Nicola Interview: 8/24/89
(Includes Growing Up, Omura, Tokyo GHQ, 1st Wife, Black Market, Deportation, Lansco)
Side A
(CHILDHOOD, GROWING UP)
Q: Talk about your childhood.
A: I grew up in E. Harlem, in a family of 11 kids. My father was a rough carpenter and we were dirt poor. I can remember coming home to our small apartment on 116th street and finding the furniture out on the street. My parents didn’t have enough money to pay the rent. That was in the depression era. 1929-1936.
Q: Where was your father from?
A: Italy. Pulasia. Near Calabria. Connie Francis made the expression famous: “Hey Calibrese.” People considered all Calibresians stupid. But it was also the home of the Mafia in Italy. On the back part of the boot facing Albania.
Q: And you grew up in East Harlem.
A: East Haarlem. Not the same as Spanish Harlem.
Q: You said you tried to join the army when you were 16.
A: No, I supported myself since I was 16. I was a member of the National Youth Administration, which was a gift. You cleaned the blackboards, you got about 4 bucks a month. And 4 bucks a month was about a half a week’s salary at that time. It enabled you to buy your shirts and shoes and socks and it made you a little independent. And it was not considered degrading, because there was no work. I stayed in school and extra year with that 4 bucks. I could have graduated in 1938.
Q: What was your first job?
A: My first job was as a typist. I lasted one day. I worked for the American Adult Education Program. What they were doing in those days, they used to teach people English—adult education. And so the first job I had was as a typist and the guy looked as me as if I was crazy. But they gave me a job as a typist because my name is Nicola and they thought I was a girl.
During that period I worked with a lot of Jewish people and they were more savvy than most people because they knew about Hitler and what he was doing. And they used to tell me…I worked in the Statistical Department of the Adult Education Program, working IBM computers. Those were the old, old days when they had key punch and things like that. And while I was working there, one of these Jewish guys says “Why don’t you go to work in the Munitions Factory.” I said, “What’s that?” And he says, “There’s going to be a big war.” We’re talking 1940. 1939. And I didn’t pay much attention (what was going on). But after a while, I did get a job in New Jersey. I got 10 times my salary. I’d started at $13 a week. Got promoted. Got to $16 a week. But then I got to work at Picatini Arsenal, I was getting $125 a week. Lot of money.
But when you are affiliated with munitions making, you get more accustomed to what a war is. I remember one time I was putting a cap on an anti-aircraft shell. Those days they had a little gadget on them that was a timer in the nose of the shell. And if you turned it to so many seconds, it would automatically explode. So the bottom of the cannon just sends the shell up, but it explodes according to the second on the timer on it. I remember once, I was sliding it over to the next guy and it fell on the floor and everybody ran like a thief. I just picked it up. I didn’t know what it was. But the son of a bitch. If I’d kicked the timer,, I’d have blown the place up. So I lost that job, because of that.
And they gave me a job…I weighed a terrific 120 pounds then, and they gave me job pushing navy shells, and they weigh 2,000 pounds or something,..in the wagon. And I think one of the wheels of the wagon was the same weight that I was. And here I am trying to push these shells from one place to another.
Then I decided I wanted to join the Air Force. So I went down to 90 Whitehall Street in New York to join the Air Force and I never passed the test. They interviewed me and asked me if I wanted to be a glider pilot. Is said, “Shit no. I want to be a fighter pilot and I want to return home when I want to.” Glider pilots take a one-way trip. I did that several months. You were allowed to take the test every month and I never passed. Then one day I went to the Canadian Air Force and I took the test and I passed it. And it was interesting, because it was a physics test. You know like, “What falls down faster: a ball, a flower, a steel ball?” You know they both fall about a 125 miles a hour. So I passed that test and this commander Hawkes, I think his name was Frank Hawkes—he was a very famous man after a while—He said to me, “Please come again and take another test.” I came back and take another test and this time they’re all watching me, Cuz the first time I got like 98 out of 100 right. And I’m a commercial student. They couldn’t figure it out. I went to Commerce High School. And they sat around me and I took the test again and I got around 97 or 98 correct. And then they gave me the sad new that they can not take me into the Canadian Air Force because they were fighting Italy. And I’d get washed out before the first round.
So then I tried the Navy and I passed the Navy Flight test. And I was going to Pensacola in 1942. But, of course, December 1941 they attack and I took he test in the middle of 1941. April or May. But then there was a movie called “To The Shores of Tripoli” with John Payne. We all saw it. We all got gung ho. We’re going to go to war. And like 25 of us, we all went down to the Marine Corps, and only 3 of us passed. And I think only I survived of the three. And so that’s how I wound up in the Marine Corps. Went down to the most miserable place in the world called Paris Island. It is miserable. June 1942. They used to call us Pearl Harbor Avengers.
But I didn’t know there was such a thing as a PFC or a corporal or a sergeant. Or a lieutenant. I didn’t know any of those things. So anyway, I went from Paris Island to Cherry Point, which was just open then. Rifle range. Learn how to shoot a gun. Then I went to San Diego. Then I went down to the ship a few times. And everytime my name came, the ship was full and I was gone, because I was Private Zappetti and they never got down to the Z’s. They used to fill the ship up. So I wound up in Marine Aviation. I stayed in a photographic squadron called VMD-254. And the first job I got there was picking up cigarette butts, and putting kerosene in the kerosene heaters in these tents that the people lived in. So I complained about picking up cigarette butts because I don’t smoke. So I complained loud enough, so they gave me the job of driving the carry all—it’s like a station wagon. And I remember there was a Colonel Pennybaker there. He had a picture of Debbie Reynolds there that said. “Faith has kept you so fair. Misfortune has kept you so far.” Cuz she was married to somebody else or something.
So anyway, I started driving this carry-all and I stayed in VMD for a while. They used to fly B-24’s And I wound up El Toro. That was in Miramar. And I wound in the headquarters squadron. And I stayed there until…a long time. I became a staff sergeant in the office, When I joined the Marine Corps, I showed the guy this navy card—that I was going to go to Navy training. And you know the Marines and the Navy is the same outfit. I showed the guy and he said, “Yeah, you can go. From the Marine Corps, you can go to the Navy.” So I said OK, and so I joined the Marines, and then I found that you had to be a PFC or a Corporal to go there, to go to flight training. And it took me 18 months to make PFC. So that was the end of that. But then as I worked in El Toro, I worked in the office and I did a lot of different kinds of office work. I got up to Staff Sergeant. And I couldn’t go overseas, because they needed office people more than they needed anybody else. But El Toro had a Marine football team. They had guys like Wee Willy Wilkins and Elroy Crazylegs Hirsch in the squadron. I knew them all. They never did anything but play football.
And then one day we all decided we were going to go to war. We disappeared from the base all at once. We typed all our orders up and we made sure that we go down to Miramar replacement center and stay there for 15 minutes and gone to the war, and we wound up in the South Pacific, ready for D-Day Okinawa. We typed up our own orders. Signed them ourselves. Because a good first sergeant must know how to sign the CO’s signature….I was what they called a 502. Sort of like a first sergeant. I had 4 stripes and that’s a lot of stripes in the Marine Corps.
(OMURA)
So anyway, I wound up on what they called the Evasion (Invasion) of Okinawa. April 1, 1945. First we stayed on an island called Mog Mog. I think that’s what you would call a staging area. At one time they had what they called the Ulithe (Ulysses?) group there. At one time in Time Magazine they had a picture of 7 battleships there in the harbor. That was a big fucking thing. But I lived on the isle of Mog Mog which was a small fucking thing and as a big 4-striper in the Marine Corps I was allowed to sleep above deck. Not in the hole. That’s a hot place. But I did have one bad experience that was terrible. I dived off a Higgie boat and was swimming at the bottom and I looked up and saw a shark that was bigger than the Higgie boat. And there was nothing to hold on the bottom. All sand. Boy I tell you. When I got a chance, I just flew right up in the water and I don’t think I even touched the sides of the Higgie boat, I was inside. Those are those landing craft.
So we took a ship from Miramar to Mog Mog. The Ulithe group. And then from there, we got on a ship and we landed in Okinawa. April 1, 1945. And we were aviation personnel, but they gave you a gun, like a soldier..the grunts were corporals and they had command of 7 or 8 guys and everybody outranked them, but you had to listen to guy. And so we made the beachhead and nothing happened. No bullets were fired. There was nothing. No opposition. Nothing. And we stayed there one or two nights, I think, and then they moved us off the island. And then they sent us back to MogMog. All the aviation personnel. The land soldiers stayed there. And we stayed in Mog Mog until almost the capitulation of Okinawa.
Then I went into a fighter squadron. I was the first sergeant. I believe it was VMF. 315 or 311. And then from there, I went into a headquarters squadron on Okinawa. Limited duties because it was a war zone. Mag-44 on Okinawa. On an airbase called Shimu. And it was famous because it had a bend in the middle. And the airplanes would take off go up in the air and then drop down. You don’t see the airplane no more. Then it comes out. In the end of May 1945, the Japanese landed a Kamikaze airplane on that strip.. Like a DC-3. One or two. And these guys were wearing silk pajamas. Greens. Yellows. They tore the base up. Because it was a suicide mission. But you couldn’t shoot at them because if you shot, you might hit the guys on the other side of the airport. But of course they were eventually all killed. Or captured. Or something.
Then from that base, the war ended. And we flew up to Omura, Kyushu. What they called Air Base Command.. Omura Kyushu is near the Sasebo Naval Base. Now it’s a detention center for the Vietnamese or something like that. Omura’s where the airport is now. Well, it used to be a big grass mat, back then. That’s all it was. And it had hangars. They were all preferated. (perforated). Bullet holes all over them. Inside the hangars there was nothing but big torpedoes. Planes. You name it. But they had not gasoline. They couldn’t fly the airplanes. And all the propellors were taken off the airplanes, because the Japanese had given up, the war was ended and they were ordered to take off the props of the planes so they couldn’t be used. And I remember there was a Japanese admiral there. I guess he was the commander of the base. He had his soldiers lined up to turn over the base. But we not authorized to touch him because we were…I was the highest ranking guy there and I was only a staff sergeant.
We flew up in B-25’s.Oh, I imagine there must have been about 20 or30 of us. All Marines. Enlisted men. We had some officers.
Q: But you said you were in charge
A: I was a first sergeant. First sergeant is always in charge. The officers were not administrative officers. They were pilots. And that’s when they had FOU’s. You know, the Corsair. And they objective was to fly low over the neighborhood and terrorize the Japanese with the sound of the airplane. This was after we landed. August 15 or 16, when the war ended.
Q: You landed on Omura August 16th?
A: About. In that neighborhood.
(Authors’s Note: I think this date is wrong. It was probably more like the end of August or early September, because records show the first American landed in Japan August 29, in an advance party. It’s possible Nick was right, but I doubt it.)
Q: And these pilots flew what?
A: FOU’s. We call it the inverted gull wing. And there job was to terrorize the neighborhood. That was in the daytime. In the nightime….
Q:And so you landed, and these guys were waiting to turn over the base to you?
A: Yeah. But we couldn’t touch it. We had to bring in another person the same rank they are to do that. That situation only lasted a couple of days. Then some wheel must have come in and taken over the..
Q: So what did you do. You just ignore them?
A: Just ignored them. Who you gonna speak to anyway. We speak English. They speak Japanese.
Q: So you landed, they approached you?
A: No, they were on the airport. Like soldiers. A welcoming committee. Lined up. In formation. They were only two lines. Most of them were dead already. They all took off on Kamikaze flights. I’d say there were maybe 20 men. You couldn’t tell what they were. But the guy in the front was a big fat admiral, probably, base commander. But he can’t give his sword to a sergeant or a corporal. I don’t think they allow that.
Q: The guy tried to present his sword to you when you arrived and got out of plane?
A: Not to me. Because we were instructed to keep away. To just leave them alone.
Some receiving officer had to come up, because according to the Geneva Convention, that’s the way it was done. America follows all those rules and regulations. Of course, nobody else does….And then they were gone. Somebody on a different plane came up and took the sword. I don’t know where they went….
We just see them across the field. We were in a different area. We could see all the soldiers lined up. We didn’t bother with them. We were not allowed …according to what do you call it…protocol?
Q: So he was just waiting for somebody to come over and accept his sword and the surrender of the base.
A: Right.
Q: Were you scared at all?
A: No. I think I was too stupid to be scared. Cuz I still look back and wonder, you know, why I wasn’t worried. It never entered my mind.
Q: What was the weather like then?
A: Oh, beautiful. But remember, that was August. Like we have August here. And then the typhoons came. And the airplanes couldn’t bring up food. So we were reduced to eating in geisha houses. Sweet potatoes and Mikans.
Q: OK. This is getting good. But let’s back up a minute. It was August. The sky was clear. You came in, plane landed. You have a place to stay or what? Was somebody waiting for you?
A: No, nobody. We were first in. There was nobody there. So we just moved into one of the hangars. We just moved into what they left there. There was plenty of beds there. We slept on little cots. The folding cot. They were already there. I remember sleeping on a cot because we used to put our pup tent over it to keep the rain out. The hangar roofs were well-ventilated.. You looked up and you saw a million holes in the roof. They shot them all up.
Q: So in the beginning, you just camped out in the hangar and you ate K-rations?
A: Yes. K-rations.
Q: What did you do your first day there?
A: Nothing. Just nothing. Just relaxed. Like I say, we weren’t so conscious of …you know.,..at 21 or 22. I was 23 oe 24. You’re still like a 17 year old, because you really don’t know the depth of….And here I’m in the service four years. But there was no combat in my life. There was no…The only trouble we had was with the other branches of the service. Especially being that I was a very strong heavyweight of 130 pounds probably. The pettiness between the army and the navy and the air force was something. I remember I was walking down the street in LA and some big paratrooper, maybe 6’2″, said, “Hey Marine. You’re a tough guy aren’t you?” He was about a head and a half taller than me and outweighed me by a hundred pounds and I thought he was crazy. Big Mother. But nothing happened. Of course, not. But I’ll tell you something we did in those days. Did you ever hear the word “Pachuco?” This was an area, a group of people in Los Angeles, that were Mexicans. Ineligible for military training or conscript or whatever you want to call it, and they were harrassing all the wives. And they had a lot of trouble with the pachucos. Like Zoot-suiters. And one day, the word got out, and there was a tremendous convoy of military vehicles and military men into LA and wiped out the place. Just went in there and everyone they grabbed, they beat the living hell out of him. They went into the subways. Into the trolleys. Into the buses. Just yanked them out and beat their brains in. Marines. Army. Navy. Everybody got together. It seemed to me there was a wildfire in the Barrio. There were in the ghetto. In the streets. They were harassing everybody. You know the white people, or what you want to call them. The wives of the servicemen. They were just terrorizing the whole area. I’d say a minimum of 50 to 100,000 military men converged on the city. And that was the end of the pachucos.
Q: Back to Omura. So you just sat there.
A: So we just sat there. We had very little to eat, because the typhoons prevented the airplanes from landing. And one day, a big landing craft came with these land marines. We were there in our khaki pants. And we had them already cut to short pants. No shirts. Nothing at all. We were just running around in short pants. And this Marine gets off this big landing craft with guns, and hand grenades and bandoliers, you know. Machine guns. Fully loaded. And he says to us, “You guys POWS’s?” And we couldn’t help laughing. We says know, “We’re Occupation Forces.” And he was fucking…you know..he made an invasion of the base. They had quite a few of those boats come in. The only good thing about it was they brought us food. We got those k-rations and those c-rations and we felt really lucky.
Q: How long was that after you first landed?
A: Oh, a few days after. Probably the 21st or 22nd.) Because we were basically out of food.
(?? author’s note: contradicts this later. Says it was when they were living in geisha house/ ..they move quickly to geisha house, it appears.)
But, we did one thing that was very interesting. We went to the geisha houses there. Sex is a great topic. It’s such a great pastime….The typhoons had stopped the airplanes from bring food in. But you have to remember, America was occupying ALL of Japan. Not just one base. So I image they had a tremendous supply trouble to bring food in. We were not a big contingency. I imagine we were maybe 50 men at most. And I remember when we were there, we decided we were going to go downtown and get us a girl see.
Q: Did you know about that? There were geisha houses?
A: Well, any man with a hardon can find a girl. If not, the hardon disappears. You can get used to not having any. So we went downtown and we found out that for 10 yen you could stay all night. But nobody had 10 yen. What the hell is 10 yen, you know? And we are looking at this Japanese money and we say, wait a minute, there’s a lot of that money in Okinawa. So me, being the big First Sergeant, I sent a guy down, a couple of guys down on an aircraft to Okinawa. They picked up enough money so that we gave everybody about 3,000 yen each. You never saw so many rich marines in your life. In an area where you spend 10 yen to stay all night with a girl they had 3,000 yen each. And we used to sit in the geisha houses there. Of course, we had beer. There was no question. The beer was all right. The Mikans were ok. And they used to put the hibachi that they had, they used to cook sweet potato on it. So our dinner for 5 or 6o or 7 days until we got food, was, beer, hibachi cooked sweet potatoes and mikans.
And, of course, sex.
There was not much electricity. I remember we used to take the nose cone of then propellor, put water in it, put our clothes in, put some soap in, put some gasoline underneath it and light the son of a bitch. And that makes a terrific fire. It boils the water and cleans the clothes.
Q: What did the base look like there. Just some ramshackle bldgs?
A: No, there were hangars. There was nothing left of the military barracks. They must have been all burned out or something, because we stayed in the hangars.
Q: Tell me about the first time you guys went into town.
A: Well, first we didn’t know where the town was. Then we went into town. Because ther was nothing to eat. We walked around. All on foot. . We had no vehicles. Then we found out there were plenty of girls.
Q: Do you remember what it was like when you first walked in. Were people hiding or what?
A: There was no people, it appeared. It appeared like it was a deserted area, you know. They jsust didn’t come out on the streets or something. There was not a tremendous amount of population in that area anyway. They were probably hiding and things like that. …I remember we, one night it was raining like a son of a bitch and we walked into town and there was this guy in a black raincoat. And black hood and what not. And asked “Where’s geisha house.” Geisha House. That’s all we could say. And the guy, of course, was an American, not a Japanese.. And he says “Go down the street and make a left turn.” And we were really surprised.
Q: Did you know about geisha houses before you landed?
A: Oh, of course. Everybody knows about sex.
But you know they say the Japanese army carries girls with them. I don’t know. I can’t prove it.
Q: What did the town look like physically?
A: It was just a ramshackle place. There was nothing important in it. It was just a little village place. I don’t know what part of the base we got off on. You know, the perimeter of the base. Maybe we went in the wrong direction or something. I imagine today it’s a pretty big town. But in those days I didn’t think there was any town at all there. But they had some houses. And they held girls. And that’s all we were interested in.
Q: How’d you find the geisha house?
A: Just smell baby. Just smell…. You know if one guy finds it, we’re all gona find it, because he’s gonna come back and say what he did. And then the next day there’’nobody on the base, because they’re all chasing girls.
But we had no money. But then when we got this money from Okinawa, we were all rich. And the girls loved us because we had more money than they ever seen before.
Not that it was any god damn good, but it was money. Today they still using that money.
Q: They didn’t speak any English at all, these girls?
A: No. It would be a crime. If they spoke English they’d probably get their nuts cut out. Japanese in those days were very, very….they didn’t know what the American was….Only except for the propaganda machine. And then you go to places like Okinawa where the kids committed suicide. And then there’s Saipan where they jumped off the cliffs. The mothers and kids jumped off the cliffs. You know that history. And it was a shame, because we were not mean. We were not nasty. We had no desire to hurt anybody. We never carried sidearms. We never had offensive weapons with us. We were not interested in killing people. It was not our nature at that time. Basically, most of the Marines at that time only met combat people. They were not interested in the civilian population or anything like that. Certainly those islands were occupied by the Japanese, but they were, you would say, friendly islands.
Q: Do you remember the first Japanese you met off base?
A: No recollection. I don’t think I ever spoke to a Japanese on that base.. I don’t think I ever met one. They were invisible. I never saw them. The only things we saw were girls. The madams in the, whatchucallem, whorehouses, they were friendly, they were sociable. They were not reluctant to sleep with foreigners.And we paid them.
Q: Talk about the first trip to the geisha house.
A: Well, I tell you. It was just like everybody’s else’s first trip. You know, you don’t know what to expect. Your pecker isn’t standing up with a flag on it because you don’t know whether they’re going to bite it off or cut it off or what. You know, those were not exactly the friendlest people in the world.They were your enemies. So everybody went to the geisha house with one eye looking at the girl and one eye watching the door. You never know what’s gonna happen in the room. We generally went in force—5 or 6 guys together. We were never bare-assed.
I stayed on that base until November 10th . That was the time I met Tyrone Power. I told you that story. Who knew. Tyrone Power came in. He was a captain. Member of a TAG. They had big tags on the side of their C-47’s.. He came in on a C-47. 4 engines. He had a big sign painted on in the front. TAG. And I didn’t know him. And he was walking the hall. I of course was dressed…short pants, no shirt, like that, because, it was very informal in those days. And I says “Hello, captain.” And Jesus, he chewed my ass out. The son of a bitch.
Q: Because you were out of uniform.
A: Everybody was out of uniform. Nobody would wear their stripes. You really weren’t about to show who you were because you never know when somebody is going to shoot at you. …That was really a big problem in Yokosuka, later.. The roads between Tokyon and Yokuska and Oppama and Yokosuka. (Flanked by hills)….Anyway, with Tyrone Power, I said “Hello, cap” to him one morning and I didn’t know him. I mean, you know his face, but you don’t know anything else more than that. And he looked at you and he don’t know you. And he started giving me a bad time for not saluting and not dressing properly. And all that crap, you know. And so, ok. I took the guff, but I was I was the first sergeant. Then he had to check in to my office, and we kept him on his heels for two days, doing nothing. After 2 days, he came in. I let him come in. He met the major. He was the CO of the base. He was the highest rank officer, a major. And Tyrone checked in and the CO said, OK get your duty from the first sergeant. So I gave him air mail duties. Fly the mail in and out. He was a pilot. That’s the worst job you can get. Because, that time, typhoons and bad weather, and you still got to fly. Doesn’t matter how bad it is.
He was a tall good-looking guy. And you got to give me a lot of credit. He did join up and the Marines are a tough organization. But everybody’s a human being. So I gave him the fucking job of flying the mail and he tried many times to be nice to me. He even told me “Why don’t I come to Okinawa. There’s a lot of girls in Okinawa and all that crap.” He was talking about American nurses and things like that. Americans. But we had plenty of Japanese broads right off the base. Who has to go to Okinawa to go sleep with a baba (old hag). Nobody has to describe a young Japanese girl to anybody who knows anything.
He tried to rectify the situation. But anyway, he left. He had too much political influence. He was probably stuck on that job for 2 weeks or 3 weeks and then he goes to the right guy and says, “Let’s get some girls.” He’s a hero now.
Then on November 10th, we left. We got on a ship. Probably Sasebo harbor. And I came up to Yokosuka. And as you would imagine in the movies, you came out of the hold and there was Mt. Fuji. Beautiful Mt., Fuji with all the snow on it. Beautiful day. I can still remember that day. And I now was the Sgt. Major of Opama Base. I was the highest ranking NCO. The one with the longest time. There were 5,000 enlist
ed men on that base.
I was a very lucky guy. I don’t want to say the wrong thing, but there was a polack there,and he was a staff sergeant and he wanted to be First Sergeant. Actually I replaced him. But he was gung ho. He really liked it/. So I said, “Why don’t you be the first sergeant?” You act as first sergeant…in practice.. Only when you’re in trouble you call me and I’ll exert my authority. So he became the unrecognized first sergeant and I become the big playboy. I went out and enjoyed life. And I remember those days, we had a whiskey called “45” Cheap shit. Rotgut. But these black market operators, they used to…one guy…you know…gee whiskers. You know a girl named Christina…Maria? Marie Christina? Her last name was Vitale. And Vitale was a friend of mine. He was running cigarettes from Opama across Tokyo Bay to Chiba. In speedboats. Black market operation. He was a corporal or a PFC. I don’t think you should write his name. But through him, we got all this booze. And the only way you could go off base, was, you had to buy a bottle of booze. And you get a pass to go off the base. It was a luscious business for somebody. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t involved…..
Q: To get off the base you had to buy a bottle of booze?
A: Yes. You couldn’t get off the base anyway. So if you buy a bottle of booze, you get a pass to get off the base. Course you only got Wednesday off or Saturday off, or something like that. For a few hours. Because, it was a dangerous area in those days….snipers in the hills shooting at you on the road outside the base…Still in an unfriendly place. ..
You know what happened to me yesterday? I got tired of all the shit I had to take. I wanted to go to Hokkaido. So I went down, I bought a first class ticket. My wife didn’t know where I am. So I got to Hokkaido. I get to Hakodate train station. I’m sitting down. I’m minding my own business. And this old Japanese guy comes. He had a little gray hair, you know. And he sat next to me. And he reaches over and he wants to shake hands with me. So I gave you a slight handshake, you know. And I didn’t pay attention. But he figure out because I gave him a weak handshake, I must be a weak person. And he said to me, “Anata Kaerae!” (You! Go home). And I thought at first he knew who I was and that I was going back to Oshamambe. But he used the word “kaeru” .Get the Hell out. And he did that a couple of times. And I said to him that I understand Japanese and you got a dirty filthy mouth. And if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut. If not, you’re going to get hurt.
And, of course, he stopped. And there were three young kids, about 20-25 years old. And I told one of them in Japanese that this old man has got a dirty, filthy mouth. He’s got the wrong attitude. He’s got a dirty, filthy mouth. “Kuchi Kitanai”. And if he says “Kaette” one more time, I’m gonna hit him and I’d like you to be my witness at the police station that I didn’t start the fight. And, of course, he starts talking to the kid and the kid says, “You’re gonna get hurt.” /Cuz I told him, you fool around with me, you’re gonna find that I can either use karate or judo with you.
But anyway, I’m making a trip to Fujisawa. I don’t want my wife to know that I’m in Hokkaido. I came back to Haneda and I took the train to Fujisawsa. I’m going to see my daughter and her three grandchildren. I figure I’ll stay there for a while and then come up to Tokyo because my wife doesn’t know I went to Hokkaido. Cuz she must have called Hokkaido a hundred god damn times looking for me. She used everybody to call for me. So while I’m sitting there, in the train, next to the door. There’s a three people sit. Parallel to the door. I’m sitting there. Big guy is sitting here. Little girl is sitting there. The little girl gets up. And some people come in. Some Japanese man comes in. 65 years old. Gray hair. And he tells the girl, “Why don’t you sit there.” And she says, “No, I’m gonna get off pretty soon.” And the son of a bitch says in Japanese, “These gaijin, these Americans, they take all the space on the train.” I looked at him and said to myself the best thing is just to keep my mouth shut.
Can you imagine that. The trend in Japan is going to get more and more like that. The anti-Americanism is going to start appearing. Because if I get 2 incidents in 2 days.Jesus. It’s going to show up now. There’s going to be a lot of trouble pretty soon. This guy in Hokkaido, who works for me, Johnny Simonetti, if a Japanese looks at him cross-eyed, boy he just whales right into them. He doesn’t fool around. But, you know, I’m in a bad position, because I was going to Fujisawa. If I was coming back from Fujisawa, I would have gotten annoyed. And when I sitting in Hakodate, if I make trouble, I’m going to wind up in Hakodate police station. And you know, they are going to consider me the wrong guy. I’m the bad guy. Then they are going to go and say, “Oh, he’s a member of the Mafia,” and all the other shit and troubles that I had. So I’m the bad guy. I figured I just better keep my mouth shut. But I warned the guy. That’s enough.
He would have represented no problem to me. I could have picked him up tossed him (Author’s Note: Zappetti is walking with a cane during the time these interviews were recorded. He can barely stand up.) Probably the young kids told him that he better be very careful. Or maybe he was asking them why don’t they help him.
(But the, of course, I don’t speak the Japanese you do. My Japanese is rather rude. I’m liable to say “Kuso Kurai” (Full of shit)
But this guy Johnny Simonetti, he’s always got the word “Human shit
Kuso. He’salways calling them “Kuso” (shit)
Q: Backtracking for a minute. When you went to this so-called geisha house, did you use rubbers there?
A: No such thing. Who cared? Japanese are clean, you know. When you get through they always got the hot towel, wash you down a little bit.
Q: Did they know what a blow job was?
A: Oh, yeah. Of course….Sex, you know, it’s the greatest sport in the world. Between the ages of 30 and 40. Or 15 and 50. I don’t know. I remember when I was in Copenhagen, this fucking broad, I said take a bath and then let’s have sex. She says no. Fucking Europeans are filthy bastards. The Japanese would always go take a bath first. We always took the ofuro (bath), then had sex. Then went back to the ofuro.
We never went alone. There was always 3, 4, 5 of us in one house at a time. There was no other customers anyway. There was no other people left. The ones who had brains, probably ran home to their country.
Q: How did you guys communicate?
A: Oh, you don’t. There was no communication. There was no conversation. It was strictly…everybody knew what you wanted. You know what they wanted. Then there’s always the word of mouth that teaching one guy, who teaches the next guy. First thing you know, it’s like a pyramid. One tells two and two tells four and four tells eight. There was only about 50 of us on the base anyway.
Q: Any funny stories there about the geisha.
A: No…not really. The houses were just like they were in those days. Tatami rooms.Futons on the floor. Wooden bath.. Wood, charcoal heated. Nothing special. No high class whorehouse. The girl took you into the room. You strip. It was a pleasure to take a hot bath. And the girls will climb in with you. But there was more than one guy in the ofuro, always….Then you go in the room, the futon is laid out….One room was like the living room, where you go and sit down. The hibachi is there and you talk to the mama-san and she wants so much money. You give her the money and then you have to wait for the broad to be available.
And then one guy would say, the bath here is terrific. It’s nice to be able to take a Japanese bath. So we got in the habit of follow the leader. One guy takes a bath, he goes upstairs and shacks up. Somebody else takes a bath and it seems to me that the day never ended that way, it kept going and going and going and going. But there couldn’t have been many geisha houses there.
Of course, it’s not a nice word to say geisha, because they are not really geisha. The real geisha girls would be annoyed if you called those Omura girls geisha. Common expression. It took many years to find out that a whore is a whore and a geisha is a geisha. They’re not the same. (note: pronouces it: “hooor”)
Wasn’t it Mark Twain who said, “East and East and West is West and the twain shall never meet? Or something like that?
Q:Let’s go back to Yokusuka for a minute. What was that like? You live in quonset huts?
A: We lived in concrete buildings. Office buildings or something like that. But that was a plane base. They had the ramps for the sea planes there. And it was an airbase of some sort. And that was part of the Yokusuka base. And we lived in Opama which was part of the same base, a little bit a way, on the same bay. So we went there and that was the first place I got my taste of a Japanese earthquake. Of course, we were tough marines. We weren’t gonna get scared by a building shaking, if the building didn’t break. But the first time you go through it you know you went through it. Then I spent my time there from November 10th, to approximately the middle of February. And I didn’t want to get discharged and go home, because in those days, they used to have the point system,–how many months in service. What your rank was and this that and the other thing. And you get so many points and then they send home groups by the points. But being in an administrative position, I deliberately kept my name off the list, because I had the power to do that. So I used to come up to Tokyo. I used to go to Yokosuka to drink with the other people there. On Yokosuka base. Yokosuka was a big base. But in those days there was no such things as an NCO club, or, what do you call those god damn clubs, the USO clubs? Never heard of them. I don’t think I ever was in a USO club in my 4 years in the Marine corps. I never met anything like that. Then civilians were working in Tokyo. So I came up to Tokyo and I tried to get a job. So, of course, I went to the civilian personnel section. That was in the old Teikoku Bldg. Across the street from the Nikkatsu Hotel. Downtown. I went there. I applied for a job. A 457. And I had no trouble getting a job because of my experience in the military. My rank and everything. So they said, what kind of job you want? I said, the easiest job for me is take is a payroll clerk. So I took a payroll clerk. They said, what rank do you want. And they had a CAF in those days. Clerk, Administrative and Fiscal.. I said, “2.” Because in the Marine Corps, 2 is a high rank. But in the army, 2 is the bottom. And CAF was an Army division. So I got a two, and I discharged myself, because the Marines can discharge themselves. I just made my own discharge paper and discharged myself from the Marine Corps. And I signed the CO’s name and I got discharged. This was in the middle of February 1946.
(TOKYO GHQ, lST WIFE)
So I discharged myself and got a job in the GHQ as a big fucking CAF 2 payroll clerk. And I lived in the Finance Bldg, which is now the Ministry of Finance. I had a cot there. And I was already fooling around with the woman I married down in Fujisawa. I met her on the train. The attraction was she spoke English. But nobody spoke English in those days, but she was a doctor, she was a DDS…..Anyway, I had a cot in the Finance Bldg. I don’t think I ever slept in the place. And from there we moved into Palace Heights, which was across from the Emperor. Now it’s the Ministry of Justice or the Supreme Court Building? You know them ugly concrete buildings they got there? I think it’s the Supreme Court now. We lived there. We lived in a quonset hut. We had about 14 or 16 beds and the cots.
Q: You and your wife?
A: No, she lived in Kamakura. You know where the Dai-Butsu (Great Buddha Statue) is? On the left side, they got the Okamoto Byoin. I lived in that hospital. My wife’s mother was the chief nurse there. She had a dental office in Tawara.
Anyway, in the Finance Building, we used to
Q: She was a dental nurse?
A: A doctor of Dental Surgery. She was a major in the Japanese navy.
Q: How’d you meet her? On the train?
A: I met her on the train. In the old days, when only the U.S. military could ride the train. We had the special car. We let nobody on except the girls. No Japanese man would dare try to get on the train. We used to commandeer the train. Or that particular car. So I used to go from Yokosuka to Tokyo. She used to come up from Yokusuka to go to Ofuna then change to Kamakura. Now, you go straight, don’t you. She used to get on in Tawara, which was about one station away from Yokosuka.
Q: And the women would get on?
A: We’d only let the women on. They’d come on. Some of them. My wife was an educated person and she didn’t have that fear because she speaks English and German and Japanese. I hate to say it but she is an extremely intelligent son of a bitch. But a cold-blooded bastard like the rest of them. But she is more so because she only thinks in terms of skin and bones You know medicine. They don’t think about feelings or people’s attitude….
Q: So how did you hook up with her?
A: She came on the train and I was on the train and I talked to her. And she spoke English. And then, of course, I met her a few times on the train and it became a regular thing and then I got off the train with her and went to her place. And sex is not a problem. And I used to sleep with her in the hospital there. Next to the Buddha…She lived in the hospital with her mother…Her mother was the chief nurse.
Q: So where’d you screw her?
A: In the room there, who cares? The mother’s not in the same room. You know they were living in quarters, not the hospital itself. They have a special section for the chief nurse. There was a girl there, a nurse, by the name of Onara. (imeans fart in Japanese)Ain’t that an odd name for a nurse?
Q: And there was no hassle about this? About sleeping with her? I mean, the war had just ended and all.
A: But she was not overly desirous of sex. Even today. Even when I married her. She’d say, “What again?” But I think she was taught to fuck only three or four times a year. Like an animal. But I left her because of that.
But Palace Heights was a very nice place to live in because we had all the cots. All the girls were sleeping in the cots. You walked into your so called quonset hut and picked anyone you want. And they never said no. And they get in bed. And fuck. In the morning, the lucky ones would stick around and they get to go and have breakfast. They eat the one egg we were allowed to eat. And I guess that that was their greatest payment that was the egg. Cuz they get eggs you know and coffee. Eggs and toast or some shit like that. And we would live on chocolate bars. And PX food. And, of course, you always gave those kids something.
I always said, thank god for the girls. Because I think that if it wasn’t for the girls the whole fucking occupation would collapse.
Q: Where did these girls come from anyway?
A: They were all over. They were just ordinary people. Not the whores. You didn’t know what they were. Most of them were just hungry. They had no income, no place to sleep, no food. They couldn’t go home to wher/eever it was they came from and some of them were just born and raised in Tokyo. And in Tokyo all the homes were destroyed. Most of them, I’d say, were just drifting girls.
But, of course, some of them were smart enough to catch and marry a gaijin. But you know in those days you always had chocolate bars. You gave away the chocolate bars to the kids, the girls. Some of the girls that you slept with, You know in those days it was very hard to tell if the girls was beautiful or not. They had all drabby clothes. They had not make up. They had nothing, those kids….There was no value in beauty. They were just ordinary human bodies. But they were female and we were male. And I imagine they looked at us in the same manner we looked at them. And all the Americans looked the same. One guy’s no different than the other and they all wear the same clothing. But those girls, the smart ones would ask for soap. Of course, soap would be a valuable asset to them if they had a place to use it. And most of them were very glad to get chocolate bars. Very few of them would drink whiskey. And very few of them wanted cigarettes. They were basically young kids. But you couldn’t tell how old they were. You couldn’t tell whether they were 16 or 23 or 36. And you never thought about it, but they were not classified as human beings. There was just another…they were just something else.
But then the situation started to change….this was before I got married. Of course, I was still going down to Kamakura. And I was still working as a fucking payroll clerk, there. And then one day, the Colonel involved there was a Colonel Galloway. She was an personnel officer. Big, good-looking woman. But big. But the female captain that was in charge of the payroll was a Captain Saxon. I don’t know if you want to write that, but she was a lesbian….Galloway, I think she was fooling around with the General Siren (sp?) who was the General Provost Marshal. She was the chief of the civilian personnel section.. My boss was Captain Saxon. She was in charge of the payroll section. And the first job I got was the handling of the CCD payroll which was the Civil Censorship Detachment. And then I learned what life was about. You get these Form 57’s and you got to make a payroll sheet for each guy and how many hours they work and all that baloney, you know. And then you see this new guy, he comes he and he was a lieutenant and he is a GS-7. And he’s 21 years old. You know. And I went to Colonel Galloway and I saw, “Hey Colonel, this guy he’s a GS-7, he’s 21. He’s got no experience. He’s been in the army a short time. He’s a college graduate and they gave him a GS-7. In my outfit he’s lucky if he’s a PFC. We’d probably keep him as a private until he learned, what you know. I can’t see myself sitting here doing this kind of work when these guy’s get sevens. Now I began to see what the payrolls are…..And my rank is a two. Then they promoted me to three, then four, then five. I was not happy. And I told the colonel…
(Next paragraph is boring, pointless)
I remember there was a guy by the name of Eugene Gibson. And I couldn’t figure out
what a guy like Eugene Gibson is doing in a detachment of reading the mail. Censorship detachment. Reading the mail. Everything is in Japanese. He was a young kid. And he got a good pay over there. And one day when I was coming up from Fujisawa on the train, there was this guy with a beret. And he was there and I talked to him. He was American, he speaks English and he was working in GHQ someplace. And unbeknown to me that was Eugene Gibson. I didn’t know it was Eugene Gibson. And he said his name is Gene. And I didn’t pay much attention. I said, “My name is Nick.” But what he did, he knew, his father knew there was going to be a war. He went to school and he learned to speak Japanese.He spoke perfect Japanese. Reading and writing.too. And he was only what, 21,22 years old at the most. And here he’s got a GS-7 or a GS-8. Because of his linguistic abilities. And I’m riding on the train everyday with this guy and not knowing it. Till one day he said something in Japanese. That then alerted to me that he could speak Japanese to me a little bit. Then I learned a little bit more, then a little bit more, then I know him, because of his recrods, the Form 57. I know his name, where he comes from, etc. And I got to be friends with him. He went on later on in life to work for Jardine Mathison or Dodwell and company here in Japan and where he is now,nobody knows. But he had an advantage over everybody because he could read and write Japanese. Nobody could speak Japanese.
But anyway, I complained and I got a job as a trainee investigator for the GHQ CPC. Civil Property Custodian. And I got a GS-7. And I had a one-year contract, but the colonel cut my contract off to 9 months. And I went to the States and I got a vacation before I started my new job. I qualified for the investigating job because of the corresponding and the questioning that you do as a first sergeant when there’s trouble, you know. You got to ask questions and you got to make a report out. But I was stupid. I didn’t know what a mason was. I didn’t know what a WASP was….You want to know the things against me? I was not a WASP. I was not a Mason. I was not an Army man. I was an officer. I was married to a Japanese. I was a Catholic. I was an Italian. How many more strikes can a guy get against him?….I was a Catholic, which was a strike. I was in the Marine Corps, which was another strike. I was an enlisted man, which was another strike. I was in love with Japanese girls, especially. Married to one. And that was a strike. And all in all, it was not an easy situation. And there was this prick Colonel Klaus. He was my boss in our field investigation section. We were FIB. Not FIB Field Investigation Section. And this guy was riffing everybody he got a chance to, until he came to me. I was no. 17. And he tried to riff me too, and Colonel Galloway says, “He’s a good man. He done twice more work than anybody else did in the payroll section. He is a good man and you can’t fire him. “If you want to fire him, she says, I’ll cut every investigator out.”
So I was secured a position. I got up to about a GS-8. And that was the end. I couldn’t go anymore. And I got time in grade, that’s all I got.
(BLACK MARKET, DEPORTATION, LANSCO)
So in 1950, a person named Joe Dibello got caught selling beer or something like that. And Joe told me how to do it. You go down to the PX. You buy an ticket(s) for 25 cases of beer. You go out to the beer factory, you give them the ticket and you get 25 cases. Of beer. So that was…you sell the beer and you make money….You go to the PX, you get a beer coupon, The PX sells beer coupons. You sell 25 and 50 cases and something like that….I don’t know the rules and regulations, but anyway, so,…I did that we did that. And I used to go down there.
And I used to get truckloads of beer. They were about 160 yen a bottle in those days or something like that. Half a buck. Big bottle of beer. And me and another guy named Joe Sazaki, we got this fucking Japanese to be the agent. I never met him. I only did it with Joe. I dealt with the Colonel or the Major at the PX. And I got the tickets and I got them under the table. And I paid him a commission for them. Then I gave them to Joe. Joe would give them to the Japanese and they would go down and get the beer and sell it and do what they want. And I’d get a commissioner. I didn’t get big money. But I made money. In those days, my salary was about 3 million yen a year. We’d go down to the beer hall….or beer factory. I know one they had by the Sumida-gawa river. I can’tremember the name of it, but anyway, we used to go there. And the Japanese kid would go there with the tickets and all the CID was over there drinking beer, enjoying life. I supposed to be catching black market operators and here I am sitting with them and I’m one of the black market operators.
Q: You said you sitting drinking in the beer factory with the SID?
A: CID guys. Everybody. And I went there because I was an investigator also. But I was there for different reasons. I was there supervising my truckloads. So I used to do that. And the boys in the offfice knew what I was doing and everybody would contribute. And everybody made money. And everybody has a very short memory. They can’t remember anymore. Most of the guys there were honest investigators. They were spies for the OSI and all that shit. I don’t know. But they’re still colonels.
Q: These CID guys were in uniform or undercover?
A: No, no. Everybody wore civilian clothes.
Q: And that’s how you got your start in the black market.
A: Right.
And when they caught this kid. I don’t know how they did it. And he identified the man involved in the thing as Nick Zappetti. He knew the word. He knew the name.
Q: Who was the kid?
A: He was a Japanese kid. He was the one that Joe Sasaki was dealing with. I never met him, I didn’t know what he looked like. And anyway, so, they caught him. And he told them that I was the guy supplying the tickets. And I was giving them to Joe Sasaki. But Joe was very smart. Joe got on an airplane and left. But dumb Nick stayed there. Because at the end, it turned out that I did the right thing. I stayed there and this kid came to the office one day, and …I think it was General Gilespie, or Colonel Gilespie or something like that, the guy in charge of Civilian Property Custodian, and they had a picture of all the investigators and they had a picture of all the investigators and they said pick Mr. Zappetti out. And he picked out Eisenhower’s nephew or cousin or something, because he looked just like Eisenhower. You know almost no hair and reddish bald headed character or something. So the Colonel threw him out. So then the CID—this kid was getting paid 75 cents a day—and then CID educated him as to who was Zappetti. They put him in a car and bring him in and when I’m eating in the dining room, they show him who I am, and so, of course, he identified me who I am from the book and then I met him face to face. The colonel says “This man is accusing you of black marketing.” I think the Colonel knew what we were doing because everybody was doing it, you know. So, I’m stuck.
So the CID was in the same office as the Civilian Personnel Section there in the Kokubo building, which was across the street from the Nikkatsu Building. They were on the 7th floor. So I just waited one day, in the lobby, waiting for the son of a bitch. And I caught this kid coming in the building. So I got him. And I weighed about 200 pounds. So I took him up to the fucking roof and I beat the living piss out of him. And, of course, they must have taken him to the hospital, cuz I left him on the roof. And sure enough, he went to the hospital for about 2 or 3 weeks. And when he came out again, I caught him again. And I beat the living piss out of him again.
But now, I couldn’t get away no more. They transferred me to a different squadron for court martial proceedures. There I met Lieutenant Frank Campbell. The son of a bitch’n bastard. But anyway, so he said to me, please innocent and we’re gonna find you guilty and give you two years in jail. 3 years in jail or something like that. He says “Please guilty and we’ll only give you a $2,000 fine.”
I says, “You can’t prove I’m guilty. Just somebody said it. You can’t prove I bought tickets. You can’t prove nothing.”
He says, “This is a court martial. We don’t have to prove anything. We can find you guilty.”
So, ok. I took the rap. I paid $2,000, and when I went to the office,,nobody, but nobody offered to pay the fine. Among my business associates.
So Ok. That’s that. So I paid the fine and decided they were going to deport me to the United States. And I had a wife and two kids. So I said I can’t go until my wife and kids are financially situated. And in those days, you had to go to Meijiya. You had a coupon book where you buy food. You had to use coupons or you can’t buy food. Beginning of April the new coupon books came out. I got the books and they escorted me under guard to the ship. And I was gone. April 1950. Militarily escorted out of the country. I went to New York City.
In New York City I went to talk to the Italian congressman who represented the Italian people.\
And before I left, there was a Jewish guy from Brooklyn who worked in cryptographics. He worked in the 81st Signal Corps. In the Sanshin Bldg., which was right behind the ..(across from Hibya park.) So this guy says when you come in, I’ll change your name on the paper when the forms came in. He showed me the forms. They had a form like that and it said, List 26. Commercial Entrants. I had all the names. And they would scrutineeze these names. And if it was ok, they could put a stamp on it. So everybody on Form 26 came in. Or they’d scratch out a name. So my name came in Nicolas V. Zappetti. It was completely changed. So it was approved. So I came to Japan.
And I flew Northwest airplane from New York to Tokyo. It took 44 fucking hours. Believe me that’s a long time to sit in an airplane. And I imagine it was a DC-4. And I was sitting on….New York to Canada to Alasaka to Kiska, into Tokyo….And while I was on the airplane, there was a very intelligent man sitting behind me in a white suit, with a white panama hat, and the airplane stopped somewhere at some military base in fucking Alaska or somewhere like that and there was a whole goddamned troops out there, everybody meeting him. I saw the troops out there and I said, “Son of a bitch, they found out I’m on the airplane. God Damn it. I’m gonna get deported again.”
And I sat in my seat and said I’m just gonna keep my mouthy shut and hide. But you can’t hide on an airplane. Where can you hide? You can’t hide under the seats, you know. So, of course, I’m watching everything very carefully. And this old man and his wife, they get out of the airplane and they are met down at the bottom of the steps. They shake hands, this that and the other thing. June 20, 1950. So he came back up again. And we’re flying. And the same thing happened in Kiska. And things like that. And so I asked him. “Who are you? Why you get all this receptions?”
He says, “My name is John Foster Dulles”
How about that?
And he looked like a country preacher. But I can tell you something. That man was an intelligent son of a bitch. He’d say one sentence and you sit there and you could think about paragraphs. That’s how he was so concise in his English and so perfect. He was really an intelligent mother. He was with his wife.
So anyway I got to Tokyo and I didn’t have to worry about it because when he got off the airplane all the dignitaries and everybody else went with him. He was a fucking important person. And I got off the airplane last, with my tail between my legs and I disappeared.
So I went down to Fujisawa where I lived and it might have been about June 15th or Juen 10th, because the Korean War broke out right around that day. June 20, 1950. And I guess he was making a diplomatic mission to Korea or someplace like that. I don’t know what he was doing, but anyway…but I remember, cuz I was sitting in my house and I didn’t know what to do for a living. I had very little money. I said Fuck It, I’ll join the god damn marines again and go to Korea, you know. But somehow or other, I didn’t do it. I fooled around in Tokyo. I remember I was in Nihonbashi and I met a guy named Charley Bishop. Charley Bishop was an old war horse who knew import export. Couldn’t make a living. Drink like a son of a bitch. But I got together with him and he showed me how to be an import-export operator. Import-Export. And he lived in what was called the Yashima Hotel which was right on Nihonbashi. Across from Mitsukoshi and Shirokiya Department stores. And underneath, the irony enough, is the subway station, which I never took. But then I learned how to use the subway…Later on it became Tokyo Hotel. Something like that, later on they changed the name. Anyway, I was with the guy for a while. And I remember he was exporting pork bristles for toothbrushes. And we were negotiating an agreement to put a Japanese to export the product. And we wound up in the Edogawa geisha house with this Japanese company, and they wouldn’t give us the right time. They were very tight about the money, you know. We tried to make money on it, but it was very hard to make money, but that was the first time I ate yakitori. They provided us with yakitori and I can eat yakitori all day long. And besides that, they provided us with broads. Charlie Bishop was an old man, but I was a young kid. And he preferred the bottle, the sake the whiskey and the other shit and I preferred the girls. So we broke even. We kept everybody happy. He drank with them and I screwed the girls. And yakitori.
Then, I decided to become a real black market operator. And I went into the Ginza, down by Senbikiya, a famous store on the Ginza, and I opened a little company called Lansco. Probably an unregistered company. That was an abbreviation for Leo, Adams, Nick, Senbikiya, and Company. Leo is now living in Russia. His name is Leo Yuskoff. Adams was a guy called Victor Adams. He was a lieutenant. He was a dumb son of a bitch. So we moved into that place and we operated from there. We built a store downstairs, a grocery store where we would kill anybody if they came in bought something, because that was our front. And we didn’t like to open cases of food is somebody bought a couple of cans off the shelf. And I remember it was a great place. My girl friends would come. I’d give them military payment certificates to go downstairs and buy food. And I take the payment certificates and put them back in my desk. It looked like she was really purchasing something. But actually we were giving them free food.
And that went on for sometime.
Q: What were you selling?
A: Dollars. We were selling dollar checks. I had one big shipping account. At one time, I had two million dollars in the Bank of America. Imagine that? Never stole a fucking penny. That was all from a company called C.F. Sharpe. I don’t think you should write that name down. And they paid me two million dollars, I put it in the bank. And that enabled me to write checks. And I wrote dollar checks. And I sold the checks and got yen.
Tokyo Junkie 
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