When Boys Became Giants: The Japanese Alps, May 2005
Japanese Alps, Japan: Outside the hotel – balmy night, light easterly wind, smattering of clouds….facing East…
The night is still and calm. Dawn is a few hours away and I am sneaking around the hotel with a forty-foot LAN cable, a stolen laptop, a six-pack of Japanese beer and a box of sushi. The night manager watches me curiously as I scurry backwards and forwards. My idea is a simple one: I will run a LAN cable out of my room window and take the laptop that I stole a few hours ago to the edge of the rice field where I can sit and listen to The Game in peace. Tonight, of all nights, I can’t promise to not shout and scream and keep the entire hotel awake.
I have just made myself comfortable, squatting down Asian style, when the night manager wanders over. He pauses for a second as if to asses my mood. You could, he tells me in slow, precise Japanese, watch the game on TV like a civilised person. I want to kiss him so happy this makes me. Between us we pull the TV from reception out onto the back veranda and I crack open a Kirin beer. Whilst the manager fiddles with the aerial, I lean on the veranda, watch fire-flies skim across the rice fields and wish that I was in Istanbul.
I am not mad about Liverpool Football Club, or the Reds, as they are known. I am not just a fan who follows his team around the world but rather they are they air I breathe, the blood pumping through my veins and the very beat of my heart. All my life I have followed them. Friends come and go, lovers break my heart and leave, I wander the globe aimlessly whilst my heart and soul rests at Anfield. After twenty, long and frustrating years in the wilderness we have finally made it to the European Cup Final and I should be there. I was within minutes of booking my ticket to Istanbul when my boss thrust a flight ticket into my hand and sent me spinning off to Japan. I shake my head wistfully, down a swallow of beer and sigh. I kiss my red shirt and turn my focus on the game which is about to start.
“So, who are we supporting? Red or White?” asks the manager.
“Red!” I tell him pointing to my shirt.
And then after just 52 seconds we are 1-0 down. I grind my teeth, swear in several languages and bite my lip. This was not in the script.
“Can we support the Whites?” asks the manager.
I consider going Clock-work Orange on him but fix him with a glacial stare instead. The next forty-two minutes are the worst of my life. Our fragile defence crumbles and we are soon 3-0 down. I try to hide my tears from the manager.
At half-time we split the sushi box between us and I pace, fret, grind my teeth and feel such anger, frustration and pain flood through me as I have ever known. The manager watches me with a degree of reservation. Cleary he is not used to seeing a gaijin in such mortal pain. He wants to reach out and offer me some solace but he doesn’t have the vocabulary to do this.
“Gomen nasai,” he offers philosophically, what can be done…
What can be done indeed? I open another Kirin Ichiban beer and the second half kicks off. Dawn is slowly seeping over the snow-covered Japanese Alps. There is more snow on the beautifully serrated peaks than yesterday and if I hadn’t already been crying, this exquisite view would have perhaps moved me to tears. Mist rolls, lazily, across the paddies and bull-frogs begin to croak. The first early-risers are shuffling around this quaint little hotel looking for breakfast and are clip-clopping around reception in their wooden shoes. Slowly, like moths drawn to a light, they are drawn towards the TV and one red-shirted ranting English man.
And then Gerrard unleashes a thunderbolt and the ball is in the back of the net. It’s 3-1. I explode. I jump up, I scream, spill beer over myself, kiss the manager and almost knock the TV set into the paddy field. My screams shatter the crystalline dawn.
More people are now drawn towards the TV. I am giving a running commentary in Japanese: Xabi to Garcia to Smicer….GOAL. Forty-five Japanese people go wild with me. 3-2. I punch the air, call my father on my cell phone and scream down the phone at him.
The breakfast service stops. The hotel’s focus shifts towards the TV. I am still screaming in Japanese and going wild when Gerrard is cruelly chopped down in the box.
Penalty!
I can’t watch.
I grip the arm of a stranger and pray whilst forty-five people suck in air and will Xabi to smack the ball into the back of the net.
He shoots.
The keeper saves.
Xabi pounces.
The ball flies into the back of the net.
The camera pans to the Red’s fans end and the fans are going berserk. I kiss the nearest person to me, thankfully female this time, and cry tears of joy. Across this small, sleepy town deep in the Japanese Alps the chant of “Xabi…Xabi…Xabi Alonso” rings loud and true. I imagine the sounds throbbing across the Alps, across the Pacific and floating down the Bosporus to Istanbul. Complete strangers are hugging each other, beers are being sprayed around and people are patting me on my back. It feels like that I put the ball in the back of the net myself. The manager lights another cigarette, passes me a beer and winks at me as if to say:
I too am Red, through and through.
The next thirty minutes shred my nerves. Tension ripples through the crowd like a trout swims through a pool. I feel alive, wired and every nerve jangles and chimes. I wasn’t even this nervous the day I stood in the delivery room and waited for my son to be born. Each touch of the ball by a Red provokes an “ole” from Japan and Istanbul. We all edge closer to the game. One of the waitresses, beautiful in her silk kimono, whispers in my ear that she thinks Xabi is dreamy, I agree with her and she giggles demurely. I notice that her lips are the exact same shade of red as my shirt. They look very kissable.
As the clock ticks down I feel myself radiate energy. I can’t stand still and people are gravitating towards me. Its moments like this, I realise, that new religions start. The crowd gathered on the veranda and I share a rare moment of cosmic significance. Souls mingle, dreams are shared and everyone belongs. I’ve catalysed this night this truly heart-stopping feeling of belonging and the dawn crackles with energy. I can only imagine how I would have felt if I had been in Istanbul now. Drugs, sex, love, chocolate cake � nothing comes close to this feeling and nothing ever will.
When the full time whistle comes its cathartic.
“What happens now?” asks a salary man who is clearly going to be late for work.
“Extra time.”
My clichéd commentary continues. The sun finally crests the mountains and elderly ladies, resplendent in conical hats, waddle into the rice paddies to inspect their crops. The veranda is now crowded and we all move closer to the TV. I can barely speak. Ninety minutes of screaming, jumping and ranting has left me hoarse and emotionally denuded. The clock ticks down, the tension increases. The dawn has a new complex smell now which I struggle to identify. I can smell…what? Fear? Adrenalin? Hope? All mixed with the loamy smells of a sleepy Japanese mountain town. My senses seem to tingle and I feel acutely aware of everything happening around me.
In the dying seconds Jerzy pulls off two incredible saves and my red shirt is soaking wet. For the first time in ages I don’t feel alone or afraid. I am wearing my red shirt with pride and passion. The final period of extra time is, however, limp and lifeless, the players like the spectators seem spent and emotionally damaged. Penalties seem inevitable. The final whistle blows and I crack open my last beer. I quickly explain the rules to the Japanese whilst the goalkeepers prepare. I turn my focus to the game and I feel Japan slide away. I am in Istanbul. I am there, heart beating, palms damp with fear. This is as close to the edge as I have ever been. I have to remind myself to breathe. I sublime myself down to one single conscious thought: We will win.
The Whites miss the first penalty.
The Reds smack the back of the net with the second kick.
The Whites miss.
I realise I am crouched with my head in my hands and my nose almost pressed to the screen.
The Reds miss. I burst into tears again.
The Whites score. I swear and the manager pats me on the back.
The Reds score, the Whites miss and I detonate. I scream, I froth, I scintillate. I vault off the veranda, rip off my shirt and run screaming into the morning. I dive, head first into the soggy rice paddy and toboggan through the rice with wild abandon. I am crying uncontrollably whilst kissing my shirt like it’s a long-lost lover. The Japanese on the veranda watch me shyly. My screams have shattered the illusion of unity and the magic has passed now. The Japanese rub their brows and stand blinking as if awaking from a Cinderella dream. People begin to drift off for breakfast or work.
Much later I help the manger shift the TV back into reception. We shake hands, older, wiser and happier after sharing such a night. I return to my room to shower and shave before work. Later as I check out the manager greats me warmly and hands me a bottle of expensive sake � for our friendship, he bows. In return I open my case and give him my precious red shirt, “just because…” I tell him. He bows deeply as I slide into my taxi. As we pull away I think: if only life was only made of days like this and sigh deeply.
