2002-06-04 - 9:57 p.m.
On Friday night I had perhaps the craziest dinner I’ve had anywhere. Two of Kirstie’s friends were visiting from the United States, so the four of us plus Saori set out to find a suitably impressive yet-authentic Tokyo dining experience. After being turned away from a posh-looking Japanese place (two hour wait) and turned away from the entire neighborhood of Shibuya (accident on the Yamanote line), by 10 PM, when Kirstie remembered The Lockup, we were starving and not a bit cranky. I had read about The Lockup when I first got to Japan, or maybe before, and it seemed like one of those wacky, only-in-Japan, too-strange, are-you-kidding kind of places. The Lockup is a theme restaurant; the theme is prison.
After waiting for a few minutes in a darkened area near the elevators, our party was called and we were ushered through a heavy-looking wooden door. We made our way through a dimly-lit narrow passageway with fake-stone walls and a creaky wooden bridge, where we faced another heavy wooden door, closed. After waiting for a minute or two, the door was opened by a pair of “guards” -- women in vinyl miniskirts and jackets with officer’s caps, handcuffs hanging from their waists. One of the guards lead us through a dark maze of more stone walls with a flashlight. We ducked through a low passageway and passed individual caves -- dining rooms -- on either side. The guard slid open the bars enclosing our cave and after taking our shoes off (this is Japan folks) we settled on the floor around the table.
A waiter dressed in black and white stripped inmate garb came to take our drink order. A similarly dressed waitress delivered our order, which included “Electric Shock,” a very potent cocktail, and a set which included a beaker of a cloudy alcoholic beverage and test-tubes of colored liquids to inject into it with an eye-dropper. The food was less themed, the usual mix of pan-Asian and Italian found at many large restaurants in Tokyo. Twice our dinner was interrupted by “prison breaks” -- the lights started flashing and then went out, sirens sounded, and frantic announcements were made over a loud-speaker in Japanese. We heard screams coming from down the corridor, running footsteps, and then a monster burst into our cell wielding a large human bone and banging it against the walls as we shrieked. He was followed by another monster -- this one wearing a mask and a huge Afro -- and then by a waiter wearing a hockey mask, who seemed to take special pleasure in repeatedly terrorizing the foreigners.
The Lockup is located in the same building as the Christon (pronounced Christ-ON) Cafe, a cavernous place which offers a cathedral-themed dining experience complete with crucifixes, stained glass, and gargoyles (did I forget to write about that one?). Only in Japan could two institutions as troubled as the Church and the prison system be totally stripped of their context and sold for entertainment value with cocktails on the side -- in the same building, no less. Can you imagine the protests that would ensue if either establishment tried to open in the U.S.? The Church picketing outside the Christon Cafe (spelling alone is reason enough) and college students papering the bathrooms at The Lockup with incendiary information about the prison-industrial complex.
After being released from The Lockup, we made our way to a small bar in northern Tokyo owned by Kirstie’s friend. When I say small I mean the typical size for a bar in Tokyo -- a corridor-like space with about a dozen seats at the bar, and no room for tables. The owner, who used to only date black men, has decorated her small establishment in wall-to-wall African American artifacts. The muted TVs at either end of the narrow space play tapes of BET, while the stereo blasts hip hop and R n’B. The walls are covered in pictures of famous African American musicians, from Louis Armstrong to Janet Jackson. There are autographed pictures of the owner with Ice-T and Naughty by Nature, as well as lesser-known rap artists. By the door are three vintage jazz-playing figurines. Interestingly enough, this black-themed bar is not frequented by hip-hoppers of the tanning salon and kinky perm variety I found at the Lil’ Kim concert a few months back. Rather, the place seems to be just a neighborhood bar with a funky decor where salary men come in for a drink after work -- amidst re-runs of BET countdowns. After 10 months, the feeling that I am living in a funhouse, or on the moon, has yet to wear off.
