What would Bill Murray do?

Romain Mereau goes to the aid of a drunk stranger on a Tokyo street. Afterwards he's left wondering about the man's story, so creates his own.

Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler storytelling night or read on ...

I’m wedged in the tiny bathroom of my Tokyo hotel room. One foot up on the toilet cistern, I have my crotch thrust over the low handbasin, almost touching the mirror. At the top of the mirror is the best light source in my room, a thin fluoro bulb that is producing a disappointingly narrow beam of light.

Still, my crotch is in the zone, and my eyes can finally make out the golden glint of my fly, zip gleefully, hopelessly jammed over a small portion of fabric. That’s why the zip won’t open, which is a little inconvenient right now. All of a sudden my foot slips and mashes all the buttons on the space-age toi­let, which starts gurgling as it begins to execute a complicated sequence of bum wash­ing manoeuvres. The phone in my room then starts to ring – what did I just press?

There’s an American film shot in Tokyo called Lost in Translation. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson play strangers who meet in the jazz echoes of a hotel bar and strike up a connection. At one point, Scarlett Johansson’s character says “I just feel so alone, even when I’m surrounded by other people.”

All of a sudden my foot slips and mashes all the buttons on the space-age toi­let, which starts gurgling as it begins to execute a complicated sequence of bum wash­ing manoeuvres.

Well, I’m in that same big city surrounded by roughly 13 million people, and I can’t get my pants off, so that kind of speaks to me. Tonight, my plan is to go and visit the famous bar where they shot some of the film. I manage to wrestle my pants back into submis­sion, and with that sorted, I set off into the dark.

It’s a hot and humid night. My shirt is sticking to my back and the crisp coolness of air conditioning is just a whispered dream. All around me hundreds of people are stream­ing along the footpaths, washed in a kaleidoscope of neon glows.

I pass gangs of teenagers with slicked back hair and American leather jackets. Fruit vendors, sitting amongst enormous stacks of oranges, call down to the crowd. We skirt around an old monk, who is travelling quite literally at a snail’s pace. He’s on a different plane of time from the rest of us, and the crowd accommodates this, flowing around his little pocket of stillness like a river.

I navigate the side-streets with the smug comfort of an iPhone and Google maps. Emerg­ing on the fringes of the next district, I begin to cross a large six-lane street.

My destination is close now, I can feel it.

So I’m crossing this road, and I suddenly notice, off to the side, a dark shape on the ground. Checking around me, no-one seems to be paying it any attention. It’s kind of a weird shape. I look closer and on the painted lines that divide the two opposing lanes of traffic, with cars driving past on either side, there’s a man lying on the road. I hurry past some cars and crouch down next to him. He’s an old man, grey hair with flecks of white in the messy stubble that covers his face. He seems to be conscious. I don’t speak any Japanese, so I ask him in English if he’s OK, but he doesn’t say anything. He looks a mess. What would Bill Murray do?

The man’s lying on his front so I get my arms under him and, somehow manage to yank him to his feet. But almost immediately he begins to topple over again; this guy is really drunk!

Now most of us (at one time or another) have had to help a drunk friend get where they need to go. I’ve found that the trick is to treat them like a very spirited, if uncoor­dinated, dance partner. So there we are, me and the old man, I’m supporting his weight, and we begin this shambling tandem waltz across the tarseal.

Around this time, I realise that there’s a pretty strong smell coming from my partner here. The night hasn’t been kind to him. The city’s chewed him up and spat him onto the road, and somewhere along the line he’s shat himself. I’ve got my arms around him, so I’m just praying that nothing’s leaking through. We near the edge of the footpath, and I’m about to lose my grip when a young man comes to our aid, and together we’re able to carry the old man the last few steps to sit him down on a concrete ledge.

Now most of us (at one time or another) have had to help a drunk friend get where they need to go. I’ve found that the trick is to treat them like a very spirited, if uncoor­dinated, dance partner. 

Exhausted, sweating, I plonk down next to him to catch my breath. The old man blinks and says nothing. I guess there wasn’t that much to say.

After a few moments, I get up and with a final wave, submerge myself back into the crowd.

A few blocks away I found the hotel I was looking for. Rode two different elevators up to the 80th floor, to the New York Bar. It was magnificent. Ritzy. It looked just like from the movie, only more impressive.

I swirled the incredibly expensive drink I had just bought myself. “Clunked” might be a better description. After hearing my request for ‘one’ ice cube, the bartender had picked up her icepick and hacked off an enormous tennis ball of ice from a block, which filled my glass almost completely to the top. “One ice” she said with a dash of pride.

I clunked my iceberg and thought about the old man.

His picture was already fading from my head. Maybe it was the whiskey. I don’t know. I wanted to know his story, wanted him to be somebody, you know? Not just this this thing that my eyeballs skimmed over in the street before rolling on.

So I made something up. It doesn’t matter that the story isn’t true, I wanted to remem­ber him. His name was Kiyoshi, and this is a letter he wrote to his wife...

This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.