The clock’s second hand swept past the twelve. I unloaded a final flurry of elbow strikes and stepped back. The adrenaline dump was largely depleted, but I still felt tense. Usually a workout helps with that. Not this time.

I found a partner and drilled leg attacks for another hour. After that I stretched and headed for the shower. I was glad this was going to be over soon.

THAT NIGHT I took a long, wandering walk through Tokyo. I was restless and felt the need to move, to let the city’s currents carry me where they would.

I drifted north from Meguro, keeping to the backstreets, the alleys, the lonely paths through lightless parks.

Something about the damn city continued to draw me, to seduce me. I needed to leave. I wanted to be able to leave. Hell, I’d tried to leave. But here I was again.

Maybe it’s fate.

But I don’t believe in fate. Fate is bullshit.

Then what?

I came to Hikawa Jinja in Hiro, one of the scores of Shinto shrines that dot the city. At perhaps thirty square meters, this shrine is one of the smaller, but by no means the smallest, of these solemn green spaces. I walked through the old stone gate and was instantly enveloped in comforting darkness.

I closed my eyes, tilted my head forward, and inhaled through my nose. I raised my hands before me and extended my fingers like a blind man trying to determine where he has found himself.

It was there, just beyond the limits of ordinary perception. That feeling of the city being alive, coiled and layered and thrumming all around me. And the feeling that I was alive as part of it.

I opened my eyes and lifted my head. The shrine was built on a bluff, and through the trees at its periphery I could see the lights of Hiro, and of Meguro beyond it.

Tokyo is so vast, and can be so cruelly impersonal, that the succor provided by its occasional oasis is sweeter than that of any other place I’ve known. There is the quiet of shrines like Hikawa, inducing a somber sort of reflection that for me has always been the same pitch as the reverberation of a temple chime; the solace of tiny nomiya, neighborhood watering holes, with only two or perhaps four seats facing a bar less than half the length of a door, presided over by an ageless mama-san, who can be soothing or stern, depending on the needs of her customer, an arrangement that dispenses more comfort and understanding than any psychiatrist’s couch; the strangely anonymous camaraderie of yatai and tachinomi, the outdoor eating stalls that serve beer in large mugs and grilled food on skewers, stalls that sprout like wild mushrooms on dark corners and in the shadows of elevated train tracks, the laughter of their patrons diffusing into the night air like little pockets of light against the darkness without.

I moved deeper into the gloom and sat with my back to the honden, the symmetrical, tile-roofed structure that housed the god of this small shrine. I closed my eyes and exhaled, long and complete, then listened, for a while, to the stillness.

When I was a boy I’d gotten caught stealing a chocolate bar from a neighborhood store. The elderly couple that owned the place knew me, of course, and informed my parents. I was terrified of my father’s reaction, and denied everything when he questioned me. He didn’t get angry. He nodded slowly instead, and told me that the most important thing for a man was to acknowledge what he has done, that if he fails to do so he can only be a coward. Did I understand that? he had asked.

At the time, I didn’t really grasp what he meant. But his words induced a burning shame, and I confessed. He took me to the store, where I offered a tearful apology. In the presence of the owners, his visage had been stern, almost wrathful. But as we left, while I continued to weep in my disgrace, he had briefly and awkwardly pulled me to his side, then gently laid his hand on my neck while we walked.

I’ve never forgotten what he told me. I know what I’ve done, and I acknowledge all of it.

My first personal kill was of a Viet Cong near the Xe Kong River, the Laotian border. In Vietnam it was called a “personal kill” when you killed a specific individual with a direct-fire weapon and were certain of having done it yourself. I was seventeen at the time.

I was part of a three-man recon team. The teams were small, and depended for success and survival on their ability to operate undetected behind enemy lines. So only men with the ability to move with absolute stealth were selected for recon. The missions required ghosts more than they required killers.

It happened at daybreak. I remember the way I could just make out the mist rising off the wet ground as light crept into the sky. I always thought it was a beautiful country. A lot of soldiers hated it because they hated having to be there, but I didn’t feel that way.

We’d been in the field for two nights with no contact and were heading to the extract point when we saw this guy, alone, standing in a clearing. We froze and watched him from just inside the tree line. He was carrying an AK, so we knew he was VC. He was pacing, looking left, then right. He seemed to be trying to orient himself. I remember wondering whether maybe he’d gotten separated from his unit. He looked a little scared.

Our guidelines were to avoid contact, but our mandate was to collect intelligence, and we saw that he was carrying a large book. Some kind of ledger. It might be a nice prize. We looked at each other. The team leader nodded at me.

I knelt and brought up my CAR-15, finding the VC in the sights, waiting for a pause in the pacing.

A few seconds passed. I knew I had time and wanted to be sure of the shot.

He knelt and set down his rifle and the book. Then he stood, opened his pants, and pissed. Steam rose from where the hot liquid hit the earth. I kept him in my sights, thinking the whole time that he had no idea what was coming and that this was a fucked-up way to die.

I let him finish and get himself back in his pants. Then, ka-pop! I dropped him. I saw him go down. I had this feeling of incredible elation, that I’d succeeded! I’d won! I was good at this!

We went over to where he lay. When we got there, I was surprised to see he was still alive. I’d hit him in the sternum and he had a sucking chest wound. He’d fallen on his back and his legs were splayed out. The ground underneath him was already dark with his blood.

I remember being struck by how young he was. He looked my age. I remember that thought shooting through my mind-God, same as me!-as we stood in a circle around him, not knowing what to do.

He was blinking rapidly, his eyes jumping from one face to another and then back again. They stopped on mine, and I thought it was because he knew I was the one who shot him. Later, I realized the explanation was likely more prosaic. He was probably just trying to make sense of my Asian features.

Someone undid a canteen and extended it to him. But he made no move to take it. His breathing became faster and shallower. Tears spilled out of the corners of his eyes and he mumbled words in a high, strained voice that none of us could understand. I learned later that battlefield wounded and dying often call out to their mothers. He might have been doing that.

We watched him. The chest wound stopped sucking. The blinking stopped, too. His head settled into the wet ground at an odd angle, as though he was listening to something.