A Story
There is a colossal white dog that lives in a house at one end of a crosswalk near my apartment. He is ancient. I see him shamble out from the side door on occasion and wonder how he can sway so much without falling over. I think he may be the first dog; canine Adam.
That's far afield. It doesn't matter how old he is. It matters that he's maybe two feet taller than your average Japanese first grader. And it matters that he hates people even more than I do.
So this morning, Adam (it's a handy name, but probably not his real one) is sitting by the edge of the road when I begin the 20 minute drive to Youka Junior Highschool. There's a stop just before his house so I'm depressing the brake pedal, scanning through the iPod to find Queen's "Flash Gordon," and sipping black instant coffee from a bright blue tumbler that plays "Freebird" if you hit a button on the base (a gift from Hope, who still delights in novelty) while I let a horde of elementary students in bright yellow hats cross the road.
The dog's slumped down on the pavement by the door and apparently sleeping when I find Flash and Ming the Merciless starts tormenting Earth. This is a long segment, and I am not in the mood for Max Von Sydow's smugness, so I hit the fast forward and start to lift my foot, the yellow hats having finished their "Why did the chicken..." number. It's not a half second later when I stop the FF and Freddie et al finally kick into gear.
"FLASH!"
Now this is all timing. The kids are about three meters from Adam's door. The car volume is up just enough to drown out the engine noise of my Daihatsu. With the windows down, this setting is more than ample to draw the attention of the kids and disturb the beast. Every lumbering, palsied inch of that white dog rears up as he lunges for the nearest humans his cataracts let him see; the kids. They all panic and start trampling each other to back away from the almost-polar bear. Most of them go down in a heap on the crosswalk.
Now, Adam's on a chain. That means there is no way for him to get to the writhing mass of prepubescents on the street. Also, that means that laughing is okay. So I'm laughing. The full on "I wish i had a camera" kind of body-shaking laughter that disturbs the older Japanese and makes all the young ones think I'm "fun." Unfortunately, it also pulls my foot off the brake pedal. The automatic rolls a good meter before I mutter an obscenity and slam my foot back down.
The Freebird tumbler smacks the steering wheel and Lynyrd Skynyrd launches into a never-before-heard duet with Queen. Black instant coffee splashes out of the so-called-no-spill top and goes all over the wheel, the dash, and my hand. I'm scalded and furious and the car shudders as again I reflexively release and re-engage the brake, screaming bloody murder. The kids are now torn by terrors - one being the massive quivering beast, Adam, and other a roaring, cursing white man behind the wheel of a car that keeps trying to run them over. They disentangle themselves and sprint down the street, screaming. One kid does an double take, sees his hat on the ground and shuttle runs back to grab it and go in what seems to me now a much better tribute to Indiana Jones than the most recent film.
I'm not thinking that at the time. I'm thinking "Ow! Fuck! Christ! Fuck! Ow!" and those thoughts are being turned into words. I kill the Queen, shut off the tumbler, grab a tissue, clean up the steering wheel, and soak what I can out of my sleeve. I ditch the Nescafe-soaked wad of tissue in the unused ashtray on top of a bunch of expired instant win tokens from Lipton. Then I look out the window.
Adam's collapsed back into sleep.
The moral is "Let sleeping dogs lie." And I mean seriously. Did we really need to see a 60+ Harrison Ford cracking one liners and whips?
The End
That's far afield. It doesn't matter how old he is. It matters that he's maybe two feet taller than your average Japanese first grader. And it matters that he hates people even more than I do.
So this morning, Adam (it's a handy name, but probably not his real one) is sitting by the edge of the road when I begin the 20 minute drive to Youka Junior Highschool. There's a stop just before his house so I'm depressing the brake pedal, scanning through the iPod to find Queen's "Flash Gordon," and sipping black instant coffee from a bright blue tumbler that plays "Freebird" if you hit a button on the base (a gift from Hope, who still delights in novelty) while I let a horde of elementary students in bright yellow hats cross the road.
The dog's slumped down on the pavement by the door and apparently sleeping when I find Flash and Ming the Merciless starts tormenting Earth. This is a long segment, and I am not in the mood for Max Von Sydow's smugness, so I hit the fast forward and start to lift my foot, the yellow hats having finished their "Why did the chicken..." number. It's not a half second later when I stop the FF and Freddie et al finally kick into gear.
"FLASH!"
Now this is all timing. The kids are about three meters from Adam's door. The car volume is up just enough to drown out the engine noise of my Daihatsu. With the windows down, this setting is more than ample to draw the attention of the kids and disturb the beast. Every lumbering, palsied inch of that white dog rears up as he lunges for the nearest humans his cataracts let him see; the kids. They all panic and start trampling each other to back away from the almost-polar bear. Most of them go down in a heap on the crosswalk.
Now, Adam's on a chain. That means there is no way for him to get to the writhing mass of prepubescents on the street. Also, that means that laughing is okay. So I'm laughing. The full on "I wish i had a camera" kind of body-shaking laughter that disturbs the older Japanese and makes all the young ones think I'm "fun." Unfortunately, it also pulls my foot off the brake pedal. The automatic rolls a good meter before I mutter an obscenity and slam my foot back down.
The Freebird tumbler smacks the steering wheel and Lynyrd Skynyrd launches into a never-before-heard duet with Queen. Black instant coffee splashes out of the so-called-no-spill top and goes all over the wheel, the dash, and my hand. I'm scalded and furious and the car shudders as again I reflexively release and re-engage the brake, screaming bloody murder. The kids are now torn by terrors - one being the massive quivering beast, Adam, and other a roaring, cursing white man behind the wheel of a car that keeps trying to run them over. They disentangle themselves and sprint down the street, screaming. One kid does an double take, sees his hat on the ground and shuttle runs back to grab it and go in what seems to me now a much better tribute to Indiana Jones than the most recent film.
I'm not thinking that at the time. I'm thinking "Ow! Fuck! Christ! Fuck! Ow!" and those thoughts are being turned into words. I kill the Queen, shut off the tumbler, grab a tissue, clean up the steering wheel, and soak what I can out of my sleeve. I ditch the Nescafe-soaked wad of tissue in the unused ashtray on top of a bunch of expired instant win tokens from Lipton. Then I look out the window.
Adam's collapsed back into sleep.
The moral is "Let sleeping dogs lie." And I mean seriously. Did we really need to see a 60+ Harrison Ford cracking one liners and whips?
The End