the bird man

tham dii
dâi dii
tham chûa
dai chûa

Good actions bring good results. Bad actions bring bad results.
-Thai proverb

I don’t think any of us got much sleep. The guesthouse was alive with commotion early in the morning. I snapped into consciousness on the cold floor, I could hear the voices from the next room. They did not sound familiar. I opened my eyes. Ryan was sleeping heavily on the futon next to me. It took at least an hour before I could bring myself to rise out of bed. The consequences of the first night in a new city were wrecking havoc on my insides. I needed as much rest as I could afford.

When the noise and commotion and sliding doors and loud voices and passing cars became too much to ignore, I got out of bed. Ryan was gone. The gigantic tatami room was deserted. Rays of mid-morning sunlight beamed into the room. All but three futons were put away. One was mine. One was Ryan’s. I would meet the owner of the other soon.

I slid open the door and walked into the kitchen. Other travelers were shuffling about, doing the morning necessities. I made a cup of tea and lit a cigarette. Leaning against the counter, I tried to piece together what needed to be done before noon, when the guesthouse will kick everybody out for cleaning.

A young Japanese guy was sitting at the table across from me. A small television was on but he didn’t seem to be watching it.

I told him good morning.

His head was shaved with clippers and the sharp angles of his glasses gave his face definition. His left wrist was encircled by a tattoo that looked like waves breaking on the shore.

He said his name was Ando and he was from Toyota City.

“What are you doing in Kyoto?” I asked.

“I study Buddhism and meditation. I am here to visit the temples. Why are you here?”

“I came to see the leaves.”

“The koyo is good here. The leaves are beautiful.”

“How long are you staying?” I ask.

“I leave today. I’m going to the next city.”

“Have you been traveling long?”

“We are always traveling. I started my journey in Okinawa, then came to Hiroshima and then to Shikoku and then Nara. I’ve only been in Kyoto for a short time.”

“I have a friend who lives on Shikoku, I said. “In Ehime. David. He’s an American like me. He’s a painter.”

“I’m a painter too.”

“He’s also a Buddhist. I think you two would have a lot to say to each other.”

An employee of the guesthouse passed through the kitchen. I finished my tea and rinsed out the cup.

“We have to be out of this guesthouse by eleven,” I said.

“Yes. Eleven.”

“It would be nice to have a shower. I think the bathroom is still full. It was full a little while ago, overtaken by the women.”

He thought for a second before speaking.

“Sometimes they take longer.”

***

When I came back from the shower Ando was sitting on the floor of the tatami room.

“Look at this,” he said, motioning to a small brown paper bag.

I knelt on the ground and looked inside to see a small, brown Japanese dove.

“She is hurt.”

“What happened?”

“A crow attacked her neck. She can’t fly.”

“What’s her name?”

“Heiwa. Heiwa means peace.”

“What will you do with her?”

“I know a doctor who will make her better,” Ando said. “He’s not far.”

“She is very lucky you found her.”

“I am lucky she found me, too.”

a day in the floating world

This was originally part of a facebook message to a friend who asked me for an update, but it was too long to send on facebook and i don't have the friend's email so i'm putting it here because i want to



It was Thanksgiving last week. They don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here, but there is a public holiday on what's known in America as Black Friday. So I took a day of paid leave and had a nice four-day weekend. I waited too long to book my tickets to Kyoto, so the journey there was long and arduous. I left my house and walked to the train station though nasty ice cold wind blowing over the island. Fortunately, It was warmer down south in the ancient city. I took an express train into to Tokyo and got there about 8 o'clock and I had to get from Ueno to Shinjuku and the station was bustling with people all clamoring over each other to get a spot on one of the billion commuter trains. I hadn't been to Ueno station before and I was a little disoriented so when I located the right platform the train doors were just closing and people, cramped shoulder-to-shoulder like sardines in a metal cans, were being taken away.

Here in my countryside town, if you miss a train you're waiting at least thirty minutes before the next one comes, and that's just during peak hours. But in the heart of Tokyo, it takes all of thirty seconds before the next one arrives. An identical metal box of sardines ready for disposal. I squeezed in and took the ride. Maybe 20 minutes later the crowd thinned a bit and I was on the other end of the metropolis at Shinjuku station, which is like a strange zoo with all sorts of flavors of Japanese sardines flopping around. Some have suits and ties and some wear slutty boots and layers of makeup and some dress like gansta rappers with lugz boots and baggy pants and some are still in high school and wear regulation uniform, but the strange thing about Tokyo is that no matter where you look or who you look at, everything is beautiful.

So I left the sardine cannery and walked outside and smoked a cigarette and started to look for the bus depot, but I got distracted by a brilliant display of Christmas lights covering the whole of a random pavilion. Japan is an odd place. It has such a rich and incredible history, but tends to gloss over it all in the name of foreign western rituals. Japan has no cultural or religious stake in ideas like Christmas or Halloween. But they're here, in all their consumerist and capital-driven glory. Japan is a society of blatant, shameless mass consumption and consumerism. That's the dark side of this place. But I try not to let it get to me. I go with the flow of it all, and enjoy the pretty lights.

I found the bus depot and killed the time in between my departure by drinking beer from a convenience store. Kyoto is about eight hours away from Tokyo on the highway. In (what at the time) seemed like a reasonable and logical decision, I booked a seat on an overnight bus that would have me all the way down south by dawn the next day. This was not the best idea. The original plan was to drink heavily and then pass out, only to awake the next morning in a new city far away. Passing out did not happen. In fact, real sleep didn't happen. Just 8 hours of trying to fall asleep, dozing off for an hour or so, then waking back up. Over and over. On and on into the night. I didn't manage to make it through a full cycle of sleep in the entire eight hour bus ride, so when I arrived in the city I was drained and exhausted.

I also smelled. So I managed to orient myself and locate a public bathhouse on the third basement floor of a massive building near Kyoto station. The place was crowded and my naked white body drew the usual amount of stares from foreign eyes. I don't bath publicly often. Especially here, where just about every man has a physique superior to mine. Welcome to inadequacy.

I bathed and changed and paid and left quickly. The morning air was crisp and the sun was bright and warm. The city was alive. I needed to recharge to keep pace. So I found a Starbucks nearby and bought a medium sized cup of Sumatra coffee and sat outside, watching the masses bumble about. Kyoto is a massive city. I'd venture to guess that at any give point, there are at least 100,000 people in the train station (which is absolutely massive and also THE best station in Japan. Google it.).

I sat there drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Watching people. Lots of foreigners in Kyoto. For some reason that irks me, it's like they're invading my space or something. And they all see you and your white skin and shoot you this obligatory glance of acknowledgment: "Hey look, I'm not Japanese! Hey, neither are you!" I can't fault them, the first time I came here I did the same thing. You can identify the foreigners who actually live here by the blank and disinterested expression they wear as they pass you by.

So I sat there, soaking in the vibe of the city, watching is ebb and flow. I messaged Ryan and Danielle and Kipp. The plan is to meet up later. We all originally met in Chicago at pre-departure orientation, and spend the first four days together in Japan together at the massive Tokyo orientation.

They didn't respond immediately, so I finished the coffee and put on my backpack and walked away. I stayed on the main road and came to a large temple that I had seen before on previous trips to Kyoto, but had never visited, so I went in side an looked around and it seemed like there was something going on inside, so I climbed up the stairs and took off my shoes and entered the temple. Scores and scores of people were all sitting down, waiting for something to happen. They were generally all older and Japanese. I asked the woman next to me what was going to happen and she said that the service would begin soon. For a brief moment, I thought I better leave, that I had fallen into a horrible trap, but then I thought about how I've never had an experience like this and since bought the ticket, I better take the ride.

The monks filed out in unison and took their places. The head monk recited a prayer, then begin to chant. Soon the rest of the men joined in and the temple reverberated with the deep droning chant of the monks and it sent chills thought out my entire body and I closed my eyes, but my mind was wide open. I could feel my body, I could hear what it was saying to me, I could feel the strain on my feet and legs from sitting Japanese seiza style, I could feel the fatigue throughout my body from the restless night. And I could also feel the natural diarrhetic effects of the black coffee coursing its way through my system.

I've never been a huge fan of using the restroom in public. Obviously, over the span of my 23 years, there've been numerous occasions where I've had to get over myself and take care of business. But I will say that if you ever have to drop a bomb in public, a Zen temple is really the best place to do it.

After that was over I took a walk around the temple grounds, looking at the colorful autumn leaves. The word for autumn foliage in Japanese is koyo. This city is renowned for its koyo. It's the reason I came.

***

So you loose your mind for a minute in a forest exploding with yellow and red and orange and green and you think you're on acid but you're not and you kick yourself a little for misplacing those three tabs you smuggled in from back home. Then you walk past a sign that says Let Us Discover The Significance Of Birth And Joy Of Living and that seems like something we all need to agree upon. And afterwards you keep on walking and still haven't heard from any of your friends so you keep on walking because you know there is a park nearby that you want to see but you don't have a map, but you think it's okay because you have a basic sense direction and as you walk through alleyways and side streets, past all the little shops and cafes and houses and vending machines you wonder if you're going in the right direction, but then you reach a gigantic forest surrounded by a Japanese wall and it occurs to you that you must have found what you were looking for.

And so you walk around the wall looking for the entrance and it takes 10 minutes and it was a long walk and you realize once you get in that it's not a public park, but a private garden that you have to pay to see. But you pay the 500 yen anyways and walk in behind an old man from Sapporo who has traveled much farther than you to be here in this ancient city in the autumn. But you can't help but wonder if the old man was disappointed to walk in through the gated entrance and turn the corner around the tall Japanese hedge only to see a field of dead plants. Brown and lifeless corpses, hardened by the sun and wind, somehow still standing proud and tall in a pond of green water. And you wonder if the old man who came so far was disappointed that death came quicker than he, or if he was able to find the beauty in it too. And so you walk through the garden and you look at all the beautiful things and some are full of autumn red and green and yellow and others have already finished the annual pilgrimage across colorful death and are now bare and lifeless, but there is still beauty in it all.


***

Later on Danielle and Ryan send for me and I walk back to the station from the garden and it's not too far to walk and along the way I can't help but think how much I enjoy this city and the fall.

So I catch a bus to another part of the city near the palace and imperial park and I find Danielle and Ryan on the second floor of a restaurant overlooking the palace grounds. With them was a girl from New Zealand called Anna. I hadn't met Anna before, but she is a friend of Danielle's who was in Kyoto too. I hadn't seen my friends in four months and it was wonderful to be in their presence again, because they are my kind of people, and those are hard to come by here.

They had mostly finished eating, but ordered dessert while I decided on a light lunch and the first of the day's beers. Danielle said she liked my pinstripe jacket. Anna criticized Ryan for being abrasive and blatantly foreign. I tell them the story I've just told you. Kipp sends a message. He wants us to meet him in the park. We paid for the meal and smoked a cigarette and walked to the park.

The palace grounds, covered in trees and plant life, had exploded in a fiery symphony of autumn colors. I had to put on sunglasses to keep from going blind from the beauty. Ryan and I wandered aimlessly, trying to lose ourselves in the wonder. Danielle followed not far behind. Anna went in a different direction and I never saw her again.

We spent hours in the park. Kipp came as the sun was beginning its decent behind the mountains. We looked at leaves and saw families walking dogs and couples sitting on park benches, looking young and in love.

When we left we made a quick stop at the guesthouse then took a bus to the Zen temple called Ginkaku-ji and it was very crowded, but still beautiful, especially in the twilight.

Afterwards we walked down the bustling sidestreet that led up to the temple and wanted to have a rest so we stopped in a small shop for a cup of tea, but ended up having coffee instead. And the shop had just opened back in August and the owner build all the tables and chairs (along with a wood cabin in Nagano) with his own hands and he also smoked meat and cheese in his little shop and he had two brothers who lives in the states.

We had coffee and smoked cheese and got up to leave and the man told us to take care and then we walked out into the night. And the street that was once bustling shoulder-to-shoulder with people less than an hour before was now deserted. All the shops were closed and it was dark, so we decided to go.

We saw an advert for nighttime leaf viewing and agreed that we should try to find the spot so we started walking towards that part of town. It was far enough to hire a cab, but we had trouble hailing one, but eventually did after walking halfway there.

The shrine was in Kipp's old neighborhood and he knew his way around. As we passed a tree that looked enshrined he told us the legend of the swordsman Musashi and how this was the tree that he hid in before jumping down to the ground and singlehandedly slaying 20 men. Then we went to the shrine and saw leaves lit up in the night and we took off our shoes to go inside and it was cold to walk on the tatami floor but everything was all right.

Then we left and needed food and drink so we made a quick stop for a beer and a snack then got on a small train with just one car and I almost lost a glove but Danielle found it and then we got off at a different station and caught a subway to a part of town that was glowing with neon and flashing lights.

We entered the floating world.

Music was blaring and people were in every direction and everything was illuminated and very different from the ancient temples and gardens we'd visited earlier. The exploding autumn forests had been replaced by neon and commerce and trying to navigate through the madness was a wild trip. We floated past hostess bars and love hotels and porno shops and bars and pubs are restaurants and clubs and game centers and everything was glowing in the night. We saw a sign that looked good and walked underground into an Indonesian restaurant.

It wasn't crowded, the only other table was also foreigners, which was odd because you suddenly have to watch what you say when you realize that other people in the room can understand English.

We ordered beer and spring rolls and tandoori chicken and pahd thai and curry and more beer and had a good meal.

What did we talk about? What was said?

I can't think of it now.

Except that Ryan asked the waitress if she thought the sheep brain curry was good. And she said that she liked curry but had never tried that one. I said I didn't blame her.

Afterwards we resurfaced back to the neon streets and met up with an old university friend of Kipp's and floated to a bar on the 5th floor of some building and paid 1000 yen for an hour of all you can drink so I switched from beer to whisky and soda with lime.
Then we left and found a skybar on the ten thousandth floor of a building on a hill and from the top we could see the entire city pulsing beneath us. We ordered another drink and a pizza and it was all overpriced but the atmosphere was good and at the table next to us were five Japanese and at some point three of them left and two girls stayed behind and struck up a conversation with Kipp and his friend Ikketsu and Danielle and Ryan and I ordered another drink and smoked cigarettes until Kipp pulled me into the other conversation and so then I talked with these Japanese girls and had a drink and then we needed a change of scenery and more affordable drinks so we got up to leave and invited the two girls to come with us and they said that would be fine. And they weren't very lovely, which was sad, but still true even after the drinks, but we floated to a bar somewhere and the interior décor was comprised mainly of bud leaves and other stoner paraphernalia but there were no real drugs but we stayed anyway and had two drinks and a shot of whiskey before we left the floating world and returned to the guesthouse by taxi and ended the first day in Kyoto.

numb

It’s ;cold and I;m typig with gloves on ande tthis is N EX[ERIENT TO SEE HOW I CAN TYPE WITH MY FINGERS HAVING THIS PADDIG nd thefeel of the fingers hittig the jeyps isdifferet and I CAT reaoly type CCCURtey and I keep hitting the caps lock and that’s ot good. Myeb LATER I’LL tak the gloves off and write something reL.

***

Two, maybe three hours later....

***

It’s warmer now. The gloves are off and I can feel my fingers again. I turned on my heater for the first time. It’s actually an air conditioner, but it can heat up to 30 C and that was enough to warm up this room. When I moved in to this place it was more or less fully furnished. Came with the standards: TV, bedding, table and chairs, random appliances. And also the greatest invention on earth. Heated Carpet. Yes, heated carpet. When I first saw it, folded up in the closet back in August when the heat was cruel and godless, I thought to myself, Jesus, that’s an uncomfortable looking blanket. It feels like a burlap sack. But, then it dawned on me that it was too thick to be a blanket, that no person would want to snuggle with this ugly square of shag, that it wasn’t mean to be slept under, but to be laid upon, to be thrown across the fake plastic wood floor and plugged into the wall and switched to the warmest setting. It’s a great thing, this carpet. It makes accepting the fact that I’ll be living through winter in an apartment with no insulation a little easier to swallow. But now, after more than two weeks of use, it’s getting dirty. Crumbs and dirt and body hair and spilt alcohol and toe nail clipping and cigarette ash have woven themselves into the wooly fibers so that now, while I’m toasting myself upon the rug, I am effectively doing so in a bed of my own filth.

This leads me to two new thoughts: a.) living alone is both wonderful and self destructive. And, b.) I need to buy a vacuum.

throw the dead dog in the fire.

what else can you do?

i never got to say goodbye to Otis the epileptic labrador. he is dead now. my father doesn't know yet. when he finds out he will be very sad and I don't know what he will do. he loved that dog. it wasn't even that old. five. maybe six, if that. poor dog.

i found out this morning, laying on a tatami mat far away from home. vicki and alexa had left already and mike and lauren and jaya and i were left laying in the room and it was raining outside and cold. after the festival we took a train to the city and met with many others at an expat hangout called GOD'S BAR. i switched from beer to whiskey too early in the night and as the drops of rain pounded on the window the next morning, the aching in my head kept the same rhythm.

when was the last time i saw that dog? maybe in june. yes. june. i had quit my job and was spending time at home with family after the bonnaroo. the big black dog would greet me when I went over to dad's. he never barked. he'd put his big head on my lap and keep it there until i tired of petting. then he'd roll around on the carpet and chew on his toys. one day dad found out that if you give the dog an empty two liter soda bottle to play with, he'd be happy for weeks. simple things bring the greatest pleasure in life. hugs and kisses and empty plastic bottles.

last time i talked to dad he said the dog was fine. fat and happy as always, he'd say. one time when we were talking over the summer dad said that once he finished the work on the inside of the house, he would build a fence so the dog could run around and not be in danger of getting hit by passing cars or harassed by horrible children. he never built that fence. now he probably never will. poor dead dog.

i was laying there on the floor, not really listening to the conversation going on. they were talking about the festival yesterday. it was a fire festival in sukugawa. people say it's one of the largest in the country. i stood up and walked into the kitchen. it was cold. it was becky's apartment and she was still asleep. my phone was on the table. i picked it up and went back in the tatami room where it was warm. i decoded a message that arrived at 4 in the morning from a crazy japanese woman who i believe may be a borderline stalker.

everybody was still talking about the festival, sharing photos, rehashing how the burning pyres were so hot and how the towering flames mesmerized us all. i pressed a button on my phone and connected to the internet and went to check my gmail. i had a mail from shea, a friend of my dad's. the day before dad was at the hospital having two of his vertebrae fused together. shea had mailed me then to say that the surgery went fine, but that the dog was rushed to the vet and they didn't know what was wrong. the latest mail from shea said that the dog died and they don't really know how or why and that they haven't told my dad yet.

this is where things get strange. where the line between life and death and human and animal starts to blur. it was a strange thing shea said, that when he went to the hospital to see dad after he was out of the surgery, dad, who was still heavily medicated, said: "I keep seeing Otis' face. It's like he's here and he's trying to tell me something."

maybe as my father lie unconscious on the operating table, under heavy anesthesia, flying through the vast and unknown plain that exists between life and death, he and otis found each other.

maybe that was their last moment together. as otis was taking his last breaths of air in this world, and my father lie comatose on the far side of consciousness, they found each other. it was there, on that plain far away from us all, where they shared one last moment. and otis got to say goodbye.

last weekend

The girl was young and tiny. Probably the same age as him. She sat at the bar of the Café del Mar eating strawberry ice cream. He was drinking whisky. Outside it was storming.

“Americans are strong with their alcohol,” she said, authoritatively. “Australians too.”

“We’re bigger people. We can fit more inside us.”

“I think I’m strong with my alcohol too.”

“I bet you are.”

“I like beer. I drink every day.”

“Alone?”

“Sometimes. I don’t always get drunk. It’s usually just a drink or two.”

“I like beer too. Tonight I’m drinking whisky.”

“Will you drink beer later?”

“Maybe. Will you?”

“Once I get home. I’ll put on a record and open the windows. I’ll feed my bird and check my messages. That will be a good time for beer.”

“I think it will.”

***
Autumn rain on a Saturday morning put moisture in the cool air. The city is already alive. Cars passing down the streets, the sound of rainwater spinning through tires overrides the revving of engines and the squeal of brakes. It rained all night. The trees lining the boulevard have begun their annual transformation to a colorful death. Bright yellow. Deep red. Bold orange. Fading green. A rainy fog hangs low in the hills. The sky is grey and opaque.

The curtains are drawn, open to the world. But the view is limited. Beyond the hills, all is grey.

There’s a calendar on the wall. The picture on the top panel is of a man hanging a fishing rod over a rail into the sea. The sun is either rising or setting. It’s difficult to tell. It’s is a beautiful photo. The calendar month is August. In reality it is the beginning of November. The beauty of the picture made turning the page to the next month or the one after seem unnecessary.


Then comes the typhoon. The clouds grow dark and the wind picks up. The rain pours and pours. The river rises but doesn't crest its banks. The howling wind gets in to every corner of the world, sending chills down our spines.

We hold on tight for it is all we can do to brace ourselves from the storm. We keep on living, undefeated by the howling beast.

Perhaps a typhoon is like a full moon. Changing people, bringing out their other side. Or maybe it was just good timing that the typhoon came alongside Halloween.

***

Earlier, with Richard at the Café del Mar. We sat, drinking beer and dreaming of the night.

The café is slow. The storm outside is keeping people at home. Only one other table is sat. A young couple, drinking wine and smoking cigarettes.

“The party’s tomorrow. We need costumes, James.”

“I can’t be the same thing as I was last year, though it’s tempting since nobody here would know.”

"What were you?"

"A deviled egg. Cheapest costume ever. Pitchfork and horns. And a white T-shirt with a yellow yolk drawn on it."

"Nice, mate. But what are we going to do for tomorrow?"

"We should dress in drag. I’ve never worn woman’s cloths before."

“You serious? Let’s do it.”

“I think we can pull it off. What size are you?


***
Dressing as a woman give me a new appreciation for the things a real woman has to endure constantly in the name of proper fashion. I’m used to having pockets and wearing pants. Dresses, I’ve realized, are not made with pockets. One must accessorize with a purse. When leave the house I carry with me a small but certain number of things. Wallet. Keys. Phone. Cigarettes. Lighter. If I weren't a smoker, perhaps life as a woman would be easier. But I had quite a hard time trying to cram all my necessities into my small furry handbag.

In Japan dress sizes, I wear a nine. That’s an American size six. Felt pretty good about that one. Six is a good size to be. But I was jealous of Rich’s dress because it was much sexier than mine, and honestly, I have the legs it takes to properly wear a sexy dress. But alas, I showed up to the party in a dress much too conservative for the kind of night I was looking for, and Rich got all the attention.

The hem fell below my knees and there was not much of a neckline. It was a housewife’s dress. Not something a 23-year-old woman would wear, but with the limited selection that fit within my Halloween budget, I made due: I found a cheap pair of black Jackie’O shades, gaudy costume jewelry, a cigarette holder and a hideous handbag that matched the ensemble.

For the shoes, I went with hiking boots. That was the most appropriate choice.

October 23rd 2007

I’m sitting alone at a place called Milky Way. I heard they had a good salad bar, so I thought I’d check it out. There are may people in the restaurant, but everyone is spread out fairly well. It does not seem crowded.

In front of me is a glowing red neon sign reading: SALAD SOUP

I am in the smoking section, which is oddly placed right next to the salad bar. Any health code inspector in America would shit bricks if they saw a place that let people smoke cigarettes a mere yard or so from uncovered food at a buffet table. This country never ceases to bewilder me.

Sitting near me are two women, probably in their forties. They are chain smoking and talking about insurance. I can’t tell if they’re just discussing it, or if one of them is trying to sell it to the other. The conversation seems rather informal. One of the women has disproportionately thin legs. The top of her body is stout, barrel chested, like she might have trained as a competitive lumberjack. But her legs are tiny. There is no fat on them. The veins and muscles bulge through her skin. She could probably put a foot through a front door with little effort. She just got up and walked outside.

The woman she left sitting there is coughing up phlegm. I could hear her swallow the yellow goo from my booth next to hers. We both lit a cigarette at the same time. The people here seem to be of all ages and backgrounds. Groups of women in their twenties, sitting in sets of two or three, laughing about whatever. A salary man with his tie loosened, eating alone. An old couple sitting in silence. A young couple, looking high and in love. Then there’s me. Who knows why I’m here.

The stocky woman just came back inside. She’s carrying several booklets and papers. Now I can tell she’s definitely trying to sell the coughing woman insurance. I don’t know much about the world of insuring. What? there’s life insurance, home insurance, health insurance, auto insurance…probably lot more, I’m sure you can insure anything. Point is, if I were sitting in front of somebody, trying to buy insurance, I probably wouldn't be smoking. Just seems like it would work out to your advantage. Whatever. It’s none of my business. She’s signing the papers now. The deed is done.

***

Yesterday I was sitting at home after work and I got a message from Michael saying to meet he and Rich at Purnima at seven o’clock. I changed clothes and went for a quick run as the sun was setting, then had a shower and rode over to the restaurant. I was the first one there. I went inside and said hello to Baba, the owner and chef. He’s a middle aged guy from India, always wears brightly covered turbans and tunics which do little to mask the belly he’s grown from years of drinking beer. He always asks Rich and me how we stay thin. We tell him it’s all the beer and curry. This makes him laugh.

I sat down at the usual table.

“Hey Foley,” said Baba from behind the tandoori oven where he was forming a massive piece of naan.

“How’s it going tonight? Keeping busy?”

“Oh, you know it man, sometimes we slow, sometime we busy. It’s fucking cold outside but this kitchen is always hot.”

“You like it hot Baba, you’ve always said so.”

“Yeah man, that’s sure thing. Who else is coming? Any beautiful ladies?”

“Not tonight. Just Mike and Rich.”

“You’re so young man, you should always be with the ladies, you know. Before you get fat like Baba.”

“I’ll work on it. No one really piques my interest in this town. These country girls are afraid of foreigners, especially Americans. Our reputation precedes us.”

“That’s no good man. Say, if it’s just you guys tonight, we hookh later, okay?”

I glanced at the corner of the Indian restaurant towards the massive waterpipe on a shelf. Strange trinkets and talismans dangled from it, like a relic of some spiritual significance.

“Yeah, smoking the hookah sounds nice. It’s been a while. But for now, while I’m waiting, I’ll have a beer.”

“What kind beer? You want Indian beer or nama beer?”

“Nama.”

Then, switching to Japanese, Baba shouts towards the kitchen where the restaurant’s only other employee is waiting: Sumimasen, nama biiru hitotsu onagaishimasu!

I finished half the pint of beer before Rich and Mike turned up. They bought Nas along with them. She had recently gotten out of the hospital, where she was held for a week as the doctors tried to figure out why she was having piercing pains in her stomach. They let her out a week ago, after the pain died down. I was surprised to see her.

We sat talking about the weekend, all recalling hazy memories of the enkai we threw ourselves on Friday night. Historically the Iwaki Board of Education throws an enkai when the new ALTs arrive. But this year there were so many of us that they couldn’t afford it, evidently. So after two months of waiting, we took it upon ourselves to all gather for a night of booze and food. Good times were had by most. The ones that couldn’t hold their liquor might have regretted paying 3000 yen for the all-you-can eat and drink event.

After studying the menus we ordered four vegetarian curries, two of the famously giant pieces of naan and more beer.

Right as the food came out Nas grew incredibly ill. Her color faded and her usually cheery face sunk into a grimace of pain. She said that she felt like she did before she went to the hospital, which was evidently pretty shitty. She tried to stay with it, to keep herself in the conversation, but it was no use she was not doing well. She called work and said that she was sick again and that she would go back to the doctor in the morning.

She rode her bike about 30 minutes to get to the restaurant. I told her to ride to my apartment and rest there until she felt better.

“It’s just 5 minutes away,” I said. “The door is unlocked. You can rest on my couch, watch the TV. When you get there, go into my medicine cabinet and take out the orange bottle of pills. Don't take more than two.”

“What are they? Will they make it better?”

“They’re 500 milligram tabs of hydrocodone. I take them recreationally, but they’re quite powerful and good at taking away all the pain.”

“Okay, thanks James,” she said and left the restaurant, not touching her food.

Good thing we were hungry.

“Hey Rich, what are you doing over Christmas?” said Mike.

“I dunno mate. I might go back home.”

“Want to come to China with me and Nas? We’re going to book tickets at the end of the week, once we get the quotes form the travel agent.”

“What are you going to do?” Rich said.

“We’ll wander around. Probably spend some time down in Hunan. Still ironing out the details.”

“I reckon I better go back to England. I haven’t been home since I’ve been here.”

“I’ve never been to Europe,” I said. “I want to go to France.”

“Why?” said Rich. “Everyone there is French.”

“I dunno, if I had to pick a European country to visit, it would be France.”

“I’m done with English speaking countries,” he said. “I don’t want to travel to any more of them. Except maybe Antarctica. I saw an advertisement in a magazine for a job there. The best job ever. Extreme Mountaineer. Wouldn't that look awesome on your C.V.? Five years. Extreme mountaineer.”

“What would you do?”

“Be a research assistant. Climb ice covered mountains, risk life and death.”

“I heard that you can go and live in an Antarctic compound and basically get paid to hang out. I think a professor told me about. No one is in the Antarctica except for scientists. They’re all holed up in these compounds, hundreds of them. They have to have someone to cook the food and clean things up and whatnot. So you can get a service type job down there and make a killing. And where would you spend any of the money? You’d come back home with lots of cash.”

“Maybe we should go?”

“Maybe.”


We ate our dinner. Nas’s too. There were few leftovers. Afterwards Baba brought the hookah to our table, along with three cups of chai.

“Thanks,” I told Baba. “What flavor did you put in?”

“Rose. I was gonna do melon. But I think that’s too sweet with the chai.”

We started smoking.

“I’m going to Thailand in December. I’ll be there for Christmas and New Year’s.”

“You’ll like it,” said Rich. “Just stay away from Phuket town.”

“You didn’t care for Phuket?”

“No, it was a shit hole. I got there and left right away. It’s real seedy. My hostel had holes in the floor.”

“I’m flying in and out of Bangkok. I don’t know if I’ll make it down to Phuket or not. I’d like to see at least one of the islands.”

“I had a great time in Phuket when I was there,” said Mike. “My friend and I stayed in a cheap hotel and hung out on a private beach with a friend who was staying at a resort with his family. Once we went to a girly bar and saw some weird stuff.”

“Like what?”

“Girls doing crazy things with their vaginas. Like peeling bananas and smoking cigarettes. This girl would stick a cigarette inside her and smoke half of it, then pass it around the bar for the customers to smoke.”

“Did you smoke it?”

“No, I don’t smoke cigarettes.”

This morning I put out too much instant coffee in the mug, so much that the beverage became super supersaturated and thick as tar. I drank half of if and left it on the counter and went to work. Ever since I came home, I’ve been filling the cup with hot water. I’ve drank several cups and between that and a healthy amount of cigarettes and squares of dark chocolate I am sufficiently wired. At this point, my beverage is more or less hot water tinted with the brown hue of what was once a mug of coffee. I don’t think more caffeine will do any good, it’ll just keep me up later than it already is. Drinking hot water is not something I usually do. It’s sort of odd, but adding tea or more coffee or just drinking water from the tap doesn't seem right. The cold is creeping in. Along with the darkness.

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything on this blog. I told myself that I’ve been too busy to write anything. That’s a lie. I have plenty of time. I just can’t find the motivation. It’s getting dark earlier and earlier. The sun goes down before 530. It sinks down below mountains, dropping off the horizon to shine upon a new part of the world. It leaves behind nothing. There is no twilight. Just midnight black. It’s as dark at 6pm as it is at three in the morning. This darkness is crippling. It has taken control of my mind. It keeps me indoors, unmotivated and imprisoned in this cell of an apartment. I’m free to come and go as I please, but I can’t muster up the effort. Going anywhere means spending money, unless I just take a walk in the dark.

Reality is setting in. The vacation is over. Welcome back to existence.

The dishes and garbage pile up in sinks and on the floor. Unfolded laundry, both clean and dirty, rest in corners and strewn about on the backs of chairs and furniture. When left to my own devices, this solitude is a messy thing. It can make a literal mess: dirty floors and sinks. Or it can make a mess of the mind. I was scatter brained long before I came here. That hasn’t changed. I can’t focus on one task for too long before distraction or boredom or slumber takes hold. I pick up a book, I fall asleep. I try to write, and I start fucking around on the internet. I try to study or learn something new, then suddenly the guitar sitting in the corner seem much more interesting.

I stopped drinking for a while, took a whole week off. Didn’t write a word. Started back up again one Friday night and by Sunday I remembered why I took a break in the first place. I can’t find any balance between the extremes.

My mind has been too saturated with stimulants and distractions. It’s been one long paid holiday since I’ve been here, and I’ve been living in a dream or a cloud or something equally opaque, something that prevented me from recognizing the other side to all of this.

Over the weekend I went canyoning. This entailed traveling about 6 hours away into the mountainous region northwest of Tokyo. The water flowing down the mountains was cold as ice. I had on a full-body wetsuit padded with about 15 millimeters of rubber and it was still cold cold cold. I set off into the mountains with a group of 12 and two guides. We’d jump into the mountain streams and let them carry us down the path to waterfalls, which we’d jump off of, landing in deep pools of water. Anything too high or steep to jump off of was abseiled down. I had never done anything like this before, it was quite amazing.

It was on the bus ride back that I realized something was missing.

I sat alone in the back, as the bus sped down the dark highway. I was listening to Explosions in the Sky on my iPod, staring out the window, looking at nothing. My mind was somewhere far, far away. It was thinking about home.

Home for me is a strange word. It is not concrete. America is home, in a broad sense. But to get more specific than that requires a lot of explaining. I tell everyone I meet here that I come from Kansas City. Most assume Kansas City to be in the state of Kansas, and even though it’s mainly in Missouri and I was technically a Missouri resident, I don’t bother correcting them on the details.

At school, when ever I teach a class for the first time I give a self introduction. Since I have five different schools, each with six grades with and at least two classes per grade, I’ve given my self intro a lot.

I tell them I come from Kansas. I tell them about the sunflowers and the Wizard of Oz. I show them pictures of tornadoes and of the prairie.

I don’t mention that I only lived in KS for four years or that I’ve never seen a tornado and that the wizard of oz is something I’ve only seen once, long ago.

I do this for simplicity’s sake. It’s not necessary to give them my life story. But what about the people I interact with outside of school? Other English teachers, Japanese friends? They don’t necessarily get the whole truth either.

Nobody here knows me. They don’t know who I am, they don’t know what I do, they don’t know my story.

It works both ways too. I don't know any of their stories either. Sure, it takes time to build relationships and develop trust and everything. But as I was sitting on that bus looking out into the darkness, I realized the full force of this notion.

When I think of home, I don’t think of a place. I think of people. I think about their faces and their eyes. They way their hair looks. Random nights and moments we shared together, some of great significance, others so minute that I have no explanation for why they linger in my mind. But all these thoughts and images and memories form what I call home. Home is not a place. Home is people. Going home means returning to those people.

My eyes could see nothing, but in my mind everything was exploding in a blurry chaos. Through the swirling torrent of faces and memories, I landed on one moment in particular. My last night in America. Nicole and Chad’s house. Most people from the farewell send off had left and I did not know when I would see them again.

It was time for me to go too.

Standing there in the entryway, Nicole, Jenna, Ryan and I. A sad song was playing on the stereo and it was appropriate. Tears and emotion and sadness were held back all night. There was no time to react as the guests were leaving. Even as I said goodbye to the girl I love, giving her a hug for one last time before she left, there was little emotion. But everything that had been building inside me all summer, building towards this final moment before I took the last step and went out the door, ending another chapter in my life, all of that emotion and feeling and joy and sadness came out all at once. Jenna and I hugged for an eternity, embracing with such force it broke the levy. Flooding. Tears. Sobs. Everything erupting, coming to the surface.

This vivid memory came back to me in full force sitting there on the bus. It made me very happy and very sad.

It’s wonderful to have people like this in my life. But it’s terrible that they’re so far away.

Having people you love and trust and enjoy being around is incredibly important. It’s a key to survival.

I’m sure this can happen here. But it hasn’t yet, at least not to me and I’m beginning to doubt my ability to survive on the island. Maybe it won’t be as easy as I thought.

The more I think I know, the more I realize I don’t understand.

if RADIOHEAD is important to you, stop reading and go here now:

http://rangelifemusic.blogspot.com/

this is vane & boring. don't read it.

I took a week-long hiatus from drinking and smoking.

I was prompted to do so after a horribly long and booze filled weekend which started on a Friday with cocktails in hand on a train bound for a birthday party two towns over, and ended at 7:30 am on a Sunday as I walked out of an unknown bar and into morning rain, trying to convince a 23 year old Japanese woman who had been talking with me all night that she should leave her 43 year old American fiancé and come home with me. I was unsuccessful, which is for the better. She had horrible teeth.

I decided that I needed to cool it off, that my life is not going anywhere good by drinking all night on the weekends and less heavily in between. So, after I crawled out of bed at 2 in the afternoon last Sunday, I decided that these horrible drugs had to go. At least for a while. I took it as an experiment, a test to see what would happen to my mind and body should I suddenly deprive it of the heavy blend of nicotine and alcohol that has been requisite to feel normal for the longest time. As an added control to this experiment, I eliminated masturbation from my daily repertoire as well.

So after a week, what has happened? What effects have I felt? What is for the better? What is for the worst?

Surprisingly, I did not crave the evil temptations. For the first two days of the project, alcohol seemed repulsive as a cheesy vaginal discharge and cigarettes are easy enough to limit when I’m away from alcohol and other smokers.

I’ve been going running semi-regularly with a couple friends in town. One of the routes we run is quite hilly and takes about an hour. They’ve estimated it to be about 10 kilometers. Naturally, when we went for the 10K on Wednesday, it was significantly easier to do, thanks to not smoking for only four days.

Later in the week, Thursday and Friday specifically, I found that I was able to wake up with much more ease than before. When the alarm sounded off at 6 am, I was more or less ready to get up with it.

The Craving came on Friday night as I was on a highway bus bound for Aizu Wakamatsu, a township about three hours west of me, where I would meet my friend Randal for a weekend hiking adventure. I am most of the way through reading a novel called Middlesex and there was a scene that lasted a number of pages where the narrator in fixating on a teenage girl he refers to as The Object. The Object smokes menthols while brushing her teeth and has enough muscular dexterity in her lips and face to blow a vast array of smoke rings, a different one for every occasion.

This, of course, was described more eloquently than I could ever do myself and also at much greater length.

A cigarette can be an incredibly sexy thing. In his novel, Jeffery Eugenides succeeds in proving this. I’ve also known several women who’s cigarette smoking made them insurmountably more alluring and mysterious. These are good qualities, if you ask me. The Object possesses them too.

I sat there reading about this alluring, chain-smoking creature and suddenly, as the bus sped onward into the darkness, more than at any other time all week long, I needed a cigarette.

This could not happen, since I was on a non-smoking bus. I also had no cigarettes.

There is no denying the merits of abstaining from the booze and tobacco, they are plenty.

However, other ill affects do come from depriving one’s self of the lovely poisons.

Perhaps those of you who are writers can relate to this. During this week of abstention I did not write a single word. I didn’t work on the short story, I didn’t blog, I didn’t even jot down random notes and ideas. The only writing I did was on instant messenger and facebook.

I did not come to Japan to teach English. I happen to be employed as an elementary school English teacher, and I do take my job seriously and given that I’ve only been here two months, I think I’ve done a good job at it so far. But teaching English is definitely not my purpose on this Earth. I don’t know what exactly my purpose is, I don’t think anybody ever figures that out.

But I did come here to write. Whether or not that’s my purpose in life, I do not know. What I do know is that I have to give it a shot. Back home there were too many distractions and not enough time to get any solid work done. Here, my only distraction is myself. I have plenty of time to write. I’m not nearly as social as I was back home. Those of you who spent time with me in KC on Wednesdays at Harry’s and Monday’s at McCoy’s might be surprised to hear this.

Okay, to the point….

This experiment shed light on two things: a.) I feel healthier and generally better about myself when I don’t drink and smoke. And, b.) I need to drink and smoke to write.

Perhaps that is too vague. But let me stop here for a conceit: When I woke up at Randal’s house on Sunday morning, after our day-long hike, he made me lunch and offered me a beer. I ate and drank. Then I had a second beer while we we’re watching an anime. Afterwards, he drove me to the station and I had a third while on the hour long train ride to the city. Then, at the bus station, I had a cocktail before boarding the bus for home. And now, as I write this, I’ve moved on to whisky and the words are flowing easily from my brain and to my hands and to the keys of the machine.

Every entry of this blog has been written under the influence of alcohol, and often at the end of an entry, the ashtray is overflowing with butts of cigarettes smoked down to the very end. Thank god for spell check and its red squiggly lines, no?

Most of the great writers were raging alcoholics with numerous illegitimate children and suicidal tendencies.

Example:

E. Hemingway: had blood transfusion with a bottle of Bacardi; several wives; blew his head off. Won Pulitzer Prize.

H.S. Thompson: drug-addled freak; violent, aggressive and hostile; dead by revolver to the mouth. Journalistic icon, cult literary hero.

F.S. Fitzgerald: notorious alcoholic and chain smoker; drank himself to death by his mid-forties. He was 29 when The Great Gatsby went to press.

So does alcohol makes me a better writer? Probably not. Actually, of course not. I just reread everything I wrote and it came off as vane and boring. But does alcohol motivate me to turn off the music and the Internet and sit down and write? Absolutely.

So what does this all mean? Nothing much, really.

It is what it is.

There’s nothing I can do. Except have a cigarette and go to bed.

return to The City, part 1: The Underworld

The buildings stretched so high into the air that sunrise was delayed for at least an hour, their towering height blocking the bright rays from the city below. Not that it really matters. The city doesn’t know what sleep is anyway.

I was kicked out of a hotel room that I didn’t pay for at 4:30 am. Had I known this was going to happen, I never would have stumbled into a cab and let it take me there in the first place. After drinking since 2 pm, it was amazing that I was still standing, so successfully sneaking past the doorman and on to the 7th floor of this seedy downtown Tokyo hotel where my friend was sleeping would have been a miracle.

Miracles don’t happen. Not in this city.

He sent me away, out to the streets stained with urine and vomit of all those who trekked down them earlier. To the streets where the strippers were just getting off work, looking for a drink and a smoke and the whores form Vietnam were just getting started at making their buck, preying on wanderers like me. From way down here, at the bottom, underneath the fingernails of this city, like dirt and grime from long days past, I ventured out. The sky, what I could see of it, was thousands of miles away. The one thing that could save me was sunshine and it was nowhere to be found.

The familiar rubble of trains zooming past every two minutes was absent. They don’t run this late into the night. As I walked down the narrow road, between the hostess bars and stripclubs and convenience stores and love hotels, I had nowhere in particular to go and absolutely no idea where I was. Somewhere in Tokyo, in a very dirty part of town. I headed towards what appeared to be the train station. Thought I might as well be nearby when the lines open up again.

Hours ago I was drowning in the depths of a day-long bender. When you pay 3,500 yen for an all-you-can drink pass to the Great Japan Beer Festival and spend from 2 to 7 PM steadily boosting the blood alcohol content to dangerous levels, it’s only natural to get a little tanked. Drinks with dinner and cocktails at the club later on kept the buzz going for most of the day, but now, when the dew of a new morning would cover the grass and flowers if there were any, I could feel the purgatorial headache closing in and my eyes were heavy with sleep and exhaustion.

New York is notorious for its pigeons. They flock en mass, eating everything in sight, probably outnumbering the population of the city itself. I didn’t see any pigeons in Tokyo. But the crows hobbling down these dirty streets are massive and horrifying. Fuckers are the size of large cats, with beaks long as carrots and sharp as their razor-like talons that click-clack on the pavement as they scavenge and shit, vying for their existence.

I wanted to avoid these foul beasts at all cost.

Stepping over garbage and excrement, I cut through an alley and escaped the terrible black birds. I came to a tunnel, a pedestrian underpass. Drunk Japanese men staggered through it, some of them towing women behind them as they tried to keep pace in their ridiculous high heels. There was a lone girl leaning up against the wall, listening to a man play a guitar. I walked over and leaned against the wall next to her, not saying anything, really not having anything to say. The man with the guitar sang well, though he sounded drained, probably from having been there all night. I grew tired of standing and slid down the wall, hitting pavement and feeling relaxed for the first time in hours. The man finished his song and looked at me, acknowledging my paying attention to his music. We were together in this moment, both trooping through the night, fighting exhaustion.

He said this would be his last song. Mustering energy that must have come from the bottom of his heart, he fought back the sleep and fatigue and belted out an old pop song that was popular in Japan in the 1960s, his voice was carried by the powerful major chords and magnified by the by the thick stone walls.

The girl and I sat there, listening.

When the song finished, I told the guy he did a good job. I asked him the name of the song he played, but I’ve already forgotten what he said. He told me goodnight as he packed up his guitar. He stood up and walked out, the girl following behind. I will never see them again.

I stood up, wearily, and kept on walking down the tunnel. When I emerged, the sky was a little brighter. A new day was almost here and I would soon be able to put this one behind me.

But first sleep was necessary. I really didn’t have a choice, I could feel my legs growing weak and my eyes begging me to keep them closed. I stumbled upon a pavilion. A homeless man was sleeping in the bushes under a cardboard box. Another lie a few yards away. They didn’t notice me when I sat down on a bench nearby. Every so often a person or two would walk past. By this point it was nearly impossible to keep my eyes open. I said to myself, Fuck it. These guys can sleep here. So can I. I stood up and walked behind the bench, and lied down on the ground. I fell asleep instantly.

When I woke up the homeless men had gone and I was covered with ants.

Unfortunately, only two and a half hours had passed.

My neck hurt from sleeping on my backpack. My head hurt from all the booze.

I got up and stretched out my back and limbs and started walking. It was 7:30. The trains were running again. Heading towards the station, I walked past a McDonald's. It had just opened. I’ve never been happier to see a McDonald's in my life. I went inside, hoping to get food and maybe a little more sleep. Ordered some sort of cheese & egg bagel sandwich with coffee and hash browns. I ate and drank the coffee. Then went into the bathroom to poop. In Japan, even in McDonald's the toilets are nice; the kind that have heated seats and bidets and sprayers and all the bells and whistles.

I started to line the seats with toilet paper. Then I stopped.

You fool! I thought to myself, quit being such a dumbass. You just slept on the filthy ground next to homeless people. What the hell are you doing lining the seats with toilet paper? I abandoned the project and sat down, my bare ass against the heated seat.

Afterwards I changed shirts and washed my hands and face and brushed my teeth and was ready to start a new day in the metropolis.

This blog needs more photos

messy spaghetti

Me: Did you hear that?
Mom: Yeah, what was that?
Me: A fart.
Mom, laughing: I just heard your fart all the way from Japan.


This is the relationship I have with my mother. I'm glad some things never change. The only problem with using the computer and interweb as a telephone is that the powerful microphone built into the Macbook is at the same level as my lower torso when I'm sitting at the table. When I fart, the whole world can hear. If they're listening.

***

Weekend. Saturday morning. Iwaki city.

A powerful gust of wind forced its way through the open windows of my apartment, causing an open door to slam shut. The thunderous bang of wood smashing wood at hurricane speed served as a reasonable wake up call. Now, an hour later, two cups of instant coffee and a Sigur Ros record in to the morning, here I am.

The first week of work was wonderful and exhausting. I haven't looked forward to a Saturday this much since I worked at the newspaper. Though, I suppose this is the first week I've actually worked since I left The Examiner in early June.

The paid holiday is over. Sort of.

As an assistant elementary school English teacher, my actual job responsibilities consist of repeating simple English phrases such as, "What do you want to eat?" and "When is New Year's Day?"

We sing songs too. This week alone I was actually paid to sing Row, Row, Row Your Boat. Six times.

I like fifth graders the best. They're the most in to it. They're attentive and excited and eager. Third and fourth grade are still a little too young to truly understand the meaning of the lessons. And sixth graders are mostly too cool for school. They just sit there and don't make much of an effort. Unless something funny happens.

Example:

Friday's sixth grade lesson was: What Do You Want to Eat? I Want to Eat _____.

We had picture cards of the foods. Mainly western cuisine you can find in Japan. We worked on proper pronunciation of these words. The Japanese are quick to adopt and Japanify many aspects of western culture, food is no exception.

We say, Hamburger, Pizza, Spaghetti.

They say, Haamu-Baagaa and Pii-za and Supaa-gheeti.

These cheeky sixth grade bastards had a field day with spaghetti.

I was intentionally over enunciating the word, to get them to hear the western pronunciation.

Spa-ghe-tti, Spa-ghe-tti, Spa-ghe-tii

All the boys started laughing uncontrollably.

I taught this lesson to three sixth grade classes before it dawned on my what was so funny.

You see, the word geri in Japanese means diarrhea. And the proper pronunciation of the word in Japanese happens to sound exactly like the proper pronunciation of "ghetti" in spaghetti.

So I would say, "Spaghetti! Spaghetti! Spaghetti!"

And they would hear, "spa-Diarrhea! spa-Diarrhea! spa-Diarrhea!"

Once I figured out what was going on, I thought it was pretty damn funny too. But I tried to hide my smirk as I looked towards the Japanese teacher to see if she knew what was going on as well. I think she had an idea.

A Japanese elementary school is a strange place. There is no cafeteria. There is no janitor. Why would they need these things when they have a captive audience of hundreds of little kids?

Shit you not. The kids serve lunch and they eat in their classrooms with the teachers. And every day after lunch, for 45 minutes, they clean the school.

I had heard that this was the case in Japanese schools, but seeing it first hand was something else.

They call school lunch kyushoku. Every day a kyushoku center brings lunch for the school in large metal containers. You have no say in what's for lunch. Everybody eats it. After fourth period about a quarter of the kids in each classroom don white, lab coat-esque smocks and thick cotton surgical masks. Then they bring in plates and trays and the metal containers filled with the day's lunch. And they serve it up soup kitchen style.

Sometimes I eat lunch with the students. They get a kick out of this, especially when I bring my own lunch. I've never seen kids stare with such amazement at a person eating a tuna sandwich and banana.

After lunch the kids brush their teeth. Then they clean. Sweep, mop, scrub, dust. Even the teachers and staff pitch in. I do not. I tend to hide out somewhere and have a nap. However, I'm not sure how effective having kids clean the school really is. I know when I was that age and my parents made me clean something, the only tool I'd make use of was a wet rag. As long as it looked clean, it was good enough. I carry much of this same attitude with me to this day.

dream interrupted

The hour was late, somewhere deep within the dreamy void between night and day. The six beers I drank earlier were still coursing through my veins. The Sigur Ros album I began on my iPod had finished and I was fast asleep long before the end. The room was warm enough to not want any blankets or clothing other than boxers, but not hot enough to demand air conditioning.

I'm having a dream. Somewhere in Japan, seeing sights with a blonde girl named Jess. We marveled at the sights before us: Buddhist monuments, towering skyscrapers, ancient shrines, enormous hotels. And beer gardens.

Earlier that day, in reality, away from the dream, Jess called to invite me to a beer garden back in Iwaki. I could not attend, as I was across the prefecture in Aizu, getting to know the Ando family on a weekend-long homestay. Somehow Jess calling me worked its way into my dream. I don't know what sightseeing had to do with it.

Anyway. The dream was interrupted. I heard something. A door sliding open. Feet patting across the tatami mat floor.

There is someone else here now. I can sense their presence in the darkness.

I want to say, "Who's there?" but my mind is drunk and tired and the Japanese won't come out. English won't work. It's a child. Kai. He walks over to me. I'm on the ground, laying on a futon. The blanket is thrown off to one side. Kai takes it and covers himself up, lying at my feet.

I don't know what to do. I don't know what this means. Kai is autistic. He can't use words. In order to communicate with him you need pictures and gestures. I don't know why he's in the room with me in the middle of the night.

He nuzzles my feet, curling up close. Inching up my legs, snuggling my femur, holding on tight. Eventually he works his way up to my torso and we lock in a full-on spoon.

What would you do if a six year old autistic Japanese boy walks in to your room in the middle of the night while you're fast asleep and starts spooning with you while you're wearing nothing but underwear?

This is not a question I ever thought I’d have to ask myself. I advise you to take a moment and consider it, in case you ever find yourself in a similar situation.

So what did I do?

Well, I just went with it. I scooted over the edge of the futon to make room and fell back asleep with Kai at my side, his face buried in the small of my back.

When I woke up he was gone and I was hung over and alone. Not an unusual way for me to start a morning.


***

Backtrack to earlier in the day, before the late-night encounter.

I finish couple of mandatory Japanese classes at a university and now I’m sitting in a room with the rest of the new Fukushima JETs. Earlier we all received a page of information about our host families for the weekend. As I sit there waiting for my family to arrive, I read over the info sheet.

Hiroaki Ando, 37, teacher; Miyuki Ando, 36, housewife; Rui, 7, first grade; Tai, 6, kindergarten; twin brother Kai, mild autism.

There’s more written in Japanese, a portion of it has been translated:

“Strong drinkers welcome! I smoke, but will refrain if you do not.”

Oh no, Ando-san. There will be no refrain necessary. I think we’ll have a good time.

Slowly people’s names are called out. The crowd cheers and claps whenever a name is announced. Sending off their peers with godspeed.

When the man calls out James Foley, I get up and go. I’d been rehearsing in my head how the first few moments of the initial meeting would go. I had the Japanese all thought out, I had some questions ready.

Of course all that shit goes out the window when you finally meet your maker.

I was taken by surprise. My host dad was waiting for me when I walked out of the classroom. I’m a lot taller than he is, but he is solid and well-built, wearing a T-shirt and athletic shorts. I’m expecting a bow and all the obligatory Japanese that spews out when you meet someone for the first time.

Instead he extends his arm for a handshake and in English says, “Hi, how’s it going? Please call me Hiro.”

Along with him are two of the boys, Rui and Tai.

It’s about a 20 minute car ride from the university to their home in a new suburb of the city. In the car I talk with my host dad and the boys.

“Rui, how old are you,” I say in Japanese.
“I’m seven,” he says back to me in English.
Hmm. Impressive for a seven year old.
“Can you guess how old I am?”
“Uhh, you’re 23.”
“Good guess. How’d you know?”
“I read it on your sheet.”

Smart kid. He likes Pokeman and beetles. Not Beatles. Beetles. Japanese boys love beetles. The nasty fuckers with long horns and huge pincers. They collect them in two varieties: alive and in plastic. The boys have a terrarium filled with beetles and they sit there and watch them mill about and occasionally fight. When the living ones aren’t in the fighting spirit, the boys resume the violence with their plastic, life-size replicas.

Rui and Tai are pretty much inseparable. They play Nintendo together and run around and fight and do all the shit that little boys like to do to each other.

Kai is a different story.

The first thing I noticed about Kai, before I saw his deep and beautiful black eyes, or his six-year-old, gap-toothed smile, was his prepubescent, uncircumcised penis.

Indeed, an unusual first impression have. But, then again, Kai is an unusual boy.

When I first saw him he wasn't wearing pants. His dad gave me a heads up about this during the car ride over. The kid just doesn’t like wearing clothes. He had on a T-shirt when I first walked into their home. But it was off within the minute and he was running around the living room and bouncing off the walls and anything else in his path.

There’s a small exercise trampoline set up against the wall of the living room. The naked boy jumps on it for an eternity, banging his head and hands on the wall. Nobody in the family seems to pay it any attention. They don’t hear the pounding and the screams. They don’t see the bouncing naked boy and his flailing penis. Or so it seems. But after six years, I guess they’re used to it.

His parents, Miyuki and Hiro, are the most patient and tolerant people I have ever met. They take everything in stride and good humor. I was amazed at level of noise and calamity they seemingly just didn’t notice. My mind traveled back to the days when I still lived with my mother and siblings, years ago.

If we so much as made a wrong step on the floor at the wrong time and the creek of the old wooden floorboards traveled downstairs to my mother’s lair, we’d hear her roar and scream to be quiet, that we’re making too much noise, that she can’t hear her show. I always found this ironic because her outbursts were usually much louder and longer than any of our trivial noise infractions.

This was my first time living with three little boys. And I don’t think I’d ever met an autistic person before I met Kai. Their parents are saints of tolerance and patience.

Talking with and getting to know them was a great experience. The wife doesn’t really know English and she’s a hell of a cook. She fed me better than my grandmother. From the minute I walked into her home I had food in front of me. She worked hard to prepare the meals and she went out of her way to abide by a request that I not eat beef or pork. She’d always serve the kids first, then me and Hiro. Sometimes, but not often, she’d sit down and eat something with us. She is very skinny.

Kai is a big eater. The first night he devoured every single bowl of tuna and asparagus appetizer that was placed on the table. Then he proceeded to eat just about everything else he could get his hands on, all within a span of about 15 minutes. Then he’d indicate he was full and leave the table, striping off the apron his mom put on him before the meal, and goes back to jumping naked on the trampoline.

The dad knows quite a bit of English. Between the two of us we know enough about our respective foreign language of choice to construct sentences and carry on basic conversation. We just lacked the vocabulary to make it fluid. So we’d sit there at the table, drinking sake and beer and smoking cigarettes, dictionaries in hand, talking about any and everything, pausing to look for words we didn’t know or a simpler way of explaining a point or idea. We hit on George Bush, the Iraq war, the Japanese government and education system, the importance of locally grown food, and the difficulties of raising a child with autism. And of course we traded of names of movies and actors we liked.

The mom loves Cameron Diaz and thinks she’s pretty. She was shocked when I told her she was washed up and not worth anybody’s time back in the states.

When I left they gave me a present. Aizu is famous for its hand thrown pottery. They gave me a cup. It’s glazed porcelain and a blush design the looks like melting stalactites. It’s sitting on my shelf right now. I can see it. And from now on whenever I look at it I will be reminded of the Ando family. Though really, how will I ever forget?

Cameron Diaz is a greedy whore. Or: Why I stopped worrying and bought in to it all.

In the film Lost in Translation, Bill Murray plays a semi-washed up actor from America who travels to Tokyo to do a series of promotional advertisements for Suntory whisky. "For good times, make it Suntory times," he says into the camera over and over again much to his chagrin, as well as to the dismay and frustration of the Japanese director who, despite all his best efforts, can't communicate the intricate subtleties of tone, body language and facial expressions needed to make the hazy Mr. Murray gazing into a double whisky on the rocks appear to be something more than pensive drunk.

Despite the hangups, the ad campaign comes off successfully and Bill's face is plastered on the sides of city buses and beamed into TV sets all over Japan. All the while, he feels strange and out-of-place, like he's living his life in some sort of glass asylum, where he can see and hear everything, but can't really get his hands and feet muddy. Stuck in a box, with Scarlett Johanson in an endless city of neon and mystery.

What was never mentioned, however, is that if the ad campaign were truly successful, the percentage of Japanese businessmen drunk on Suntory whiskey and slumped over on the midnight train must have skyrocketed, thus increasing an already astronomical number.

Sadly, here in real Japan, we have no Bill Murray. We have no Scarlett Johanson. But we do have Suntory whisky. And we do have Cameron Diaz.

Just like back in America, and any other major capitalist world economy, Japan has lots of different cell phone providers. One of the big players used to be Vodafone. Recently it was bought out (or maybe just renamed? Not a fact worth researching...) by an entity called SoftBank.

And just like in the film or any real-world massive capitalistic endeavor, a big-time promotion was on the ticket. Except instead of getting a thoughtful and well-respected thespian who is able to play a sauced and washed up celebrity who can no longer cut it stateside, we get the real thing. Cameron Diaz.

She has taken this nation by storm. Her face plastered on posters and billboards. Her eyes and bleach white smile glowing from the TVs in every living room in the country. And what is she towing behind it? The nation's cheapest cell phone plan. It's less than 1000Y a month. That's not even 10 dollars.

And along with most of the other new Iwaki ALTs, I signed right up. At the time, I had no clue about how to go about acquiring a cell phone in Japan, let alone did I know about how the various plans were promoted. Advertising, Cameron Diaz specifically, played no role in my selection of SoftBank as my service provider. I was completely unaware of the massive marketing campaign. I heard it was cheap, and when you're nearly a grand in the hole and two weeks from payday, cheaps sounds like a good deal.

But ever since my bright yellow SoftBank phone came into my life, I've had an adverse subconscious reaction to the advertising. I see their logo, I recognize it, I make a relevant association because I use their service. I say, "Ahh, yes. I use SoftBank. I'm part of their family. My phone is sexy and yellow. I can call all my friends who also use SoftBank for free. How nice."

Then I see Cameron Diaz. And I want to vomit in my mouth.

But there's no turning back now. I'm locked in a two-year contract. Actually, I hear it's much easier to break a cell phone contract here than it is back home, where those greedy bastards at Sprint tried to make me pay $200 to get out of my contract. But negotiating a new cell phone contract in Japanese is not an easy task. I don't even think Japanese people understand Japanese cell phone contracts. They are full of ambiguous numbers and unknown kanji. I sat there in front of the saleswoman, having my passport and address and bank account information ready. And she would start talking in honorific Japanese (which no foreigner understands) about the various options I could add or not add to my basic plan (for which the vocabulary I did not have) and I did not understand a single thing she said to me. And I could see in her eyes she knew this too. All I wanted was for her to give me my yellow phone. And I had the feeling all she wanted to do was to get the crazy foreigner away from her counter as fast as possible. But it's her job to ask me if I want to pay extra for voicemail, it's her job to ask me if I want to purchase insurance. She would flip through the pages of the contract, pointing at random prices and mysterious charts, and I would sit there looking like a deer in the headlights begging for mercy from the horror speeding towards me.

However, everything has worked out so far. I'll know for sure once the bill comes. In the meantime, I'll keep enjoying my cool yellow phone. And learning to embrace Cameron Diaz.

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お盆

This string of good fortune cannot last forever. I have not physically been to work since Friday. Today is Wednesday. I was given the first three days of this week off because of the Obon Holiday, a traditional Buddhist holiday which the Japanese celebrate around this time every year. The intentions behind the holiday are to give pause and remembrance for dead ancestors. The Japanese who live in the cramped metropolises that dot the island leave the neon and the noise and return to their families in the countryside, to visit one another and clean the graves of the departed. They must ritualistically burn sacraments or something too because while I was out jogging at sunset yesterday, running along a river path into the red and purple horizon, there were dozens of families gathered outside there homes huddled around tiny pyres of burning matter. I didn't stop and ask any of them exactly what they were doing, but it's no coincidence that I passed a half dozen or so households doing the exact same thing at the same time. According to Wikipedia (which I can freely cite now that I'm no longer a member of The Media, though let's be honest, newsfolk, we all go to Wikipedia to begin the research on every story...), Obon is a shortened and Japanified version of a the Sanskrit word ullambana , which means "hanging upside down in hell and suffering." The purpose of the Obon for the Japanese is to eliminate the suffering of those hanging in ullambana. Or so it seems. This means very little to me, as I'm pretty sure no one I've known is hanging upside down in hell and suffering. Every one I know who's likely in hell are probably drunk and dancing and smoking weed with Kurt Cobain. But whatev. I got three days off work.

But really, who am I kidding? I haven't worked since June 8. That was my last day at the newspaper. I've basically been on a paid holiday ever since. After coming out $2,000 ahead after my car was totaled in a high speed freak accident involving an unsuspecting and stupid deer, I wound up drunk and high on pain killers in the middle of Tokyo. And I was getting paid for this. I've been "on the clock," so to speak since July 29. But I haven't worked a day. I haven't taught anybody anything. I haven't even been to my schools. Since I've been here all I've done as part of the job is sit through various orientations and fill out endless stacks of paperwork. And tomorrow, when this holiday is over, I won't go back to the Board of Education. Instead I'll get on a bus and ride to Fukushima City for yet another two-day orientation.

This can't last forever. But I'm enjoying it while it lasts. One day soon the work will start and I will be surrounded by thousands of screaming children, all of them dying to climb all over me and poke and prod me in inappropriate places. And I will do this for five days a week and come home tired and exhausted. And it will be great fun.

I steal the Internet from my neighbors. I've been doing it since I got here and I don't think I'm going to stop until they become wiser and turn on the security features to their wireless router. Of course, I have considered the possibility of having falling into a horrible trap. Open wireless networks, I'm pretty sure, are like open windows. It's safe to assume that if I look out the window and see a lonely drunk Japanese man touching himself on the sidewalk next to the elementary school, chances are he can see me too if he takes the time to look. How can an unsecured wireless network be any different? Perhaps my neighbors are villainous computer hackers and have already accessed all my personal banking information, stolen my identity, and took the time to peruse my porn collection, allowing them to pinpoint my personal preferences in smuttery and potentially hold this information over my head in a cruel, yakuza-esque blackmail scheme?

I can see the headlines now.

Gaijin entwined in blackmail scandal; Authorities seize largest pornography collection this side of the Pacific.

Well, it probably wouldn't be seized. It not that offensive...

But until the cops come a'knockin, I'm going to keep stealing this wonderful Interweb and pray that my neighbors are just dumb and oblivious and can't read English and have no interest in my bank account or my porno.

1001 words

The blue Mini Cooper flew down the narrow roads of this vast city, heading towards the ocean. I was riding shotgun, though here that means I was riding where the driver’s seat usually is. Koji was driving. It was his mom’s car. I had only met him about 10 minutes earlier, when I got into the tiny car as it came to a stop outside my apartment. Inside along with Koji was Anou, a New Zealander who’s dreadlocked, half Laotian and built like a rugby player, and Rich the vegetarian from England. I work with Anou and Rich at the Board of Education and they invited me to come swimming at the beach as I was leaving work today. My original plan was to go home, take off all my clothes and dry my tired and sweaty body in front of the fan for a couple hours and then have a nap. For some reason, the beach seemed like a much better idea.

I had tried going to the beach before, during my first weekend in this city. I woke up at an unheard of hour and couldn’t get back to sleep. I changed into running clothes and went outside. There is a river next to my apartment. It runs east to west. Following this basic knowledge, it seemed logical that if I ran east along the river, I would eventually get to the ocean. This did not happen. After about an hour of running, I was drenched in sweat, suffocating from the humidity, wishing I didn’t smoke cigarettes and ready to turn around for the long haul back home.

This spontaneous road trip to the ocean proved to be just what I needed. Me and three guys, all from incredibly different parts of the world: Japan, England, New Zealand, America—a motley crew, indeed. When we made it to the beach and pulled into the parking lot, a naked Japanese boy was running around the lot. He seemed happy and oblivious. We laughed but were distracted by the beautiful women rinsing the ocean and sand off their thin bodies at the shower outside the public toilet.

I needed to get away from the routine I was setting myself into. I needed to hangout with new people and do something other than sit around my apartment in my underwear, smoking cigarettes and drinking beer in a futile attempt to battle this cruel and godless summer weather. This was good.

I’ve been here two weeks and have only met two Japanese twentysomthings who do not work at the Board of Education. This is sad and ironic. It was nice meeting Koji, We talked in Japanese about baseball and the sunset. He’s never been to America but he knows about the Kansas City Royals and George Brett. We both agreed the Royals suck.

The ocean was cold and salty. I hadn’t been in the ocean in more than a year. It was nice to let it swallow me, cover my body in salt and foam, make my hair coarse and wet. The waves were not magnificent, but it was fun to try and catch them and swim along. The ocean floor was covered in seaweed. At one point we started throwing it at each other. Maybe one day a fisherman will harvest it and it will be processed and eaten. Probably not. But you never know.

After an hour or so, we made our way towards the shore. There was a crowd of Japanese gathered in a circle. They had completely buried one of their friends in sand and built him a gigantic penis and a pair of breasts. It was incredibly hermaphroditic and amusing.

We stared playing soccer with a beach ball. Running in the sand, when the purpose is solely to run, is difficult enough. Playing soccer in the sand is infinitely more challenging. Two on two. Anou and I versus Koji and Rich. It was a grueling battle. Each time a goal was scored the defense had to do ten push-ups. Anou and I lost. I felt bad because he plays a lot of sports and I presume he is naturally competitive and likes to win. I’m horrible at sports,. I was always the last one picked to be on a team growing up. Unless the kid with one leg was around. Then I had second-to-last place in the bag. Regardless of my ineptitude, I had a good time.

After we were tired and finished we made our way back to the car. We took quick showers to rinse off the ocean and sand. As we were heading back to the car we stopped an old Japanese man on a bicycle for the time. He started quizzically into his cell phone and turned to us. “Farsighted,” he said, handing the phone to Anou. It was a quarter past six. We chatted with the old man in a mixture of Japanese and English. He is a recreational skin diver and every Sunday he ventures to the bottom of the ocean to collect sea urchins and abalone.

We drove to an okonomiyaki restaurant and had dinner. Rich and I ordered beers and talked about the hippies and vegetarianism. When new customers came in the whole staff, which was mainly comprised of attractive young women, would say in unison, “Irrashaimase, bum bon bon!” in a musical sing-song way. It was an amusing gimmick.

Afterwards we drove home.

Back at my apartment I started drinking whiskey. I am having a few people stay at my apartment tonight because about 40 of us are attending an all-you-can drink party and the likelihood that most people will be bombed and not ready to catch the last train home when the time comes is very high. So I in addition to cleaning the place up a bit, I decided to put some pictures on the walls. Part of this idea included making a collage. Danielle has assured me this does not make me gay. I want to believe her.