Mitchell's Story Pt 15

My disorientation in Japan spread outward to involve not only me but my surroundings, activities in which I took part.

Akemi and I were going by cab somewhere. It wasn't my first trip in a Japanese taxi but still I didn't know the rules, as with so much else in that country. There was the matter of doors opening automatically. I always forgot that, tried grabbing the handle and ended up getting bumped for my trouble, albeit lightly. The door didn't swing outward with enough speed or strength to inflict damage on the stupid person who'd failed to get out of the way and let it do its thing.

That was the thing, not the physical injury but the invisible kind. No one likes looking as stupid as I did then, did often in Japan.

The driver didn't understand my rudimentary efforts in his language and of course switching to English didn't help.

Akemi was still outside with our bags, making sure they were set the right way in the trunk- she likes things arranged just so. She was just picking up her things before making her way forward to join me in the cab when the driver put the car into gear and eased ahead from the parking space, one in the middle of a narrow, curved alley, of which there are so many in Tokyo, a city not built for automobiles, better suited to bicycles.

Maybe he'd started off early, too early, because confused by my speaking, maybe to make it stop.

It was night, that section of street not well lit. This might have figured in his failure to spot Akemi outside, close to the vehicle, in a blind spot perhaps.

"My wife hasn't gotten in yet."

Taxi keeps moving.

"She's still waiting back there."

Fortunately I was able to get the driver to stop in time. The tone of my voice, rise in volume caught his attention. No doubt the words I spoke failed to convey any more sense than ever.

No harm done. As I said, I just felt stupid as hell. There's nothing like the clumsiness you experience in a place where you don't speak the language. It's like having your hands wrapped in bandages, the lack of verbal dexterity equivalent to the physical.

I didn't lose Akemi.

It wasn't easy being dependent on her for so much in Japan. Basic daily chores were beyond me. She didn't seem to mind my reliance on her help, feel it as a burden. But I sure minded. You don't want to feel you can't do something as simple as going to a grocery store and paying the cashier and packing your purchases. In Japan, there's a set way such things are done and it's different from here. And of course the language! "Would you like a set of chopsticks added to your bag?" Even that was beyond me. I'd have to later ask Akemi, imitate as best I could the sounds the cashier had made and ask what it meant. They had flown right by me. Words were those? The sentences sounded like a single unit, so smooth were the connections between its parts.

And it wasn't as if there weren't things Akemi herself had to do, handle on the visit to her home. I was sometimes on my own. Naturally. It wouldn't have been good for us to stay together constantly. You need air as well as a spark and fuel to keep the fire of romance going- or however one might put it!

I saw I was running short of cash and one day while Akemi was out at her former work place meeting her boss and making some arrangement or other- I hadn't understood when she'd explained to me and hadn't needed to so didn't push for clarification, which effort would have stressed us both, brought fatigue, friction we were set on avoiding.

I saw an opportunity to test myself and seized the initiative, went to a bank, not a near walk, branch office on a busy thoroughfare- think of one in America, the kind where one business after another pops up on both sides of the multiple-lane local highway, a stretch not designed for walkers but walkable by virtue of the occasional stop sign. Anyway, it was pretty many blocks from the quiet, residential area where Akemi's apartment was.

"I'll get some fresh air," was my thought along with the others (I really needed cash, didn't want to use Akemi's)- if you could call fresh the stuff you breathed in amid the car exhaust and in the absence of trees by that extended strip mall. No, Japan is not all picturesque zen temples and cherry trees despite what the travel posters suggest.

I reached the bank only to realize I didn't have my account pin number, had forgotten it in the state of distraction, information overload that was pretty constant during my stay in Japan- think of a fuzzy, blurred feeling such as an old person suffering cognitive decline might experience.

The bank teller, a well-put-together young woman dressed in an off-grey vest and something pink, spoke some English and smiled, though for sure frustrated by the foreigner slowing things down with his foreignness, said she might be able to help me access my account anyway (I hadn't dared try using the ATM outside the bank; though it offered instructions in English, I feared being unable to follow them and falling down the proverbial rabbit hole).

"You need my ID, I guess," I said.

"Yes," the cashier with her bright face and bangs in wisps gracing her forehead, small domed one, cute as the rest of her face so impeccably made up.

Of course an ID was required if a transaction was to go forward. I recognized that rule made sense and was inflexible, but against all logic felt unfairly curtailed by it.

I hadn't brought with me to the bank my ID card either.

It occurred to me maybe there was even a rule in Japan requiring everyone to carry ID at all times in public. Maybe I was breaking a law simply by being on the street without mine. That's the thing. I didn't know the rules in Akemi's country.

What must that trying-to-be-nice bank teller have thought of me? She must have stopped judging by now, have just thought me over the moon.

I had a choice, could have waited to get my cash on some later occasion. No real urgency was present. But I decided to act then and there, though the walk back to Akemi's place and return trip to the bank were long ones (Akemi still would be away a while, possibly for hours).

I saw a trip to the bank, successful fulfillment of my mission there, as an instance of functioning in that society. I didn't have a job in Akemi's country, could barely handle shopping for a few grocery items, so the simple act of withdrawing money from my bank account (I wouldn't forget pin this time) would be a major achievement, might lift me from utter incompetence to a state resembling normalcy. My modest goal of being able to manage the everyday chores of an ordinary person in Japan seemed unattainable.

Akemi's small but tidy apartment was still empty when I returned from my second trip to the bank and I masturbated. It just happened. Release of stress. Coming to terms with myself on my own. Who can say why I suddenly began jerking my cock? I was masturbating to feelings for Akemi- or to the bank teller? more likely both- hell, in my inner life as an individual (I'd scarcely ever felt more alone than in Japan, despite how much time Akemi and I spent together) I was entitled to be with whomever I wanted. Just feelings. Just thoughts. They were mine, like those I'd handled on my solo outing that day.

I came a lot and felt good, used tissue to wipe it up. When I thought I'd gotten most, I found more, a big white blob I'd missed off center in my pubic hair, the main load. Really a lot. It felt good to be a man and strong.