As we were watching a movie I chose at the video store, she turned to me and proclaimed that she gives me full permission to write whatever I'd like about her, about us, about anything. The movie was somewhat of a romantic comedy, my secret obsession. Though I choose only to discuss prevalent movies, indie flicks, award winners, widely acclaimed and acknowledged films, I can't deny my love for cheesey, girly, romantic comedies. I love Sandra Bullock films, "Fried Green Tomatoes" "Beaches" "Terms of Endearment" "Pretty Woman" and any other Julia Roberts/ Richard Gere flicks that stir up the cheese, not to mention that I prefer seeing Jack Black playing a romantic lead than a comedic sidekick....
Yeah, i'm that kind of girl. Actually.
So as we watched "Margot at the Wedding", a flick about bickering sisters who share a love-hate relationship with everyone around them, driving them all bananas, there was a scene where Nicole Kidman, a writer, is accused of exposing all of the families' secrets in one of her novels.
It was then that she so innocently turned to me and reliquished to me complete permission to write anything I want about her, or us, or anything. I couldn't help but smile at the fact that she sees me as a writer. However, further than that, I also thought about how I would never want to share my people; failures and much less triumphs, love affairs, secret anecdotes and intimate details of any of my sincerest relationships between my kindred with anyone else.
What kind of writer could I possibly be while holding onto those kinds of ideals?
However, should I ever give up those beliefs, I would have nothing less than a phenomenal story about a wonderfully beautiful woman who has opened up my world to a myriad of recounted experiences that I'd never have been able to dream. Her life, and my life without her, would be a novel never written....because some things are too privileged to share, despite all permission given.
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fiction. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Konbini Love Child
I used to worry that living in a small countryside town would eventually backfire on me, however I've successfully kept it hidden that I have been keeping two girlfriends for just over a year now. Aiko was the first. I met her over a year and a half ago at the funeral of my next door neighbor. Our families had lived beside each other since I was an elementary student. Totsuka-san was a teacher of classic Japanese literature. He became my homeroom teacher when I was a junior in high school. During his funeral procession, I became overwhelmed with a deep nostalgia of how he would joke in class about how I used to ride his young son around in the basket of my bike. It embarrassed me immensely when I was but a 16 year old punk teenager who didn't want anyone to know that I played with children. However, when I glanced at his son, who was now the same age I was when Totsuka was my teacher, leaning his head on his mother's shoulder, hiding his tears, I quietly exited from my seat and went to smoke a cigarette away from the crowd.
My mother later chastised my disrespectful behaviour, however, I only did it because I didn't want to become too overwhelmed. I didn't want to cry. I truly did miss Totsuka-san's late night "tadaima" as I'd spend the summers outside working on my motorcycles.
It was while I was searching my pocket for my lighter, that I first saw Aiko. It wasn't her cherry red lips or her perfectly shaped legs that had caught my attention. I hadn't noticed those things until I later approached to ask if she needed a hankerchief. She was crying. I asked her how she was related to the Totsuka family, but she answered that she was just an ex-student. Later in the conversation, I grew deeply embarrassed that we were actually in the same homeroom, yet couldn't remember her at all. She didn't take offense, she just smiled and said "Well, it is not surprising for I rarely ever made a presence in my classes. Not even Totsuka sensei would remember my name."
Soon afterwards, we began dating. I soon realized why she seemed so familiar. I asked her if anyone has ever told her that she looked like Ayumi Hamasaki. She smiled and said that I compliment freely. It was then that she admitted to styling her hair like Ayu-chan because she thought it would match her face well. Sometimes I got the feeling that it was a little more than the innocent admiration of Ayumi's hair, Aiko also owned every CD she's ever released. She would never agree to sing any of her songs during Karaoke, however. I would have liked to see that.
She was and still is a librarian assistant at a library a few towns away. She often talks about how it was Totsuka sensei who inspired her to appreciate the fine literary works of haiku poets. On my last birthday, she took me to her room inside her parents house and asked me if I would like to have my present. I nodded, and she slowly began to unbutton her blouse, never once looking me in the eye. After a moment's hesitation, she opened her shirt. I was amazed at the beauty of her body.
Earlier that morning, she had carefully written an original haiku that she had composed in front of a mirror. On her belly was written
cherry blossoms fall
someday my bosom will too
but we are here now
I didn't know how to react. I stood there quiet and she then began to button her shirt. My friends were to meet us at a restaurant in a half hour, so I took her queue that we should hurry and make our way.
I often think about that afternoon in her parent's house. I almost cannot believe that Aiko, as shy as she is, gave me such a beautiful birthday present. However, since that day, I grew incredibly impatient. I soon began to wonder when we would eventually come to making love.
We've only made love once. It was a month after I had turned 21. After my birthday, I had grown increasingly obsessed with becoming one with her naked body. But she was shy. I soon began to grow irritated that she gave me such a beautiful birthday present, however never let me touch her when we were alone. She would complain that it made her uncomfortable. Actually, it was never a complaint, just a comment, an explanation. So one night, I grew exceptionally impatient and told her that I wanted to break up. She nodded and asked me to take her home. Silence ensued for the duration of the drive to her house. When we approached, she began to cry. I couldn't bear to look at her, so instead I remained quiet and stared at the road ahead.
Then, she put her hand on mine and asked if I wanted to visit a nearby love hotel that we would often pass on our way back from the local hot spring. I turned the key and we made love that night. Our first and only night.
I met Rina at a movie theatre in the city. My best friend, Kento, and I had no intention of watching a movie that day, however, we were bored and wanted to kill some time before the izakayas opened. When I came out from the bathroom, I saw Kento talking to someone. She wasn't really a beautiful girl, her face was round and her arms were chubby. He was glad to see that I returned and quickly said goodbye to her and we entered the dark room. The movie had already started.
Afterwards, as we were smoking a cigarrette in front of the theatre, Rina had spotted us. She was alone. I mentioned that we were about to go have a few beers at our favorite izakaya, and I immediately felt Kento's angry stare. The three of us walked a couple of blocks and entered the bar, only to find that it was jammed packed. He grew very angry that we couldn't be seated and suggested that we go home. I didn't want to and he excused himself and said that he wanted to meet some friends down the street. I was about to follow him, when Rina grabbed my arm and suggested that we get a few drinks and go into the park to talk. I didn't know how to respond, however, Kento quickly excused himself and before I realized what had happened, I was walking into a Konbini with Rina.
Rina loves sex. Even now, I've never thought that any girl felt the kinds of urges that guys feel. Yet, Kento still tries to convince me that I should not have two girlfriends. I almost took heed of his advice until I caught him trying to seduce her on the balcony at a party. After every night I spend with Rina, she confesses her love and adoration for me, begging me to marry her. When I come to think about the situation honestly, I realize that I prefer the nights with Rina much more than the ones with Aiko.
I have grown comfortable with them both. I love them both, and though my paranoia about the possibility that they may someday find out about each other still lingers, nothing seems finer than how things are at the moment.
However, recently, I have wondered about my latest obsession. I have found that after a night with Rina, spending hours at our favorite bar, dancing to the songs she chooses on the jukebox, arguing about our favorite baseball teams with the bartender, making out in the tiny waiting area outside the bathrooms, I have taken to quite an unusual practice.
After we go back to her apartment above the hairshop she works at, after we tire ourselves out atop of her cool cotton sheets, after she lays her head on my elbow and whispers her goodnight "I love you's" into my cheek, I cannot fall asleep.
I lay there. At first, I used to try to close my eyes and concentrate on her breathing, thinking that the rhythm would lull me to sleep. However, these days, I have found that the only solution is to sneak out of bed, put on my pants and shoes, walk to the Konbini down the corner, and stand in front of the magazine stands. I flip through each one, searching for pictures of Ayumi Hamasaki.
My mother later chastised my disrespectful behaviour, however, I only did it because I didn't want to become too overwhelmed. I didn't want to cry. I truly did miss Totsuka-san's late night "tadaima" as I'd spend the summers outside working on my motorcycles.
It was while I was searching my pocket for my lighter, that I first saw Aiko. It wasn't her cherry red lips or her perfectly shaped legs that had caught my attention. I hadn't noticed those things until I later approached to ask if she needed a hankerchief. She was crying. I asked her how she was related to the Totsuka family, but she answered that she was just an ex-student. Later in the conversation, I grew deeply embarrassed that we were actually in the same homeroom, yet couldn't remember her at all. She didn't take offense, she just smiled and said "Well, it is not surprising for I rarely ever made a presence in my classes. Not even Totsuka sensei would remember my name."
Soon afterwards, we began dating. I soon realized why she seemed so familiar. I asked her if anyone has ever told her that she looked like Ayumi Hamasaki. She smiled and said that I compliment freely. It was then that she admitted to styling her hair like Ayu-chan because she thought it would match her face well. Sometimes I got the feeling that it was a little more than the innocent admiration of Ayumi's hair, Aiko also owned every CD she's ever released. She would never agree to sing any of her songs during Karaoke, however. I would have liked to see that.
She was and still is a librarian assistant at a library a few towns away. She often talks about how it was Totsuka sensei who inspired her to appreciate the fine literary works of haiku poets. On my last birthday, she took me to her room inside her parents house and asked me if I would like to have my present. I nodded, and she slowly began to unbutton her blouse, never once looking me in the eye. After a moment's hesitation, she opened her shirt. I was amazed at the beauty of her body.
Earlier that morning, she had carefully written an original haiku that she had composed in front of a mirror. On her belly was written
cherry blossoms fall
someday my bosom will too
but we are here now
I didn't know how to react. I stood there quiet and she then began to button her shirt. My friends were to meet us at a restaurant in a half hour, so I took her queue that we should hurry and make our way.
I often think about that afternoon in her parent's house. I almost cannot believe that Aiko, as shy as she is, gave me such a beautiful birthday present. However, since that day, I grew incredibly impatient. I soon began to wonder when we would eventually come to making love.
We've only made love once. It was a month after I had turned 21. After my birthday, I had grown increasingly obsessed with becoming one with her naked body. But she was shy. I soon began to grow irritated that she gave me such a beautiful birthday present, however never let me touch her when we were alone. She would complain that it made her uncomfortable. Actually, it was never a complaint, just a comment, an explanation. So one night, I grew exceptionally impatient and told her that I wanted to break up. She nodded and asked me to take her home. Silence ensued for the duration of the drive to her house. When we approached, she began to cry. I couldn't bear to look at her, so instead I remained quiet and stared at the road ahead.
Then, she put her hand on mine and asked if I wanted to visit a nearby love hotel that we would often pass on our way back from the local hot spring. I turned the key and we made love that night. Our first and only night.
I met Rina at a movie theatre in the city. My best friend, Kento, and I had no intention of watching a movie that day, however, we were bored and wanted to kill some time before the izakayas opened. When I came out from the bathroom, I saw Kento talking to someone. She wasn't really a beautiful girl, her face was round and her arms were chubby. He was glad to see that I returned and quickly said goodbye to her and we entered the dark room. The movie had already started.
Afterwards, as we were smoking a cigarrette in front of the theatre, Rina had spotted us. She was alone. I mentioned that we were about to go have a few beers at our favorite izakaya, and I immediately felt Kento's angry stare. The three of us walked a couple of blocks and entered the bar, only to find that it was jammed packed. He grew very angry that we couldn't be seated and suggested that we go home. I didn't want to and he excused himself and said that he wanted to meet some friends down the street. I was about to follow him, when Rina grabbed my arm and suggested that we get a few drinks and go into the park to talk. I didn't know how to respond, however, Kento quickly excused himself and before I realized what had happened, I was walking into a Konbini with Rina.
Rina loves sex. Even now, I've never thought that any girl felt the kinds of urges that guys feel. Yet, Kento still tries to convince me that I should not have two girlfriends. I almost took heed of his advice until I caught him trying to seduce her on the balcony at a party. After every night I spend with Rina, she confesses her love and adoration for me, begging me to marry her. When I come to think about the situation honestly, I realize that I prefer the nights with Rina much more than the ones with Aiko.
I have grown comfortable with them both. I love them both, and though my paranoia about the possibility that they may someday find out about each other still lingers, nothing seems finer than how things are at the moment.
However, recently, I have wondered about my latest obsession. I have found that after a night with Rina, spending hours at our favorite bar, dancing to the songs she chooses on the jukebox, arguing about our favorite baseball teams with the bartender, making out in the tiny waiting area outside the bathrooms, I have taken to quite an unusual practice.
After we go back to her apartment above the hairshop she works at, after we tire ourselves out atop of her cool cotton sheets, after she lays her head on my elbow and whispers her goodnight "I love you's" into my cheek, I cannot fall asleep.
I lay there. At first, I used to try to close my eyes and concentrate on her breathing, thinking that the rhythm would lull me to sleep. However, these days, I have found that the only solution is to sneak out of bed, put on my pants and shoes, walk to the Konbini down the corner, and stand in front of the magazine stands. I flip through each one, searching for pictures of Ayumi Hamasaki.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Hot, Cold and the Body Inbetween
The neck of the creature grew very long and fragile, and slowly began to rest its head, with its ears toward the ground as if the sky were playing Chopin. As for guessing the creature’s gender, I hadn’t one clue. Like I mentioned before, its neck stretched and formed itself into a grace-like stem which tempts me into referring to her downward gaze as shy and delicate. On the other hand, the legs of the creature must have been formed by a different wind. They were short, each of the four appearing to have protruded from the same stump. So, of course, his stalky base had me wondering if it was physically straining for him to support such a delicate upper body. I didn’t bother asking, figuring I was much too far away for him to hear my query.
I tried squinting my eye in order to understand the form of the object toward which the creature seemed to direct its sole attention. To me, it appeared as a faint drop of white paint roughly rubbed into a dark-colored carpet. It could have been that someone had accidentally spilled a bit of milk and decided on rubbing it out with their shoe, rather than blotting it out with a wet sponge.
Judging from her blank, yet curious gaze, I felt that the splatter must have looked entirely different up close. I noticed that the creature had opened her mouth a bit since my last glance at her face. She was still staring at the object, a gaze that of a child, marveling at sensations stirring in the synapses, as they whispered their thoughts on the shininess, radiance of color, and beauty in form.
All I could determine was that it was definitely a thing that she had never seen before. Perhaps it was a ghost, a piece of bent metal, or a seashell. I could only guess, and never know, but it soon became apparent to me that it was fruitless to continue in the direction of wondering what another finds intriguing, worthy of attention, or rather, what any creature finds beautiful.
As the creature began to fade, I couldn’t help but notice an angry glare forming beside the lonely, little thing. He tried to hide his anger beneath his beard, but perhaps he and the wind found it fit to wash the creature aside. I avoided direct eye contact, yet couldn’t help allowing him to recognize the presence of my attention. His eyes shifted from the creature onto me, and I did my best not to look away.
His beard wavered, and with that movement, I readjusted my bottom onto another spot of the rock. His stare was strong and direct, much like an emperor’s. So I recognized his majesty and turned my head to another point in the sky. I grew glad that I did when I found a swan sitting amongst her nest of the unborn. She looked upon them most lovingly. As one of the eggs shook, I became excited. I couldn’t see the expression on her face, as she was turned away from me, but I imagined that her excitement outweighed mine. Her child was to be born, and about to be thrown upon a black and empty sky, and nothing I could feel would ever match her expectancy of the moment.
As a river began underneath their atrium, I grew very hot, and decided to move to the space that I had seen another woman, staring at the same things as I. Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had also been admiring the creature, fearing the king, feeling the same envy for the swan as had I. However, she had must have grown hot thereby leaving the pool, and her space was most desirable indeed. As I positioned my body against the rocks, placing my feet upon the wooden pole, I realized a salty taste on my lips. The water had touched my mouth during the move, and my hands had also become salty. I left that thought alone and again tried to find the momma swan, but she had already left the quiet scene with her babies.
At this point, there was only form. All I saw was nothingness. Stars shone in the sky. I wondered which were only stars, and which of them, satellites. I could distinguish those that were merely airplanes. I wondered who was going where. Why are they coming here? Who are they coming to see? Who were they leaving?
Tokyo can be a very strange place.
To some, it is a city of lights, of people, of fun to be had. Of course, it is just like any other big city. As I laid in the pool of hot water, I ignored the fact that I was in Tokyo. It wasn’t hard to do, not at all. The tall bamboo gates, the silence of the night, the frozen trees wavering in the same wind as did the dinosaur, emperor and mother fowl, none of which were Tokyo at all. Anybody can come here and sing in karaoke bars, shop until their heart’s content, become civilized in another of the wished-upon, metropolises of the world. Anyone can lay halfway in a hot bath of spring water, and have their nipples reach toward a cold windy, winter sky. Anyone can experience the wind, the bareness of the winter’s tree, the seriousness of a night’s sky. Anyone, and yes, everyone is welcome here.
I tried squinting my eye in order to understand the form of the object toward which the creature seemed to direct its sole attention. To me, it appeared as a faint drop of white paint roughly rubbed into a dark-colored carpet. It could have been that someone had accidentally spilled a bit of milk and decided on rubbing it out with their shoe, rather than blotting it out with a wet sponge.
Judging from her blank, yet curious gaze, I felt that the splatter must have looked entirely different up close. I noticed that the creature had opened her mouth a bit since my last glance at her face. She was still staring at the object, a gaze that of a child, marveling at sensations stirring in the synapses, as they whispered their thoughts on the shininess, radiance of color, and beauty in form.
All I could determine was that it was definitely a thing that she had never seen before. Perhaps it was a ghost, a piece of bent metal, or a seashell. I could only guess, and never know, but it soon became apparent to me that it was fruitless to continue in the direction of wondering what another finds intriguing, worthy of attention, or rather, what any creature finds beautiful.
As the creature began to fade, I couldn’t help but notice an angry glare forming beside the lonely, little thing. He tried to hide his anger beneath his beard, but perhaps he and the wind found it fit to wash the creature aside. I avoided direct eye contact, yet couldn’t help allowing him to recognize the presence of my attention. His eyes shifted from the creature onto me, and I did my best not to look away.
His beard wavered, and with that movement, I readjusted my bottom onto another spot of the rock. His stare was strong and direct, much like an emperor’s. So I recognized his majesty and turned my head to another point in the sky. I grew glad that I did when I found a swan sitting amongst her nest of the unborn. She looked upon them most lovingly. As one of the eggs shook, I became excited. I couldn’t see the expression on her face, as she was turned away from me, but I imagined that her excitement outweighed mine. Her child was to be born, and about to be thrown upon a black and empty sky, and nothing I could feel would ever match her expectancy of the moment.
As a river began underneath their atrium, I grew very hot, and decided to move to the space that I had seen another woman, staring at the same things as I. Of course, I couldn’t help but wonder if she had also been admiring the creature, fearing the king, feeling the same envy for the swan as had I. However, she had must have grown hot thereby leaving the pool, and her space was most desirable indeed. As I positioned my body against the rocks, placing my feet upon the wooden pole, I realized a salty taste on my lips. The water had touched my mouth during the move, and my hands had also become salty. I left that thought alone and again tried to find the momma swan, but she had already left the quiet scene with her babies.
At this point, there was only form. All I saw was nothingness. Stars shone in the sky. I wondered which were only stars, and which of them, satellites. I could distinguish those that were merely airplanes. I wondered who was going where. Why are they coming here? Who are they coming to see? Who were they leaving?
Tokyo can be a very strange place.
To some, it is a city of lights, of people, of fun to be had. Of course, it is just like any other big city. As I laid in the pool of hot water, I ignored the fact that I was in Tokyo. It wasn’t hard to do, not at all. The tall bamboo gates, the silence of the night, the frozen trees wavering in the same wind as did the dinosaur, emperor and mother fowl, none of which were Tokyo at all. Anybody can come here and sing in karaoke bars, shop until their heart’s content, become civilized in another of the wished-upon, metropolises of the world. Anyone can lay halfway in a hot bath of spring water, and have their nipples reach toward a cold windy, winter sky. Anyone can experience the wind, the bareness of the winter’s tree, the seriousness of a night’s sky. Anyone, and yes, everyone is welcome here.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Thursdays are for Suckers!
It's true that I was thrown in front of that truck!
As you all know now, that theory was laid to rest after the investigation showed that I had written to a friend, merely two days before the incident, that I wished I had the courage to throw myself in front of a laundry truck. And yes, even though it was a tomato truck, that's right...an 8 wheeler Japanese grocer hauling a shipment of tomatoes, that caught me that night, I was deemed a suicide.
Oh, how that steamed my tomatoes! I phrased it in exactly that manner the day I was summoned to appear in front of the suicide commission. I got a laugh out of nobody but the cross-examiner, who only reacted that way as a ploy to suggest that I was a ridiculous candidate for the accidental death insurance clause, which I only applied for because it was the shortest form.
You see, I had no idea of all the legal strife that death would cause me after I accidentally entered a one-way alley that led me onto that stupid highway that went a stretch of 3 miles before another off-ramp became available. Had i known that I'd have to spend 11 weeks in line at the accidental suicide claims office just to file some stupid petition, I might have paid closer attention to the route I took back home that stupid drunken night. I probably would have turned my bike around when I realized that I was struggling up a hill, into an unknown area which turned out to be the Tokai expressway. Obviously, I wasn't in the mood to make a detour, so I just kept going...that is, until i was...well, saucified.
So you see, I am tempted to haunt the shit out of my best friend for his reckless remittance of his email account, which enabled that sherriff to suggest that my email was "a cry for help" . However, I have forgiven him due to the fact that he wrote me back saying that they threatened him with 2 weeks in detention if he declined in aiding the investigation.
Of course, we both know...that is, my best friend and I, that my statement was only a joke that only we understood. But of course, he didn't see the harm in allowing everyone to believe that I was suicidal. "So what?" he thought. "She's dead, so what does it matter now?". He was sincerely sad at my departure, but he thought it was fruitless to debate the matter any further. My mother and brother cried at my funeral, though, and he watched them, so for that...i will definitely haunt him.
Although, when I ponder on it now, I realize that haunting will do no good. He'll just enjoy the attention that I give him from the afterlife. Therefore, now, I must channel my energy into something that matters. Of course, I still have alot of legal matters to attend to with the commission, but those are just meaningless forbearances that I should just overcome. Instead, I should just focus on my community service injunctions that I was given in order to lay this whole ordeal to rest.
I'm supposed to think about my life, and think about the people that I have disappointed during that time, and attempt to rectify (in written form) whatever grievances I have imposed upon them. As of now, I am procrastinating, which is one of the biggest no-no's of this whole procedure.
However, I'm pissed. I have included in my statement that I never intended to swerve into traffic that night. I have placed my grievance about the old man that waved his hand in front of my face, making me swerve, leading my bike into the highway that cold October night. I can't believe that just because I loved Yebisu as a wholehearted Gaijin, that I am now doomed to such a ridiculous fate. Fuck that. I wanna speak to the embassy!
As you all know now, that theory was laid to rest after the investigation showed that I had written to a friend, merely two days before the incident, that I wished I had the courage to throw myself in front of a laundry truck. And yes, even though it was a tomato truck, that's right...an 8 wheeler Japanese grocer hauling a shipment of tomatoes, that caught me that night, I was deemed a suicide.
Oh, how that steamed my tomatoes! I phrased it in exactly that manner the day I was summoned to appear in front of the suicide commission. I got a laugh out of nobody but the cross-examiner, who only reacted that way as a ploy to suggest that I was a ridiculous candidate for the accidental death insurance clause, which I only applied for because it was the shortest form.
You see, I had no idea of all the legal strife that death would cause me after I accidentally entered a one-way alley that led me onto that stupid highway that went a stretch of 3 miles before another off-ramp became available. Had i known that I'd have to spend 11 weeks in line at the accidental suicide claims office just to file some stupid petition, I might have paid closer attention to the route I took back home that stupid drunken night. I probably would have turned my bike around when I realized that I was struggling up a hill, into an unknown area which turned out to be the Tokai expressway. Obviously, I wasn't in the mood to make a detour, so I just kept going...that is, until i was...well, saucified.
So you see, I am tempted to haunt the shit out of my best friend for his reckless remittance of his email account, which enabled that sherriff to suggest that my email was "a cry for help" . However, I have forgiven him due to the fact that he wrote me back saying that they threatened him with 2 weeks in detention if he declined in aiding the investigation.
Of course, we both know...that is, my best friend and I, that my statement was only a joke that only we understood. But of course, he didn't see the harm in allowing everyone to believe that I was suicidal. "So what?" he thought. "She's dead, so what does it matter now?". He was sincerely sad at my departure, but he thought it was fruitless to debate the matter any further. My mother and brother cried at my funeral, though, and he watched them, so for that...i will definitely haunt him.
Although, when I ponder on it now, I realize that haunting will do no good. He'll just enjoy the attention that I give him from the afterlife. Therefore, now, I must channel my energy into something that matters. Of course, I still have alot of legal matters to attend to with the commission, but those are just meaningless forbearances that I should just overcome. Instead, I should just focus on my community service injunctions that I was given in order to lay this whole ordeal to rest.
I'm supposed to think about my life, and think about the people that I have disappointed during that time, and attempt to rectify (in written form) whatever grievances I have imposed upon them. As of now, I am procrastinating, which is one of the biggest no-no's of this whole procedure.
However, I'm pissed. I have included in my statement that I never intended to swerve into traffic that night. I have placed my grievance about the old man that waved his hand in front of my face, making me swerve, leading my bike into the highway that cold October night. I can't believe that just because I loved Yebisu as a wholehearted Gaijin, that I am now doomed to such a ridiculous fate. Fuck that. I wanna speak to the embassy!
Monday, May 14, 2007
Mother's Day
My therapist told me that this was probably the worst way to begin a story. I understood her position, and I spent the rest of the session trying to fictionalize the situation into a better introduction. However, after unplunking herself from my miniture sofa and hugging me goodbye, she left without another word about it. In truth, she doesn't care how I begin my story, nor does she mind if I were even to write it at all. Mostly because she finds my stories uncomfortable to listen to, and she's convinced that 95% of the words from my mouth are foolish fallacies. Perhaps this opinion ought to offend my feelings. It doesn't. Nothing really does that, anymore. This partly resulted from an incident occuring during adolescence, just 4 days after my first orgasm. 19-- was a dubiously unlucky year for me, the year that I bled from my bottom and when most of me went numb. Eventually, some sensations found their way back to my body, but my ability to properly masterbate is still fucked, which leads me back to how I was advised NOT to introduce myself.
Hasako warned me that no normal, healthy pervert gets off on a novel about imagining a masterbating cripple. Her exact words. Her English has never been standardly tested, so there's still the possibility that she knows all the nicer synonyms that imply that a portion of one's body has been rendered dysfuntional, thus useless. But I taught her the word "cripple", mostly to irk my mother who almost used to live with me. Just one week after she found out that I had subleted her tiny Houston apartment to two Mexican brothers, she appeared at the door of my loft just outside of Nagoya. Oh, I don't mean to suggest that I rented out the apartment she had been residing in, but rather the one she's been letting me hole up in since I was a sophmore in high school.
On a side note, that's part of the reason Hasako doubts me so often, because I'm often unclear and she misunderstands, due to her tendency to lean to the side of the ridiculous rather than what makes most sense. Whatever, though, I often lie to her. I might as well admit it now, right?
Part of the reason is that I love the look on her face when she pretends to be shocked. Her tall, un-Japanese nose flairs like those expensive sea anemones you can find at the bottom of fancy aquariums. And her eyes seem to take center stage when they fling themselves open as if coming up for breath after being submerged under beauty bath mineral mud. Her eyes are normally hidden behind a pair of black, square-rimmed glasses but while under the influence of rumors or excitement, they melt away into her soft, freckled skin. It's the only time I think she looks attractive. I'm not sure if I accidently described her as sounding like a beauty, but she isn't.
She's not really young, but she's not necessarily old either. The only tangible suggestion of age that she exudes is her son, who shares his mother's curious elusiveness. Actually, this fact became a problem for him once he transitioned into middle school. According to Hasako, it isn't his remarkably round babyface that summons the attention of his schoolmates. Rather, it is the combination of his odd shaped fantanelle and its hilly tuft of black, silky fine hair. The cap of his skull sinks inward giving the impression that his soft spot was rammed inward before closing shut during infancy.
People must wonder if there's a connection between his peculiarly shaped head and his inability to shut the fuck up. Surely, I wonder this everytime he comes to my door looking for his mother. That's probably one of the only times I thank my stars that Hasako is no longer tutoring me in Japanese. If I had a better grasp of understanding spoken Japanese, I may have probably banned the kid from coming to my house months ago. I'm not being hateful, for if you heard his voice, you'd understand what I meant, I swear.
Hasako had answered an advert that my mother had put out in the English pamphlet that she found in the Nagoya public library. My mother and her had agreed upon a meeting time of 19:00, which in summer, corresponds with the most beautiful sky at dusk. However, nobody but Yuuki, her son, noticed the magnificent shades of pink dripping down the light yellow canvas. Yes, Hasako brought her son to her job interview, and yes, my mom would have probably decided not to hire her had she not have been driven away in such a rage. I'm actually much more impressed with Hasako's reaction that night, rather than with my own brilliance of successfully expunging my mother from my apartment. I was not at all impressed by Yuuki. He just sat there, speechless. For such a loudmouth, his opinions were nonexistent on that night.
Unfortunately, the events of that evening is still one topic that Hasako absolutely refuses to both talk or even hear about. In theory, it's understood that there is no truly taboo subject matter between us, none except this one. With a touch of honesty, I'll admit here that I also harbor my own stash of embarrassment, which I keep sandwiched under some healthy layers of regret. However, if I am to adequately describe Hasako's and my relationship successfully, I must uproot and re-bury the dusky afternoon when I first laid eyes on Hasako and sent my mother packing in a trail of disgusted tears.
To be fair, my mother is excellent at revenge. You see, after she was telephoned at 2 in the AM to come to her apartment premises because of loud, unnatural noises seeping from underneath the doors, she naturally grew worried about her only child, residing alone and crippled in a complex not far from downtown Houston. You know, in the poorer, dirtier, more ethnic area of the city. I laugh everytime I imagine my mother's face when she unlocked the door with her master key, and scurried worryingly toward the bedroom noisefest. I honestly believed those guys were brothers. They looked just like each other! How could I have verified that they weren't who they said they were? ID checks? Come on.....Anyway, two weeks later, without a word of warning, there's my mother fumbling through a Japanese phrasebook at the taxi platform outside of Nagoya Airport.
At the time, my mother had me convinced that she had indeed quit her job back in Arizona, and decided to follow me to Japan. Of course, I didn't think she was serious in the beginning, but after her third Monday slugged on by, I became worried. Especially since the weather had gone into the full rainy season swing, without seeming to dampen my mother's spirits in the slightest. I wonder if you're asking yourself whether my mother is a meddling worrywort who has spent the last 12 years of both hers and my own life fretting over her crippled child. In case you were, the answer is No.
Like I said before, my mother is excellent at revenge. It is just that, and that alone which fueled her drive to her travel agent, held her hand through the busy airport, and tossed two, blue Tylenol PMs into her gullet before her 11 hour flight to the center of Japan. In fact, she's been miserable since she stepped out of her air-conditioned Taurus back in the airport parking lot. Actually, she's been miserable much longer than that, but that is probably the least interesting thing about her recent arrival in Japan. But she wasn't giving me any indication that she will be leaving soon, so I decided that I better get at it before she begins forwarding her mail to my address.
I didn't know that we were going to be visited by a Japanese woman and her boy, so I hadn't made any attempt at putting on any decent visiting clothes. In fact, i was laying beneath a fan atop my futon in nothing but a pair of white boxers and what my uncle calls a wife beater. Apparently, even domestic abuse has a fashion sense.
Part of my mother's tactics in revenge include embarrassment in front of strangers, including embarrassing the strangers themselves. Since I am a cripple living in a pretty small apartment, I have no mind to keep my wheelchair outside the house. I don't mind crawling around the house since I've been doing this for years. It really isn't too much trouble since my arms are pretty strong and my body is quite light.
The doorbell rings and I look up from my book. My mother's eyes evade mine and she jumps up like a naughty little sprite and runs to the door. In my mother's eagerness to embarrass, she rushes Hasako's "Hajimemashite"'s and "Dozo Yoroshiku"'s and pulls her and her son into the living room. In a loud, overshadowing voice she announces, "My name is Yvonne, and this is my daughter, Angela. Please excuse her for not getting up to greet you, you see...." "You see, I'm crippled", I finish. My mother does her famous roll of the eyes that looks more like she's got mascara in them, and in less than a second, returns her attention onto Hasako. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name", my mother sizzles. "Oh, yes, I'm sorry, it's nice to meet you. My name is Hasako, and this is my son..." "Hasako," mother interrupts, "Have you ever worked with the handicapped before?"
I need to do a little pause right here. As you can probably imagine, a person just doesn't magically turn into an Yvonne overnight. A personality like this takes years to form, which of course leaves me with the same amount of practice years battling with such a personality. So one might say that I have evolved a spectacular ability to boldly place myself in humiliating positions in order to win, or at least survive mental and emotional warfare. After realizing what my mother had done, to not only me, but this poor mother and child (at this point in time, i still sympathized with the boy), I felt an overwhelming urge to teach her a lesson, a lesson that would make my mother never want to step another foot within the same island as me ever again. However, I couldn't think of a thing. That is, not until I noticed Yuuki fumbling with his crotch.
"Excuse me, Hasako, but I think your little boy might have to use the toilet." I say a bit reluctantly, knowing this is probably going to embarrass her. I felt bad, as I always do when I cause anyone embarrassment. All I can attribute that to is an emotional backlash against my mother's mannerisms. As my mother shows her to the leiu, I begin to crawl to the kitchen. "What do you need, honey?" my mother asks. "Nothing, I can get it myself, I'm just getting water." Once I get into the kitchen, I lift myself onto the little stool and fill up a large 2 litre tea bottle with tap water. Once it is full, i reconsider my idea. Then I reach up for the canister of sea salt and begin to pour it into the water. The can was a little less than than a quarter full, so I let all the salt slide right into the water. I recapped, shook it a bit, and descended the stool. Within a minute, I made it back onto my futon.
As I uncapped the bottle, I could hear Hasako speaking to Yuuki quietly in Japanese. Despite knowing hardly a word of Japanese, I could hear the worried tension in their conversation. My mother was also listening, and if there's one mind I can read whether I want to or not, it's hers. She was trying to decide whether she wanted this Hasako person coming over everyday to teach her daughter Japanese. She didn't really like her, though she thought her son was quite adorable. "Oriental children have such cute little faces, and such fashion to match!" was the exact quote, should you be interested in the thoughts of my mother. As I listened to the voices of the two woman wind together like the snakes of the caduceous, I brought the bottle of warm salt water to my lips. With everything in mind, I drank to my health.
The first taste made me want to puke. I pulled at the futon sheet and twirled the corner in my palm. Focusing on this allowed me to get through the first half of the bottle. I felt my stomach grumble, but I continued. I stopped when I saw Hasako watching me. I could have sworn that she sensed my disgust with the beverage, however since we are not allowed to talk about the incident, she's never confirmed or denied my suspicions. My mother brings us back on track by opening the dam of questions regarding Hasako's experience.
She had none, she explained. Hasako just thought that it would be nice to have an international friend to teach Japanese to, and perhaps get the opportunity to simultaneously practice her English. Hasako definitely looked liked she regretted calling the number from the ad. If only she would have listened to her husband when he called her a fool to want to teach Japanese to Gaijin. "All you'll do is build the confidence of another one so they can go out in public and butcher the beautiful sound of our language." She didn't even pretend to care for his opinion. "It's not even that beautiful", she retorted. He stuffed a large mound of sweetened egg and white rice into his mouth, and with that, she left for her interview. After hearing the front door slide closed, Yuuki ran out as if not to be left alone with his father.
The first time that I refered to Yuuki as a momma's boy, Hasako's face looked confused, then suspicious. I assumed that my accusation was going to require an explanation, and I was right in guessing that Hasaka hadn't heard the term "momma's boy" before. By that point, which was maybe about 3 and a half months after the night my mother left and I decided to hire Hasako as my Japanese tutor, she was coming by about four days a week.
I most certainly did have an interest in learning Japanese, as I have run into many complicated problems based on my inability to speak or read the language. However, after the first 10 minutes of our initial session, I found that our personalities were not suited to these roles of student and teacher. She was too curious about what my life was all about, while at the same time, too polite to even hint at asking. Luckily for us both, however, what my life was all about happened to be my favorite topic of conversation.
After not much time at all, our roles became a bit easier to define. Hasako played as a musing listener to countless tangles of anecdotes ladened in misanthropic cynicism while I played the angry, didactic halophile. She would always respond to me with unyielding, calmingly wise advice. That's not to say she was unyeilding or calm. Her mannerisms suggested an absence of cinders in her blood, and many have foolishly passed her by because of it. But I understood perfectly the day she explained the source of her passions.
"Maybe it's because of the lava onsen," she began, "Along a tiny path behind a mikan grove, about half a kilometer from my house, there was a shrine that had a small natural hot spring pool in the back. My grandmother enjoyed when i'd bring her fire stones, so I'd walk there after school, carrying the stones in a little bucket. It was a very quiet journey, except for the afternoon reminder to the children that it is time to go home. Summer was the best season for this activity because the blossoms made me drunk with the envy of fire. Anyway, the lava onsen was much hotter than the other ones around our village, so nobody liked to go there to soak. It's color was a reddish brown, and i used to think that it smelled like when my mother was cooking eggs. I dipped the bucket into the water, and returned home. The stones would stay fire-hot all the way home, even after the water cooled. My grandmother would put them on her shoulders to soothe the muscles." She paused, waiting for me to say something. Strangely, I hadn't any questions. She continued, "So sometimes I feel like my firestones. Hot, then cold, depending on where I am. However, when I leave a hot place, I stay hot for a very long time. Longer than it is natural, maybe."
Of course, this form of therapy wasn't really bettering either of us, but rather entertaining the otherwise boring afternoons we may have spent alone, or even worse, with somebody else, whose company would most likely disappoint. Before our roles were made public to each other, I asked her how she felt about cynics. She told me that she wasn't really sure. I loved her for that second that it took her to make that admission. I explained that most people love skeptics and fear cynics. Skeptics doubt the details of what they hear and read, while cynics doubt the motives of those they hear or read it from. So I asked her again what she thought about cynics. She replied, "it sounds like cynics must not know very much about themselves, ne?" Why would she say that, I wondered.
And that was the second time I felt that thing in my tummy.
My stomach has always served as my crystal ball to many mysteries of life ranging from whether or not I trust someone to whether a plant is or isn't poisonous. On the first afternoon that Hasako saw me in boxers, my stomach soon demanded the room's attention. It bellowed and rumbled like a lawnmower engine. My mother was in the middle of asking about Hasako's husband when my engine swallowed a rock. Everyone looked up at me. I don't feel so good, I hummed. "What do you mean?" my mother asked.
That was probably the first valid question she's asked since she's been here. As you might imagine about cripples, I'm often in alot of pain. My not feeling so good is actually a quite common occurence, though not many people are very aware of it, since I'm quite the expert in both self-medicating and keeping quiet. If there's anything that annoys me more than my mother's recent visit, it's my distaste for complaining. Due to the displaced bone fragments from L-3 vertebrae down to my S-5, my spinal cord was crushed. The area just underneath my belly, and right above my mons is one of my most sensitive spots on my body, and just half an inch lower, I feel nothing. So when I announced that I didn't feel so good, that's just to say that my stomach felt full and gaseous. Whatever was happening in my stomach made my eyes tear up, and my mom tossed me a disconcerting look.
At this point, my apartment had been fully doused with uneasiness. I truly felt sorry for having put Hasako into this situation, when I could have easily waited until her and her son left. However, something told me that my mother would not have felt the same level of mortification had it just been us. In fact, it may have just been like any other day.
When I realized that neither Hasako nor Yuuki would ever mention that day again, I couldn't help but wonder why. Speaking specifically about Hasako, how was it that she felt that day, which made her raise her voice to me when I tried to apologize for what happened. "I cannot have the events of that day in my head", is all she had to say to shut me up. I believe it was the accentual strength of her T's that really drove the needles into my nerves. My head fell into a natural, shameful bow and my eyelids folded over my eyes as if they were a modest schoolgirl covering her nakedness in a crowded bath house. I constantly felt ashamed that after a six month affair with a married woman, I still continued to pay her to come and teach me Japanese.
Hasako warned me that no normal, healthy pervert gets off on a novel about imagining a masterbating cripple. Her exact words. Her English has never been standardly tested, so there's still the possibility that she knows all the nicer synonyms that imply that a portion of one's body has been rendered dysfuntional, thus useless. But I taught her the word "cripple", mostly to irk my mother who almost used to live with me. Just one week after she found out that I had subleted her tiny Houston apartment to two Mexican brothers, she appeared at the door of my loft just outside of Nagoya. Oh, I don't mean to suggest that I rented out the apartment she had been residing in, but rather the one she's been letting me hole up in since I was a sophmore in high school.
On a side note, that's part of the reason Hasako doubts me so often, because I'm often unclear and she misunderstands, due to her tendency to lean to the side of the ridiculous rather than what makes most sense. Whatever, though, I often lie to her. I might as well admit it now, right?
Part of the reason is that I love the look on her face when she pretends to be shocked. Her tall, un-Japanese nose flairs like those expensive sea anemones you can find at the bottom of fancy aquariums. And her eyes seem to take center stage when they fling themselves open as if coming up for breath after being submerged under beauty bath mineral mud. Her eyes are normally hidden behind a pair of black, square-rimmed glasses but while under the influence of rumors or excitement, they melt away into her soft, freckled skin. It's the only time I think she looks attractive. I'm not sure if I accidently described her as sounding like a beauty, but she isn't.
She's not really young, but she's not necessarily old either. The only tangible suggestion of age that she exudes is her son, who shares his mother's curious elusiveness. Actually, this fact became a problem for him once he transitioned into middle school. According to Hasako, it isn't his remarkably round babyface that summons the attention of his schoolmates. Rather, it is the combination of his odd shaped fantanelle and its hilly tuft of black, silky fine hair. The cap of his skull sinks inward giving the impression that his soft spot was rammed inward before closing shut during infancy.
People must wonder if there's a connection between his peculiarly shaped head and his inability to shut the fuck up. Surely, I wonder this everytime he comes to my door looking for his mother. That's probably one of the only times I thank my stars that Hasako is no longer tutoring me in Japanese. If I had a better grasp of understanding spoken Japanese, I may have probably banned the kid from coming to my house months ago. I'm not being hateful, for if you heard his voice, you'd understand what I meant, I swear.
Hasako had answered an advert that my mother had put out in the English pamphlet that she found in the Nagoya public library. My mother and her had agreed upon a meeting time of 19:00, which in summer, corresponds with the most beautiful sky at dusk. However, nobody but Yuuki, her son, noticed the magnificent shades of pink dripping down the light yellow canvas. Yes, Hasako brought her son to her job interview, and yes, my mom would have probably decided not to hire her had she not have been driven away in such a rage. I'm actually much more impressed with Hasako's reaction that night, rather than with my own brilliance of successfully expunging my mother from my apartment. I was not at all impressed by Yuuki. He just sat there, speechless. For such a loudmouth, his opinions were nonexistent on that night.
Unfortunately, the events of that evening is still one topic that Hasako absolutely refuses to both talk or even hear about. In theory, it's understood that there is no truly taboo subject matter between us, none except this one. With a touch of honesty, I'll admit here that I also harbor my own stash of embarrassment, which I keep sandwiched under some healthy layers of regret. However, if I am to adequately describe Hasako's and my relationship successfully, I must uproot and re-bury the dusky afternoon when I first laid eyes on Hasako and sent my mother packing in a trail of disgusted tears.
To be fair, my mother is excellent at revenge. You see, after she was telephoned at 2 in the AM to come to her apartment premises because of loud, unnatural noises seeping from underneath the doors, she naturally grew worried about her only child, residing alone and crippled in a complex not far from downtown Houston. You know, in the poorer, dirtier, more ethnic area of the city. I laugh everytime I imagine my mother's face when she unlocked the door with her master key, and scurried worryingly toward the bedroom noisefest. I honestly believed those guys were brothers. They looked just like each other! How could I have verified that they weren't who they said they were? ID checks? Come on.....Anyway, two weeks later, without a word of warning, there's my mother fumbling through a Japanese phrasebook at the taxi platform outside of Nagoya Airport.
At the time, my mother had me convinced that she had indeed quit her job back in Arizona, and decided to follow me to Japan. Of course, I didn't think she was serious in the beginning, but after her third Monday slugged on by, I became worried. Especially since the weather had gone into the full rainy season swing, without seeming to dampen my mother's spirits in the slightest. I wonder if you're asking yourself whether my mother is a meddling worrywort who has spent the last 12 years of both hers and my own life fretting over her crippled child. In case you were, the answer is No.
Like I said before, my mother is excellent at revenge. It is just that, and that alone which fueled her drive to her travel agent, held her hand through the busy airport, and tossed two, blue Tylenol PMs into her gullet before her 11 hour flight to the center of Japan. In fact, she's been miserable since she stepped out of her air-conditioned Taurus back in the airport parking lot. Actually, she's been miserable much longer than that, but that is probably the least interesting thing about her recent arrival in Japan. But she wasn't giving me any indication that she will be leaving soon, so I decided that I better get at it before she begins forwarding her mail to my address.
I didn't know that we were going to be visited by a Japanese woman and her boy, so I hadn't made any attempt at putting on any decent visiting clothes. In fact, i was laying beneath a fan atop my futon in nothing but a pair of white boxers and what my uncle calls a wife beater. Apparently, even domestic abuse has a fashion sense.
Part of my mother's tactics in revenge include embarrassment in front of strangers, including embarrassing the strangers themselves. Since I am a cripple living in a pretty small apartment, I have no mind to keep my wheelchair outside the house. I don't mind crawling around the house since I've been doing this for years. It really isn't too much trouble since my arms are pretty strong and my body is quite light.
The doorbell rings and I look up from my book. My mother's eyes evade mine and she jumps up like a naughty little sprite and runs to the door. In my mother's eagerness to embarrass, she rushes Hasako's "Hajimemashite"'s and "Dozo Yoroshiku"'s and pulls her and her son into the living room. In a loud, overshadowing voice she announces, "My name is Yvonne, and this is my daughter, Angela. Please excuse her for not getting up to greet you, you see...." "You see, I'm crippled", I finish. My mother does her famous roll of the eyes that looks more like she's got mascara in them, and in less than a second, returns her attention onto Hasako. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name", my mother sizzles. "Oh, yes, I'm sorry, it's nice to meet you. My name is Hasako, and this is my son..." "Hasako," mother interrupts, "Have you ever worked with the handicapped before?"
I need to do a little pause right here. As you can probably imagine, a person just doesn't magically turn into an Yvonne overnight. A personality like this takes years to form, which of course leaves me with the same amount of practice years battling with such a personality. So one might say that I have evolved a spectacular ability to boldly place myself in humiliating positions in order to win, or at least survive mental and emotional warfare. After realizing what my mother had done, to not only me, but this poor mother and child (at this point in time, i still sympathized with the boy), I felt an overwhelming urge to teach her a lesson, a lesson that would make my mother never want to step another foot within the same island as me ever again. However, I couldn't think of a thing. That is, not until I noticed Yuuki fumbling with his crotch.
"Excuse me, Hasako, but I think your little boy might have to use the toilet." I say a bit reluctantly, knowing this is probably going to embarrass her. I felt bad, as I always do when I cause anyone embarrassment. All I can attribute that to is an emotional backlash against my mother's mannerisms. As my mother shows her to the leiu, I begin to crawl to the kitchen. "What do you need, honey?" my mother asks. "Nothing, I can get it myself, I'm just getting water." Once I get into the kitchen, I lift myself onto the little stool and fill up a large 2 litre tea bottle with tap water. Once it is full, i reconsider my idea. Then I reach up for the canister of sea salt and begin to pour it into the water. The can was a little less than than a quarter full, so I let all the salt slide right into the water. I recapped, shook it a bit, and descended the stool. Within a minute, I made it back onto my futon.
As I uncapped the bottle, I could hear Hasako speaking to Yuuki quietly in Japanese. Despite knowing hardly a word of Japanese, I could hear the worried tension in their conversation. My mother was also listening, and if there's one mind I can read whether I want to or not, it's hers. She was trying to decide whether she wanted this Hasako person coming over everyday to teach her daughter Japanese. She didn't really like her, though she thought her son was quite adorable. "Oriental children have such cute little faces, and such fashion to match!" was the exact quote, should you be interested in the thoughts of my mother. As I listened to the voices of the two woman wind together like the snakes of the caduceous, I brought the bottle of warm salt water to my lips. With everything in mind, I drank to my health.
The first taste made me want to puke. I pulled at the futon sheet and twirled the corner in my palm. Focusing on this allowed me to get through the first half of the bottle. I felt my stomach grumble, but I continued. I stopped when I saw Hasako watching me. I could have sworn that she sensed my disgust with the beverage, however since we are not allowed to talk about the incident, she's never confirmed or denied my suspicions. My mother brings us back on track by opening the dam of questions regarding Hasako's experience.
She had none, she explained. Hasako just thought that it would be nice to have an international friend to teach Japanese to, and perhaps get the opportunity to simultaneously practice her English. Hasako definitely looked liked she regretted calling the number from the ad. If only she would have listened to her husband when he called her a fool to want to teach Japanese to Gaijin. "All you'll do is build the confidence of another one so they can go out in public and butcher the beautiful sound of our language." She didn't even pretend to care for his opinion. "It's not even that beautiful", she retorted. He stuffed a large mound of sweetened egg and white rice into his mouth, and with that, she left for her interview. After hearing the front door slide closed, Yuuki ran out as if not to be left alone with his father.
The first time that I refered to Yuuki as a momma's boy, Hasako's face looked confused, then suspicious. I assumed that my accusation was going to require an explanation, and I was right in guessing that Hasaka hadn't heard the term "momma's boy" before. By that point, which was maybe about 3 and a half months after the night my mother left and I decided to hire Hasako as my Japanese tutor, she was coming by about four days a week.
I most certainly did have an interest in learning Japanese, as I have run into many complicated problems based on my inability to speak or read the language. However, after the first 10 minutes of our initial session, I found that our personalities were not suited to these roles of student and teacher. She was too curious about what my life was all about, while at the same time, too polite to even hint at asking. Luckily for us both, however, what my life was all about happened to be my favorite topic of conversation.
After not much time at all, our roles became a bit easier to define. Hasako played as a musing listener to countless tangles of anecdotes ladened in misanthropic cynicism while I played the angry, didactic halophile. She would always respond to me with unyielding, calmingly wise advice. That's not to say she was unyeilding or calm. Her mannerisms suggested an absence of cinders in her blood, and many have foolishly passed her by because of it. But I understood perfectly the day she explained the source of her passions.
"Maybe it's because of the lava onsen," she began, "Along a tiny path behind a mikan grove, about half a kilometer from my house, there was a shrine that had a small natural hot spring pool in the back. My grandmother enjoyed when i'd bring her fire stones, so I'd walk there after school, carrying the stones in a little bucket. It was a very quiet journey, except for the afternoon reminder to the children that it is time to go home. Summer was the best season for this activity because the blossoms made me drunk with the envy of fire. Anyway, the lava onsen was much hotter than the other ones around our village, so nobody liked to go there to soak. It's color was a reddish brown, and i used to think that it smelled like when my mother was cooking eggs. I dipped the bucket into the water, and returned home. The stones would stay fire-hot all the way home, even after the water cooled. My grandmother would put them on her shoulders to soothe the muscles." She paused, waiting for me to say something. Strangely, I hadn't any questions. She continued, "So sometimes I feel like my firestones. Hot, then cold, depending on where I am. However, when I leave a hot place, I stay hot for a very long time. Longer than it is natural, maybe."
Of course, this form of therapy wasn't really bettering either of us, but rather entertaining the otherwise boring afternoons we may have spent alone, or even worse, with somebody else, whose company would most likely disappoint. Before our roles were made public to each other, I asked her how she felt about cynics. She told me that she wasn't really sure. I loved her for that second that it took her to make that admission. I explained that most people love skeptics and fear cynics. Skeptics doubt the details of what they hear and read, while cynics doubt the motives of those they hear or read it from. So I asked her again what she thought about cynics. She replied, "it sounds like cynics must not know very much about themselves, ne?" Why would she say that, I wondered.
And that was the second time I felt that thing in my tummy.
My stomach has always served as my crystal ball to many mysteries of life ranging from whether or not I trust someone to whether a plant is or isn't poisonous. On the first afternoon that Hasako saw me in boxers, my stomach soon demanded the room's attention. It bellowed and rumbled like a lawnmower engine. My mother was in the middle of asking about Hasako's husband when my engine swallowed a rock. Everyone looked up at me. I don't feel so good, I hummed. "What do you mean?" my mother asked.
That was probably the first valid question she's asked since she's been here. As you might imagine about cripples, I'm often in alot of pain. My not feeling so good is actually a quite common occurence, though not many people are very aware of it, since I'm quite the expert in both self-medicating and keeping quiet. If there's anything that annoys me more than my mother's recent visit, it's my distaste for complaining. Due to the displaced bone fragments from L-3 vertebrae down to my S-5, my spinal cord was crushed. The area just underneath my belly, and right above my mons is one of my most sensitive spots on my body, and just half an inch lower, I feel nothing. So when I announced that I didn't feel so good, that's just to say that my stomach felt full and gaseous. Whatever was happening in my stomach made my eyes tear up, and my mom tossed me a disconcerting look.
At this point, my apartment had been fully doused with uneasiness. I truly felt sorry for having put Hasako into this situation, when I could have easily waited until her and her son left. However, something told me that my mother would not have felt the same level of mortification had it just been us. In fact, it may have just been like any other day.
When I realized that neither Hasako nor Yuuki would ever mention that day again, I couldn't help but wonder why. Speaking specifically about Hasako, how was it that she felt that day, which made her raise her voice to me when I tried to apologize for what happened. "I cannot have the events of that day in my head", is all she had to say to shut me up. I believe it was the accentual strength of her T's that really drove the needles into my nerves. My head fell into a natural, shameful bow and my eyelids folded over my eyes as if they were a modest schoolgirl covering her nakedness in a crowded bath house. I constantly felt ashamed that after a six month affair with a married woman, I still continued to pay her to come and teach me Japanese.
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