It was the beginning of April. When I came out of the locker room, three upperclassmen suddenly guffawed. “The ultimate man!” They said, pointing out me.“That’s hilarious.” I did not understand what the bastards meant. What on earth? How dare they? As I ascended the stairway linking the walkway to the main building, I heard one say: “The ultimate was coming.” It was weird and I had a premonition. Then slowly I walked on.
As I walked through the hallway like I was invisible, I could see sticking their heads out of windows. “The ultimate!”and they burst out laughing. At a recess, one peeked in my class, looking for someone and pointed at me. “The ultimate,”he smirked, disappearing. I felt acutely that new offenses were bound to grow; everywhere I went I was followed by enemies–by darkness, hatred and shame.
The next day the same thing happened over and over. They were persistent and expected me to be the clown. During the recesses I did not leave the classroom that was next to that of upperclassmen expect when I go to the bathroom. But when I walked by, when I met them, they immediately started again. It was quite awful. What is frustrating was that I could not do anything. In Japanese schools, the hierarchy is determined simply by what grade you are, on which it was very crucial you follow the upperclassmen.
I had perceived two opposite worlds that smelled completely different. One contained–punks with blond hair and gals wearing miniskirts and loose socks, juvenile delinquent stories and rumors of pregnancy. Though often a stranger to it, I existed in this world a few months ago. Eventually they hit me again and again: the way to ruin me was violence.
Now I belonged to well-lighted world that was at least familiar to me: yet, at this week, everything looked ravaged and hatred, was mine no longer and rejected me. A new odious feeling came over me. Momentarily I felt superior to my father, who was indifferent to me. I had seen through him and his world, where he was occupied with his study. This meant studying endlessly and it was at all impossible that I reached him. I had been contemptuous of this world, where intelligent people prefer to ignoring, mocking and humiliating to enjoying his real life. At any rate, I would have been in a rebellious phase.
When I left the classroom to go home, Shimada, a biology teacher who used to taught computer to my grade, had the afternoon homeroom. “Look. There comes the ultimate man,”he said, as though to provoke laughter in his class. The trigger was Shimada. I was boiling with anger while the bastards laughed. At the same time I was so apathetic because those who get bad grades were as good as scum, except for the extroverts who popular with everyone. Not studying seemed out of place.
I had done something wrong, with the remain of a piercing in my left lobe. There was nothing in my school bag but my Walkman. It was my own affair to find my own way. It had denied this intimate world that dawned within me. I was ruining myself in this process. My ground was slipping from under my feet. I was not like the other students, who studied hard to go to an excellent University. Must I resonate with them? Though my sin was not specially this or that, I felt everything had had to happen as it did. I had to struggle with a drive that is considered an“outsider”like permanent contempt.
It was disgusting the way Shimada and the upperclassmen underestimated and teased me. I was ashamed that I was a victim of a kind of bullying, which meant I was a weak person, so I did not dare confide it. In any rate, I was not the character to confess my suffering to a teacher and felt incapable of telling my mother everything properly. I needed someone to take my side. But I knew no one never picked up the side of a dropout against excellent students; people put what is agreeable to them in the right. My whole thing would be regarded as an aberration, whereas no matter how much bullying they inflict on me, I must endure any pain.
They regarded me amusedly, and I was laughed at everyday, every single day. “The ultimate!” They called me that. I was to hear it repeatedly. I had given in thoroughly and become more impure than ordinary students who follow the norm. I considered myself odd, taking a road different from most people. I could have studied hard, but I did not, so I had to be patient. That was all.
There was one boy I failed to ignore. Unlike the other bastards, Ueda was so close I was forced to look at his face inches away. His face was filled with enjoyment. He was smart and popular. All he had to do was to say some loathsome things to me, and his friends would laugh out loud saying: “The ultimate!” This awful things lasted perhaps a few weeks; my condition at that time was a kind of madness.
I had been thinking the way I get him to shut up. At noon recess, I could see the first-rate bastard alone ascending a staircase just by chance. He would say excitedly: “The ultimate.” I could no longer bear that. He was older than me; the school hierarchy was none of my business. Hardly had he arrived on the landing when I grasped him by the neck and squeezed against wall. “I’ll hit you,” I threatened him, looking at his eyes. Startled, he flinched and turned away as though he felt thoroughly ashamed of being underestimated by an underclassman who had been silent. He made no reply, but some students watched us, so I released him. Then he slunk away, blushing.
For one day, for two I did not encounter Ueda. He seemed to have vanish. I hardly believe it and I constantly lay in wait. When I walked past him a little distance away, he did not pay attention me as though I was nobody. It was an unprecedented moment I thought he might be afraid of me. For a whole week nothing happened about me, and I began to regain my peaceful equilibrium.
One day I walked calmly across the locker room. Suddenly I grasped it that Ueda came closer to me. “After school, come to the school gate,”he said with unwonted seriousness. “If you’ve got something to tell me, do it right here.”I said. “No. The school gate,”he came closer, again radiating influence. His followers looked at me with a sense of amusement. “How many your fellows do you think there’ll be?” I asked, superciliously. “The school gate, anyway,”he said, his face twitched and disappearing.
I was startled and frightened. From this time on my thought fixed on Ueda. I was certain that he had found other means of torturing and using me. In the meantime, miserable though I was, I did not regret at having done so at the landing. I began to feel stubborn. There was no turning back. I was ready to accept the inevitable.
As I climbed down the staircase alone I realized I had underestimated these bastards. In the square in front of the school gate were a dozen or so upperclassmen, against whom I had held a grudge. I was teased to begin with and stopped irresolute at the foot of the staircase, where Ueda stood right up against me. He instructed me to the corner. He poked me in the ribs a few time. “You must apologize to me,” he said. “Get down on your knees. Lick my shoes.”I tried to thrust myself toward the gate but he stood blocking me.
Ueda was embraced by all upperclassmen who seemed to become brothers–“What an idiot. The ultimate,” they chuckled. Numerous students, meanwhile, passed by me one after another, as though they avoided getting into trouble pretending not to notice or looked down on me with contempt. I began to feel acutely the hatred and rage to the intelligent students, who would have only one genuine vocation–doctor, lawyer or scholar–like my father.
“You can’t do anything on your own,” I said. “I came by myself. You surround me with your fellows, who tease a shit out of me.” “I was talking face to face!”he said, blushing. “Look around. You unite, laughing at me.” “Anyway, apologize.”
I had been humiliated enough–by the bastards who moved closer and closer to me. Although I knew they were far from violence, I wanted them to hit me as the punks did until they felt better. I was preoccupied with myself. And I longed desperately to be alone. I did not know what to do, unable to escape. “If you never call me ‘ultimate,’ I’ll apologize.” I blurted out. Ueda said nothing. I seemed to be caught forever in this impasse. I stood before them and trembling inside from exertion.
“I’m sorry,”I said.
“The ultimate!”they burst into laughing.
