Circle Of The Tyrants

So... after nearly two and a half years, I finally got a chance to talk to a Japanese person about their participation in WWII. Regulars - like you in South Korea, Slovenia, Denmark, Germany, China, Russia, the U.S. and Canada - will recall that doing this one little thing was a big reason for me wanting to be here. Sort of. You can read about that story HERE.
I live in Ohtawara-shi, Tochigi-ken in Japan. I live in the city's tallest building, a seventh floor white stucco exterior apartment building called Zuiko Haitsu or more affectionately, Zuiko Mansion - even by the Japanese. It's not New York or Toronto exclusive, but relative to other places in Ohtawara, I really did live in a mansion.
My apartment was on the third floor, on a wing that jutted out from the main building (Apartment 307). There was an apartment unit directly atop my floor (Apartment 407), and one directly below it (Apartment 207). Below apartment 207 was a convenience store that also doubled as a sake shop.
About once every two days, I'd stop by the place and grab a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola. Either a young man in his 30s would be there (he spoke a little English) or his father would be there with his mom. Neither of them spoke any English. Not even 'hello' or 'good-bye'.
The old man was quite the cheerful sort. He would engage me in lengthy conversations - and we'd laugh and have fun - and truly, it was a wonderful rife.
There was just one hitch. I never had any idea what the heck he was saying.
Truthfully, it didn't diminish a thing for me. He was trying to talk to me and find out more about me - and quite frankly it wasn't HIS fault I was too stupid to speak the language. But he always tried to speak to me.
I'd buy the odd bottle of beer and lots of snacks like Pocky or dried squid from him to eat with my Coke - but despite the plethora of sake (Japanese rice wine) he had in his shop, I never bought any. In fact, I never ever bought my own sake while in Japan, as I only drank it apparently, at enkai (parties), festivals and super drinking challenges. I mean, that stuff has a nasty habit of sneaking up on you and bashing you about the head.
Anyhow... on this particular occasion, the son was there in the store with his dad. The old man began talking to me in Japanese... and when I didn't give him the response he expected, he turned to his son and yelled at him. The son nervously spoke in very slow English telling me that his father wants to know if I would like to come for sake this Friday night.
What the hell? It's free, so I'm there. I don't want to give the impression I'm cheap - because I'm not. I spent damn near every YEN I earned while I was in Japan so far. And I had a great time doing so.
It was Wednesday, so I only had to wait a couple of days to get my groove on again with sake.
It's Friday now - 9PM. Writing is so much easier than real life - unless you have to live that real life before you write about it. Which I did. For you. Okay... mostly for me.
I walked down the back stairs to the ground level, and entered the shop that way. Bowing and yelling a booming greeting to my hosts for the evening.
The old man comes over and shakes my hand, and motions for me to sit near the back of the shop. He makes a motion that must be international asking if I want a drink. I smile and say "Hai (yes!)". He walks to the front of his now closed shop and grabs a very large fancy looking bottle of sake.
He shuffles over in his slippers and plops down on a chair opposite me. There's a small square table between us. We're quickly joined by his son carrying some glasses, and is immediately followed by the old man's wife who is carrying some food for us to nosh on while we are in the preparatory stages of getting drunk. She disappears, periodically returning to take away our plates and offer us more food. No women allowed at this shindig apparently.
We drank this massive bottle between the three of us as the son does his best to translate our drunken conversation.
The old man has mischievous, twinkling eyes as he asks me about my girlfriend Ashley - and all of the other women I seem to have over. I ask him how he knows. He says he and the family live in the apartment directly below me. Touche. I did not know that they lived there. I may be quiet, by not all of my guests are.
The three of us are now completely hammered... or at least the son was. The old man splays his legs, points to his crotch, mentions something about - and this was in English - "the wife" and gets up and leaves for a few minutes.
Since we're all best buddies and have already talked about sex, I ask him how old he is, and if he was in the war (WWII). Now there was some discrepancy about his actual age, but he was in the war for the Imperial Japanese Army... in fact... he was fighting on some god-forsaken island armed to the teeth when the Americans set an offensive to liberate the island from the Japanese. He says the battle raged on for weeks on this tiny, humid island. It went on so long that he and his comrades were out of ammunition, had clothes torn, and were starving - and actually couldn't wait for the Americans to win the battle.
He said since it would have been dishonourable to simply surrender without a fight, he (and he couldn't speak for the rest of his troops - he was a lowly Private) purposely kept shooting to miss his targets, hoping that they would run out of ammunition faster, so they could be over-run and could get out of this war alive.
Apparently that still took weeks. And by the time it was over, he and his comrades were so glad to see the Americans that they actually had smiles on their faces as they were captured.
I'd never heard a war story like that before. Seems more real than all that John Wayne crapola I was spoon fed as a youngster.
We polished off another bottle (at least the old man and I did) while he slowly told his tale... and at around Midnight, it was time for us to go to sleep. His son tried to help him up, but he pushed him away. As he swayed slightly I grabbed him around the wasit and he around my shoulders and we began to walk up the back stairs to his apartment.
Now halfway up, that must have been when the earthquake hit, because we were both thrown against the stairwell walls as we bravely fought our way up to his frontdoor.
He reached for the doorknob slightly bent over and stayed there a moment too long for my liking.
"Daijobu? (Are you okay?)" I asked.
He grunted, farted a long smelly one, stood up, opened his front door, turned to me, stuck out his right hand for me to shake.
I was having none of that and leaned in and gave him a hug and a slap on the back. And said "Domo arigato gozaimasu (Thank you very much - in a formal way)".
He smiled, eyes twinkling, bushy eyebrows going up and down, mentioned something in English about 'the wife' again, and said 'bai-bai'. And then locked the door.
I turned to walk up the stairs to my apartment and saw his son standing there pounding on the front door begging to be let in. I yelled a good night to him - and he to me.
I staggered up to my apartment and took the longest pee I've ever had. Crawled to my bedroom laid down, realized that was a bad idea. Got up grabbed a Coke and watched television for a few hours until I sobered up. At 3AM, I went to sleep and woke up at 10AM.
Sunday morning.

Somewhere missing a day,
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by: Celtic Frost. It's not bad for real metal! AAOOOWWW
PS: No PS... I'm in a coma.
PPS: This one is in honour of all veterans who have gone to war.