The Modeling Industry Destroyed My Soul Part 2: The Yakuza

I lived in Roppongi, a district in Tokyo famous for its nightlife and Japanese mafia presence. I lived with two other models whom I didn’t see very much. My bedroom consisted of a closet-sized space that contained a mattress. One of my roommates liked to stay in the apartment a lot. I think she was overly religious or something. My life in Tokyo was very different from the one I lived in Chicago. Tokyo was full of adrenaline and strange things. I loved it. I began experiencing adult life at the age of 18.

All the Western celebrities would go out to the clubs in Roppongi and Lexington Queen was the top destination. I got into Lexington Queen for free as long as I showed the doormen my modeling composite card. All the drinks were free for models also.

One night while my roommate and I were waiting in line to get into Lexington Queen, a short man with gelled hair and a shiny face who was standing behind us got really huffy. He was upset that he had to wait like everyone else. He started screaming at the doormen, “Hey, let me in now, right now!” My roommate said to him, “Be quiet, who do you think you are?” He responded, “I’m George Michael! Humph!” I recognized him immediately but my roommate had no idea who he was. I was super embarrassed that she didn’t recognize him and made a fool of herself publicly. She wasn’t really up to snuff with her celebrity and pop culture knowledge like I was. She was kind of a book nerd, a real homebody. She was an excellent roommate for that very reason. She didn’t like to party and never brought boys to our apartment or anything. I think her name was Nicole. I was like Nicole in some ways, but only partly. Tokyo nightlife was infecting my brain.

At Lex, as we called it, there were of course tons of cute boys. I enjoyed looking at them. There were also big time celebrities who were always there. I shied away from them mostly because I felt intimidated by their fame.

One night at Lex, while Rick Astley’s fabulous song, Never Gonna Give You Up was infecting my brain, my eyes landed on a mysterious young man who possessed a perfect face and an air of beautiful insanity. He was Japanese, well over six feet tall and strikingly gorgeous. He sported a bob cut, which was a rare style for men in 1988. His face was square and perfectly proportional and he wore expensive clothes. He was probably 25 years old. When I first saw him, my mind became absolutely transfixed and confused. There was something mysterious and out of control about him. He was confident and seemed full of secrets to the universe. After asking around at Lex, I found out his name was June.

My obsession grew quickly. Every night I went to Lex he was there. I was terrified to talk to him and I spent many, many nights just watching him, recording his every detail in my mind. I cannot remember anything or anyone else from Lexington Queen during this time. June’s intoxicating presence filled up every crevice in my brain.

One night at Lex I got up the nerve to talk to him briefly. I wrote down my phone number on a piece of paper. Then I left. The next time I saw June at Lex, he talked to me, flirted with me. We agreed to have lunch together the next day.

I was really nervous. We met at a high class French restaurant and June showed up wearing a multi-layered beige suit with an ivory-colored shirt. He told me that he was lonely and single. But he seemed a bit distracted during our date. It was not spectacular. Nothing happened. We just talked. But his presence fueled my fantastic fantasy of him. I was a virgin at the time, so I didn’t really fantasize about sex. My fantasy of June revolved around something else. I could not pinpoint what exactly I was fixated on, but there were secrets inside this Japanese dynastic god that I longed to discover.

June would frequently call me at 2 A.M. to talk. This struck me as a little insane but I was flattered that he paid me this nightly attention. One night he begged me for my address. Something inside of me felt afraid to give it to him, but I did it anyway. He then drove to my apartment building that same night and begged to see me. I said no, it was too late. He then threw some rocks at my window. I ignored him until he left. I felt a mix of addictive excitement and danger.

It was after one of these middle of the night phone calls that my roommate broke the news to me. She had heard from one of her friends that June was in the Japanese mafia, the Yakuza. She told me that June ran the biggest cocaine distribution network in Tokyo.

Shit.

The next weekend I saw June at Lexington Queen. I hadn’t confirmed yet if June was really in the Yakuza. I wanted to find out. But more than that, I wanted to be near him and his beautiful self. Still deep in my obsession, I let myself be pulled towards June, like a moth gets sucked towards its light.

While speaking with June at Lex, an attractive, twenty-something American woman with short, dark hair came between us. She was really pissed off. She told me to move aside. I did. She looked down at her watch and said in a mean voice, “Don’t you think it’s getting late for such a little girl? It’s past your fucking bedtime. This Japanese man you’ve been talking to….his name is June. He’s my boyfriend. He lives with me. Get lost.”

I did. I ran out of Lex in tears. I felt ashamed and stupid. June had lied to me about his relationship status. He told me that he didn’t have a girlfriend. The object of my obsession was a lying, cheating cocaine kingpin in the Japanese mafia and his girlfriend was on the verge of killing me.

It was time to slow down.

It was time to be rational.

June disappeared from the crevices of my obsessive brain in an instant out of self-preservation.

Lexington Queen was fun but after the June incident, I needed a new place to haunt. I chose Cleo Palazzi, which was an underground, arty club that the celebrities didn’t know about. The cool people all went to Cleo’s. It was dark and the entrance was just a door located in an alley. Cleo’s awakened in me an interest in art, underground hidden worlds and the darker sides of life.

Read the next chapter: The Modeling Industry Destroyed My Soul Part 3: Escape To Canada.

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