Last Train to Ofuna

  ‘Last train to Ofuna!’  I heard the message thundering over the loudspeaker and prayed it was the first announcement. The straps of my backpack bit into my shoulders and my calf muscles burned as I sprinted down the stairs and across the platform. But I was too late: the train doors slammed shut with a wheeze.  I stood there staring at the lucky people on the train. They stared back at me and I’d have sworn I saw arrogance in their eyes:  Tough luck, kid – we’re on the train and you aren’t! Next time you’ll just have to move faster!

The station employee, frowning importantly, stood rigidly at attention until the train clattered and screeched out of the station, leaving only echoes behind. Only when the train had vanished did he relax his posture. He passed a finger around the circumference of his collar and performed a little stretching, neck-cracking manoeuvre – and yawned. He looked like a man who knew that his work was over for the night – who could now go home to a couple of beers, a hot bath, and a cooked dinner. If he saw me there, dismay and dejection all over my face, he didn’t give the slightest sign.

    This couldn’t be happening to me! What was I going to do?  I didn’t really need to stick my hands in my pockets to know that all I had was a measly 500 yen – nowhere near enough for a taxi home. But I did this anyway, just in case a stray thousand-yen bill had escaped my earlier searches.

    It hadn’t.

   I did it again when I stopped the station employee and asked him if there were any other trains that went anywhere even remotely in the direction of Ofuna. I figured the body language might help him understand me when I told him that I didn’t have enough money to get back to my apartment. He had to see how important it was for me to get a train – or a ride – even just in the direction I was going. I didn’t mind walking, as long as it wouldn’t take me all night. I hoped to God it wouldn’t come to that.

A Night in Yokohama Suijo Police Station
   Obviously, I didn't set out to spend the night in a Japanese police station. When I got to Yokohama Station's Keihin Tohoku line and saw the doors of the last train closing, my first thought was that it just couldn't be happening. Surely there was some mistake; it couldn't really be that I had missed the very last train. But I had. I watched the train rattling and screeching off down the tracks and the shock and disappointment hit me like a fist in the stomach. I had been so certain I was going to make it, despite everything that had gone wrong.

   My flight from Seoul, where I had gone to pick up my long-awaited Japanese work visa, was delayed an hour because of a storm. Then it had taken ages for my luggage - including several bulky cushions I had bought on impulse - to arrive. Before boarding the train toYokohama, I had stopped to help a fellow American who was having trouble getting his reservation confirmed - very much the blind leading the blind, but compared to someone so fresh off the boat I was definitely the one-eyed king - and finally I had stupidly stopped at a kiosk for a bowl of noodles. I am notorious for cutting it pretty fine when it comes to time, but I usually manage to catch the plane, get on the train, make the date. This time, though, I was fresh out of luck.

   The station employee was anxious to get rid of me. He'd probably had a long hard day and was dreaming of his beer, his bath, and the hot dinner that was waiting for him at home. As he pulled down the metal shutters he kept indicating, by crossing his forearms in front of his chest, that I had missed the last train. 'Rasuto wan,' he said firmly and often, misinterpreting my look of chagrin as dull-witted incomprehension.

   I was well and truly screwed. I hadn't bothered to stop at the bank for more money because I reasoned I would have more than enough for the trip home. Which I would have, had I managed to catch that last train. In those days before 24-hour automatic tellers, if you were out of money outside of bank hours, you had to make do without it. The 600 yen I had on me was just about enough for two cups of coffee - not that any coffee shops were open at that hour. The next train wouldn't be until 6:00 in the morning, and my apartment in Konandai was far enough away that taking a taxi was not an option. I felt like sitting down and weeping, but instead I went to the police box at the station.