Cold wind blew across Tokyo Bay, carrying with it the rotten stench of wet pulverization high onto the balcony of a rooftop bar in Minato Ward. The building sat taller than most around it, about twelve floors compared to the ten of its neighbors. Such an advantage exposed it to such winds, but those who imbibed could hardly smell it through liquored senses. The eleventh floor tenants, a seedy cash loan business, did care, but they could not do much but close their windows and seethe. The tenth floor nail salon was also forced to keep its windows shut year round. The wind carried the smell of dead fish from above and rotting dross from below, clashing outside the window of the sixth floor, which was rented out by the same business that ran the rooftop bar. 

The sixth floor had been orchestrated into a venue for bands to perform. A small stage just large enough for a four piece sat across the room from an equally small but high quality bar. Behind the stage, separated by black curtains, was the area where musicians would prepare and keep their gear between sets. The space was cramped, containing a three seat couch, a lounge chair, and a small coffee table. Otherwise there was just about enough space to walk around and a sectioned off gap in the corner across from the chair where the instruments could be set down between acts. 

The gear of the venue was similarly thrown together. There were only four speakers, which were different models, and each was anywhere from twenty to thirty years old. Emblazoned with decades of band stickers and graffiti that the following years had forgotten. There was no microphone, acts had to bring their own if they wanted one, but there was a decent microphone stand. Decently stable, not adjustable. If the band playing was a five piece with a keyboard then an extension cable would have to be run from across the room at an outlet by the bar. However the demand for outlets was so high that the keyboard would have to be plugged in just before playing, and unplugged immediately after, because the only sensible cord they could unplug for it would always be the ice machine. 

Behind the stage a woman was sprawled on the couch, passed out from exhaustion. Nearby her bandmate reached over and removed the clasp of the window, letting in the faintest whiff of that Tokyo reek. To the bandmate, though, the cold wind had a distinctly comforting feeling, as she had spent the last two hours hefting her drum-kit up the stairs and setting it up beneath the sparse but infernal lights of the stage. She had no care for the bum on the couch, then at the whim of the frigid breeze. The sleeping woman’s nose twitched as her eyes slowly, and quite painfully, opened. 

“Close the damn window Caren. Let me sleep.” She groaned, rolling over and burying her head in the cushions. Caren grimly obeyed, keeping a scornful eye on the blue haired slob. 

“Does Ms Patricia plan on sleeping until we go on?” 

“I might just sleep through it.” She mumbled. 

A ghost crossed over Caren’s eyes. Though it would be impolite to call a living person a ghost, the phantom had certainly appeared before her in the most unlikely of places. A lethargic ex-bandmate that went on to better and brighter things. The year before that old friend had released a piano album. Caren had listened to it during their flight to San Francisco several months before, and the sounds were nostalgic. With that thought, she shrugged the ghost away and climbed over Patricia onto the back of the couch. Both of her legs planted themselves in Patricia’s stomach. The victim could hardly react in time before she was pushed instantly from the couch. Crashing against the coffee table and hitting the floor. 

“You’re being mopey, stop it.” Caren laughed, jeering over her victory. 

“You muscle headed brute.” Patricia chuckled as she rose and sat on the couch normally. “I’m not being mopey, I was just doing some soul searching I guess.” 

“You? Soul searching? I suppose the sun rises in the west now too?” 

“There was a song that Tamaki played for us in Chicago, do you remember the one? It was that guy rapping over an acoustic guitar beat. One of the lyrics has kind of stuck with me, it went something like; ‘Will this be my year? Or the next? How many years before I start living?’” Caren looked at Patricia with her chin in the palm of her hand, propped up by her elbow resting on a knee nearly at eye level. 

“And?” 

“I don’t know, I just feel kind of, I guess, meandering lately, you know? Like, is this it? Traveling with the pennies we make off shows just to go to other shows in other cities? When we landed, Tokyo looked just the same as San Francisco, as Chicago…” Her voice trailed off into a dry sigh. There was no expression on her face, and it was clear to Caren that her eyes were not looking at anything in the present. 

“It’s about Janice, isn’t it?” The pianist once again brushed across Caren’s mind. 

“No…well, maybe. I can’t really tell. I was just thinking about where we’re going after this, and how she’s got a sweet deal going with the albums and stuff.” 

“Aren’t we going to Hong Kong?” Caren answered.

“After that? I guess it’d be Seoul, then Sydney, zip over to Berlin, stop over in Paris, have some time in London, and just end up right back at New York. Is that really it? I mean come on, we’re pushing thirty here Caren. I think I’m done playing. I think that, for this part of my life, I was just some kind of side character for her. Ever since she left we’ve been on fumes, haven’t we? I should have just broken up the band. Janice just had something we didn’t. We were just too young to notice, or we were afraid to admit defeat.” Her glazed eyes fixed themselves on a random cord that disappeared under one of the wooden struts of the stage. She could hear the crowd through the curtains. A hip hop duo was performing, but there was hardly any excitement out there for it.   

Their new guitarist, Tamaki, slipped past the curtain to witness the scene that was unfolding. She was younger than her bandmates, being twenty-four. She had appeared in a bright yellow shirt with a cartoon star.  She immediately picked up on the mood and sat on the lounge chair with a smile. 

“So Ketsu-san says we’ll be slotted after the rappers. It should be peak hour so we’ll have a good audience this time.” 

“Unlike that place in Yokohama.” Caren sighed, dropping her head. A memory of an empty basement venue haunted her still. That night they had to pay the owner out of pocket, a shameful display indeed. 

“Yeah, but Ketsu and Shin run a good bar, so they have a wide customer base. It’s pretty admirable stuff actually. If you could hear them talk about how they chose the liquor selection, and how they used social media to speculate whether the stage was a good idea or not. They’re simply geniuses.” Tamaki said, sparkling. 

“Entrepreneurs, huh? Any interest in starting a record label?” Caren leered down from her seat on the back of the couch.

“Nope, but they wished us luck.” 

“So?” Patricia interrupted.

“So what?” Caren held the urge to click her tongue at the interjection.  

“Do you think we should split?” 

The question came flat in the small space. The word split bounced around in Caren’s head for a moment or two. She looked at Tamaki, who was appropriately shocked. She felt bad for her, because finding a new band that was missing a guitarist was a task and a half. She would have better chances starting a new band altogether, which meant scouting a new drummer and bassist. Tamaki would need a drummer, because Caren could not play without Patricia there to keep her from going crazy.

“You know what else he said?” Tamaki straightened with a stern grimace. 

“Who said?” Patricia responded.

“That rapper, from the song I played. He also said that; ‘Dreams mustered up at bars are trash.’ So don’t think for a second I’ll accept this right here. When we get back to the hotel we can talk about depressing crap like that. Right now I need your head in the game, got it?” 

“Eavesdropping were we?” Caren smirked to Tamaki, who blushed but maintained a serious demeanor. 

“We’ll do the rock cover with me on vocals.” Tamaki continued. 

“Shinya Kousoku? I thought you didn’t like that one.” 

As Caren and Tamaki traded their little words in the little room of the little bar, Patricia laid her head back and looked up to the sky through the window. Gray clouds were forming over the busy city, the same gray clouds she had seen in Los Angeles, the same clouds she had seen since she was a girl. There was something else, some other kind of feeling than that. Surely? Her head compressed the stiff couch. This had to have been how Janice felt during all of their practices. A bird in a cage. Then set free from them and into the wide world. She found joy, she found love, she found herself and her life. What did Patricia have? A bass guitar. Her parents back home sent her emails every other week, but their passive support gave off no spark. There was no love in her life, and, though she was already approaching thirty, she had no idea who Patricia even was. The age of dreams had passed, it was time to buck up and handle things like a proper adult. 

What was waiting for her? A part time job? She had no useful experience, and it was doubtful she would be able to get any jobs related to her degree in music. At least her parents would take her in, right? It was their duty to take care of their little girl. Only she was far from little anymore. No, they would, they had to. Anyways, it would only be for awhile, maybe six months, or eight, only until she could get an apartment. Then again, word was that the housing market had crashed pretty hard. The chances of her getting a semi-decent apartment by herself on minimum wage were low. 

“Patty.” 

Patricia turned her head to face Caren. She had tilted her head on her chin to look over at Patricia with a sharp side eye. observing the creature on the couch like a piece of unique roadkill. Six years they had traveled together, six years Caren had followed Patricia’s own stupid dreams. Why? She had a boyfriend back home, she had an apartment. So why did Caren stay with her for so long? Tamaki, then only having been with them for six months, had no long term commitment to the group, so why she put up with it was also a mystery. Traveling the world, being dragged from dingy bar to dirty club day in and out. What kind of person had no issue with being used in such a way? 

“More folks are starting to show up, I set everything up earlier, so come on, let’s get out there and have a little fun alright? It’ll be better than you moping all night on a filthy couch.” Caren climbed down from the couch and turned. One of her hands floated forward, offering assistance in her friend's rise. Patricia obliged and used it to stand, painfully letting blood fill up her legs yet again. Her head was a little light at first, but that sensation disappeared after a moment. 

Tamaki wrapped her arms around her bandmates in a group hug. 

“Let’s have fun!” She exclaimed before exploding from the embrace and emerging out of the curtain. Outside she could hear the hip hop guys receiving louder praise from the growing population of the venue. 

Caren stepped behind Patricia and pushed her out of the curtain and into the bar. The room had filled with people, reaching near the limit for the venue as the two members of the hip hop group were belting out incomprehensible lyrics. They seemed, at least, to be very passionate and energetic young men. By the time Caren and Patricia joined Tamaki at the small bar counter a new beat started to play over the four speakers and the house lights dimmed to near pitch darkness for the final song. Tamaki handed Caren a cup as they approached. 

“What’ll it be, Patty?” Tamaki had to yell over the crowd. 

“A White Russian, if you can.” Patricia answered. 

The thin Japanese man behind the counter had on a black tank top that exposed the tattoo sleeves that went all the way down to his fingers. There was a particularly odd collection of Japanese symbols organized in a certain way that reminded Patricia of a logo she thought she knew. As he assembled the cocktail she pondered on it for a minute before finally deciding to just ask Tamaki. 

“That? Oh, you don’t recognize it do you? It’s katakana, it just sounds out to Franz Ferdinand.” The man realized they were talking about his tattoo and laughed while saying something in his mother tongue. Tamaki translated; “He said the tattoo artist was an old guy who hated english letters, so they made a compromise, funny story isn’t it?” Tamaki delivered the drink from the barman to Patricia’s eager hands. 

“Funny that a guy on the other side of the world likes a Scottish rock band.”

“Not much more than a girl from Nevada liking Flower Companyz.” Tamaki laughed. 

The drink was too strong, either that or the liqueur had gone bad. Still, Patricia could not muster the heart to reproach the gleeful guy behind the counter. He was quite pleased that his tattoo was noticed by someone, and she felt strange because of it. 

That is, she felt envious of him. That he was so at peace with what he was doing. How much was he paid? Did he have a partner? How had music from the English Commonwealth reached the Tokyo Metro? Questions she should not have been concerned with mounted in her head. They did not overlay the previous concerns, but sat beside them as equal. Which brought about an aversion that sentiments of her place in the world were just as valuable to her subconscious as light wonder at a stranger she randomly met. It was like she passed a person wearing yellow cargo pants. Who would do that? It was tacky at best, and a fashion sin at worst. Then, if yellow pants held the same weight on her psyche as the problem of her place in the wider world, what was she really worried about? 

Before she knew it the glass was empty and Tamaki had to order another. 

Up on the stage the guys were hyperactively spitting Japanese slang into their microphones. Patricia was out of her element. She even lacked the ability to order a drink herself, needing to be led back by the interpreter that served as her lead guitarist. How far would she get if she went out into the city below? A lot of people in Tokyo spoke at least the smallest amount of English, she might have made it back to the airport just fine. She may have been totally lost after five minutes. She would have liked to think she belonged in San Francisco, and that she could make her way without needing to translate. Yet even then, it was not where she belonged, it was not her home. Five minutes later, she would be just as lost as if she tried it in Tokyo. Would they still have ended up in that bar if Janice had not become such an event upon their lives? 

A comedy of mistakes in some past life that felt more distant with every year. 

As she finished up her second white russian, the duo on stage finished their last song. The crowd roared louder than polite for such a small space, and the sound was near deafening as it bounced around and suffocated the finishing statements of the lead singer. Still, he smiled all the same and bowed deeply alongside his buddy. When they stepped from the stage, Patricia felt an assembly of hands on her back. In the dark of the crowd she could not immediately tell who it was as they pushed her through the people like a snow plow. Eventually erupting into the stage lighting and being able to turn, she was justified in her guess. Tamaki and Caren were standing behind her with wide grins. Caren’s nose was red, foretelling that she was already quite inebriated. 

Tamaki grabbed her guitar from the side of the stage and stood before the microphone, shouting across the crowd in Japanese. All at once they erupted in cheers, but their faces were no longer visible beyond the heavenly lights of the stage. Patricia recognized those shaded faces, she had seen them enough. In Chicago, in London, in San Francisco. Only the place changed. 

Caren leaned over into Patricia’s ear. She had to get close because of the noise, but Patricia could just barely make out what her friend was saying. 

“I got an email from Nick back home! He proposed to me over email! Can you believe that idiot? We should beat him up next time we roll through town!” Caren laughed and lightly jabbed Patricia’s shoulder with a loose fist before walking to the drums. 

Patricia took her bass in hand and gazed up and down the neck. There were a few nicks on it, war wounds of miles traveled. Battles fought. A guy tried to steal it when they played in Reno a few years prior, and the bouncers at that club beat him senseless. There was still a small brown spot on the wood of the neck from the bloodstain. The paint on the underside was scuffed when she had tripped over a cord onstage the year before, and most of the dials to tune at the top were nonmatching replacements when the others had gradually failed over time. The frets had wear on their finish from the use as well. All told, ten years playing bass was a long time. Especially when six years were spent in constant movement, constant repetition of the same motions and feelings. 

Even that depression she felt earlier was familiar. Just another repeated habit whenever her mood was on the downturn. All things passed with time, despite how much one wished for them to linger. Even the good feelings, even the bad. Eventually, her vagabond roaming about the world would be brought to its own end as well. But at that moment, she had to perform for a sixth floor bar in the middle of a country that could not understand her. With the bass hanging from her neck, Patricia lifted up her personal microphone that was plugged into an amp on the left side of the stage. 

“Alright Tokyo! Let’s have some fun!” 

The whole crowd, as if they could understand, began erupting with applause. 

The sweaty hip hop duo had opened the backstage window yet again, and Patricia’s sound leaked through. It made its way up to the nail salon where the few remaining employees were cleaning up after a long day. The loan sharks could barely make out the vibrations of Caren’s violent drums, but occasionally they would do a double take in case their pens rolled off their desks. On the roof the sound was piped through cables from the bar to a smaller speaker on the counter that was cranked just loud enough that the few rooftop customers could hear. Eventually the sound melded with the night winds of Tokyo, being carried off into the darkness of the Bay where it mixed with the sounds of the city. Across the water, in Koto Ward, a few fishermen were returning from an average haul. As this wind carried the amalgamate sound to their ears, the men all grimaced. Mixed in with that conflagration was something that could only have come from the pulverization of unnamable seafare. It smelled of scales and fish blood, it smelled of spoiled noodles that were left out in the rain for weeks. 

Still, Patricia could no longer smell the stench. As she sang alongside Tamaki, Patricia was totally in sync with her own thoughts. No matter where she truly belonged, or where she ended up invading, she would still have her friends. At the very least, she would still be performing with them, and that was the only thing that mattered in her life at that time. The rest would come when it was due, but it was best to enjoy those days of freedom they shared. Best to drink expired liqueur, and to laugh with silly bartenders. Best to let oneself be taken on whims of sorrowful, yet nascent, nostalgia.

Before they graduated college Janice had quit the band and gone on to a vastly successful career as a musician. At the time, there was no reason given for it. Yet when Patricia saw Janice perform by herself, she understood. Janice loved to play the piano. Her heart was split between her wife and whatever ivory was laid in front of her. She left, not because she hated Patricia, or thought she was weighing her down, but because she needed to chase that romance that she had discovered within herself. Patricia felt, after so long divorced from those early college days, that she finally got it. 

Patricia just loved to play music.