Lazarus on the Bullet Train
For Tagawa Tadasu
The Bullet Train is the famous Japanese express train that travels 120 miles an hour. Lazarus is an old stand-by.
You listened to the ranting and raving drunken
American writer on the Bullet Train from Nagoya
as I blamed you for everything that ever went
wrong in this world, including the grotesque
event that occurred that night in Gifu while
you slept.
Of course, you had done nothing but be my good
friend. At one point I told you to consider me
dead, that I was dead for you from that moment on.
I took your hand and touched my hand with it.
I told you that my flesh was now cold to you:
dead.
You silently nodded your head, eyes filled
with sadness. I even forbid you to ever read
one of my books again because I knew how much
you loved them and again you nodded your head
and you didn't say anything. The sadness in your
eyes did all the speaking.
The Bullet Train continued travelling at 120
miles an hour back to Tokyo as I ranted and raved
at you.
You didn't say a word.
Your sadness filled the Bullet Train
with two hundred extra passengers.
They were all reading newspapers
that had no words printed on them,
only the dried tears of the dead.
By the time the train reached Tokyo Station,
my anger had turned slowly and was headed in all
directions toward a deserved oblivion.
I took your hand and touched my hand again.
"I'm alive for you," I said. "The warmth has
returned to my flesh."
You nodded silently again,
never having said a word.
The two hundred extra passengers
remained on the train,
though it was the end of the line.
They will stay there forever riding
back and forth until they are dust.
We stepped out into the early Tokyo morning
friends again.
Oh, thank you, Tagawa Tadasu,
O beautiful human being for sharing
and understanding my death
and return from the dead
on the Bullet Train between Nagoya
and Tokyo the morning of June 8, 1976.
Later in the evening I called you
on the telephone. Your first
words were: "Are you fine?"
"Yes, I am fine."
Tokyo
June 9, 1976
źródło: June 30th, June 30th
o źródle i prawach
tekst z archiwum "american dust" (brautiganarchives.xyz); z tomu "June 30th, June 30th" (Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1978)
11.06.2026