On balance, I came out of the battle with the Kyoto Prefecture police as the winner. But it was only on the surface that it looked that way. I was soon to be retaliated badly. All I got in the end out of this hassle with the police was the bankruptcy of Teramura-kensan. It was practically the work of the police. In that sense, I suffered a total defeat in my battle against Kyoto Prefecture Police. What was directly responsible for the bankruptcy was my deteriorated credit-worthiness. Right after I was released, the financial institutions decided to stop all transactions with us. It was a decision based on their observation that we, Miyazaki brothers although released now, would sooner or later be sentenced to prison term, considering the fact that all Kyoto Prefecture Police forces were mobilized to get us arrested. They decided that they couldn't afford to be associated with such a company. Anyway, they may have thought that, to play safe, they should take that opportunity to get rid of a kind of company that would confront the police
Then the police started to put pressure on the financial institutions as if to encourage them to do what they were doing to us. It could have been well predict that the disgraced Kyoto would make such a move. The police, well aware of all that dirty business that financial institutions are engaged in, do not have any trouble at all to get them to do anything they like. They will be so easily intimidated into doing anything, like scrapping the mutual trust they have developed with their customers over years. Big businesses, especially financial institutions or general contractors are built upon the self-love. They would even get rid of their own employees mercilessly to protect themselves. If it's an outsider they want to get rid of, they will nuzzle up to the police to dispose of him. That's all they mean by the word "trust" which is so often on their lips.
We intimidated some financial institutions too to counter the police. There was a guy at Kyoto's Shokochukin trust fund, working in the finance section. He was a graduate from Waseda's Law Department, a follower of Kakumaru (Revolutionary Marxist) sect. I remembered kicking him once or twice when I was a college student there. This one refused to finance us. So, wasting no time, I stormed into their office and intimidated him, "Such an obscure reason is hardly convincing. If you want to make light of my company, you've got to remember you won't be able to get away with it like you used to when you were a student. Give me the proper answer by tomorrow." But I got struck dumb to know that the Wasseda guy was transferred to some other branch on the very day. He disappeared from Kyoto. There were also quite a few construction companies that turned into informers, feeding the financial institutions false and slandering information, bandying it about that Miyazaki brothers would soon be arrested again, or they would have their drafts dishonored. I had been hated like a serpent for all the misdemeanors I did to keep my company above the water. I was too conspicuous in doing anything I did to be accepted as a fellow member of the community. So there were several factors at work in plummeting my credit-worthiness. I had to accept this as something I deserved as a result of years of dropping my bad name here and there.
But the fatal blow dealt on us was that yakuza had stopped financing us. But again, this wouldn't have been so surprising given the nature of yakuza. Yakuza is quick to detect any trouble brewing, and forestall it. They started to recollect debts right away; it was around this time that the endless tug of war with yakuza started. Meanwhile I was also running about raising money. I had no stone of financial institution left unturned as I met financing section people, intimidating, cajoling, or begging them, but to no avail. Seeing no possibility with those people, I went around visiting top management people such as branch managers of financial institution. I visited them just as they were about to arrive at their home at night, or as they were leaving home for work in the morning. Being long acquaintances of mine, they were mostly sympathetic. But intimidated by the police and concerned about the public image likely to be tarnished, they always had a second thought. This left me with no choice but to pin my hope on my relatives. I visited a relative up in Hokuriku region, running his own business. We helped him before when we were better off. So I thought there was some hope when I decided to visit him.
It was a train that took me to Hokuriku, not a car because I had sold the company's cars and mine for money needed to run the company. It was in the middle of October, well deep into the autumn. I still can't forget the hatred I saw on their faces that greeted me at their doorstep. They just gave themselves away, unable to hide their true feelings when I visited them at no advance notice. They looked as if they were looking down on a beggar.
I was shown into the living room. After being asked lengthily about my mother, I asked for a loan straight away. They were talking glibly and they went quite, heads down when the subject changed from ordinary to money matter. The wife pulled at the husband sleeve to indicate that they should excuse themselves from me for a while. They disappeared into the next room. After a little while, their conversation was overheard. It was apparent from the way they talked that they intended it to be overheard by me.
"What are you going to do? Such a lot of money he asked for ..." "Why not lend him some money? Or don't we have any such money? You know we owe a lot to Manabu-chan's family." "I understand. But it was so unexpected. We are not just ready." "I know but we are obliged to ..." "All right, if you insist, why not give him some little money now and ask him to leave?" "Well......"
It looked like that their argument would continue endlessly. I slowly got to my feet and left. Although disgusted by the way they talked and what they said as if to get rid of a beggar, I didn't get angered. Rather, I got angry irresistibly with myself being so foolish in pinning my hope on such people, and being so docile in withdrawing without even showing any semblance of resistance.
It was already after midnight with no train bound for Kyoto running. I didn't have enough money for hotel as I had been too optimistically expecting my relative to put me up at their place. I just wandered around that little town of Hokuriku in pitch-dark except for some little faint city lights. The night air in this northern area was so cold, penetrating through the thin cloth I was wearing for the autumn of my part of Japan to the south. But much colder than that damn night air was the fact that I was completely broke.
I ended up in a waiting room at a small station. As I was going to lay myself on a wooden bench there to snatch a sleep with nobody around. Far from having a sleep, I was freezing. The coldness was not only seeping through up my feet, down my neck. It strangled my entire body. I folded myself up, clutching my knees to myself, and kept shivering all through the night.
It wasn't just that it was so cold that I had hard time trying to put myself to sleep. It was the fact I couldn't deny to myself any more that there was nobody I could turn to that I could borrow money from. Huddled up in cold at a soulless and noiseless station in the north, I was overcome with the feeling that I was now nothing, with a lost identity as a human being. "Moneyless is headless" is what they say in the business or underground world of Kansai region. It is true that in this capitalistic society, especially, on its front where money changes hands so fast money is the power itself and the only means by which to express what you are as a human being. You can't be recognized unless you have money. The amount of money you possess is nearly proportional to the power you can use to express yourself as a human being. We are living in the world dictated by the logic of money in which human behavior is converted into commodity, which, in turn, is turned into money. With no money at your disposal, you are headless, faceless, no human being, just something discarded. To give you an example that may be more relevant to you, if your have no money in night club area of Ginza, you are no customer there. You will be treated as something having no personality.
This is actually just as true of the ordinary civic society. As soon as all the money is gone, you will be isolated from the society, and stop being regarded as one individual human being. What makes the business or underground world different from the civic society is that this capitalism logic is more explicitly and straightforwardly expressed in the business or underground world, Becoming hard pressed for money in this world is regarded as the complete annihilation of human base on which he or she stands rather than just as the managerial incompetence. I felt my human base was giving way at my feet as I was shivering on the bench at the station. But at the same time, I felt something at last in me telling me not to let anything like this get better of me. Staring up at the dimly lit ceiling, I was wondering to myself over and over again "Is there any way out of this?"
While I was running about from early morning till very late at night, yakuza was going after me, hounding and telling me to pay back any portion of debt or to offer them something as security. But, exhausted, I could only repeat to them "I wouldn't let my company go under," or "What? Security? You mean you can't trust me?" At that time, I was just running around and around, gasping as it were, hardly getting any sleep, and so exhausted that I never felt any sexual urge at all.
Sometimes I took it out on a detective who had been on my case. When I spotted him in town. I abused "You dirty bastard. I wouldn't let you walk free if anything happens to my company." But fighting against such a large organization was like a fly trying to bite a tortoise.
On October 25, three months after my arrest, Teramura-kensan, having its drafts dishonored, It was coincidence that it was also my 35th birthday. The total amount of debt was \2.5 billion, of which \2 billion was payable to financial institutions, and the remaining \500 million was payable to yakuza including those affiliated with Teramura-gumi. Hardly had it been known that we went bankrupt before we had our office flooded with yakuza and those from financial institutions. The office was an overturned anthill with angry roars and hisses flying about. So I had nothing I could do but to allow myself to be left to my fate, with the situation totally out of control.
"Hey, do as you please. Take anything with you. I will do as much as I can to compensate. If you still can't forgive me, I will take you on. I won't hide or escape." I said sitting on a sofa haughtily with my head thrown back. It wasn't that I meant to be spiteful or I was showing off. It's because I could see no prospect for the future with nothing I could do but to say that.
It was about 10 days before Teramura-kensan went bust that a pop singer Yamaguchi Momoe put an end to her show-biz career. The nation's media went frenzy about this by reporting her last show and her engagement to an actor Miura Tomokazu. It was also at the height of the "manzai boom" (or comical talk boom" with the TV screen enlivened and dominated by such comedians as Two-beat, Shimada Yohichi, Sento-Ruisu.
At one time, I was sitting with my legs outstretched on the sofa which was the only piece of furniture left in my office with all the desks and office equipment confiscated by the creditors, watching a TV show reporting the Momoe and Tomokazu's engagement when yakuza came storming in to press for the payment of debt. I still remember that yakuza guy roaring at me, pointing to the TV screen "You just ain't afford to watch stuff like this."
The process leading up to the bankruptcy was nerve wrecking. But more torturous than seeing my company going under was taking care of what the bankruptcy had left in its wake. That one year I spent running about like crazy to take care of its aftermath taught me a lot about the ins and outs of human nature.
The most bothersome left-over was the debt of \2.5 billion. Well, if I had been ale to address the problem, the company wouldn't have gone under since being unable to address problem was the reason why what had happened had happened. So all I could do was just beg, beg, and beg the creditors to wait much longer for me to pay the debts, or just run way without paying any debt. But as expected, in the world of business where money is its lifeline, no businessman was expected to be patient enough to wait for a failed company to pay the debts. This left me with the other alternative; that is, "run away without paying", to which I was more and more inclined. But running away without paying is not as easy at all. It was something that often put me on the line. The \20 billion we owed to the banks were to be taken care of by the company's land, buildings, facilities, and equipment, and my house and my brother's house taken out as the securities. But the remaining \500 million we owed to yakuza and other underground financiers would surely be much of a problem. It was a foregone conclusion that they would come pestering for their money back.
One day after we went bankrupt, I let my family and my brother escape from Kyoto. My brother went into hiding, too. Although he was as much a profligate as I was in the public eyes, he was a typical slow and good-natured oldest son, too gentle-minded for rough stuff. I thought I could manage better without him in dealing with yakuza, and without having any advance consultation between us as to the strategy. I urged my reluctant brother to escape to Hokuriku while sending my own family off to Tokyo.
As expected, yakuza turned out to be tough as ever to deal with. Yakuza from various groups came hounding me and roaring day in day out "Pay the money back." Some of them used to call me "Manabu-chan" on the first name basis. But once antagonized, they turn into completely different human beings. But such are the yakuza. The conversation I often had with yakuza went as follows:
" How are you gonna pay me back?"
"I've got no money"
" 'Got no money? Do you think that you can get away with it? Come on, man"
"I can't pay what I don't have. But I'm doing as much as I can. If you don't like it, then do as you please."
"Right, I will do as I please."
Such a back and forth argument continues, sometimes with me at a gun-point or at a knife-point, the knife being a Japanese sword. I got almost abducted several times.
I have been to a close call many times, but I've never felt they would kill me. Killing me wouldn't get them anywhere, I mean, any money. And I was running about for money. They knew that. Well you can't rule out such a case where I might be shot or stabbed on the spur of the moment when something went wrong in the course of the argument. But I was ready to accept that consequence as something that couldn't be avoided
But, we shouldn't forget that this world also abounds in kind people. Not all of them are wicked and merciless. There are some who are not anything but Buddha. As I said before, the people in the business or underground world are living a merciless cold-blooded life where everything is taken care of by money. But that doesn't mean they are merciless and cold-blooded. They are capable of mercy and sympathy with people hard pressed for money because they know from their own experience what it is like to be hard pressed for money. And they are chivalrous, too. And what set these people apart is the way they make their money talk. If their acquaintance is in need of money, they just get him some cash in the way that won't wound his pride, or hurt him, without any word of encouragement or advice. No word can help those hard pressed for money. Only cash given without a word can heel their wound. They know perfectly well that simple realism and money is more effective than anything in expressing the hearts and minds of people.
While being subjected to torturous hounding for money, I met a man not so closely associated with me who just tossed me wads of bills, saying "You'd do me the same if I were in the same trouble with money. I hope this will do you some good." Some, not many, felt obliged to me for the help I had offered to them before when they were in need of money. They said, "We take turn taking care of money trouble, don't we? You don't have to worry about the money you owe me." This manly spirit which understands the hardship others are going through moved me to tears. Just as they are tough in their business in which fighting money with money is the order of the day, so are they merciful. That is, their mercifulness cannot be compared to that of ordinary citizen. One such merciful man that comes to my mind first was Mr. Uchida I talked about before. Soon after we went bankrupt, it was found that my brother owed Mr. Uchida quite a lot of money. It's not something I could do anything about, but at the same time it's not something I could leave unaddressed. So as soon as I found this, I went to see Mr. Uchida to apologize for the long-overdue apology, and to ask him to defer the payment. But a mere thought of going to see him really depressed me. It's not so much because he had been imprisoned 13 times or something like that as because I knew he didn't like anybody trying to evade the duty to pay
"There should be mutual trust at stake between the creditor and debtor." Mr Uchida had himself subscribed vigorously to this outlook on life or the way one's life should be lived. So, he did everything possible, or even impossible to repay, and did it beautifully. He paid everything in cash. Twice a month, there piled up on his desk were wads of \10,000 bills worth \100 - 200 million to be paid to his subcontractors. When he paid, he thanked each of his subcontractors for the good job done for him, "How much do I owe you? 20 million? OK, Here you are. Keep up the good job next time, too" He was always like that with money so he really hated people who were not clean about money.
Indeed, he had no hesitation at all to wield a Japanese sword or a gun against people who went back on their word and didn't pay. He took it as an insult on his whole being as a human.
With such a man, I could only tell the truth honestly.
"At this moment, there is no way I could possibly pay you back. But, I'll pay you back, I promise, as soon as I can. You have my word. So please wait till then.
He had been listening to me without a word before he said smiling wryly
" I've got nothing to say to a man who has come here undauntedly to give me an excuse for his debt. You really are a strange guy. All right, I got it. You may take that money as my relief money." That was the last time he mentioned the money I owed him. It might have been that my excuse struck a chord with the principle of "being coherent", and "being trustworthy". But I think it was rather that nobody else had ever come to him to say things as I said to him to his face for fear that he might be offended. He must have found me rather interesting than offending. He also said "I think you've got some scrap metals stashed away. Do you want me to buy them?" I had hidden away some scrap metals supposed to have been confiscated by creditors so that I would sell them to repay the companies I owed a lot, and to rebuild my company. I was actually looking for somebody to sell them, but very carefully not to let trouble-making yakuza creditors notice their existence. So it was an offer I couldn't refuse. He bought my scrap metals at a price higher than the market price.
But what makes Mr. Uchida outstanding is what he did after this.
He got into trouble with one of my creditor yakuza one day when he admonished him for having cursed and abused me. He got a call from that yakuza telling him to come to the yakuza's office. Wearing training shirts and pants, he drove his Mercedes to the office on his own. He must have cleansed himself and gotten himself in pure white underwear as he usually did before confronting his enemy. They got right into a fierce argument. But he never stopped being on my side all through it. Then, he say in the end "Ok, from now on, it's something that must be settled between you and me. There is something you can do, and something you cannot do. If it's something you can do that you want to do, go right ahead. I'm ready." He never talks in a roundabout way. He called a spade a spade. He was, I was told, very straightforward at that time, too.
He always stayed on the side of the one he trusted no matter what other people say. He never failed to try to do what he said he would do. That was the way he did things. Nothing venal could account for what he did. It might have been a height of foolishness if you did today what he had done in his days. But, you've got to remember such human beings are still found somewhere who would dare to risk their own life for no personal gains. As they say, "Mercifulness comes across when wiping tears off on your sleeve", I was moved to tears by Mr. Uchida's or mercifulness or foolishness when his man told me the story. It's all the more moving because there seemed to be no way out for me at that time.
Anther person who helped me with money was the 4th chairman of Yaizukotetsu, Mr. Takayama Tokutaro. My brother owed him \50 million and had not repaid it. So, I went to see the chairman to apologize for the money my brother owed him.
"I cannot make any promise at the moment because it's too obvious that any promise I make would be a lie. But I ask for a little bit more of your patience until I am ready to repay you."
As I begged and explained to him what led up to the bankruptcy of my company and the financial difficulty I was going through, he said right away "All right, I got it. Forget about my money." Never has he mentioned that money ever since. With enemies all around me, I was overcome with such hospitality and could not contain my tears.
Years later, I met the chairman and apologized again. I bowed and said, "I must apologize for my brother's failure to repay." But he put out his hand to prevent me from bowing and said "Don't you remember you did apologized before?" Then the following exchange took place.
"At that time, I was totally at a loss as to what to do. So I said something that offended you. I must apologize."
"No, no. It's me that have to apologize."
"How do you mean?"
" I wasn't able to help you out when you went bust. I learned later that I had left you in pain. I also learned later that you gave your mother a good funeral service while fighting off debt collectors. I really feel guilty of not having been able to be of any help."
He did apologize rather than having me apologize to him. It may have been this quality of his that made him a successful mediator in the bloody battle between Yamaguch-gumi and Ichiwakai. I still feel obliged to Chairman Takayama for his compassion. I would like to note here that some other yakuza did not hound us for the payment of debts.
Another one who moved me to tears was Kobata Yuichi. I owed him some \40 million and hadn't been able to so anything about it. But he hadn't touch upon the money I owed him at all. Some days after my company went bankrupt, I paid him a visit and said to him "Mr. Kobata. I am terribly sorry for the trouble I caused you about money." But his reply went like this:
"Money? What money are you talking about? You owe me no money at all. I have never lent you any money. This bankruptcy thing you are going through may have made a crazy man of out you."
Some non-yakuza people also made me cry. Nakano, a classmate of mine, whom I referred to in passing in "Childhood" was one of them. When he moved to our school, he was bullied by his new schoolmates. I was the one who helped him out. As it turned out, he had never forgotten that he had to do something to return the favor I had done him. One day, he came to see me at my own house
Not to get caught entering the house, he climbed over the fence in the backyard. He did this because there often were yakuza creditors hanging around in front of the house. Nakano produced unclean \10,000 bills and said, "This is all I could make. It's a tiny bit of money. But I would be glad if it helped you." I said, "I don't understand." He replied, "Don't you remember that you helped me when we were primary school kids, or when I was bullied by yakuza when I formed a union?" Nakano was working as something like shop steward for a driving school's labor union. The money he offered me was what he could squeeze out of the small salary he was earning. "Thanks. I will never forget this." was all I could say as I squeezed the unclean yet clean \10,000 bills in my hand as tight as I could.
Struggling through the hardship about money when my company was about to go under and even after that was like I was thrown into a hell. But this also gave me a chance to experience the care and courage that human beings are capable of. The many human dramas about money I have seen tell me that those going through the pains of bankruptcy have some human depth to their persons they are. About 30% of those who go bankrupt can rebuild their businesses. And they usually come out as a businessman twice or more the big man they were before, capable of being merciful and merciless.
Where real economic activities are taking place, at least at the margins of the economy, things are quite different from those as in the world of foreign exchange market deals. The money and bills that change their hands there are evocative of the minds and life of those involved in the exchanges. That's why we come across both merciless and merciful people there. Bankruptcy is a life's most excruciatingly trying time with money problems, mercifulness and mercilessness coming down on you at a time like a torrential rain. It's where you cannot but learn instinctively the cruel and cold logic of money but at the same time the pain and toil people are going through. So it isn't surprising at all that those who have rebuilt their businesses come out as a human much bigger than they were before.
That doesn't, however, mean that there is something special about what I have been transformed into after going through the pain of bankruptcy. My case was a bit different in that the bankruptcy was a result of my unprofessional attitude toward the business as often found in the case of spoiled 2nd or 3rd generation owners of business. The bankruptcy only sort of woke me up to the harsh reality of the world of business and gave me a chance to reflect upon myself and correct myself to become just a normal owner of business I should have been in the first place. But still, it was true that it was a fierce battlefield, out of which I came a bigger man than I had been before.
To be the owner of a small business is to risk your life. Most of them are not tricky and cunning like me. They are going about their honest business as honest men. It's certainly not a sophisticated way of going about the business today. But they are rushing about, sort of blood all over, to protect the life of their employees and their families. Today's Japanese economy is built upon such unsophisticated and steady efforts these old men are making.
As a left-wing activist, I was struggling against the capitalist class in my school days. But once I got into the world of business myself, I realized only too well that it was so easy-going and optimistic of me. Our capitalists venture to put their life at stake while our leftists don't. Looking at this fact is all you need to do to know which will be the winner.
While I was running around to take care of what the bankruptcy left me with, I had to make money to support myself and my family in Tokyo. But hounded for the payment of debts, I was not able to land on a decent job, and even if I had found one, the money I could earn would be far from being enough. That left me no choice but to do something dangerous associated with underground money. It was a very hard thing to do but turned out to be a pretty rare and interesting experience.
What I did was to work for a "batta-ya" shop as a bodyguard. "Batta-ya" shops are special wholesalers that supply goods to supermarkets or discount shops. With all the prices collapsing in many sectors of the economy, they are not as conspicuous today as they used to be. But in those days, they were regarded as the hero of the age as the driving force of the trend toward the destruction of the existing price system. Still, it's a kind of job that underground people or the likes of them are engaged in. This means people in this business are usually tough and interesting, and they strike business deals on the principle that is totally straightforward and realistic. The world of batta-ya shops doesn't know the word of "credit" system on which the normal business transactions are conducted. If you have a commodity, you can take it in and have it cashed right on the spot. The deal is all struck on a once-for-all basis. This is a world where only commodities and money can be trusted.
What is brought in for money need not be traced back. Whether it's stolen or not doesn't make any difference as long as it can sell, and as long as it keeps police away. Indeed, most of the goods brought in to a batta-ya shop are those with stories behind them such as unsold goods bankrupt companies are left with or stolen goods. In other words, this is a world in which dangerous transactions are the order of the day as well as a tough world that attracts all sorts of rascals. It's a Japanese hard-boiled world if any.
The cash-on-delivery business practiced by the president Miyagi of Jonan Denki was featured the other day on TV. But compared to batta-ya shops, it's nothing in terms of the amount of money involved. It's a world where money changes its hand by hundreds of millions of yen.
But by far the largest batta-ya shops are those in Osaka. After all, Osaka is indisputably the birthplace and center of the batta-ya business, with most major ones concentrated in the Tenjinbashi area. Working as a bodyguard for one of the biggest batta-ya shop, I was flabbergasted by the potential power it displayed. They had all sorts of products ranging from office automation equipment to underwear, all fantastically well in stock .
One day when I was with the boss, a drab looking batta-ya man came in with a dozen of Louis Vuiton bags. By the look of him, it was apparent that this little miserable looking old man in his late 60's had been in the twilight zone of the society, having been unable to make decision whether to go underground or not, and still is unable to do so.
"Hey, long time, no see. What have you been up to? Well, come to think of it, you've been around such a long time, haven't you?" "Ya, we go back to prewar days." "So, it's Louis Vuiton, isn't it? If so, Mr. Miyazaki we've got here can take care of it. We are also dealing in Louis Vuiton. You wanna take a look?"
After this exchange of words, we, three, went to the storehouse. It was also the first time for me to visit the warehouse. There inside the quite spacious warehouse were countless Louis Vuitons stacked all the way up to the ceiling. The little old man was just looking up at them in rapture. Louis Vuitons were very much sought-after in those days in Japan, with dumb middle-aged women and young office girls going on a shopping spree everywhere in the world for this French-made bags, to the frowns of people at home and abroad. They were selling like hot cake in Japan, too. So, they were a super popular line of goods for batta-ya shops.
This popularity pushed up the price batta-ya shops paid for the bag. Their thumb of rule for determine the price is "half the listed price times 0.8 minus 20%", or 32% of the listed price. But I remember they were paying half the listed price for such sought-afters like Louis Vuiton. The old man was just looking at the pile of treasures, transfixed.
"You are not any more young than I am, old man. It's time you did something big like this. You've got all my support."
The boss who normally drove a hard bargain without showing any mercy showed his gentle side he rarely showed to give this little old man his moral support. "Yes, I'll try my best," said the little old man in an unusually loud voice, standing to attention. Since then, the number of bags he brought in increased each time. The harder this little old man worked, bringing in more bags, the fatter this batta-ya shop got. So goes the world of batta-ya shops.
The profits they make from running batta-ya business on a big scale are exorbitant. But this also increases the risk of causing troubles. I was hired as a bodyguard to deal with these troubles, troubles of many descriptions. One trouble I dealt with was with the commodities brought in from a bankrupt company in its confused aftermath. One yakuza creditor for the failed company stormed in to say, "We want the commodities back because they are under receivership." I rejected the request. "It's none of our business, is it? Even if it were true, it's your fault to allow the commodities to be brought out. They have been already sold off." But it wasn't as easy as it sounds to do such a thing in the world of business where money counted more than anything.
I worked as just another straightforward bodyguard a number of times. My successful handling of the trouble with the yakuza creditor at the first batta-ya-shop in Osaka's Tenjinbashi I worked for did a bit of advertisement for me and brought me quite a few jobs. For about a year or so after the bankruptcy, I often worked as a guardsman in Kansai and Kanto regions. It was the best way for me to make quick money.
Rascals and scoundrels swarm around batta-ya shops, trying to squeeze out whatever they could from the big coffers. Yakuza and coincident fakers were among them. But those of the worst kind were swindlers. What they do is to swindle goods out of a company or creditors first, then use them as bait or lure to make it off with cash from a batta-ya shop. It's an outright robbery that costs the perpetrator nothing.
One furniture specialist batta-ya shop run by my acquaintance in Kofu, I was told, fell prey to this fraud. He was robbed of \50,000 in cash at gunpoint when he was about to receive the goods in exchange for the cash he had just delivered to a swindler group. It was later found that the same swindler group had approached another three batta-ya shops at the same time and robbed them of cash the same way. One ofthose Kofu batta-ya, having learned the lesson, decided to hire me as a guardsman. They asked me "Looks like our next deal's gonna be a dangerous one. So I want you to come along to see us receive money all right."
The procedure agreed upon was as follows:
They approached the batta-ya to tell, "We want you to buy an whole waregouse of furniture we got from a bankrupt company. As we are going to take the furniture out at night, we will be able to deliver the goods to you at 3:30 in the morning. Can we meet in front of Kofu Station? " They were a swindler group in Tokyo. It was obvious that they were going to steel the goods from the warehouse under the cover of night to evade the watchful eyes of the creditors for the failed company. The swindlers wouldn't mind using guns. And chances of us getting into trouble with the creditors were not remote at all. But a batta-ya worthy of its name should not let these thoughts daunt him. The boss who hired me was excitedly saying, "Don't forget that our business is no more legitimate than theirs. So we only believe in stronger muscle."
The world of underground money is where the principle "high risk- high return" is carried to the extreme or, prevails in its most naked form. But that doesn't mean running high risk does not always result in high return as it is supposed to. Unlike a civic society where people are doubly guarded and protected by laws and social ethics, the world of underground money is where only the power of individuals or illegitimate organizations counts with a handful of the powerful enjoying the high returns. To become such a handful of the powerful, they are waging a fierce life-or-death struggle under the water against each other, mobilizing everything they could, including their undaunted spirits, resourcefulness, and muscle power, or often running the risk of losing their own life.
At 3:30 in the morning, we were waiting in a square near Kofu Station for the group from Tokyo to appear. Just in case, I had sent for two young strong ones from Kyoto experienced in the fight of violence. I had told them "Looks like we're gonna get into a fight. So keep this in mind." So when they arrived to join us, they were armed with some dangerous weapons they had obtained from somewhere I didn't know. I sort of reined them in, "Don't use such a thing unless really necessary." But the young were already ready for fighting.
They showed up a little later than they had said they would. A black Mercedes followed by 6 to 7 trucks covered with tents pulled up. Four men came out of the Mercedes. The boss was a chubby middle-aged man, his greasy evil face alighted on his huge chunk of body clothed in a gaudy checkered suit. The three men, all in their thirties, were staying close to the evil-face to guard him. I couldn't tell whether they carried weapons or not because they were all wearing a jacket. Something about told me that they were not yakuza, but the way they cast around their glances and the way they walked, they were apparently typical outlaws, lone wolfing evils roaming the underground world, perhaps. The three fixed their stern challenging eyes on me. They must have learned instantly that I was a guardman. I stared back at them. So were my two young ones, edging closer to them.
"Check what we've delivered right now. We don't wanna get into trouble with cops, do we?"
At the command of the evil-faced, we started checking the goods. Our boss, with a flashlight in his hand, checking the goods, looking very serious. It was ordinary furniture they brought over, but he was checking every piece carefully, to see how it felt, or sounded. Nobody but professional like him could have looked the way he did or done the things he did. What I saw in him was a professional batta-ya who believed only in tangibles.
While the boss was checking, the young from Teramura were watching the every move the bodyguard trio was making. The trio was watching us, too. Our young duo had their hand always on the belt around the waist, ready to pull out the weapon at the slightest sign of suspicious move. Of course, both were silent. The bodyguards from both sides, threatening each other with the eyes, were trailing along behind our boss and the evil-faced as they walked around the truck carrying the goods, and exchanged words about them. It would have been be a funny sight in retrospect. But because of something they were not used to carrying, I was more concerned about our guys than the people we were confronted with.
Fortunately, the trade was completed in some 30 minutes without any serious trouble. Licking incessantly his fat fingers, the greasy evil-faced carefully counted the \80 million wads of bills and had the goods unloaded from the truck and carried into the batta-ya's warehouse. The job was done, then.
I got paid \1 million for this job. That was the only kind of job there was for a fugitive-like man I was who lost his company.
Having talked about batta-ya, I should like to tell you about one swindler group I came to know. The swindlers were arrested for the violation of the trademark laws when they sold Korean-made fake Oshima kimono fabric as the genuine Amamioshima-made Oshima kimono-fabric. Their story is interesting in that it reveals the mentality of outlaws swarming around batta-ya and the snobbishness of consumers.
Oshima-shibori is a high-class brand kimono fabric ingenious to Amami-oshima Island. But some sold as genuine Oshima-shiori fabric are actually made in Korea, that even the professional kimono fabric dealer cannot tell from the genuine fabric. The Korean-made are just as good, the only difference being in price and trademark, one with the trademark, the other with no trademark. The Korean-made fetches only one-fifth the price that the Amami-oshima-made does but it does not carry the golden trademark found on the Amami-oshima fabric that reads God knows what. In other words, the Korean-made does not just carry something like the emblem bearing good luck charm our TV celebrity Mitokomon carries with him. It's nothing, but it's something people bow to. The swindler group took advantage of this snobbishness of the consumers. So they made a fake label and stamp, and pasted it on the Korean-made Oshima-shibori fabrics which they brought into a batta-ya.
How could batta-ya possibly distinguish something the professionals couldn't? Even if they could, all they could do is to pretend that it's genuine and sell it off. Selling something purchased one-fifth the listed price at 60% of it was criminally lucrative. Driving a Mercedes, hanging around high-class nightclubs, the swindlers were having an extravagant life like many others would do in the same situation.
"How stupid of the customers! How could they possibly be happy paying 5 times what they should? After all, people interested in buying Oshima-shibori are wealthy in the first place. So it feels really good to rip them off." That's how they were bragging about what they were doing when they were having their heydays. But, eventually their fraud was brought to light as a man called Yoshioka who had forged the label and stamp was arrested for violation of trademark law. As with most small time criminals, they had only themselves to blame for allowing themselves to be led to believe that they could get away anywhere with whatever they were doing without being so cautious, and having bragged about too much about it everywhere.
Their arrest put on hold their selling fake Oshima-shibori. But getting arrested or being forced to abort a plot is not enough to put off underground people. Yoshioka, who was arrested, was looking only too happy and joyful to receive quite a lot of send-off money before he was sent to prison. And those who could escape arrest were already getting up to the next fraud, as if they had completely forgotten about the Oshima-shibori. I still recall one conversation I had with them which went as follows:
"This time we are thinking of batta-ya version of revenue stamps."
"Revenue stamps? Government has monopoly on them. How do you mean?"
"That's right. So, what we are trying to do is to enjoy part of what the government is enjoying. Why should we let them enjoy the whole sweet pie? I had already found one hell of a skillful printing press, I mean, paid him to do the job. I bet this will work. Unlike Oshima-shibori which you can live without, batta-ya will surely grab at revenue stamps."
To put it simply, what they were trying to do was to make contraband money. I'm not sure whether these guys actually got on with the scheme or not. But it's an undeniable fact that revenue stamps can actually be bought from some batta-ya shops in Osaka.
The Osaka underground is a world of anarchy where "anything goes." It's what is called "a naked" city where you have only guts, talent, and luck to go by. The toughness, cunningness, and humorousness of those struggling for survival could not find any match in the Tokyo underground world at its best, or I should say, at its worst. For example, there was this yakuza man I knew. When he was serving his prison term for his involvement in an inter-yakuza gang battle, his organization broke up. When he was released, I paid all the money he had for a \500 million dishonored draft from a paper-ya. A paper-ya is a kind of business you couldn't expect to find anywhere else but in Osaka. It is capable of getting you anything you name, anything to do with paper, including drafts, stamp registration certificates, and even purchase certificates issued by such major trading houses as Marubeni. I had no idea where they get such papers from, but they do get you whatever you ask for. In this naked city, you could turn even dishonored drafts not worth a penny into real money. Indeed, that's exactly what the man fresh out of jail was trying to do.
The man made a thorough investigation to search for the issuer and the underwriter of the draft. Some were unaccounted for, but he was undauntedly in hot pursuit. I would refrain from giving the readers the full detailed account of this pursuit, but mediocre detective stories or mysteries here and there these days would pale before this real drama with its suspense and the insight it gives you into the human nature. His pursuit ended successfully as he could get hundreds of millions of yen recovered. This prompts me to mention one old woman, or obachan as we call an amiable good old woman in Osaka. This obachan, from the way she carried herself, did not look like a greedy moneylender she actually was. She looked ever so graceful. She looked like just another upper class lady satisfied with everything she had. But she turned into a different person when she was to collect debts. She would storm into a debtor in person, and wreak a havoc, tightening a screw on him until he gave in, kicking him around, cracking him on the head with an ash tray, So she was regularly put into jail. And when she got released she would turn back into her grace self, bending slightly forward ever so gracefully to greet the people passing her by with "Lovely weather, isn't it?"
In the Osaka underground world, even busted drafts could get resurrected, or an upper class old woman who seems to be enjoying her secluded life could all of a sudden turn into a devil. It's indeed the world in which "anything goes." And lurking in the dark of the city are those cunning and evil betting their life on this "anything goes".
Those swarming around batta-ya are relatively small time devils, but they are struggling to survive as if they are wriggling themselves over and over in mud. They are certainly not as sophisticated as their Tokyo counterparts. But there is something very graceful or manly about them, free from any pretence and reasoning. Getting to know the people in the world of batta-ya was surely an interesting experience I had from where I stood as a bodyguard, a bit of strange existence.
"If you go bankrupt, spend one year at Lake Biwa just sitting on the shore as an angler." This is what they have been saying from generation to generation among Ohmi merchants often referred to as "Jews in Japan". What this means is not to rush about trying to raise funds or rebuild the failed company out of sense of duty and responsibility to your employees and creditors, or out of pride in yourself and your concern about how the other people will see you when your company has gone bankrupt. The more you struggle, the more you get bogged down. Just don't do anything. Cast off your pride or self-respect. Abusive words may be hurled at you. You may be called inhuman, devil, or whatever, or be kicked or bumped around. Just persevere and acquiesce by being an angler sitting on the shore of Lake Biwa. That's the shortest way to make a comeback.
Making money is after all the evil and beastly business you cannot embellish with half-baked social ethics. Nor is it a sweet rosy world where the wounded, bruised and deprived can easily come back. The proverb seems to be teaching this truth. In retrospect, I find it so true.
With your company bankrupt, you invariably tend to struggle and anguish. But what so often happens is that you are dragging yourself deeper into trouble, to end up with a secondary bankruptcy. Out of duty and responsibility to your acquaintances and friends you owe money, you tend to reach for money of worse nature. With your productive life ground to a halt, the money borrowed, if it can be borrowed, will only get you into more serious trouble. The Ohimi merchant's proverb aptly says this all.
But I was too disturbed by the bankruptcy to see this truth to listen one Ohmi businessman who kindly gave me this advice. I talked back abusively, "Come on, man, what the hell are you talking about? You want me to be just fooling around? What about my employees' life? What about all the debts? You better go fishing. Not me for Christ sake."
Not giving a damn about the proverb or anything, I just went on rushing about for money, or trying to rebuild the company. The more I rushed about, the deeper I got bogged down into the abyss, until I had no way out left. I still believed something would give if I kept rushing about. And something had to give because I thought I wouldn't feel better until I outwitted the police. How far could a human being get self-conceited?
While I was working as a bodyguard, I was running about as never before raising money to repay the debts. Visiting my old clients, acquaintances, friends or even some construction related companies to which I was a complete stranger, I asked for a loan, or work. But it was all to my disappointment. They all knew that the bankruptcy had something to do with the police. One dishonored draft, only one draft felt just as heavy as the earth.
Some work associates who had been embarrassingly endearing themselves to me turned haughty overnight. And quite a few showed implicitly their "It-serves you- right" attitude as if to say " That's what you deserve for all the wrongdoings." I was tempted several times to beat to death the one I was imploring, the one I finally caught outside the house or company, who pretended he was not where he was when I tried to get hold of him. Aware as I had been of the way the life actually is, I got constantly dumbfounded each time it turned out the way I had known it was, just one dishonored draft making such a different person overnight.
This was true of the way my relatives approached me, or rather, they don't approach me. Most relatives of mine stopped visiting me since the company went bankrupt. When I visited them, they often pretended that they were out. But I ran about visiting more relations and acquaintances for loans than before the bankruptcy. But after all why should there be anybody who would be so foolishly hospital as to lend somebody riddled with a debt of \2.5 billion? I was just shuttling in vain. The things, far from going in my favor, were as just described, I mean, getting increasingly worse. With yakuza becoming intensified in hounding me for money back, my mother got sometimes hounded. One Kyoto yakuza urged my mother to tell me to pay the money back.
But my mother retorted, "Why not kill me rather than grumbling on and on like you are doing. If you have gut enough to do that, I would get Manabu to pay you back. Where do you think you are now? Get lost."
It was so much like my mother. And it was exactly the same way she used to turn away yakuza I got into trouble with.
Speaking of my mother, I remember she once invited me to sukiyaki dinner one day when I was having hard time being chased around by debt collectors. When I visited her at my old house, my mother and sister were expecting me, with everything ready, the highest quality "shimohuri" beef and vegetables piled up mountain-high on the table. It was their way of comforting me, knowing that my life was bleak without such warm home cooking or expensive dishes. Some minutes into the sukiyaki dinner, my mother excused herself to answer a phone call. Seizing this opportunity, my sister whispered to me.
"You've got to thank your mother. She pawned her tortoiseshell glasses to buy this beef."
She added that she was selling off her kimonos and jewelry she had bought over the years to pay the debts to our old subcontractors without telling me.
I was overcome. When I told my mother and sister that the company had bankrupt, they only said, " see," and were never to mention it any more. Little did I know that my mother was selling off her private belongings or pawning them.
I was uncontrollably moved to tears to know the care they had about me not to trouble me any further by nagging or complaining about the bankruptcy. Much as I had been known as "a kid who never cries" in my childhood, I did cry. The entire landscape got clouded as if shrouded with misty vapor coming off from the cooking sukiyaki.
It was in Autumn in 1981, one year after the bankruptcy that I got a phone call from my wife I had sent to Tokyo. She wanted me to see my eldest son on a TV program the next day. My son had started school in the spring that year. The primary school he went to, called Myogadani Primary School in Tokyo, was designated as a "model school" in Tokyo. All annual events like entrance ceremony or athletic meeting are telecast nationwide every year. What she was saying was that our son might appear on the TV screen because a TV crew would be coming to school the next day, and wanted me to see how he had grown up. First, with all debts collectors after me, I thought I couldn't afford to watch small school kids running and jumping about. But, out of irresistible love for my son I hadn't seen for a year, I decided to turn on the TV.
The athletic meeting was telecast on the afternoon news as my wife told me. There I saw on the TV screen the school kids lined up in the schoolyard, all in sports wear. I looked closely at the screen to search for my son. Then I found one little boy hopping up and down and waving his hands at the TV camera among all the lined-up kids. Then the Camera zoomed in to show his face close up. It was my son.
The same afternoon, I had a lengthy meeting at some hotel lobby with a yakuza creditor about the way the debt should be paid. But as usual, it turned out to be a futile exchange of words in a highly charged atmosphere with me telling them as if to justify what I was doing "I am doing everything I can to repay you. If you don't like the efforts I am making, there's nothing more I could do. So do as you please."
When I saw the yakuza bunch disappear out of the hotel, I phone up my family in Tokyo. It was my son who answered the call. He said in a cheerful voice "Did you see me on TV?" I said, "Ya, I did." Then I asked " But why were you behaving so stupid" "But, I can't be with you, dad." He went silent for a while, then continued "You couldn't have found me if I hadn't done what I did. Because I knew you were watching, I was trying to set myself apart so that you could easily find me"
I didn't know how I should express the way I felt when hearing my son say this. I was overcome, feeling as if all the air was discharging from my body. The gaudy color of the world of money and business turned monotone all of a sudden. At the same time, I felt ashamed and said to myself "What am I doing now making my son suffer like this?"
Yes, putting myself at odds with police or yakuza, or trying to rebuild my company, I had lived my life the way I thought I should uncompromisingly as a man, or minority. But the result was my son suffering unnecessarily, the last person I should be uncompromising with. There was no excuse for me. Then I felt how foolish of me it was trying so hard to look like a man I would like to be, that is, trying to be brave and manly, ready to take on whatever gets in my way whether it's the police or yakuza.
"I'm gonna pack up and leave Kyoto. It's a good opportunity to join my family in Tokyo, where I should start all over again. I don't care what others would say. It won't make much of a difference to my already bad reputation." That's was the decision I made after long sitting on the hotel sofa, asking myself a lot of questions as to what to do.
The next day saw me setting out to make preparations for leaving Kyoto. I took an appropriate measure to keep my mother and sister away from those debt collectors. I sold off bulldozers and all the scrap metal I had stashed away for rebuilding the company. Everything including clothes and shoes. Taking advantage of my weak position, they all beat down the prices. But still, I could make several hundred million yen, which I paid to my ex-employees with many mouths to feed, and to Kyoto Gion's night clubs I was indebted to. That left me with only a few 10,000 yen notes in my pocket.
It was with that money and one Boston bag that I went up to Tokyo. It was my second trip to Tokyo with the intention to settle down there, the first time being when I went to study at Waseda University as an aspiring youth full of hopes and dreams, feeling for real as I did that I was just about to storm right into the new world. I was only a 19-year-old kid, but with cash worth today's \5 million. 16 years later, my second one was practically no different from runaway from home, with no hopes and expectations whatsoever. The only thing I felt for real was that I was sequestered from the world. I was broke after I had paid for the Shinkansen and some little presents for my family. I had only a little more than \20,000 left in my wallet when I arrived in Tokyo. Yes, I returned to Tokyo with a scant of money that couldn't even buy you a drink. It was in January 1982, the coldest time of the year.
I was amazed to see Tokyo for the first time in many years. It had completely changed. It was the time when such new words came into being as "burriko" (= a girl who pretends to be innocent), "crystal-zoku", "oishi-seikatsu" (= life with tasty foods), "lun-lun kibun" (= seventh heaven mood ) and "keihaku-tansho" (=light and small). Everything was superficial, and fakish. Used to being unexciting life in the Kansai underground world, I felt as if I was thrown into an orgy party.
As I recall those days, in mid-1970's when I left Tokyo for Kyoto to inherit my family business, the people in Tokyo looked still unsure. But now, they look full of confidence as they pass me by on the street, and seem to be pursuing their own goal and pleasure openly, impeded by nothing. It was around that time a book entitled "Japan as No.1" authored by Harvard professor E. Vogel became the best-seller. Getting in touch with Tokyo intellectuals for the first time in many years, Many of them had read the book, and believed seriously that Europe had already fallen down and America was showing every sign of its downfall with Japan set to take over America as No.1. Originating from those working for big businesses, super-power mentality was beginning to prevail over the entire nation. They were all too dazzling to look at for a person like me who had run away from home.
That was the Tokyo I came back into in January, 1982. From Tokyo Station, I went straight to Shinjuku, to see Mannen Toichi and ask him to find me a job. With a little more than \20,000 in my wallet, I had to start working right on the day I arrived in Tokyo. This seeking help from Mannen was to be my first step into the Tokyo underground world, which I will talk about later. But, I would like to give a profile of this outlaw of outlaws, Mannen Toichi before I talk about it
Mannenn Toichi is, in a sense a historical figure that has shaped the post-war 50 years. We cannot talk about the history of the underground world of the Tokyo that was thrown into the chaos of the most extreme kind in the wake of the war without talking about him. He was the most extraordinary man ever. Of all many strong characters, good or bad I have ever met during the past 50 yeas, Mannen is second to none.
The post-war amusement quarters were a hot bed for many gangs of delinquents. Youngsters who took straight home with them the battlefield mentality were rampant around amusement quarters. Mannen was revered as "God of delinquents" by those gangs of delinquents. He was not, however, a delinquent through and through. Coming of a good family, he was an intellectual man who graduated from two universities, Meiji and Shibaura Technical Institute. "I was only a boxing major at the two colleges" he used to say jokingly. But I sometimes saw some traces of past his pursuit. What got him into the world of delinquents was his incurable belligerence he was born with. Born in 1912, he got involved with a group of delinquents as juvenile, and distinguished himself as he went on picking fight almost everyday. According to a person who knows the young Mannnen, he was such a daring and formidable fighter that nobody stood a chance against him in Tokyo, having beaten all the major delinquents there. He was reigning supreme in early Showa period. His gallantry was known all across Tokyo that he was idolized by delinquent boys in those days.
No other word could describe his belligerency in his teens and twenties better than the word "impulsive". Living somewhere along a railway track, Toyoko-line or Keio-line, he used to walk along the railway track to go to Shinjuku. The reason for doing that was that he would pick someone to pick a fight on as he walked on. If a rascal he ran into stared back at him, a fight would start. Mannen himself said to me that it wasn't rare that he picked as many as 10 to pick a fight on from his house to Shinjuku. He looked like a juvenile delinquent when he reminisced the violence in his youth. Thus, he distinguished himself in his twenties in the delinquent world, and was rampant in Shinjiku which he had taken as his own territory. "There was no yakuza boss in Shinjuku who has never been bullied by Mannen." That's what they used to say to describe how violent and wild he was through and through. On becoming a bodyguard for the No.1 yakuza don in Kanto region, the fourth president of Koganai family, Hiramatsu Kenzaburo, he, with a Japanese sword, lopped off an arm of the boss of an emerging yakuza syndicate known as "Bomb Match" thus establishing his firm reputation in the world of outlaws.
What is so intriguing about Mannnen is that he didn't end up as yakuza despite the President Hiramatsu's strong urge to become one. He hated yakuza. He used to say to me, "Yakuzas are dirty. Fighting is for settling the matter once for all, then and there. There shouldn't be any prolonged grudge or any mutual hatred that may be settled with a gun or a sword. It only reveals how weak a human being he is." But it was quite an irony that such a man as Mannnen was had to work as a bodyguard for yakuza to eke out his living. He identified himself as right-wing or nationalist. Not only did he so identify himself, he assaulted the Shakai-taishuto (Socialst People's Party) chief, Abe Isoo, thus breakig up the party. He started a right wing organization called "Dai-Nippon Isseikai" and was working as a right-wing activist in the post-war area. The Shinjuku, in the tumultuous years in the wake of the war, was a Mannen kingdom, as it were. He was rampaging at his wildest using the Shinjiku as his base. He was such an ultra extremist that he shot Ozu, the head of Ozu-gumi that was controlling the black markets in Shinjuku, or in the Shinbashi Riot, he attempted to use heavy machine guns she had stolen from U.S. military arsenal. And quite a few adored and respected him, some becoming big timers in the underground or show business world, one well known example being Ando Noboru, a former don of Ando-gumi. But the image we usually have of a delinquent is not enough at all to describe the person Mannen was. He was a man of principal and integrity, capable of logical thinking and discretion. In my words, he was a genuine outlaw who had never lost his heart of juvenile delinquent in his life, who had never bullied the weak, always standing up to the powerful, never to be flinched. He had never used the honorific when referring to Taoka Kazuo, the third don of the celebrated Yamaguchi-gumi.
Mannen was also a very refined man with unadulterated mindset associated with a modern city. Outlaws like him couldn't have been found anywhere else than in Tokyo. The way he dressed, he was dandy. He was gorgeous looking like out of a cinema screen. Actually, he was much more than those actors on the screen playing the role of somebody they are not. There is always something unnatural or odd about those actors the way they are dressed. He dressed rough as came so natural to him. There was also elegance and nobleness in the way he carried himself. Being close to him, I could well imagine how he charmed and inspired ruffians in those days. My first encounter with Mannen was mediated by a man affiliated with a right wing organization called Daito-juku when I was working for "Shukan Gendai" weekly journal. He was in his mid-60's. He was looking young and radiating potent energy from his overwhelmingly well-built sturdy frame. Standing 178cm and weighing 85kg as I was at that time, I felt and looked dwarfed before him. His big torso, log-like arms were showing through his jacket. But he had no flabby bulging beer pot-like belly at all, making him look so sharp and smart.
And he was good looking too, with something that subtly expressed his inner cultivated beauty in his somewhat vulgar modern looking face. His big eyes were striking. And these eyes were looking at me. I still remember that his eyes reminded me of Al Capone.
The one from the right wing organization who first took me to Mannen told him, "Mr. Miyazaki is a left wing." He replied with a wry smile, "Left, are you?" From that time on, he had treated me as an undisputed leftist although that wasn't exactly the way I wanted to be treated. Whenever he presented me to yakuza or right wing people, he would go out of his way to say "This is Miyazaki, a leftist." Perhaps, he was saying to those right wing "You should get your act together as a right wing." Nannnen never was a narrow-minded right winger at all. But he really disturbed me whenever he presented me to somebody else. Perhaps, he still had an old image of a left wing as being altruistic and stubbornly serious. It might have been a case of "a kind of man you like happens to be your enemy."
I didn't know why but he grew fond of me and started inviting me to his place to play mahjong every Saturday. Yes, it was the place of his own, but it was a rented house, dilapidated and in bad repair as if to collapse any moment. The betting rate for mahjong was only a wee bit higher than that ordinary Japanese salaried men set.
Mannen was a really strange man in that as a man living in the underground of money where money is flying about, he didn't care about money. It may have been part of his dandyism. Saving up money was something that never occurred to him. It's always a few \10,000 bills that he had in his wallet. He just gave away to his young men or friends the big money he had confiscated from yakuza. I hadn't believed that there existed anyone who didn't care about money until I met Mannen. With no money, he didn't have his own office. So he was using a coffee shop called "Shirojuji" (or White Cross) just behind Mitsukoshi department store in Shinjuku. He would occupy one place at one corner of White Cross until very late at night having a face-to-face talk with each of those underground people coming one after another to seek his counsel or assistance. To my amusement, he was always eating chocolate parfait or aimitsu sweet (jello-like stuff with sweetened beans), with a great relish every time I dropped in on him at the coffee shop. I couldn't help smiling, unable to reconcile myself to the strange and funny combination of "God of delinquents" and chocolate parfait.
Now, in January 1982, arrived in Tokyo, I went straight away to White Cross in Shinjuku to find Mannen sitting in the corner as he had been before. Apologizing for my having long been out of touch with him, I told him about the bankruptcy as I answered his questions. Mannen said, "So you are in need of money." taking all the money he had out of his wallet and pressed it on me. He had as much as \100,000 to my little surprise. Then he added "There's one guy running a company in Nakano who owed me \3 million. Go get it."
I took off to Nakano right away.
The man, the president of a small company with its office in Nakano, was dubious looking. I identified myself saying "I am a Mannen's man to collect the debt." He replied high-handedly "I've got no money." Pissed off, I hollered,"What do you think I am, an errand boy or something? You wanna get hurt or pay, which? He suddenly changed his attitude completely and took out of the safe \3 million worth of wads of bills. Getting used to and toughened by all seasoned villains in Kansai, I found that sudden change puzzling indeed. Such a man would stand no chance in the survival race in Kansai. I came away from this convinced that there was some significant difference that I would have to bear in mind between Kanto and Kansai in the way things get done. But this difference alone does not seem to explain how easy to deal with this Nakano man turned out to be. He was unbelievably easy to deal with.
When I brought this \3 million to Mannen, he said apologetically "Can you spare \300,000 for me?" " Please take more. I could do with only a little of it. " I insisted. But he refused to take it, saying "That will keep you alive for a while", then with his little finger up (meaning a lover), "I've got to give this money to "this" who hasn't paid the rent for two months." he said shyly. The episode that tells a lot about the kind of person Mannen is.
I did some more jobs for Mannen that he helped me find, mostly of collecting debts. But, it wasn't debt collecting as is normally known, but it's more akin to blackmailing. It's always yakuza bosses or high ranking yakuza members, or right wings that I was to collect debts from. Mannen would only mention the name of whoever it was I was to go to for collecting debts. When I asked him how much so-and so owed him. He would only say, "It doesn't matter." And he would never bother to make an appointment or anything. For those I was to collect debts from, I was a debt collector who visited them unannounced, or caught them off guard. All I would say to them when I stepped into their office or whatever without appointment was to tell them to pay money without specifying the amount. In other words, Coaxing them into valuing their relationship with Mannen in terms of money was what I suppose I was doing. And I would give the reason for the visit,
"I am here to collect money on behalf of Mannen Toichi."
On hearing the words "collect money", they would invariably turn bitter-looking. For those already well established and reputable, gone are the days when they were delinquents and they don't want go back to the way they used to do things. But in the end, most of them would give up several millions of yen.
Some of them, if not many, were reluctant to pay, making all sorts of excuse. In such cases, I would call up Mannen to ask for another instruction, having myself half-intentionally heard saying "They say they are not gonna pay. What do you think I should do?" "That's ridiculous. No need to hesitate. Get the money?"
"Would it be all right for them to get into trouble?"
"Go ahead. Beat the hell out of them. Don't hesitate. Do as you like."
The conversation always went like this. And in most cases they would give in when I said, "Mannen is furious."
It would never occur to Mannen that nobody would refuse his request. And Mannen was at his best when he said unequivocally that refusing his request would be an act of folly.
I had twice gone to Sasagawa Ryoichi for collecting money.
Sagawawa, rolling his famous big eyeballs, frowned, probably feeling offended by a sudden visit of a money collector without an appointment. He might have felt "How inexcusably rude!" But, Sasagawa continued, "How's Mannen doing financially?"
"Being a man as you know him, he is not well off as usual." I replied.
"As usual ....."
"You are the one saying all human beings are brothers. So it's your role to help out your brother, is it not, my brother?"
"All right. all right, I got it."
This is how it went when Sasagawa paid a lot of money with a frown on his face. I can't specify what it was, but there must have been something that happened in the past that made Mannen special somebody Sasagawa could not dismiss as unimportant.
I returned with the collected money to Mannen's house or White Cross. He would pay me there and then for the job I had just done. If I collected \5 million, I would be rewarded with \2 million. The rest of the money would be given away randomly to his men who happened to be there. Such an extremely carefree man he was! I could barely sustain my life with the much made that way.
I have been awestruck several times to see how "god of delinquents" worked. One day when I was sitting in White Cross across the table from him. A telephone call came through for him. Putting down the receiver back in place, Mannen bekoned to me and said "Mannabu, let's go." There happened to be nobody around except for me. So I was the only one that accompanied him. We graabed a cab wmd headed for Okubo. We got off at what was then called "Sanpuku-kaikan" and is now "Kaiyoukan" hall. I had no idea where Mannen was going and what he was getting up to. He was looking just as usual. Nothing could tell me what was going to happen.
When we stepped into the lobby of the hall, a group of five, unmistakably yakuza by the look of them, at the center of the lobby, rose up. Judging by the stern-looking faces, I knew we were not guests they would extend their hospitality.
"Gee, it doesn't look good. They are all ready." I whispered to Mannen.
"How many can you take on?" He asked me how many yakuza guys I would be able to beat up.
"Well, I can't take care of any more than two."
"Is that right?. I could still handle two of them. So it's gonna be all right."
I looked at his face in a surprise. He was then over 70. Such an old man was about to take on much younger active yakuza men. I got dumbstruck by this old man "What had gotten into him? How crazy of him!" But Nannen looked as composed as ever, as undisturbed as he was when he was in White Cross eating chocolate parfait.
Surrounded by the yakuza, we sat down on a sofa in the lobby. On the suit they were wearing, I could recognize the shiny emblem and family symbol of a major yakuza syndicate operating in Kanto region. The yakuza were guys edging closer to us two and the leader-like figure was about to say something when Mannen said "What do you want?"
I couldn't see the way he looked when said this because I kept staring at two yakuza guys sitting beside him. But it sounded as if he said very wearily "What the hell you red-necks want from me?" he said it so in so timely a fashion that they were forestalled and stuck for a word to say next." These few words completely tipped the balance between Mannnen and yakuza off completely in favor of Mannen.
With the group now in disarray, the leader-like figure, trying hard to pull himself together, got down to the business as he should because they couldn't afford to let the chance slip through their fingers just by apologizing to Mannen. He bent over low and bombarded us with words one after another, each uttered in a deep heavy voice. On hearing him saying what he was saying, I finally understood the situation. It was a trouble between the yakuza and one Mannen's man over a dishonored draft. The yakuza insisted that they be paid the money they had paid for getting the draft plus the interest on it." The Mannen's man, asked to collect money from the company that had its draft dishonored, rejected it , "How could I pay even a penny for a dishonored draft?" Such a trouble would normally would normally end with some appropriate of money paid to the yakuza. But this one seemed be still at its very early initial stage with both sides yet to state their own cases, on the basis of principles, in a belligerent and uncompromising manner.
But it was the trouble his young man was responsible for in the first place. It had nothing to do with Mannen, who, I bet, had not even known that his young man had the trouble. When the yakuza leader, having regained his posture, was about to get high-handed and descend on us, Mannen said "So, what do you want?" as he leaned himself over and stared at the yakuza guys, "Such trifles don't matter. Do you wanna fight here or not? That's all I want to know." He was absolutely overpowering. The yakuza gasped.
It is very rare that violent will be resorted to in a civil case involving yakuza on both sides of the issue. Because the one who has resorted to violence will always end up as a loser. But Mannen had been ready for physical fight right from the beginning. He is a fighter so different from others not only in experience and status but in the mental attitude, or preparedness with which to confront his enemy.
This stand-off continued for a while until some Mannen's young men arrived on the scene so that we could manage to avoid any trouble. But it was this time I understood why he was called "the god of delinquents." At the same time, I became keenly aware that there is much more to this whole wide world than I knew.
Mannen was really an intersting person with many faces. He took care of me for one year. I really feel grateful for that one year he looked after me. Through such a relationship with Mannen, I became acquainted with yakuzas and outlaws in Kanto. Interestingly enough, there were significant differences between Kanto and Kansai yakuzas. Fitst of all, Kanto yakuzas make money elegantly whereas Kansai counterparts use muscles to rob. In Kansai where there is far less money up for grab than in Kanto, the hungry spirit will tend to come to fore. Second, Kanto yakuzas are intelligent and ideological, capable of addressing complicated political or cultural issues properly. On the other hand, in Kansai they are basically incapable of any proper response to such issues, even if they are capable, they tend to say "I don't understand such complicated stuff." These are among the striking differences between the two major regions for anybody to see.
Fashion is also one area where you may fine a great difference. Kansai yakuzas are said to be 10 years behind Kanto counterparts in terms of the way they are dressed. When they thought wearing a bulky shirt was fashionable in Kansai, Kanto yakuzas were spruced up in a formal suit. When they began to wear a suit in Kansai, Kanto yakuza was already driving Mercedes. And now young yakuzas in Kanto have their ears pierced for earrings. When I talked with a Kansai yakuza about piecing, he was saying in disgust "It would be an embarrassment." But despite what this one said, it won't be so long before Kansai follows in the steps of Kanto. Although not worth any serious consideration, there still remain some interesting differences in the world of yakuza between the east and the west. It was through my relationship with Mannen that I came to know what I know about such differences.
But chivalry should be something that they have in common overriding such differences. Abe Joji, an author once who admired Mannen wrote in a newspaper about a question he had asked Mannen. The question was "Can you tell me the difference between a chivalry man and an ordinary one?" Mannen replied , "It's easy. Those who don't mind at all suffering a loss are chivalrous, and those who do are ordinary men. It doesn't matter what you do for living. Whether you are a grocery shop man or a tax driver, you can be chivalrous as long as you don't mind suffering a loss. If you do, you are not chivalrous even if you are a yakuza don or boss.
Mannen was chivalrous but he was also an outright delinquent. When he got into a fight with a yakuza gangster, one of his young man hacked the yakuza boss over the head with a Japanese sword. He got seriously injured and nearly dead. But he didn't die. And the moment Mannen knew he was still alive, he said "We would get into trouble if we left him alive. Go to the hospital to put an end to his life." He really was a delinquent.
He would really enjoy himself watching young people getting reckless. I remember him rejoicing with a smile to say "I am reckless, and so are you." when I told him how I, hard up for money, had been reckless collecting debts or salvaging drafts. When I knew he saw in me the same kind of recklessness as his, I saw in him a brother-like figure that transcended the age difference.
I believe he was a delinquent in the real sense of the word. He retained a pure heart of a juvenile delinquent even when he was old. It was so charming and elegant of the way he carried himself. And, above all that set him apart was the flamboyancy he had about himself as a gangster. With so much packed into the time I spent with him, never have I felt more fulfilled than I did in that one year.
By visiting him at his house or White Cross, I kept in touch with him. But he died some 10 years ago. His house in Tokorozawa was the first one he had ever had as his own, but it was a house embarrassingly too shabby even to look at. His was a hard-fought and magnificent life of a man who stuck out all through his life as a juvenile delinquent in the way he got things done and in the way his heart felt.