Bus Stop

You’re back and legs ache this morning, like every morning. You run a hand through your hair, it’s thinning, another piece falls out. It’s a hairnet day. You wear it like a helmet, trying to protect what little hair you have left. But at least you can still get up today. You need to make the house ready in case your son visits on his way home from the bus center. He’s a good boy in spite of running away to Tokyo after a fight with your husband, long since departed. The house is feels empty and hot. You have your breakfast, okayu*, just like you used to make when he was sick. It’s about all you can really take now, a few of your teeth have just clear fallen out. In a way it’s like being a little girl again. You mutter to yourself as you work, thinking about what you need to do today. You’ve got to go to the store and buy more rice, always more rice. You can never have enough rice.

Then it’s your special time, the bus time. You’ll get on the bus and ride it over and over again until the end of the line. It’s the same routine everyday, you have the notes to remind yourself. Your son drives the bus all around the city and never makes you get off because you’re his mother and he loves you. You think he knows it’s you but is afraid to say it because he wants you to think he’s still sulking in Tokyo. He doesn’t want you to know that he was the first to break, a stubborn boy just like his father. I won’t tell him that I know it’s him. You think pleasantly to yourself as you try to will yourself to clean a little, who knows, today might be the day that he says to you “Okasan* let me help you carry your rice back home.” And you will make him tea just like you did when he was studying for high school exams and he will drink it and ask you to make all his favorite foods, miso soup with a few shiitake mushrooms, you’ll even make katsudon*, just the way he liked it. It was only a special treat then but for his homecoming nothing is too good. You look in the fridge and remind yourself that you only need to buy more rice today. Because you can never have too much rice. You collect your plastic bags and go to the store.

It’s a good grocery store with good prices. You buy white miso, panko*, fresh shiitake mushrooms; you won’t have time to soak dried ones and a decent cut of pork to make tonkatsu* out of. After collecting the last of the katsudon ingredients you pick up a small bag of rice. The bigger ones are too heavy for you and you won’t be able to make it to the bus stop. They store will insist on calling a taxi if you pick up a bigger bag. They don’t listen to you when they say your son, the bus driver will help you once you get on the bus. Why do young people always think they know best? Why do they always smile at you in a strange way? You pay cash like everyone else and load the bags until they feel like they might burst. They won’t. These plastics bags can last for weeks, they are good a sturdy, like you.

Kyoto is always hot in the summer, and humid. The humidity sticks to you, trying to make you stop. The benches for other bus stops seem to be calling you but you must be strong. If you sit down now you might not get up again; at least that’s what the cramping in your legs tell you. With the strength of mountains you move centimeter by centimeter to your son’s stop. You don’t sit on the bench because you know you will have difficulty getting up from it and then your son will have to come assist you and he will be so startled that he won’t come home with you today. If he knows you know he’ll flee back to Tokyo tonight.

His bus comes. You know it’s him. It’s mostly empty as this is the start of the line. Your house is closer to the second stop but it’s anything for a few more minutes on this line with him. You take the step up, none of the young people in headphones offer to help, as if you’d accept. You are not some decrepit old woman. You take a seat closest that’s up the first stair your right as you enter the bus. No one sits by you. They all look relived that you didn’t try to sit in the priority seats. What do college students need priority seats for?

At each stop the bus gets more crowded, people talking in different languages, but they all blend together. You can’t tell one from the other. You put your bags in the seat next to you. No one sits by you and no one can. You close your eyes and start to sleep. It’s a dreamless sleep punctuated by background noise of your son announcing the stops. Somewhere along the way you sleep deeper than you intended. There is a warm hand on your shoulder. You look up in your surprise to see it’s a bus driver…who is not your son.

It’s all clear for a moment. Your son would be sixty-one by now, retired or getting ready to. He’s never called or written, never came back from Tokyo. Your brain tries to wrap itself around this reality testing. You assure the bus driver that you don’t need an ambulance, you don’ t live far from here and will make it home ok. You get off the bus and stand for a bit, thrown into utter confusion about where you are and why you are there. You don/t even like katsudon, it’s too rich for your stomach to take.

Feeling even more exhausted you stare out at the cars passing on the busy street. Another bus comes, going back to your home. Your son is driving this bus and the relief you feel is immense. Ha, must have gotten on the wrong bus. You really are getting old, more forgetful. Of course he wouldn’t have been on that bus, how could he help you carry your rice home if he finished his route at this stop?

Beaming, you get on the bus and take a seat up the first stair to your right.

Okayu- soft rice, a dish usually given to sick or older people Okasan- mother

Katsudon- a deep fried pork cutlet and egg over rice

Panko- Japanese bread crumbs

Tonkatsu- a deep fried pork cutlet

On a bus in Kyoto there was a very disheveled woman sitting in the seat next to where I was standing. Sometimes she was sleeping sometimes she was mumbling to herself. She kept grocery bags in her seat even though the driver told everyone to move their stuff since the bus was utterly packed. I didn’t see where she got on or where she got off.

Isho ni asobi!

The world is big and hot and you are out in it. Even though it’s the late afternoon it’s still really hot. You see a few women walk by with umbrellas but it isn’t raining. Adults are really silly sometimes. You fluff your skirt a little and one or two of them say kawaii*. You do it again in encore and keep walking on, humming the doreaman* theme. It’s almost too hot for an adventure but the key word is almost. It’s never too hot for an adventure and even if it is you have enough money for some shaved ice which will make any adventure an adventure worth having. You bounce a bit more in your step in order to cool off a bit. You want to create your own wind. If you were melon pan chan* you could fly and that would be a bit like wind. You would like to fly.

If you flew you wouldn’t have to walk in these shoes which are really too big for you. They clonck on the concrete to announce your presence to everyone in the neighborhood. You could never be a spy with this noise. You’ll have to tell haha* that these are not good adventure shoes. You need shoes that fit but she says you grow to much and need shoes you can wear for a long time. Your new brother needs more shoes.

Watching mommy get fat was weird. You wonder how your brother got there and why he made mommy fat. She complained about it but ate a lot of weird things. She always made breakfast weird and it just didn’t taste the same. But now your brother is here with his loud crying and his tiny hands and his smelly diapers. You stopped needing diapers and that’s why you get to go on adventures and he has to stay at home. He just takes up space!!! So you go on adventures to get away from him and his space that he takes up. Stupid baby.

You don’t get what’s so great about a baby or why everyone fusses over every little thing he does. You can do more than giggle and poop and no one seems to care. You feel a bit funny but you can’t place what it is (and you won’t be able to place it until you’re older). You used to go on adventures with haha or daddy or maybe even sobo-chan if she came to visit. But now all anyone wants to do is play with the baby. You have to make your own adventures. NO one even said anything when you said “itekimasu” and left the house. They would have been so proud of you for coming up with that because you’ve never said it before. But no, the baby was crying and not saying anything so no one cared what you did. You stomp your feet louder at the thought of the stupid baby. Maybe one of those ladies with the umbrellas will come back and take you home with them. That would be nice. They’ll take you home and no one will notice until you’re a superhero saving the whole world and that stupid baby is just continuing on his way, being a stupid baby. Then your parents will say “Oh no! what have we done! We traded a super hero for that stupid baby.” And you’ll let them come play with you still as long as they promise to never make you go on adventures by yourself again.

It’s getting warmer now and every superhero needs their fuel. You go into the Conbini by yourself, like a big girl, and pick out an ice cream. Your haha always gives you enough for an ice cream cup and you save it until you’re on your way home from kindergarden with mommy. But she does it less and less. You walk home with friends now that the stupid baby’s at home. Apparently it’s too hot to take it for walks. But other mothers bring their babies to pick up your classmates. Your parents baby must be especially stupid. But the ice cream tastes good and in that moment all is forgiven. It’s coolness and sweetness spreads down to your toes almost making you shiver. Your stomach still growls and you don’t have money for chips or yakitori. You thank the clerk who gives you a look you won’t understand until you’re working an arubaito in a Conbini and you see a small child buying ice cream like it actually has financial freedom.

For now you have to go back to the stupid baby. Every superhero needs it’s nemesis after all. And if your nemesis is a stupid baby, it’s even easy to win against it. So lets play together stupid baby, so that I can defeat you when I’m older.

Ishoni asobi- let’s play together! (a bit childish)

Haha- mother, my mother, mom

Sobo-chan- your grandma, kind of liked memaw (I’m from the south leave me alone)

Arubaito- part time job.

I saw this little girl through the window of the bus. She flounced past some women with parasols, her shoes were indeed too big for her. She looked full of determination. I couldn’t even get her to wave at me (my hobby is getting babies and small children to wave at me, I know it’s weird.) She was also out walking by herself which surprised me because she couldn’t be much older than a first or 2^nd year in elementary school (if I’m generous). I wondered where she was going and I hope she didn’t faint because it was REALLY hot.

Safe Adrenaline

Will this light never change? I’m sitting next to Tsubasa who’s chatting away about the modifications to his bike. But I’m not really listening. It’s too fucking hot in this suit in this weather to listen to anything. My hands tap my theighs. I want to go, to get the wind moving through my jacket. I’m biking away from where I should be but it’s good. More air here if that makes sense. I can’t wait for the light to change, to watch the city open up to me, every time like a new sexual experience. I’ve done it, biked into the heart of the city and watched the office buildings give way to inviting shopping districts which move to decimated parks and then to quiet neighborhoods, many times. I’m a biking cassanova. Oh man that’s a stupid thing to say. It sounds like something Tsubasa would say.

He’s still talking. He’s wearing cooler clothes. He looks like the kind of person people expect to see on a bike. He even works at a convience store. It’s odd that we’re still friends after all this time. If it wasn’t for bikes we probably wouldn’t have that much in common. But the prospect of living with Tsubasa is better than living at home with my mom. I highly doubt she’d let me keep a bike. Knowing her she’d probably drive me to work everyday.

Like us, our bikes are very different. Tsubasa’s bike is the kind of bike you get with a Conbini salary and a bookstore salary. He works two jobs to put gas in his bike and help with rent. I pay most of the rent. He’d have to sell the bike without me. I’m indespensible to him. It kind of makes up for the fact that I’m so easily replaceable at work. The light changes and I fight every urge to quickly accelerate and just leave Tsubasa in the dust. No, that wouldn’t be any fun and above all else it would be dangerous. Granted, riding a bike has a certain element of danger but in and of itself it isn’t too bad. Accelerating too quickly at the busy intersection of Hiroshima station around a curve of waiting taxis and streetcars, that’s bad dangerous. I like my adrenaline like I like my bike: safe.

It is a safe bike. I’ve put every instrument on it I could find. I know exactly how quickly I’m accelerating, the speed I’m currently going, everything. I’m even thinking of putting in a GPS but I don’t really use my bike to go anywhere but around the city. I can’t take my bike to work, no where to park. Some men in my office have affairs, I have my bike. I ride past the love hotels they seacret with my helmet down so they won’t know it’s be and my affair going past theirs. I’d like my bike to not be my dirty little secret. If I had my way, I’d take her to work (at least I think it’s a her. I haven’t really named her, but calling it “it” makes no sense). One of these days I’m going to take her on a holiday to Miyajima. I’ll bike all the way out to Miyajima port and we’ll ride to the beach and I’ll camp out. I’ll be away from the city, we’ll be free.

My string of green lights ends and I’m stopping again. I’m not free, not really. Even on her. She’s safe, the kind of bike I’m expected to have if I were a bike owner. I have intstraments that tell me everything. I’m even biking in a suit with a huge helmet. That’s why Tsubasa annoys me, even with his financial worries, he’s free. That’s why I sometimes contemplate moving out, then he’d have to worry. Then he would finally not feel safe in a way that scares him. He’d have to sell his bike, find a new apartment, a new life. But knowing him he wouldn’t really care about starting over. He’d live in a cardboard box as long as he had his bike. I hate that he gives himself so hole heartedly to things, including me. The trust he has, that I’m really his friend, that I’ll pay a little more of the rent, that I won’t just pick up my toys and go home, make me sad. He trust his bike, as rickety as it is and the bike gives him speed. I don’t trust anything, that’s why I have my instruments. That’s why I can’t take my bike on a romantic camping trip to Miyajima. I told a friend at work I felt free on my bike, that I liked the rush. I’m not free and my bike is not reckless. My bike, me, we’re safe with well regulated adrenaline pumping through us.

The city rolls back her shoulders and lets us in. I get annoyed that Tsubasa goes first.

On the way back from the train station I saw a guy in a suit on a huge bike waiting next to my taxi. It looked like one of the bikes I’d seen driving the distance from Illinois to Kentucky. He and his friend, on a much smaller bike with less bells and whistles, seemed to race out to the center of the city. We parted ways when I went toward the bus center and they continued past. His friend looked like he was having more fun but to be fair, if I were in a three piece suit in the summer heat, I’d be pretty uncomfortable too.

If I can't hear the music

I had a concert today. It wasn’t anything to write home about, just a basic sonata they give to all the second year students for your first sonata. You don’t have to be particularly talented to play it. I mean, you have to be talented to play piano but it’s no more talent than you exhibited in high school. It’s even earily similar to the piece I played to get into this music school.

I’m a stealth music student in my suit and tie. No one on this train can probably even guess that I’m a budding pianist who has absolutely no aspiration to join a company like my thusly attired fellow riders. No, mine is a greater fate. I’ll become famous, a big success, playing collaborative concerts with people who I really consider my peers. I don’t feel like I’m peers with the people in my music school. I get annoyed; it feels like they’re only in it as a hobby. Many of them have this defeated look in their eyes. Music school is their last chance to enjoy their extracurricular activity before the buckle down, get an 8-12 job at some faceless company. Up on their high office buildings they’ll only head copiers, staplers, and faked aisatsu*. They won’t hear the music.

No, music is not all around you or in you. Banging on a trash can in what kind of sounds like a beat for a song isn’t music. I hate this ubran symphony Stomp crap. It’s noise but it’s not music. At least I think so and I think my peers who don’t know me yet will agree with me. My “friends” call me a snob, asking why I won’t open myself up to new experiences with music. Why should I? Music is something that inspires, that moves me to do something higher. It transports me onto a stage with adoring fans, away from this sardine train. Sardine Train…that sounds like a title my little sister would like. But she’s a high school student and it’s a well known fact that high school girls have no taste in music.

After all, she sings her own songs, making up some poppy ditty about her hair ribbon that she sings in her ear bleeding voice. She asked me to write a song once but that’s not my place. I am not a composer; I am not a conductor; anymore than I am a high school girl. I song I could try and clumsily bang out on the piano, sometimes banging my head on the precious keys in frustration would be no more music than the earlier mentioned office building. If I’m trying to make my own music, I can’t hear what the music is telling me.

And besides, since when is it wrong to be a snob? How is only listeing to the greats of the piano world any different than the woman next to me who insists on wearing one brand from one store. How is demanding that my music actually be music any different than demanding a Coach bag? Double standards make me mad. This train makes me mad because it’s loud. It means I have to turn my headphones up which could damage my hearing. I’d rather be dead than deaf. If I couldn’t hear music, well, let’s just say life would become less than suitable.

Time to focus on the piano. I close my eyes and listen to the music, my hands moving across the keys ina fluid bounce up and down the scales. My concert, only containing a few of my “friends”, my mother, and none of my peers, plays back. I shouldn’t play piano on the train, I shouldn’t push down the invisible pedals but I can hear it. They can’t hear it but to be quite frank, they’re a bigger audience than I just had. Someday when I’m playing sold out venues in Europe they’ll think back on the man playing piano on the train and they’ll wonder why they must pay so much to hear the music I play.

But for now, only I hear the music.

Aisatsu- greetings, pleasantries, VERY important in Japan.

There was a man on the train who was wearing a suit and glasses but carried a beaten brown bag. He reluctantly sat next to me and halfway through the train ride I noticed that he was moving his feet and hands like he was playing piano. I wasn’t on the train long but it looked like he would have given a good concert. He also looked extremely put off by everything (probably being on a train in August and having the only seat be next to someone you don’t want to sit by probably didn’t help. Seriously people, I don’t bite and I shower!!)