A Little Less Conversation: More From Murakami T

“Thirty-five years ago, I was on an elevator in a hotel in New Orleans, decked out in a ‘Jeff Beck Japan Tour’ T-shirt, when a hefty older American man got on and turned to me.

‘My son’s Jeff Beck,’ he said.

‘Pardon me?’ I asked. For a moment, I had no clue what he was trying to tell me.

‘What I mean is, I’m John Beck, and my son’s Jeffrey Beck. We call him Jeff.’ ‘But no relation to the guitarist?’ ‘Nope, none. The name’s just the same, that’s all.’

Okay—how was I supposed to react to that? Where do you go from there in the conversation? It wasn’t like I could ask something like, ‘So—how’s your son doing?’ I’d never met the guy. As we got off the elevator and walked along, the silence was deafening.

I don’t have the T-shirt anymore.”