Chapter 23: American Idiot

I stared at the streets outside of the airport. As I looked around, I had a hard time believing I was in another country. If not for the signs written in weird symbols, I wouldn't have believed it. Of course, I've never been that observant of cultures. It's not something that I ever thought was worth paying attention to. I had more important things to worry about than where my friends are from, or even myself for that matter. I really don't know my own nationality. Jesse says I must be part Irish because I drink so much, but I don't really care.

Prep had told me to get a cab. He had given me some piece of shit Japanese traveler's dictionary that was supposed to tell me how to talk, but when I tried to order some food in a restaurant in the airport, I didn't get very far. Then I found out that the girl spoke reasonably good English, and I finally got some food. I didn't trust the dictionary and I wasn't in any particular hurry, so I figured I'd just walk it. Prep had given me a map too, and he wrote minor landmarks all over it in the hopes that I'd be able to find my way around. Pretty simple stuff, really. Statue here, McDonalds there, park over there, I could've found the place without all his scribbles. I didn't go straight there, though. I figured I'd wander around the city for a while and try to get used to the place.

I walked down a very crowded street, staying close to the building so as not to be run over by bicycles. I didn't usually have to worry about bicycles in America, so this was a very weird experience. Some would dart in between the cars, which were stopped more often than they were moving. That's a phenomenon which wasn't foreign to me at all. I eventually wandered into a big open park. I sat down to take a rest on a bench near a fountain, and I watched a little kid throw a baseball to his dad. It made me think of my dad. He had tried to teach me baseball, before he got jailed up. He had also taught me to swim, which was the one saving grace I had in a life which too many people, Prep included, deemed worthless at first glance. Like that little kid's father. When he looked up and saw me, in my ripped up jeans and black T-shirt with a big skull on it, and my pierced ears, he took his little boy's hand and led him away to some other part of the park. It didn't bug me. I didn't expect any more of him. Some people ignored me; some just ran away, some tried to 'fix' me. It's that last kind that I can't stand. It seems like people assume that where I'm from and what I look like determines how I think. I'm certainly influenced by where I grew up, but I've got plans, goals, dreams, just like them. People usually can't annoy me very much, but people like that I just can't stand.

So I walked out of the park, hands in my pockets, and headed towards the little circled building on Prep's map. It was a little ways off still. I walked under a bridge and continued on towards the school. I turned for a second and looked back at the bridge. It suddenly hit me that I'd seen that bridge, all blown up, in a newspaper almost five years ago. That was when the news reports of monsters in Tokyo came out. I wouldn't find out much about the monsters for another two years, though.

I finally reached my destination. The schoolyard was deserted, as one would expect late in the day, with the sun barely arching over the horizon. I walked up to the door, and was surprised to find it propped open. I walked in and looked around. It didn't seem extremely different from schools I had been to already. Prep had somehow found out that the computer lab was on the second floor, and that it would be a good place to wait for someone to show up. I wandered up the steps, wondering at all the funny symbols, unsure how they could mean anything. Obviously they did, but it was fairly hard for me to believe.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of voices. They were coming from behind one of the doors. I walked over and grabbed the knob, but the door was locked. I knocked on the door rather loudly. The voices suddenly stopped. There were a series of hushed whispers, and then nothing. I waited there for about two minutes, and finally I decided to take an alternate route. I walked back outside the building and around to the side of it. I stared up at the second floor window, and then at everything below it. All I saw was a dumpster, which wouldn't be high enough by itself, and a pipe that ran up to the roof and passed close to one of the lab's windows. From the ground, I could see figures inside the lab, but I couldn't make out quite who it was. From my estimation, I knew two of the people in that room.

I climbed up onto the dumpster and began scaling the pole. I was at the window in seconds, but I stopped outside of it to try and listen to the conversation. Unfortunately, they were all talking in Japanese. Despite this setback, I did manage to pick out Will's voice. I'd know it anywhere, even in Japanese.

Just then, I had the misfortune to have my ear ring fall out. It dropped down, bounced off of the lid of the dumpster, and fell into the grass. I sighed inwardly, being careful to stay quiet. I wanted the benefit of surprise. I worked my way back down and picked up the ear ring. A shiny white skull, with two ruby eyes, dangled from a short chain. I had found it in the gutter, without its match, and gotten one of my ears pierced so I could wear it. A guy in a pawn shop offered me quite a bit of money for it once, but I liked it too much.

I put it back on and climbed back up to the room. This time, I wasted no time grabbing onto the sill and throwing my leg in. I quickly slipped through into the room and turned around to see twelve very surprised faces and one very happy one.