Hot Springs and the Return of the Ugly Fish

A few weeks ago, I had what I would call a great weekend (my weekends, by the way, are Wednesdays and Thursdays). It all started with a phone call from Masa, a friend of mine. However, before I go on, I feel I should give you some background on Masa. You may recall, from previous emails, that at one stage I suspected Masa of being some sort of mafia kingpin. This was due in large part to our first meeting when after a few drinks I had asked him what his job was. He replied, “logistics”, and offered no further explanation. Also helping to shape my assumptions about him was the fact that he was quite clearly the leader of our little group. Others in the group were always going out of their way to pour him drinks; would never start eating before him; and the night was never over till Masa said so. Or at least that is the way it seemed to me. He always carried with him wads of cash in small manila envelopes and insisted on paying for everything. After several outings where I had not spent a cent I had the nagging feeling that eventually I would have to repay him for his generosity and that one-day he would call upon me for a favour. That day came, of course, and one night he called me and said that he really needed my help with a delivery. It was summer, the busiest time of year for his company—which by this time I had found out was a family owned trucking company specialising in the transportation of frozen foods—so busy that Masa was forced to drive one of the trucks himself. He needed me to help with the loading and unloading. I readily agreed, of course, because it was the least I could do after all he had done for me, and besides, he said that we would be going to Kagoshima, a place famous for its imo shochu (an alcoholic drink made from sweet potato), which, incidentally, happened to be my favourite drink; a fact not lost on Masa. So, he picked me up and we drove to his warehouse to load the truck. Our cargo? Ice cream. This was the moment when my mafia don image of Masa was, at least partially, shattered. I had, during the drive to the warehouse, imagined we would be carting something, how shall I say, not so permissible in the eyes of the law. Though part of me felt relieved, the vainer part of me felt cheated; I could no longer claim to have any kind of affiliation with gangsters. Anyway, with the truck loaded we hit the road, heading southeast. It was eleven p.m. Four hours later we arrived at another warehouse in Miyazaki prefecture—for those of you paying attention you will recall that Masa had told me we were going to Kagoshima, not Miyazaki. As you might imagine I was a bit puzzled by this, and when I asked Masa about this he responded quite apologetically and said that he had meant to say Miyazaki, though I had a sneaking suspicion that he had said Kagoshima as a way of ensuring I would agree to come along. In any case, I wasn’t too concerned; we were there to do a job, and there wouldn’t be any time for drinking shochu regardless of where we were. Though it was dark, I knew, from the winding and climbing road that we had come in on, that we were tucked away in the countryside surrounded by mountains. As it was three in the morning, and too early for unloading trucks, even for the Japanese, we slept; Masa quite comfortably in a space, big enough for one man, behind the seats, while I assumed a less comfortable position, slouching in the passenger seat with my legs stretched out across the dashboard and my head nestled between the window and the headrest—the least comfortable sleep I’ve had since the night I slept on the bench at Manly wharf.

Masa’s alarm woke us up at six-forty five, sharp. Masa climbed into the front, stretched, said, “I’ll be back”, got out of the truck and headed in the direction of the loading docks. I was left wondering if he had intentionally mimicked the Terminator, or if it had been entirely innocent. I looked around and saw that a fleet of other trucks had joined us during the night, including another one of Masa’s. They had parked haphazardly all around us.

I decided that I needed some coffee, so I got out of the truck and went in search of a vending machine; this proved to be quite a dangerous undertaking, and, in retrospect, one probably best attempted in a more wakeful condition. As I made my way between the mess of parked trucks, I had to constantly crane my stiff neck from side to side, being careful not to walk into the path of trucks making there way to the docks; equally challenging was trying to determine from which truck, or trucks, came the reversing sound. If the reversing lights of the trucks in the immediate vicinity were not on I stopped and waited till I saw some movement. Once I knew which truck was reversing I could navigate my way around. In any event, I managed to locate a vending machine, buy a can of coffee, and make it back to Masa’s truck in one piece. Judging by the amused looks I got from some of the drivers, I would guess that there are not many gaijin in the Japanese trucking industry.

Masa came back to the truck with bad news. “We’re not the first,” he said matter-of-factly. I couldn’t quite understand how this could be the case, as we had quite clearly been the first truck on site. As I was lamenting the injustice of it all I noticed a big truck, much bigger than ours, backing into the docks.
“Lets go,” Masa said, tossing me a pair of dirty work gloves.
“Where?” I said dumbly.
“We are gonna help to unload,” he said, referring to the big truck. I guess the expression on my face gave away my lack of enthusiasm, he added, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” This was clearly not true. Standing next to Masa, with work gloves in hand was the driver of Masa’s other truck. He looked to be sixty-odd, and not at all robust, but he was ready to work. What’s more, Masa was nursing a sore back, which was of course why he had asked me to come along. Thus, feeling suitably shamed, I donned my gloves and went with them to the loading area, or in our case the unloading area. At first, when the truck was full, it seemed like there were too many of us, and it took me a minute or so to work out how I could get in amongst it without getting in the way of the others. Meanwhile, Masa, who seemed to have forgotten about his back, and the old man, had set a cracking pace, grabbing four boxes at a time. Not wanting to be outdone, I managed to squeeze my way through to the boxes and grabbed four of my own, then placed them on a conveyor belt that had been positioned at the rear of the truck. As we moved further into the truck my pace quickened, and I started grabbing six boxes at a time. Soon it was the others who were trying not to get in my way, which is, I think, the way they preferred it, and I was faintly conscious of being manipulated by a couple of wily veterans--I noticed that the pace of Masa and the old man had slowed considerably; and fair enough, I thought. I, on the other hand, much to the chagrin of the others, had gotten a bit carried away, and it was brought to my attention that, for some time apparently, I had been unloading the wrong boxes. After a bit of head scratching, however, I was assured that this wasn't a major hassle as all the boxes had to be unloaded eventually, it was just that, unbeknownst to me, there was a particular order in which this was to be done, as we were dealing with several different products. So it was that old chestnut of communication breakdown that had brought me unstuck, and from that moment I resolved to make a determined effort to use what little Japanese I knew--not necessarily with Masa, as his English is quite good, as you might expect of someone who studied criminal psychology at UCLA--in an attempt to avoid any further setbacks. Now, as commonsensical as that may sound, I discovered that hitherto my study of the Japanese language had left me very much ill-equipped for the situation in which I now found myself. I thought back to the lessons in my textbooks, most of which had titles like "At the Bank" "Day and Time" "Catching a Taxi" and so forth. As far as I could recall I had never done a lesson on "Unloading your mate's ice cream truck". Anyway, as Masa was trying assess just what it was that I had been unloading and where it had gone, I sought out the old man for a bit of explanation as to how to proceed.
"Kore?" I asked. This?
"So," the old man replied. Yes
"Koko?" Here?
"So so." Yes yes.
"Sore?" That?
"So."
"Soko?" There?
"Hai, so so so." Yes yes yes that's right.

Well, in any event, it was tough going, and tricky to navigate the floor of the truck, which seemed to be covered in a fine frost or perhaps dry ice and sometimes my feet would suddenly slip for a few centimetres and then suddenly find purchase again. Anyway, after about forty minutes we had unloaded this truck, and, happily, it was our turn next. The driver of the big truck was very grateful for our help, though not so grateful as to stay and help us with the unloading of Masa’s trucks. It was a case of the old you scratch my back and I’ll say thankyou very much thing.

It was more of the same as we unloaded Masa’s two trucks. By the time we were done, I think my back was in much the same condition as Masa’s. As I gingerly clambered up into the passenger seat, I groaned in complaint like an old man. It was around ten o’clock when we headed back for Fukuoka; a light rain had begun to fall. As we drove along, I kept thinking about how we had helped to unload that big truck that had mysteriously circumvented us in the queue. In Australia, we like to give a mate a hand, but the competition? Not bloody likely (correct me if I'm wrong). What would happen if you injured yourself, or if you accidentally damaged some of their product or equipment? As Masa kept getting calls from the office in Fukuoka wanting to know when we would be back because they desperately needed the truck for another job, it dawned on me that Masa’s motivation in helping to unload that other truck had not come out of the goodness of his heart, but instead had come out of a seemingly innate mindfulness of that old adage time is money—the faster we got the truck in front of us unloaded the faster we could unload our trucks and the sooner those trucks could be used for other jobs.

Though fatigued, I made an effort to stay awake and talk to Masa, as he was also quite tired, and, needless to say, I didn’t want him to fall asleep at the wheel. He’s a very interesting man with many stories, and he shared quite a few of them with me on this trip; one day I hope to write some of them down.

We made one stop on our way back at a truck stop along the highway where we got some coffee, and where I found a hot food vending machine that had, among other things, hot dogs. Did I try one? Yes I did; two of them in fact. Were they the worst hot dogs I have ever eaten? Yes they were. I’ll spare you a detailed description; suffice to say that I was pleasantly surprised that I did not become crippled by a nasty bout of food poisoning.

We arrived back in Fukuoka at around 3p.m. After taking the truck back to the warehouse, Masa dropped me home, where I slept for a few hours before I went to basketball training.

Now, again, for those of you who have been paying attention you may have noticed that this story had nothing to do with hot springs, nor did it have anything to do with an ugly fish, though the title may have led you to believe otherwise. If for some reason this is troubling you I sincerely apologise. Though somehow I suspect you’re not terribly fussed. The reason for this incongruity is, of course, that I simply got sidetracked whilst giving background information on Masa. In the end, however, I think the story above is more interesting than the one I would have otherwise given. Having said that, I will probably return to the story of my recent interesting weekend sometime in the future.

Until my next post—or next email or phone call, since the only people who read this blog are friends and family—take care!