TOKYO — On a stinking hot summer afternoon in a city of 14 million people trying to pretend these $20 billion Summer Games never existed, I finally found the key to that elusive Olympic spirit in the hands of a bespectacled dude wearing a Slayer hat and a T-shirt adorned with the deranged mug of actor Jack Nicholson from “The Shining.”
“My name is GO,” said this 53-year-old metalhead, sweat glistening on his arms as he stood outside his business. “It is an honor to meet you, Mr. Mark. Where is your home?
“Colorado,” I replied.
“Colorado! The very famous ‘Shining’ hotel is there!” exclaimed GO Nakajima, as stoked as if he was meeting novelist Stephen King instead of an ink-stained wretch from Denver. “Redrum! Redrum! Redrum!”
He inserted the key in the lock of his establishment in the Golden Gai, a network of narrow alleys known for the greatest collection of dive bars in Japan. Opening the door of a tavern only slightly bigger than a tool shed, GO waved me inside with great fanfare.
“Welcome,” he said, “to Deathmatch in Hell.”
I was in heaven.
“I love pro wrestling and heavy metal,” Nakajima told me in English honed while pouring shots of whisky to visitors from America. “So I wanted to name my bar something that sounded like the title to a B movie.”
For nearly three weeks in Tokyo, I had felt as caged as a hamster in a hermitically sealed maze, bouncing inside the Olympic bubble, bombarded with constant warnings to take my COVID-19 tests, stay off the streets of a fascinating city and never try to make a new friend by talking to strangers.
And that’s the real crying shame of these Olympic Games. Because if they aren’t one big party, then what fun is spending $20 billion on empty athletic venues where Hoda Kotb of “The Today Show” can make a screaming spectacle of herself as a self-appointed Team USA cheerleader.
I’m convinced it was the most stressful Summer Games in history, because more than 11,000 athletes and an army of volunteers basically had to live under house arrest, where it’s easy to feel emotionally adrift in solitary confinement, with little company except performance anxiety.
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After winning the 10th medal of a brilliant track-and-field career, while desperately missing her 2-year-old daughter back in the United States, sprinter Allyson Felix stated the core challenge of this competition with poetic simplicity: “This is an Olympics unlike any other, because in some of the hardest moments, you’re just by yourself.”
In the fight against the pandemic, a state of medical emergency shuttered Deathmatch and watering holes across Tokyo throughout the Olympics. “I could stay open and serve chicken, but not alcohol. That’s a problem. I don’t cook chicken,” Nakajima told me, laughing at his plight. “Before COVID, when I opened the bar every night at 8, there were already five people standing outside waiting to come in. And by 8:15 it was packed. Sixteen customers and me. Now the government gives me about 350 bucks a day to stay closed.”
But protocols were meant to be bent. So two days after receiving his first dose of the COVID vaccine, GO invited me to take a private tour of the most splendid hole in the wall I’ve ever visited.
With only seven barstools crammed against the counter, this drinking establishment is Nakajima’s homage to heavy metal and B-movies. Every square inch of the joint is filled with gory Halloween decorations and VCR tapes of flicks with titles like “The New York Ripper.” Crammed against one wall, a Chucky doll stands next to a life-size Stormtrooper from “Star Wars.” Twisted Sister and Pantera blare from tiny speakers, as the proprietor and lone employee of Deathmatch bobs his head to the thumping metal anthem “We’re Not Going to Take It.”
The sensory overload of GO’s pride and joy hit me hardest in my pandemic fatigue. I thirsted for a shot of bourbon and the shared laughter that cuts through every language barrier at the Olympics. But these were the No Fun and Games. Muddling through them without surrendering to 101 everyday adversities is worthy of a medal, which come to think of it, also applies to every kindergarten teacher or ICU nurse that has walked like heroes through the pandemic.
The mental toughness to not let COVID break you reminded me of something Australian coach Brian Goorjiam said after his team blew a 15-point lead to Kevin Durant and Team USA and lost in the semifinals of the Olympic basketball tournament: “If you can’t handle disappointment, don’t be involved in sport. Don’t feel sorry for yourself … Get up in the morning, wash your face and move on.”
GO Nakajima poses for a photo in his bar named Deathmatch in Hell in Shinjuku Golden Gai, Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Mark Kiszla/The Denver Post)
I asked Nakajima his impression of an Olympics where sometimes the best anybody could do was put one foot in front of the other.
“I’m not a big sports fan, so I don’t have much interest in gold medals. I know people call it a cursed Olympics and Japan wasted a huge amount of money. It was ridiculous spending 150 million U.S. dollars for a boring opening ceremony with no anime, Nintendo or Godzilla,” he said. “But I respect the athletes. And I think the organizers are doing well, if not the best, in a such a terrible situation. But I guess that is a minority opinion in my country.”
GO sighed, but quickly turned his exasperation into a smile. Nakajima gave me proof that beyond the Olympic bubble, there is a city of big hearts.
“I have met thousands of people, welcoming me to my bar since I opened in 2006,” he said. “Business is horrible. It’s the bottom now. But after the pandemic, I will welcome thousands of people again, for many years to come.”
Checking the clock on my cellphone, I was starting to risk the danger of missing a media bus to the gorgeous $1.4 billion track stadium, where a handful of Tokyo citizens have stood outside with longing in their eyes, snapping photos from behind barricades because no spectators are allowed inside. With his bar dark for yet another night, Nakajima needed to catch a train back to his home in the suburbs.
We talked about how cool it would be to meet again, after the pandemic passed and the bar was again packed.
“Will buy you a drink,” I told GO.
“I will I play you songs by Napalm Death,” he said.
We bowed, as is the custom in Japan, and walked away from Deathmatch in Hell, moving in separate directions down the narrow alleys of Golden Gai, vowing to share a laugh at our next chance, but knowing full well it’s unlikely our paths will ever cross again.
The Olympics in the time of COVID are a lot like life during the pandemic. You can either curse all the good stuff missed. Or celebrate because you’ve found one reason to smile each day.
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