Confessions of a Yakuza Read online

  Boss Yamamoto wasn’t all that strong physically, so he was fussy about what he ate. He was specially fond of soup with small mussels or clams in it, and whenever I made it he’d come back several times for more. The clam man only came on his rounds up till around cherry-blossom time. That was the spawning season; from then on, all the goodness went into the eggs, so the flavor deteriorated. That was why clams in the cold season were so special.

  Once they’d had breakfast, all the older men would go off to work, leaving me to clear things away and deal with the day’s various callers—not all of them tradesmen. Sometimes, for example, a wandering monk with a great long-nosed goblin mask on his back would come chanting prayers. I say a monk, but he was really just a beggar, and you could never actually hear the words of the prayer he was mumbling.

  The same kind of monk had often turned up at Tokuzo’s place too, but if I gave them any money the maid there would always bawl me out. “What are you wasting your money for?” she’d shout, right there in front of them. She was the sort of woman who gets her kicks from always finding fault; you couldn’t really like anything about her. With the Dewaya, though, it was very different: the boss was forever telling us to be polite whenever possible. So I generally gave them a copper or two, even if they came every day, and whenever a real beggar showed up I used to wrap up some leftovers—riceballs, or a bit of fish—for him.

  Either way, the old-style yakuza were always concerned about their reputation; relations with the neighbors were important to them, and they made an effort to be civil with people, whoever they were.

  Getting on for two years after I joined the Dewaya, I was given permission to sit in on the dice games, but only a few months later there was a police raid, and I was sent to jail. I’ll get to that in a minute. Just before I got nabbed, though, something so unexpected happened you’d think it was part of a play.

  One of the regulars at our games was a man called Matchan. He was about seven years older than me, with the sort of tough good looks that women really go for. As a player, he was the world’s worst—never had any luck at all. He told us he had a tobacconist’s shop, but I’ve no idea whether it was true or not. For some reason, anyway, we took a fancy to each other.

  Before long, he invited me for a meal at his place, which was in an area called “Cannon Flats,” on the other side of Tsukuda. People say it got the name because the mud washed down by the river collected there to form a shape like a cannon, but it also seems that long ago they used the place for testing guns. There were quite a lot of big buildings there compared with Fukagawa, but the part where Matchan lived was a huddle of small houses.

  I found that Matchan was living with a woman—not bad-looking, either. It was around lunchtime when I got there, and the food was already set out on the table, with saké to go with it.

  “Make yourself at home,” said Matchan, and the woman started pouring me a drink. We chatted about this and that, and were just beginning to enjoy ourselves when we heard a woman’s voice out in the hall saying, “Hello, is there anybody in?”

  I had the feeling I’d heard the voice before. Matchan’s friend got up and went out. We could hear their voices: “Hello, there! What’s that you’ve bought?” “An octopus—a whopper, isn’t it?” “I’ll say! But come on in.”

  Dangling the bag with the octopus in it, she came back right away with another young woman behind her. I took one look and nearly had a fit. The visitor, too, went as still as a statue. You wouldn’t believe it, but it was the judge’s mistress I’d known back home.

  It really is a small world. It turned out that Oyoshi, as she was called, was the other woman’s sister.

  Well, after that the four of us had a meal together. The thing that surprised me most of all was how little Oyoshi had changed. According to her, though, I myself had changed a lot. Either way, meeting her again now, more than three years after I’d followed her to Tokyo, those days back in Utsunomiya seemed like something out of a dream. She was still the judge’s mistress, she said, and was living in Shinagawa.

  “Anyway,” said Matchan, “Eiji’s a young man with a bright future in the Dewaya, and you’ve got your judge, so it’d be safer for you not to get too involved again.” He was half teasing, but he looked a bit worried all the same. Oyoshi, though, was the picture of innocence.

  “Eiji’s bound to have someone else he’s keen on,” she said, giving me the glad eye all the time. “I’m sure he’s forgotten all about the likes of me.” She was just as sexy as she’d been before; it was enough to make your toes curl.

  I met her three more times after that. But then we were raided at the gambling joint and I was put inside, and after I came out I kind of felt I was a proper yakuza now, and never went to see her again.

  Resisting the Law

  As I was saying, the first time I was a guest of the government was when I was nineteen. It would have been around the end of autumn; Okada, one of the older men, had got together about thirty guys in the joint behind the International Theater, and they were playing as usual when all of a sudden a whole crowd of policemen came bursting into the place.

  “Don’t move!” they yelled—enough to put the wind up anybody, it was. In this situation, none of the people playing are going to put up a struggle. It’d only mean a stiffer sentence, so the sensible thing to do is go along quietly. You keep an eye open, of course, for any chance of slipping out, but once you’re sure there’s no escape the best thing is just to let them arrest you.

  In my case, though, this was my first raid, and I felt like a fight. I suddenly got an idea, and gave a hefty tug at the light hanging from the ceiling. There were a lot of sparks, and the room went pitch-dark. It was as if you’d stirred up a hornets’ nest. The cops put on their flashlights, but they weren’t much use; everybody cleared out, and the only people caught were six or seven customers.

  The next day, a local detective turned up at our base.

  “Look,” he said to the boss, “as you know, we raided Okada’s place last night. But some bastard blew the fuse, so the whole lot got away. I want you to send whoever was responsible along to the station.”

  “Right...,” said the boss. “If that’s how it is, I’ll ask my boys about it straightaway. If it was one of them, I’ll hand him over. Just give me a bit of time, will you?”

  “OK, make sure he comes, then,” the detective said, and left.

  So the boss got everybody together and told them what was up. “The cops are going to look bad if they make a raid without nabbing anyone. I hear it was you, Eiji, who cut the lights, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “They won’t be satisfied if you go along. They came to get Okada, and they’re going to get mad if just a kid shows up instead. But we need Okada to run things at his place. What d’you suggest we do?...”

  So I shuffled forward on my knees—we were all sitting Japanese-style in front of him—and bowed and said: “I’d like you to let me go.”

  “You really mean it?” the boss asked.

  I bowed down to the floor again and told him I was ready and willing.

  “I see ... I suppose we could leave it all to you. But with this kind of thing I’ll have to ask the others.” He turned toward Okada first: “You’ve heard what Eiji says—how do you feel?”

  “He’s still a kid,” Okada said, “but he’s got what it takes. I guess it’d be OK.” So the boss checked with another of the senior guys called Muramatsu, one of his right-hand men.

  “I reckon he won’t let the side down, whatever happens,” he said.

  That convinced the boss.

  “Eiji,” he said, “it’s up to you how things turn out for Okada. Go and show them what you can do.”

  And that settled it. I was happy, you know. I really felt on top of the world as I went off to turn myself in at the police station.

  The police were a bunch of arrogant bastards in those days. The way they talked to you, for a start, was real rough. The olde
r men had already told me a lot about them, but hearing and actually experiencing are two different things. The minute I showed my face, it was: “And what the hell brought you here?” I mean, you can tell from little things like that what you’re in for.

  I gave them my name. “It was me that was running the game last night,” I said. “I won’t make any trouble, so just deal with me as you think fit.” I’d been taught that bit by one of the old hands.

  “Well, you’ve some nerve, turning up here all bright and cheerful like this. You might learn to regret it,” one of them said, staring hard at me. “Wait there,” he added, and went off to fetch the detective in charge of the case. The detective looked pissed off as soon as he laid eyes on me.

  Another detective, a fat one with a moustache, came in after him, and this one hit the ceiling.

  “You say you ran the game?” he yelled. “Who put you up to that, then? Come off it! What d’you think this place is—a nursery school?” I expect he wouldn’t have minded so much if I’d been a bit older and better known.

  “Listen, kid,” one of them said in a menacing kind of way. “We keep files. We know how the Dewaya operates—and you’re small fry!”

  “The little bastard fancies himself a real yakuza,” the fat guy put in. “D’you think we’ve got shit for brains?” he shouted, and gave a great thump on the table. Quite a nasty sight, he was.

  I took a good look at their faces. I’d been prepared for the worst, but these were really ugly customers. Still, I wasn’t going to say, “I’m sorry, actually it was one of the senior men called so-and-so who ran the session.” I’d sooner have died.

  So I stuck to my guns: “It’s like I said: just go ahead and question me.” That made the fat dick really angry.

  “Right,” he said, “we’ll just have to make your body talk a bit.”

  The interrogation room had a tatami floor—quite big, about ten mats, I’d say. There were a few other people—petty thieves and pickpockets—being questioned in the same room. The detective at work next to us was grinning. “A real pain in the ass, isn’t it?” he said, knowing what was coming next.

  “Hey!” the fat cop called out to one of his staff. “Bring us a dozen sticks here, will you?”

  “Coming right up, sir,” was the reply.

  They tied my hands behind my back and hauled up my kimono. Then, when the sticks arrived, they lined them up on the tatami and sat me down on them bare-assed. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the sticks had been smooth, but these were split into triangular shapes, with sharp edges.

  “Well, how’s it feel? Does it hurt? You hear me? I’m asking if it hurts.” The detective kept slapping me around the face as he spoke.

  “I see ... a tough guy, eh?” said his partner, and bared my back.

  “If you’re going to come clean, now’s the time,” he said.

  He was an old hand at interrogations, and he knew where it hurt. Really good at it, he was. He never hit your head or your chest. No—he aimed for the soft places around your buttocks and thighs. It hurt, but it didn’t break any bones, so he could lay into you as much as he liked.

  Before long, though, he realized that he wasn’t going to get anywhere just beating me.

  “How about this, then?...” he said. And they took turns standing on my thighs. My backside was directly on top of the sharp part of the sticks, so with a grown man standing on my thighs the sticks bit into the flesh till the blood came. As if that wasn’t enough, a couple of them rocked me backwards and forwards, singing out “see-saw, see-saw” as they did it. I’d been gritting my teeth, trying to put up with the pain, but that was more than I could take, and I couldn’t help crying out loud.

  One man went on steadily rocking me; occasionally, he’d run a hand over my head and say “Quite a guy!” I hung on grimly, till suddenly I found myself lying there on the floor, wet all over. I’d fainted, and they’d poured cold water over me.

  “Don’t think we’ve finished with you yet, you creep,” the fat detective said, and got on my thighs again. And they began singing out “see-saw, see-saw” again. To say it was agony wouldn’t describe it. Fatso was grinning like an ape: “He’s tougher than he looks, this guy,” he said.

  One thing I ought to explain is that with gambling at least—I don’t know how it was with other offenses—the police only used torture on the yakuza, and not, as far as I know, on the customers. The point is that your average customer, who wasn’t used to this sort of thing, would spill everything at the first hint of violence. But then in court he’d say: “I only confessed because they tortured me; it was all a pack of lies really—I was forced to tell them.” And if he had a good lawyer to plead his case, the man in charge of the investigation might well get the boot. So generally speaking they didn’t put too much pressure on non-professionals.

  You might wonder about the yakuza themselves—whether they wouldn’t give the police away like that in court. But they weren’t such fools. If they had done, they’d have paid for it afterward. The cops would have spread the word: “That one’s a sneaky bastard. He got two of our men transferred. So we don’t need to look the other way any more.” And they’d stake out the gambling joint and keep a twenty-four-hour check. That way the regulars would be too scared to come anywhere near the place, and it would just die a natural death. You see, if the police ever wanted to put the squeeze on them, the yakuza couldn’t have made a living. So, however rough their methods were—even if they half killed you—you never let on about it at the trial. And the cops, on their side, knew they were safe however much they put you through it, so they could afford to let themselves go.

  With the yakuza, keeping your mouth shut when the screws were really on counted as a kind of medal. Not just with the other guys in your own mob, either: it was talked about by the police, who began to treat you as a proper yakuza, and in other gangs, too, so that someone who stuck it out got a reputation. But if you couldn’t take it and confessed, that got around in the same way. “Him?” people would say. “He sounds like the real thing, but inside he’s all soft, like a bit of rotten tofu.” You got a label put on you, and people avoided you. Once that happened, you were finished: you could stay a yakuza all your life, but you’d be down there at the bottom all the way.

  I was well aware of all this, so I kept my lip buttoned, and the detectives got the message: I was the kind who’d never knuckle under. That suited me fine, and they put me down in their report as the one who’d set up the session.

  Next, I was taken to court. The judge at my trial took a look at the police report and said “Is this correct?” and I said “Yes, sir, it’s correct,” and I was sentenced to three months in jail. The upshot of it all was that I went off to Sugamo prison feeling fairly proud of myself.

  There’s a world of difference between today’s jails, which are meant to reform you, and the ones I knew, which were there to punish you. You’d done something wrong, and to pay for it you’d got to suffer: that was the general idea in the old days. Worst were the warders, who’d absolutely no human feelings, no sympathy. We’ve got absolute control over you, body and soul—that was their attitude to the prisoners.

  The prison uniform was a red kimono. You know the color they paint the gateway to a Shinto shrine? It was that kind of red. You were lucky, though, if it was the proper color still—in most cases they were all washed out, and patched all over into the bargain. The cloth itself, too, was worn so thin you might have been wearing a mosquito net. I mean, if you looked you could see right through it....

  It was the coldest time of year when I went in, so they gave me cotton underwear and socks. Apart from that, there was a single quilt to sleep on, with a blanket, and a box with a bowl for putting rice in, a bowl for beanpaste soup, and a metal plate.

  I was put in a big cell holding twelve men. In those days they still had the prison boss system, so I got on my knees at the entrance to the cell, bowed right down, and gave a formal greeting. And one of the men who’d been
there longest spoke up from the back: “You look pretty young, but you’ll find it’s not too bad here when you get used to it, so mind you keep on good terms with everybody....”

  Anyhow, that was the way I went to jail.... But you know, I must have been a bit bigheaded or something, because there was a brawl the very first day I was in, and I got charged with “insubordination” and had a rough time of it.

  As soon as I sat down in one corner of the cell, a hunched-up guy next to me started muttering things about me. He had a gray, dirty-looking complexion, and half his hair was white, though he couldn’t have been much over thirty. His teeth were a dark yellow and his breath smelled of bad eggs. I didn’t know what had pissed him off, but he pitched into me without warning.

  “What’s your name, eh?” he began. “Your name, I said!” The way he said it was really mean. Seeing he was set on picking a fight right from the start, I naturally got worked up myself. Shunkichi had told me before I went in that it wasn’t done to ask too much about other prisoners’ affairs.

  “You see,” Shunkichi said, “we’re different from ordinary criminals. For us, it’s an honor to go to jail. But the rest of the poor bastards have just slipped up somehow and been put through it by the police, then bullied by the courts, and finally locked up. That’s about it.

  “So your ordinary offender wants to have a bit of peace and quiet, in jail at least. He wants to forget all the unpleasant things that happened outside and take it easy for a while. So it’s a rule inside that you don’t ask other people all kinds of things about what they did outside. If someone feels like talking about himself, it’s OK, but otherwise it’s better not to ask.”