Deadly Troubadour

Every week on this site I upload the latest podcast episode for Bloody Tokyo. But over on my Patreon page I also upload the transcripts. Some of my readers have let me know that although they are keen on my take on vampires, they just aren’t into podcasts or audiobooks.

And I get that. The truth is, my longterm plan is to publish a barebones ebook collecting roughly every 15 chapters for as cheap as possible.

But there is another way you can help me out. See that link to my Patreon up there? Become a patron at any level and you will have access to the patron-only transcripts.

To hopefully whet a few reading appetites, here is the (mostly stand alone) transcript for Chapter 11.

(Just a reminder that these chapters have only had the quickest of edits given to them. So these are the “warts and all“ versions.)

Tsugo shifted his feet. He didn’t like being here. Very few things made him anxious. This was one of them. From just entering the lobby of this building he could feel his stomach tighten. From that moment he had wanted to take a shit. He had stood before the elevator debating whether or not he should push the bottom. He could go to somewhere he could relieve himself. There were a few convenience stores nearby. Almost definitely one of them would have a bathroom he could use.

But to do so, to leave the building he had already arrived at, would be a sort of defeat. He would be retreating and even if no one else knew it, he would. He would know that he was fleeing from this building and the woman who resided here.

So he stood in the lobby, his stomach churning, trying to decide which was the greater blow to his ego: the possibility of shitting himself in the most godforsaken place he knew of, or the certainty that he was running away in part because he didn’t like how this particular woman’s looks made him feel unsettled.

Tsugo, whose real name was not in fact Tsugo but Goto Tsuichiro, had been in this particular profession a long time. He had started off a a little bosozoku, cruising around the streets in a prefecture neighboring Tokyo. He had fixed up a little motorbike, tweaking the engine and muffler to make sure it ran extra loud. With that little bike, he had cruised around the city looking for like minded youths. And he had found them.

Together they would zoom around the streets looking for ways to be a nuisance.They would ride through residential areas late at night, slowly, all the while revving up their engines as loudly as possible. As they passed they could sometimes hear the cries of screaming babies waking up and the occasional curse from a neighbor. On special occasions they could get a laugh when they heard a foreign voice yelling at them to “shut the fuck up!” Sometimes the cops would show up, their sirens hysterically adding to the noise.

Or they would make donuts in busy intersections, jamming up traffic. Most drivers were too chicken shit to do anything but honk. The braver ones would inch their cars forward, threatening to go. Thug and his friends would carry rocks and cans to pelt at the few cars that would try and drive through the occupied intersection.

And again, sometimes cops would come out, but there was little they could do. Tsugo and his friends were obviously minors. They could cruise around and all the cops could do was use their loudspeakers to tell them to stop. If they came to close and one of the of the little bosozoku kids wrecked, then that could end the officers career. Cops could cross a lot of lines, but endangering a minor was taken very seriously. And so the kids would laugh and flick off the cops and drive around leading them on a chase. Some cops refused to break the speed limit when following the junior bike gang. Just in case something where to happen. Usually, when the gang got bored, they would shift into high gear and speed away. The only danger was if a cop recognized one of the gang or knew where they would hang out.

That was how Tsugo got his start with the criminal element. Well, at least what he considered his start. Some people might say his real start was during his first year of junior high his dad suddenly left the family. Daddy dearest got his young mistress, a high schooler herself, pregnant. He told his wife, little Tsuichiro’s mom, that he was going to leave. Apparently the high school girl was willing to keep sucking him off almost daily all during the pregnancy and until her cooze healed up after the baby came. That made her the better option than the once a once a year fuck Tsuischiro’s mom offered. So bye-bye Mommy and bye-bye son. The last thing his dad ever said to him was to stop being such a shitty little weakling.

But that was okay. After all his dad left that broken down bike and with a little tinkering Tsuichiro was able to get it fixed up and running. And soon after he had found his little speed tribe, a better tribe than he ever had at school. Especially when one of the 3rd grade boys started picking on him. He didn’t like that Tsuichiro’s dad had knocked up his sister. He especially didn’t like that she had moved in with him.

And he wanted to take his anger out on Tsuichiro. Of course this was before Tsuichiro stopped going to school and started working not he bike full time. Before he got it running. Before he found his real friends. Before he become Tsugo.

His bosozoku family, they protected him. They taught him how to fight. The learning process had hurt, but he knew the love behind the pain. And while he had been good at his studies at school, at least before he stopped going, he excelled at the lessons in pain.

So much so, that he had decided to seek out that same 3rd grade boy. The kid was now in high school. Rumor had it he was a big shot on the basketball team despite being a first year student.

Tsugo didn’t give a shit about that. He just remembered the beatings. The pain had faded, but the insult remained. And he knew of only one way to clear up and insult received.

Of course Tsugo, and he was Tsugo now, knew where the little basketball star. He might have moved on the a fancy high school, but he was still from the neighborhood.

And one night, when the basketball star came home, Tsugo was their to say hello. At first the student athlete didn’t recognize his old school chum. Gone was the bowl haircut and the little boy pudge. Tsugo now had his bleached orange hair. His ears were pierced. And while he was still small, being only fourteen, there were the beginnings of teenage muscle sprouting on him. Still, the basketball player towered over him. His arms were thicker and longer. He had the weight advantage.

But Tsugo, he had the rage.

Afterwards the ambulance had to be called and the police were summoned. A cleaning crew was also contacted to hose down the street as well. Elementary school kids were set to use this path come morning and it wouldn’t be good to have them see the drying stains. If you look up what happened, you wouldn’t find anything.

Goto Tsuichiro was a minor and his name was never mentioned. His picture was never shown. And being a minor, he received the barest of punishments. Within three months it was like nothing had ever happened. Except in two ways.

The neighborhood knew. Even if they weren’t supposed to, they all knew. And they were afraid.

And they were not the only ones. Tsugo biker friends knew as well. And they were proud. One of them had an uncle who was aligned with a certain organization. And that uncle and that organization was very impressed with the youth’s capacity for violence. And after the meeting the boy the uncle also became impressed with the raw intelligence this Tsugo possessed. With the right molding, he knew the boy would go far.

That had been twenty years ago. And in those twenty years, Tsugo had given his all to his particular organization. He had used his intelligence and used his body. He had helped plot financial maneuvers and schemes, as well as dish out reprehensible, stomach churning violence on men and women. And he had done it all without blinking.

But here he was in the lobby of well furnished building, staring a pristine elevator knowing that he had to push a button to go to a certain floor and see a certain woman and all he wanted to do was run away.

He knew neither what connection this Hoshino woman had to his organization to order them around like she did, nor did he know why she made him so unsettled. He just knew that his organizations head told Tsugo personally to treat her with the utmost respect, and so that would be what Tsugo did.

He reached his hand out and pushed the button to summon the elevator. Within a matter of seconds it arrive and the door opened with a slight chime. Tsugo stepped him, and despite the cool air that enveloped him he began sweating profusley.