Temptation

A twist in my sobriety

I have been in Asia for the better part of a month now and my flight back to Europe leaves at noon tomorrow. Anxious to go home, I find it impossible to sleep. It is 3 AM and I am strolling down Tokyo’s Shinjuku entertainment district. 

Today, the eleventh of the eleventh month of 2015, is celebrated in Asia as Bachelors’ Day. As the digit 1 resembles a stick, symbolizing someone who is alone, 11/11 is considered to be a lucky day for singles. On Alibaba, Asia’s answer to Amazon, bachelors have bought two hundred and fifty million Anti-Valentine’s gifts to celebrate their singleness. Funnily enough, many find each other on this special day and are henceforth no longer single. The streets are filled with couples, determined to paint the town red tonight.

An expat colleague has given me the address of a skyline bar at the Park Hyatt and I am now standing in front of the majestic high-rise, hesitating to go in. After some deliberation, I cross the imposing lobby and take the elevator up to the 52nd floor, straight into the glorious bar where Bill Murray first saw Scarlett Johansson in Coppola’s indie movie Lost in Translation. I have a soft spot for Scarlett and I imagine myself in the iconic scene right when he offers her a Suntory single malt Japanese whisky - For relaxing times, make it Suntory time -  and she teasingly orders a G and T instead, with that flair of feminine defiance that would become her signature expression.

The bar has a glitzy Gatsby theme going on with the women dressed flapper style with bobbed hair and dazzling short dresses. An elegant blonde in a flamboyant red Roaring Twenties dress is singing Lana Del Rey’s Young and Beautiful, accompanying herself on a white Baby Steinway. People are holding Vintage 1920 Prohibition Cocktails like Highballs and Old Fashions, Daiquiris and Side Cars. The girls wear feathers in their hair and smoke long cigarettes. The view outside over Tokyo’s rooftops is formidable and my head is spinning.

Before I can ask the bartender whether this really is the Lost in Translation cocktail lounge, he nods knowingly and points to a specific bar stool. I ask: “He or she ?” He answers with a tired smile: ”She”. 

I take the seat and order a Kirin Ice beer with a very exact 0.0% alcohol. I have been sober for 30 months and I consider myself sufficiently ruggedized to be trusted alone in a late-night Tokyo bar. Deep down, though, I feel the familiar sting in a place like this. Like an old love lost but not forgotten, it still eats at my core. It is not a coincidence I keep going back to waterholes like this.

Three pretty Japanese girls are entertaining a bunch of German businessmen at the far end of the bar, away from the party. The girls seem too beautiful to be true. I cannot help but wonder at this arrangement. On the surface, the men look like predators, Alpha males, in town to close the deal. The girls seem too young and outnumbered. A $600 Jeroboam of Louis Roederer Cristal  Champagne gets passed around and keeps them going.

On second glance, I realize that the girls are in the lead and the men eagerly take part in this universal game. Willing participants in an age-old ritual. The girls are flirting shamelessly, she-wolfs in their natural habitat.

The scene triggers ambiguity in me. Shame and fascination. Disapproval and attraction. But why should I care? The bartender is minding his own business and I too turn away.

My eyes settle on a cabinet with expensive cigars on display. Each cigar is wrapped individually with an impressive label that reads Caliber & Carat  in an elegant font. My mind connects dots which are not there. Caliber as in lethal weapon, Carat as in flawless diamond.

Or carat as in flawless girls and caliber as in character strength? What type of man would mess around with school girls (or, at least, that is the look the young women are going for) very late on a Thursday night? I wonder for a moment whether that type could be me under different, less sober circumstances.

I cannot help but let my gaze drift back to the scene with the girls and the Germans. One of the women looks straight at me while pulling the tie of one of the men. Her eyes dare me: “So what?”

I suddenly feel totally out of place and exposed as an imposter, as if the entry ticket to this bar is a real drink. An adult drink. Confused and with thoughts spiraling down into a familiar pattern, I pay for the fake beer that I did not touch. It occurs to me I am still a dry drunk, full of resentment and anger. This place eats at my resolve and I need to go. I put on my raincoat and leave in a hurry. The higher pitched broken English of the girls follows me into the corridor and resonates all the way down the elevator ride.

Outside, I walk briskly back to my own hotel feeling deeply sorry for myself.  And God knows that sorry is not a good place to be in, not if I want to make it to three years. It has started raining. I get soaked but do not mind. It feels appropriate, like a ritualistic cleansing.  

Back in my room, I am too agitated to go to bed. For more than an hour, I watch the stock ticker on CNN while my thoughts try to come to some conclusion.

What to make of this? I walked out of a tricky situation. This time. But what about next time? My moral compass may be pointing to the North but what does that buy me? And of course, the big question. In the final analysis, will I drink again?

I take deep breaths and slowly but surely come to stand on solid ground. I feel like I made it back from behind enemy lines. Back in the DMZ here in my room, I start to feel better about this whole thing. Temptation was a clear and  present danger tonight but it did not tip me over. Tomorrow I will feel stronger than ever. But I emotionally know that I came as close as I’ve gotten in a very long time. The realization hurts but feels good at the same time.

I am still and will always be like the moth circling the flame, unable to stay away from the brightest of lights. 

Author's Note

New version uploaded. Thank you all for your feedback!

Reviews

[Drcicarlo]

After the first few sentences I was hooked! This has been quite a fascinating read. Your strength to hold on to your power is astonishing-- simply because most folks could not last even a few minutes in such an environment with promiscuous temptations. Although it was clear before confession how difficult it was to retract from participating, I found it rather heroic that you saved yourself from utmost self-hatred. Finally, at the end when you wrapped your head around your actions and realized that you will become stronger I felt chills run down my spine. That is absolutely incredible. Thank you for sharing.

[Philip Muls]

Thank you Erica

Kind regards Philip

[Matching Socks]

Great job setting the scene and pace. I liked the whole play on social vices, expectations and resilience.

[A.W. Carl]

Great stuff my friend! Stay strong and remember that you are not alone in this fight.

Like another reviewer stated. Anyone who can take a rather mundane, daily occurrence, and transform it into a riveting story is an exceptional writer.

[Philip Muls]

Many thanks for your encouraging words. Kind regards Philip

[Myenigma]

stay strong man..., I liked the 20's theme description within the company of the bar, i think a little more surrounding scenery (of the bar) could be great, also imagery within the characters experience, like the sentence when his looking outside the window would be perfect , "no second gazes into the dazzling lights that whirl my psyche into a state of jittery and frame of wobbliness.. " etc... , I like how the name of the bar is not mentioned, but instead its prominence and fame that precedes it, adding a sense of recognition that the readers should feel like they should already know this bar.

The realness is also great. that feeling of sorrow, resentment and regret.

[Philip Muls]

Thanks! Very relevant feedback

[richieb]

Well written story on challenges of sobriety. I had my last drink at 26 years old in 1980.I was automatically drawn to your story. Understanding the fragility of staying sober I thought your story was realistic. The dangers of picking up that first drink do not have to originate from high drama, but just in a shift of feelings. Your story showed that becoming unbalanced can lead to disaster. Your writing is tight and polished. I enjoyed your story.

[Philip Muls]

Thank you. Wow 36 years sober...I am in awe. I am nearing 3 years.

[richieb]

One day at time and someday you will be at 36 years. I respect you for your 3 years of sobriety and for facing this challenge.

[Bobby Garfield]

Once again, I liked it very much. You are very good at that introspective, analysing thing and it well-written as always. One minor thing confused me: "... in Coppola`s Indie-Movie..." Makes me think of Francis Ford Coppola when people only write "Coppola". Hm, maybe it's just me being rather old-school :)

[M P Ramesh]

philip,
The fact that writers seem to go inner and inner when the images of outside world are concerned is true. But to say, it will only help them to reach out the fringes and finally they appear to have been caught in the web.It is not bad to roam over . However confusing the impressions, there awaits a sharp ray of light for each of them. That is why literature had survived in the long history of humans even with the strictest sense of contempt. It is my view point....i DON'T THINK in any point of time literature was received by mass. The outer reality when depicted may catch the eyes temporarily. But there should be something as above for second/third read.

Excellent diction and style
carry on......


R u writing in French/German/Dutch?

M P Ramesh

[Taylor]

Hi Phillip: You've done a great job of carrying the reader along -- first through the curious practices of another culture, giving us the global perspective of aloneness. Then you make it specific as we follow the protagonist into a bar where he is tantalized by sexy girl-women, where he also grapples with his conscience, gets a non-alcoholic beer which he doesn't drink and finally recognizes the risk to his sobriety and leaves. I've noticed in other pieces how good you are at bringing the reader into an interesting scene and allowing the reader to experience something of another world. That is true of this piece as well. If you were to revise this at all, I'd love to see more appeal to the senses -- the smells, the sounds, the play of light in a bar as well as his own physiological changes as he experiences the temptation -- salivating, sweating, whatever. Good luck with the piece. The topic certainly is one that has great merit -- anyone who maintains sobriety is to be greatly respected; it's not easy.

[Philip Muls]

More appeal to the senses, excellent feedback Taylor. I always overdo it on the thinking rather than the sensing. Kind regards Philip

[Taylor]

Yes, I do the same; that's why I could point it out for you!

[Mark]

Anyone who can make a mundane every day type of story and make it riveting enough that the reader must read the entire story is a master of the craft.

Very much enjoyed your story. I am not an alcoholic though my sister is quite sure that all four of us are addictive personalities.

Anyway, it was a heroic effort with an easy seeming delivery. Very well done IMO!

[Philip Muls]

Thank you for the review Mark.

[Solar]

'Temptation was a clear and present danger tonight but it did not tip me over.' the pivot in an expertly told tale. A good read.

[Philip Muls]

Thank you, indeed a very important point in the story, I like that word pivot (I am not native English)

[Ardra]

very nicely written ,it does take lot of will power to walk off from the temptations :)
the last line i really liked it ,
I am still and will always be like the moth circling the flame, unable to stay away from the brightest of lights ---- we all r tempted towards the temptation like the moth circling around the flame.. :)