experience it. Turned out to be a mistake. The monkeys wore Pampers. It was not hygienic. The worst part was when they performed a dance that literally aped a geisha routine. That triggered a profound, primate-induced existential dread, and by the time we boarded the final train back to Tokyo, my psyche was completely compromised. The day had been packed with oddness, and we were heavily booze-lubed to cope with the absurdity of the expatriate experience. Another taxi and then a shinkansen with “travellers” to drink up the passing mountainscapes as we head back home to the capital. During the journey, I mused aloud that the old couple running the monkey place treated those simians like their own children, and I wondered if they ever had kids. My friends seized on this sudden domestic sensitivity and ruthlessly extracted the truth: my wife and I were expecting a baby. By the time the train pulled into the dark forest of metropolitan lights, the existential crisis had become an indelible stain.

Finally we are on the last underground train back to my station and I see THIS GUY. The coolest guy in the world.

He was standing on the platform wearing sunglasses. Usually, this is the universal mating call of the insufferable prick. But not this guy.

He was Brad Pitt-level handsome. He actually had the jawline to pull it off. He wasn’t some hyper-inflated gigachad either; he was a real man. The kind of man I would, in my current state of fractured identity and cheap alcohol, happily give a blowjob to. A rare type, but not non-existent.

Over the wind and roar of the approaching subterranean train, I whisper-shouted into my friends’ ears: “Wow, look at THAT GUY. He’s SOOO COOOWL.”

I sounded like a concussed schoolgirl. My friends agreed he looked cool, but they assumed I was deploying my usual layer of sarcastic, academic irony. I was not. I had become genuinely besotted with this veck. We all board the train that just arrived, standing room only.

“I’m gonna go interview him. I gotta talk to him.” I slurshout, already it’s inevitable. The alcohol has carved a detour which completely cuts off traffic to the frontal cortex. My friends are confused, even though they’ve seen me drink cocktails out of my shoe whilst yelling at an entire room of party guests to be quiet so they can hear a guy I’ve lined up to play Auld Lang Syne on the piano, 45 minutes before midnight.

I abandoned my Yorkshire chaperones, stumbled across the carriage, and initiated what I can only describe as a hostile takeover of his personal space. This a transcript of that journalistic endeavour.

Prime: Excuse me. Sorry to blotherle you but... I couldn’t help notice, you’re really cool. How are you so cool?

The Sunglassed Man: (Smiling with genuine amusement, in a slight Spanish accent) I’m not that cool.

Prime: You are. You really are. My friends don’t get it, you see? They think you’re only a little bit cool, but I see it. You are immaculate. What do you do?

The Sunglassed Man: I’m a designer.

Prime: Of course you are. A fucking designer. That is so cool. I am just a boring teacher. How long have you lived here?

The Sunglassed Man: Five years.

Prime: And do you speak Japanese? I bet you speak it pera-pera.

The Sunglassed Man: Yes.

Prime: Wow. Sooo coool.

The Sunglassed Man: (A polite, utterly unbothered chuckle) Well I need it for my work. I design interiors, mostly. Retail spaces.

Prime: My god that’s cool. You are immune to the absurdity. I spent today watching a macaque in a diaper dance for a piece of fruit. Are we all just macaques to you?

The Sunglassed Man: (Adjusting his sunglasses slightly) It’s just a job, man.

Prime: Such a cool thing to say. (I note under my breath, loudly) Wait, where are you actually from? Your accent is... [hic] sophisticated.

The Sunglassed Man: I’m from Spain. Barcelona.

Prime: Barcelona! Ah, fuck. Barcelona. I went there once. With him. (Points aggressively at one of my bewildered Yorkshire friends clinging to the handrail behind me) We... we got a hotel there. We were throwing avocados around the room. I don’t know why. We didn’t speak enough Spanish to only buy one avocado. The manager screamed at us, furious. And we saw that big church, the melty one, the... the fucking... Sangria Familiar?

The Sunglassed Man: (Laughing openly now) Sagrada Família?

Prime: Yes! That’s the badger. The melty church. What else do you speak besides English and Spanish and Japanese... and Catalan??

The Sunglassed Man: (Laughing, genuinely friendly) Yeah, Catalan. And a little bit of French, I suppose.

Prime: A little bit of French, he supposes. A Polyglot. I’m a linguist and I can barely string a phonetic clause together right now. But serioussssly, how do you stay this cool? What is the secret? I need your help, man. Look at me. Tell me your muh...manscaping ritual.

The Sunglassed Man: (Still smiling, completely taking the drunken blabbering in his stride) Ritual? I don’t know, man. Drink water. A good moisturiser. I hit the gym two days a week. Nothing crazy.

Prime: “Nothing crazy.” “Hit the gym.” It’s so fucking simple yet so unattainable. I moisturise, you know. It’s not fair. Do you use a specific shampoo? You even smell good. Do not lie to me.

The Sunglassed Man: Papaya. And sandalwood, I think. (All this time the smile stays immaculate. He’s just amused despite what crossed the border into harassment the moment I became reflected in his shades)

Prime: I’m sorry. I just wish I could be more like you, that’s all. I’m so uncool. I’m just a loud, drunk, unhappy man on a train.

The Sunglassed Man: Listen, it’s ok.

He mercifully only had to put up with me for one stop. The doors opened. He turned around, unflappable, the gravity of the train seemingly bending around his jawline. He graciously handed me a piece of premium cardstock.

“Call me when you sober up,” he said, and stepped out into the night.

I woke up the next morning with a crushing hangover and this man’s business card sitting in my wallet. I asked my friends “who the fuck is this?”, and they reminded me of the interrogation.

I looked closer at the card. It featured a printed headshot of him.

He was wearing the sunglasses in the picture.

I thought about scrunching it up and throwing it in the bin. No fucker is that cool. What a dick. My friends were livid that I had no painkillers in the house. I looked again at the card, and he truly was undeniably the coolest guy I have ever had the privilege to meet¹.

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1. This all happened on April 7th 2012. I texted my friends to ask for help in reconstructing this legendary night specifically for the NOPE Bounty and one of them said “Of course we don’t remember that. We got bastard hammered that night.” but he did help track down the Kayabukiya Tavern which is sadly/thankfully now closed. My friend also said “I cannot agree with large parts of this. It’s VERY insulting. Obviously written by a VERY LOW IQ individual. I feel like we’re the gibbering macaques in that story.”