This is what you tell me on the number nine bus on a cold, rainy November day as the bus winds along narrow streets toward downtown Hamamatsu.
“As long as I have my cokes and smokes.” It smacks more of a mantra than any earthly desire for caffeine or nicotine. You say it nonchalantly; as if it is an afterthought, a stream of consciousness utterance.
On a condensation-beaded window I practice my Japanese writing skills. I count each stroke in my mind as I guide my finger across the cool surface and draw a Japanese character. Five months ago I couldn’t even read these Chinese characters or Kanji as they are referred to in Japan. Now, I know that the Kanji for Hama means beach and the Kanji for matsu means pine tree. Pine tree by the beach. I find comfort in how everything has meaning; a symbol for everything—even the Kanji I don’t understand.
“Excuse me? What’s that supposed to mean?”
The Kanji I have drawn for Hamamatsu, which reminds me of a toilet seat exploding, has already started to run as the condensation cascades down the window.
“You’re not even listening to me,” you stammer. “You never listen to me anymore.”
An elderly couple sitting to our left have been eyeing us ever since they got on the bus two stops after we did. We’re probably the only two foreigners they’ve come across all week. I can just imagine them thinking gaijin. In Japanese, Gaijin means foreigner. It sounds so visceral when I’ve heard it uttered in my direction. I wonder how it sounds when it is thought.
Cokes and Smokes? I shake my head. When did we get on this topic?
We started this conversation at breakfast, continued with it in the school car on our way to the Suzuki Headquarters for our morning company classes, put it on hold to teach and now, six hours later, we pick up where had left off in the morning, on the bus.
A group of school children in bright yellow raincoats and yellow plastic helmets board the bus and sit down behind us giggling. Their giggling briefly breaks the tension.
When you get on the bus you take a ticket from a machine; on a display board above the driver you know exactly how much you will need to pay based on your destination. Everything is calculated and preordained. Nothing left to chance. I look away and gaze at the floor; I can’t get over how clean the inside of the bus is—even on a rainy day.
“What does mom and dad have to say about all of this?”
She twists the ring on her finger and looks out the rain-streaked windows. “I haven’t told them yet.”
“We’ll have to tell Roger,” I tell her. In the back of my mind I’m thinking about all the paperwork we’ll have to do.
That’s when you bite down on your bottom lip, the way you always do when you’ve already made up your mind.
The bus slows down as it passes a Shinto Shrine; from here it’s a straight shot into the downtown area. The first time we rode the number nine, we got off at the wrong bus stop and spent the rest of a rainy summer afternoon exploring narrow streets lined with old antique shops and tea houses. With our Lonely Planet phrase book in hand we navigated our way through that day, running in and out of shops to get out of the rain to the puzzlement of shopkeepers.
We discovered the coolest record store and the quaintest tea house that afternoon, and later, inebriated by the sweet, earthy smell of freshly installed tatami back in our apartment, made love on the new futon we had bought that day.
Three stops later I decide to get off and have some noodles. I remember this hole-in-the wall noodle shop run by an elderly Taiwanese couple, one of the shops we had stumbled across that rainy summer day.
“I’ll call you later,” I say and walk toward the front of the bus as it slows down. I turn and look back, hoping for some sign, any sign but the elderly couple, also getting off, has blocked my view. I count out my fare of 100 and 20-Yen coins and drop each one with syncopated metallic clatter and clang into the metal fare box.
Before the bus pulls away, I look at you through the window as the rain cascades down in tiny rivulets. I hope again for a sign, a glimpse; however, you do not turn. You just look straight ahead.
I hear your voice once more inside my head, as long as I have my smokes and cokes, until I cannot see the bus anymore. I pull up the collar on my blazer, stick a damp cigarette into my mouth and head toward the noodle shop tucked away between a pachinko parlor and a coffee house. One steaming bowl of noodles and pot of green tea later, it’s back to our five-tatami mat room and a cold, empty futon.
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