Not only would Tuesday, August 25th be my first day in five weeks back in front of the toddler crowd over at Mr. Insecthead's kindergarten, the dubious weather forecaster on the local TV station's morning show had been projecting that it would also see the first rainfall in almost three weeks. Not Monday, or Wednesday. TUESDAY. I was less than thrilled with this tidbit of news. Mina would be unable to drive, as she had an unavoidable meeting scheduled at the hospital, which meant I'd either be on the Nagoya Station COVID Express, or biking out there...which actually wouldn't have been such an awful prospect had rain not been thrown into the mix...
Fingers were crossed that the weather forecast was wrong. Nagoya T.V.'s weather guy is a storied idiot, and woefully off-target about 70% of the time, so there was a more than reasonable chance I'd be able to make it out there and back without a royal dousing.
Just to be safe, I insisted that we stop in at the local Aeon Bike Centre. I'd needed some proper rain gear for awhile, and this seemed like as good a time as any to remedy the situation.
We 'lucked out', and happened into the last of their 'free-size' rain ponchos - - 'free-size' implying that it would fit 'anyone' (let's take a moment to remember that, while the traditional 'petit and slight' Japanese body type has indeed been changing in recent years, your average J-local is still generally just a couple of heads taller than a garden variety Oompa-Loompa).
Having cornered the only specimen in the shop, I tried it on off the rack. It seemed to fit alright.
Sort of?
A little snug.
Or short?
It was hard to say. I'd need to get on an actual bike to be certain. I'd be wearing a back pack too...and that Quasimodo knapsack 'hump' changes the entire dynamic of how a poncho hangs...as I would ultimately find out. It wasn't cheap, either - almost five thousand yen (around fifty bucks, give or take).
Dickhead on TV had better be right about the weather.
Anyways, a LITTLE rain, I can handle. I hail from Vancouver, after all. That place is in a state of nearly constant soak down for most of the year.
Regardless, I was determined not to have to deal with the stress of pandemic commuting through the seventh busiest rail hub in the world. The fifty dollar 'Oompa-Loompa' rain poncho would have to do.
In the interim, it had been absolutely scorching, and a wee bit less humid than usual. My daily morning runs up the Horikawa canal had essentially become a torturous, sweat-drenched arse-hauling...particularly the unshaded, baking asphalt 'Waffle Cat Road' stretch (images of that unfortunate, flattened feline will be stuck with me for the rest of my days).
These daily runs have become an important part of my routine - and almost meditative. An hour to sort through and compartmentalize all those loose ends. To try to find that elusive balance... to at least get me over the hump, and into tomorrow.
Of course, the spectre of my brother-in-law's apparently deteriorating condition continued to hang heavy behind everything. It had become a constant. We'd seize on any piece of encouraging news. According to Mayumi's updates, things seemed to be on a rollercoaster trajectory. Incremental progress suddenly offset by unexpected and worrisome new developments. Literally one step forward and two steps back. Every time. Of course all of this was hush-hush from Mina's Mum. Her 9 pm 'Line' calls were to exclude anything to do with anything related to the ongoing situation unfolding with Mina's sister and her family.
Mayumi was still off work, and it was taking some time for her recovery to really take hold. As part of her self-determined course of rehabilitation, she'd been making daily trips over to the Atsuta Jingu Shrine (just across the JR fly-over from our place), to pray for her husband's recovery. Her second son, also sidelined from work and recovering from the virus, had been driving her out and helping her along. It's a beautiful, ancient spot, endowed with what could only be described as a kind of unmistakable 'healing' energy. No doubt these visits were serving as some source of spiritual relief for her. A way for her to at least try to achieve some sense of comfort and balance through peace of mind.
Similar to my running, in many ways.
Getting out on the road every morning really helps to drain the poison, as it were - at least short term.
My timing is such that I usually only encounter a handful of other runners...and with Losersville's August temperatures reaching 37C by 11 am, most of them appeared to have hung up their trainers for the duration.
Happy news for me.
I can't stand them. The few female runners out plying the scorching pavement are invariably fine - for some reason, the shitheads in question are always guys... middle-aged or slightly older. They'll typically come up on me from behind and hold pace for ages without ever actually - panting up the back of my neck like they're about to expire - or the one odd one will actually attempt to 'race' me - which is most annoying. Do I look like I'm craving a race? For me, running is a solitary thing...not a fucking competition. When I'm out there, I just want to be left the fuck alone.
Another favourite manoeuvre with this demographic is attempting to pass on the inside - particularly when they're running towards me. Instead of going by comfortably in the ample space of the outside lane, they'll come right at me (like in a game of chicken), and try to squeak past through the narrowest margin of pavement and curb, bush, railing, or wall. I don't get it. Are they trying to gauge who'll flinch first? Am I supposed to leap out of the way? Is this another territorial insecurity issue playing out, in which they're trying to assert dominance, and 'take a stand'...or is it simply another stupid game? It's a mystery. For some reason, it seems to be a big thing with cyclists over here as well. I'm sure they find it all very amusing. At worst, it can be quite dangerous. Mina doesn't think they do it deliberately.
Her contention is that they just 'don't think'. About anything. At all.
I see it often enough that I think they actually do it on purpose. Petty arseholes.
Once in awhile they attempt what could only be construed as some kind of gesture of 'brotherly' recognition... from 'one runner to another', or some shit...usually in the form of some kind of assholian half wave, smirk or nod. What do they think we are...rival First World War bi-plane pilots? Jesus Christ.
In return, they get nothing but the most withering glare I can manage. Not that they'd notice. I always wear sunglasses when I leg it up the canal.
When one of these smart-asses inevitably 'lays it all on the line' and dashes past me, they never fail to elicit a long, outstretched arm, and rigid, raised middle finger from yours truly. Of course, they never notice that either.Their heads are so far up their arses, they wouldn't notice if the entire world flipped inside out a-la that fucking incomprehensible Inception movie. This is typically when my semi-borderline Tourette's starts flaring up, too. I make up expletive laden nick names for each of them as required, which vary from day to day. When I'm not feeling overly creative, it's just 'PRICK', or the tried and true 'FUCKING DICKHEAD'. These are more than adequate in a pinch.
The pensive 'park bench-gargoyle' smokers are another annoyance. There are few things I enjoy less than swallowing a massive cloud of some errant old ji-ji's freshly expelled human tobacco exhaust.
*( 'ji-ji' is colloquial Japanese for 'old man'. Conversely, 'ba-ba' means 'old lady')
Then there are the 'casual cycling smokers'. They'll typically ride just far enough ahead of you to ensure that you catch every last waft of their exhalings...which tend to just sort of 'hang' in the air behind them, long after they've hopped the horizon, at the most leisurely clip they can manage. All guys, too. Middle aged or older. Never females.
Lovely.
I've actually noticed a pronounced up-tick in the number of random public smokers I encounter on any given day since this COVID nightmare started last February. It seems like it's actually trending or something. Like people have decided to take up smoking to cope with their hopelessness and fatalism. Or to address their feelings of boredom and general malaise.
Good enough.
Truth be told, I couldn't really care less.
Smoke away. Leave me out of it, though. I finally managed to shake that dire habit off around five years ago, and I'm done. Selfish?
Maybe.
Most likely.
I guess it's karma coming back, and forcing me to revisit all the times that I'd made other people suffer through my own smoke exuding grossness.
Then there's that used up tar bag in the apartment next door. As I said, it's "never females". Well...almost never. She's an aberration.
That has to be karma attempting to even the scales on me for the decades of neighbours on either side of the Pacific that I've alienated with blaring music, obnoxious late night guests, and riotous alcohol fueled antics over the course of my prolonged period of youthful revelry and exuberance. Or assholiness.
I suppose it's all subjective.
Now I go to bed at 10:30, get up at 5 am, and run. Go figure.
After I get the running business sorted, it's on with all of the other sundry duties of the day. In other words...housework. In lieu of a more robust teaching schedule, I've taken it upon myself to handle most of the day-to-day things that need doing, to lighten Mina's load. Laundry. Cooking. Cleaning. It's actually a lot more work than one would think...and it makes for a long- assed day, from start to finish. It's only fair, though. She has to go out and deal with the daily situation at the hospital. Stressful at the best of times. Throw the hills and valleys of COVID into the mix...and her plate is full. She seems pleased to see everything sorted when she gets home. Apparently this is far beyond the skill sets of most Japanese men...who still widely cling to antiquated, mid-twentieth century notions of what the appropriate gender roles in a 'modern' household consist of. Sadly, in 2020 Japan, the average woman's lot really isn't that great.
The morning of Tuesday, August 25th, I was up at 5:00 am as usual. I slid the living room curtains aside, pushed the sliders open, went out on to the balcony and stuck my arm out into the twilight. No sign of the aggressive piss down that theTV weather dickhead had been promising for the better part of the last week. It was 26C and jungle humid...with just a smattering of patchy clouds. The street appeared dry. Maybe it'd be alright...and I'd be able to make it out to Mr. Insecthead's kindergarten and back before the promised deluge.
If there was even going to be one.
At 8:00 am, around the time Mina left, there were actually a few thin rays of sunshine creeping through.
She was shaking her head and telling me not to take a chance,
" just wear a mask and take the train".
I had half-heartedly agreed, but added the caveat that I'd, "play it by ear, and see what happens..." We both knew that meant that I was intending on rolling the dice with this potential downpour.
As I said, I was determined not to take that friggin' train.
I decided to err on the side of caution and basically take a change of everything...just because. A extra t-shirt, socks, shorts, underwear. I'd be leaving nothing to chance. A bit past 9:30, when I decided to roll out, the sky had darkened rather ominously, and the earlier "smattering of clouds" had coalesced into something a bit more dark and pendulous - but it wasn't actually raining.
Yet.
The fifty dollar Oompa-Loompa poncho seemed to fit alright until I got going on the bike...at which point, by the time I'd got 20 metres, it had ridden up over my backpack, to sit right above my shoulders. I was going to have to figure this out.
Fuck it.
By the time I reached the intersection at the northwest corner of the park, the rain started coming down, albeit moderately. At first.
As I got moving, I had to keep reaching back and attempting to pull the rear of the poncho over my Quasimodo hump backpack, while navigating what was shaping up to be a kind of hazardous passage across the JR railway overpass. I finally had to settle with it kind of half covering my back. Kind of.
Fortunately, my backpack is long, and water resistant, and the poncho's hood, while flimsy, seemed to at least be water-resistant, and stay fastened. In other words, it wasn't constantly blowing off my head. This was a good thing, because within five minutes, the moderate rain had become biblical. We're talking Indian Monsoon.
Add to this thunder. Not just a few scattered, errant rumbles. Nope. Deafening, apocalyptic, Thor swinging Mjolnir with reckless abandon THUNDER.
And lightening. Not just a little, either. Long, strobey, multi-fingered branches of Metallica record cover LIGHTENING. Visibility was crap. Lucky I had left early, because it was going to be a long, slow trek. I kept hearing echoes of Mina's voice from a bit earlier,
"Just wear a mask and take the train"
Typically, violent, tropical squall, no holds barred rain like this has a pretty short shelf life. This is what I was sort of counting on, anyways. This was something different altogether. By the time I got to the bridge over the Horikawa Canal, just west of Kanayama, it had actually intensified, and was coming down in sheets. This is something I've only witnessed a couple of times before. The good news was that the Oompa-Loompa poncho seemed to be at least 85% effective...and the rain was warm. Like tepid bathwater.
As I got into the lower lying stretch of my trek, just west of the bridge, heading toward Arako, things were changing. The storm drains at the sides of the road had been overwhelmed, and were belching out all the excess run-off, making it impossible to see any potential obstacles on the sidewalk. Slowly does it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a boxy little silver Sagawa Takubin truck pull in curbside to my left, just a few metres ahead of me.
*(Aside from Japan Post, there are a few competing companies that deal with package and parcel delivery over here. Sagawa are the biggest pricks of the lot.)
In one fluid motion, the sidewalk side front passenger door flies open, and this baseball capped little shit with a parcel under his arm leaps out and right in front of my bike...all in the blink of an eye. I almost had a fucking coronary episode, and somehow managed to swerve, just narrowly missing his stupid ass. As I keep plowing on, I hear him shout,
"Gomen!" (Sorry!)
My retort?
"FUCKING DICKHEAD!"
No time to get creative; I wasn't stopping to chew him out, either. Not that it would have mattered, anyways. Careless little piece of shit. What the fuck is wrong with these people?
The water was getting deep. Two-thirds of my bike wheels were submerged. That would be almost up to my knees, had I been off the bike. Emergency crews were starting to appear, to manage bottle necks in the traffic. Garbage and miscellaneous debris was floating around. Yet the deluge showed no signs of letting up, even slightly. For just shy of 10:00 am, it was almost like dusk.
Amid all of this chaos - the ground shaking background roar of the thunder, the strobe flashes, and violent, shimmering whip-crack snaps of lightening, I imagined that this might have been what it was like on the ground over here in the summer of 1945. The sky awash in formations of American B-29's, carpet bombing the living shit out of everything in sight with incendiaries, choking black smoke from oil fires and burning buildings blotting out the late morning sun. Fire crews and civilians running around haplessly trying to douse out of control blazes. It must have been terrifying. Especially for the kids. Seventy five years ago. Not really that long when you think about it. No wonder I get the occasional hairy eyeball from some of these oldsters.
I rolled into Mr. Insecthead's kindergarten around 10:15, parked my bike, and went upstairs to the office to change out of my wet gear. I was glad that I'd brought that extra stuff. The thunder and lightening wasn't letting up. In all my years over here, I'd never experienced anything like it. I walked into the three year old kid's class, and they were all melting down. Two thirds of the group were howling, and inconsolable. I tried a few things to distract them, and a bit of clowning to at least elicit a laugh; but they weren't buying it. With every roar of thunder, and shimmering whip-crack flash of lightening, the crying would get louder. They were in the grips of some very basic, primal animal fear. It was hopeless. While the four and five year old classes seemed to be coping a bit better, it would be fair to say that any attempts at running a 'normal' Tuesday morning English class were pretty futile.
The hour wrapped up, and Mr. Insecthead was nowhere to be seen. I'm always pleased when he doesn't come knee rubbing and click-clicking around the corner. Instead, his wife appeared with my pay packet, and seemed surprised to learn that I'd actually come through this weather event by bike. I told her that I had, 'unwisely ignored my wife's advice', thinking that it would be alright, and 'had probably made a bad choice'. She gave one of those little laughs that the J-folk give when they don't actually understand 'exactly' what you've just said, but want to wrap it up in a quick and amiable way, nonetheless. Fair enough. I just wanted to get out of there. I signed the receipt, stuck the envelope in my back pack, and headed back out into the rain.
It was now coming down normally. On the way back, it appeared that the storm drains had been cleared; but the streets and sidewalks were littered with rocks, brush and miscellaneous debris, so it was cautious, slow going all the way home. I decided that, contrary to what I'd said to Mr. Insecthead's wife, I had actually made the RIGHT decision to ride out. Had I braved the COVID Express, I'd probably have been stuck on the train, and stopped on the tracks somewhere between here and there, with no way to contact anyone. I'm probably the only smart-phone-less individual over the age of twelve in all of Japan.
While that's mostly OK, it can very occasionally be a problem. Fortunately, in this case it wasn't. On my bike, I'm off the ground, and maneuverable enough to get around most obstacles (douchebag jack rabbit Sagawa drivers aside). Even if I had made it in by COVID rail successfully, I'd have had to wade through filthy knee deep run off all the way to the school.
Back home, just after 12:30, and the rain was finally winding down. I hung what needed hanging out, and loaded the washing machine. As promised, I sent a text to Mina letting her know that I had returned, and survived the ordeal.
Over supper, we exchanged our 'stories du jour', as usual. After the back and forth of 'her day' and 'my day' had run its course, the topic of conversation finally returned to the unfolding 'Mayumi situation'.
"Did she call or message you? How is she feeling? Any news?"
"Not today. Maybe she's tired. She's still off work. She can't move around well. Her son takes her to Atsuta Shrine every day to pray for (her husband's) recovery. "
"Maybe you should call her..."
"Really? I'm not good at that kind of thing..."
Every family has a different dynamic. Mina and her sister have a different dynamic. It's a mystery to me. I can't judge what's right or wrong for them; but I don't think that it's a bad thing to reach out just a bit, given the situation.
Mayumi hadn't spoken with her husband since he was intubated. Apparently she'd made a smartphone call, and one of the attending nurses had held his phone up so he could see her face. Naturally, being under sedation and on the ventilator, he couldn't talk. She said that his eyes widened when she was speaking to him, so she knew that somehow she had gotten through. We were convinced that sooner than later, he'd be off the machine, done with the kidney dialysis, and be starting the long road to rehabilitation and recovery. No doubt he'd need an oxygen tank; maybe even be confined to a wheel chair for awhile...but he'd beat it.
He had hung on this long, after all.
Mina called her sister after the dinner stuff was cleared away; before her Mum's 9 pm call. I was glad that she did. I could only imagine what Mayumi was going through. Every bit of support is important. After initial greetings, they spoke in hushed tones.
Something was up.
When Mina got off the phone, she said that Mayumi had received a call from her husband's attending physician after midnight. His condition had suddenly gone seriously sideways. His vitals were all over the place. They had managed to intervene in a timely manner, and were able to rescue and stabilize him...but things weren't looking good. The virus was up to something, and jumping around wreaking havoc. The doctor's opinion seemed to be that he had narrowly avoided dying. Given his severely compromised condition, were it to happen again, he may not be so lucky.
Mayumi apologized for not having called Mina to tell her what had happened, and thanked her for checking in. She was still pretty drained. It was going to take awhile for her to really get past this. They wrapped it up and said good night.
Just a bit earlier we had been optimistic, talking about the prospect of him getting off the ventilator, and discussing how he and the family would manage through the challenges of a lengthly rehabilitation.
Now this.
Friday it would be exactly two weeks from the day he was intubated. The attending physician would have to decide whether his lungs had recovered sufficiently to safely take him off the machine, or recommend performing a tracheostomy, and extending his period of mechanical ventilation.
It was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.
What next?
The incoming call chime sounded on Mina's smart phone.
It was 9pm, and a snapshot of her Mum's face was flashing on screen.
Time to pretend that none of this was happening.....
TO BE CONTINUED...
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