And so we begin the great chronicle, originally told to me by the black poet Azriel.
The full text of the story of A Thirty Year Old Black Man Is snuggled By Thirteen Year Old Japanese Boys reaches novel-length, it took me nearly 2 weeks to finish reading the saga, with almost all of my free time (and much of my not-free time) being focused singularly on ingraining these words in mind that they may serve to warn me should such calamity ever come near.
I present the tl;dr version here:
"I can’t tell you who got what or what got hit or how many times. I don’t know how many of you have been in a position where 6-7 Japanese boys are grabbing your dick and sticking fingers up your ass simultaneously (show of hands?), but in that situation, you are only aware that you are being violated. I assume they got me good, but I honestly just don’t know. Maybe my mind is blocking it out, and it’ll take years of intensive thesnuggly and thousands of Kleenex tissues to finally dredge it up again."
"There was another teacher, male, just standing out in the hall. He’d been watching the whole thing go down… and hadn’t done a thing about it. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?! Man, what kind of country have I come to?!"
He stopped and gave me a coy look. “What will I do today?” his face said, “Will I go for the usual? Maybe try a kancho? Or hit you with something completely different?” C’mon buddy. You and I both know you’re going for my dick. As sure as there are stars in the sky, as sure as Ichiro is worshipped as a God on Japanese soil, as sure as a John Woo movie will feature a scene with white birds flying away in slow motion… you are going for my dick. Let’s drop the coy bullshit and get it over with, shall we?
My dick. He lunged. I restrained. He struggled. I cried. This Endless Waltz.
My teacher walked on. She knew I was gonna be busy for awhile. I’d made the threat before, but this time I made good on it. I carried him down three flights of stairs, back to the teachers’ room. This time, I decided that maybe I should try to reason with him. Perhaps peace could be made through dialogue alone.
Me: Hey. You. You know, this is really weird. Do you know how much of my life is devoted to keeping you from grabbing my dick now?
Him: Then give up already! I’ll definitely get it.
Me: Why are you so interested in this? Why do you have to know?
Him: Big or small! Big or small! I have to know!
Me: No you don’t! That’s none of your business!
Him: It is!
Me: It isn’t!
Him: It is!
Me: Fine then, it’s small. Leave me alone.
Yes, I know I just broke Manhood General Rule #1: Never, ever, ever, EVER claim to have a small penis. I know, and I don’t care. I can feel my soul dying. It’s dying damnit, and none of you care.
Him: No it’s not! No man would ever admit to having a small penis!
He’s pretty sharp, I have to give him that.
Me: OK, fine. It’s big. Huge. Enormous. Stand under it and the sun disappears.
Him: Then, I have to touch it, feel for myself!
Me: No you don’t!
Him: Yes, I do! I may never get another chance like this! Give up already!
Clearly, dialogue wasn’t going to work. Can I bring the UN in on this yet? Can’t we declare my crotch American soil, and consider his actions to be an aggressive act of invasion on the part of the Japanese? I demand sanctions.
It was at this point that I decided to give him his nickname. If nothing else, I admire his never-give-up spirit and search for the truth (oh God, I really have been here too long), so in that vein I named him Watson. He doesn’t get to be Sherlock Holmes because he’s not slick enough to be Holmes. Holmes would have not only gotten my dick by now, he would have figured out how to have me offer my dick to him, and how to pin the whole thing on Noisy Fucker #2.
I got to the teachers room, let go of him, and dashed inside before he could pursue. Most of the teachers inside sort of noticed this, but sadly they’ve gotten used to the whole “Our large black English teacher running away from Watson trying to grab his dick” routine, so they paid it no heed. I usually don’t pay attention, but it might have even been in the morning meeting announcements.
Noisy Fucker #2: “Well, I have nothing really to say, so I’m just going to describe all the stuff written here on the whiteboard that you can probably just read for yourselves. Oh, and the ALT will be coming to school this week, so please be mindful of rampant and furious games of Dodgedick in the hallways. Now for point two…”
I wish I could say the story ends there. I wish. I also wish for a billion yen, a good dependable woman, a rabbit in a hat with a bat, and a ’64 Impala.
I had to leave the teachers’ room a few minutes later. No sooner had I crossed the doorway, than Watson lunged at me like a starved Malaysian tiger. With the Senses still down (What’s up with that anyway? I don’t think they’re coming back), I caught him on pure reflexes alone. Y’know, if nothing else, living here has incredibly sharpened my “Hey, there’s someone coming for my dick!” defense skills. I’m not sure how this would be useful, unless I somehow find myself in prison. In that case, bring it, bitches. I got this shit on lockdown.
I struggled with Watson for a few minutes in the hallway. As I did, the art teacher came walking out and stopped as our epic battle impeded her progress. She looked at us – Man Restraining Boy Going For His Penis – and an expression crossed her face I hadn’t seen in a while. The look of “What the fuck is going on here?!” I thought that maybe, just maybe, the art teacher would be my salvation. Finally, someone recognized just how absolutely wrong this is, and would do something to stop it. I really am naive, aren’t I? A minute later, that WTF look disappeared from her face (maybe she was just holding in a fart) and she said to me, “Hey, will you escort him to the art room like that for cleaning time?”
Sigh.
Of course, the art room is on the third floor. So I had to carry Watson back up the stairs, and even then he wouldn’t quit. I finally threw him in the art room, closed the door as I did, and ran in the other direction, ducking to hide in one of the classrooms as he ran past.
It went well at first. The kids loved my Matsuken Samba sparkling gold kimono and samurai wig, as well as the song and dance. (This would take entirely too long to explain, so just use your imagination.) After class, one girl came up and asked me to write my profile in her notebook. My name, birthday, blood type, things I liked, etc. I’m always thrilled at the little things that help to pad my ego, so I was more than happy to oblige.
As I was filling out the profile, some boys came up to me with a common chant, “Dekai! Dekai!” (trans: Huge! Huge!) I’m 6’3, a little under 200 pounds, which is big even for America. in Japan I might as well be Andre the Giant. I don’t know if Andre the Giant ever came to Japan, but if he did, I hope he didn’t go to Tokyo. There would have been an army of Gundams/Mazingers/Evangelions waiting to take him out. If Godzilla ever makes it onto the shores of Japan, his ass is all kinds of toast.
The boys were marvelling at my size. They started patting me down, continuing with the “dekai!” chant. Uh… OK. I didn’t even have any crack on me. Maybe it’s just the black man’s destiny to get patted down no matter what country he’s in. They were patting my arms and legs, making it a bit hard to write, but other than that, I wasn’t sweating it too much.
That is, until they started moving onto… other areas. Whoa! This really is turning into a full cavity search! If only the women of this country showed even half the interest in my crotch region as the nation’s 12-year-old boys do. Sigh.
Normally, I might have grabbed a kid or two and sufficiently scared him enough to get them off me. This time I was holding the girl’s pen and notebook, and really trying to do this profile thing. So I fled out into the hallway, sat down against the wall and crossed my legs. There, now neither ass nor crotch is easily accessible, get offa me. This worked surprisingly well, as almost all of the boys gave up on the patting and moved on.
Almost. It’s always the “almost” that gets you, isn’t it?
One boy sat down next to me and continued patting me down. I wasn’t too worried; I had the hot spots guarded. What happened next though… In my time here, this was definitely a first, and I hope to GOD a last. The boy pulled up my sweater and started trying to get his hand down my pants.
OK, what the fuck? I can shrug off the countless kancho and dick-grab attempts, but actually putting a hand down my pants?! I gotta draw a line somewhere. Well, here’s my line, and here’s you, obliterating the line, kid.
I can’t pinpoint exactly where, but somewhere along the line in America, we learn not to grab other little boys’ penises, through their clothes or otherwise. We used to be bombarded by public service announcements back in the day, maybe it happened then (“Today, on a very special episode of Saved By The Bell…”). This, apparently, just never happened in Japan. It’s not just me. Other male JET’s have had students try to grab their stuff, and sometimes I notice the boys doing it to each other. I can’t even fathom it. (To be fair, I do seem to get it a lot more than my other male friends. It’s probably a combination of my size, and the “black men have big dicks” stereotype. Somewhere in the world, Michael Jackson is wishing that he was still black.)
With the kid trying to snake his hand down my pants, I quickly finished the profile and stood up. I picked the kid up and slung him over my shoulder. I figured I would carry him back to the teachers’ room and report his reverse-pedophilia to the teachers. Or if I thought up something better along the way, an appropriate retaliation. However, with the kid slung over my shoulder, he grabbed a handful of my sweater, lifting it up and exposing my back. This I really didn’t care about, but I was wearing the ghetto pants as a Kancho Precaution which kind of hang off my butt. So as with any good ghetto fashion, the top of my boxers were visible. “We can see your underwear, we can see your underwear!” A hallway full of ecstatic 12-year-old Japanese children now gleefully exclaimed.
Gah. OK, fine, I admit defeat. I put the boy down and sent him on his way before he managed to do something worse. I retreated to the teachers’ room, my soul a little darker from the horror of it all. I’ve been on an incredible losing streak lately. What happened to the proud, Kancho/Dickdodging ninja I used to be?!
I headed for the break room to get some tea and calm my nerves. I ran into one of my English teachers, who asked how my first class with the ichinensei went. I told her that it went fine for the most part, but then related the events from after class. Her response? Much like, oh, EVERY OTHER TIME SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAS HAPPENED, she smiled and said “Oh, they like to play with you very much, don’t they?”
Yeah, something like that.
I got my tea, headed back to my desk, and started reading my book. And that’s it, end of story. If this were America…good Lord, man! There’d be lawsuits, counter-suits, counter-counter-suits even! This shit would be on the evening news! “Tonight on Channel 5, instead of teachers molesting students, we now have students molesting teachers! Can we blame video games for this one? Film at 11.” The old farts on CNN Crossfire would be debating the ramifications! I’d have a book deal at least, “Obliterating The Line: The Azrael Story” or something like that. But no no no, not in Japan! In Japan, this is 5th period. The worst part is, even I stopped caring. The last little shred of American sanity was screaming at me, “Dude, that was fucking weird! That boy ain’t right! Do something!” But the rest of my brain, which is slowly but surely being assimilated by Japanese culture, was saying “Oh, ha ha ha! He tried very hard to grab my big black American penis. I admire his “gambatte!” spirit! Now, I must remember to pick up some tentacle snuggle animated pr0n on the way home from work, and see if I can’t grope a few high school girls on the train as I go.”
But oh! The next day! I ran into the same sweet little girl who asked me to do the profile as I was walking around visiting the sports clubs. “Hello!” I said with my usual smile.
“Hi!” She responded. “So, what kind of underwear are you wearing today?”
“What? Not you, too!”
“But, it was really funny! So…what kind?”
When you get to the point where 12-year-old girls ask you what kind of underwear you’re wearing, well, I dunno… it has to be some kind of first.
The Japanese and elevators.
When an elevator arrives, a Japanese person will go stand directly in front of the door, ready to pounce inside once the doors open. This would be a perfectly fine thing to do, if they were the only person in the whole wide world. A lot of Japanese behavior revolves around the idea that this person is the only person in the whole wide world. Which is funny for a country of over 125 million, mostly crammed into tiny little spaces. ”Oh hey, the top of this escalator would be a PERFECT place to chat with my friends! What? People behind me on the escalator? Huh?”
Ahem. I digress. Elevators. So, Japanese people stand directly in front of the doors when its time to get on or off. And I don’t get the rush, especially for getting on a elevator. But whatever, the real humor comes from when an elevator arrives on a floor, and you have someone wanting to get on and off at the same time. They’re both standing right in front of the doors, ready to leap out like an African tiger the second the door opens. And while you think this is a recipe for disaster, just as both are in mid-pounce, suddenly the insta-brakes get applied and they stop. Disaster averted. Both offending parties offer an insincere quick bow of apology, and they’re off to rush to whatever it is that demanded getting onto or off of the elevator at Warp Factor 9.
This is how it works for two Japanese people. Now factor in us Gaijin. We, who glitch the system because we’re not a part of it. Like Neo in the Matrix, except with 1000 times more expression, and we can’t fly. At least, not yet anyway. I’m working on that.
Imagine you are a Japanese person. You are in perhaps a department store, and as the floor you want to go to is fairly high, you decide to take the elevator. Being Japanese, you feel compelled to get on that elevator as quickly as possible. For if you don’t, 13 first born sons will die, and God will kill all of the fish in the ocean, meaning no more delicious sushi. The elevator comes down to the first floor, and as it arrives, you stand directly in front of the doors, for you are the only person on Earth, and there can’t possibly be anyone trying to leave the elevator. Perish the thought!
The doors open, and you take your first pounce-step inside, but your Japanese Proximity Radar goes off. Whoops, there was someone there after all, heh heh. Better give them the stock bow apology, as they will do to you. But wait, something is wrong. As you look down to avoid eye contact, you expect your line of sight to end up somewhere around your new friend’s chest region. Instead, you find yourself looking at his crotch. What in the world? In your surprise, the only thing you can do is look up, as high as you can, to see what you almost plowed headfirst into.
Hello large black man!
I imagine having a large black man suddenly be in your life would be a startling thing for anyone. Being one myself, I can only guess at the feeling. Since I don’t make it a habit of lunging in front of people (only on the weekends), I shouldn’t have to worry about how people would react to me suddenly being in their face. I shouldn’t, but I live in Japan. Where, if I try to exit an elevator normally, I will have a Japanese person throwing themselves into me as if the elevator contained 30 naked and horny virgins and the space behind the elevator was filled with 30 naked and horny Barbara Walters clones. Everybody reacts. The most basic reaction is to just say “Whoa!”, throw out a confused/bewildered apology, and scurry into the elevator. Some people actually express their surprise in words, like “bikkuri shita!” which liberally translated into Japanese means “Oh shit!”.* People who are with friends will contain their shock until after boarding the elevator, and as the doors close I can hear the conversation starting – “That scared the crap out of me! I think I just lost 5 years off my life…”
*To all you Japanese linguists in training, yes, I know “bikkuri shita!” is literally “I was surprised!” but we don’t really say “I was surprised!” when we are surprised. Although I would like to try narrating my physical activities and reactions more often, just to see how everyone around me reacts to it. ”I have to sneeze!” ”I am moderately annoyed at the speed at which these two girls in front of me are walking!” ”I just saw an attractive woman and now I feel blood rushing towards my penis!”
However, the reaction I got today was fairly unique. It was a girl, maybe in her early twenties. Upon seeing me, she fell down. And then cried.
Now, you have to understand the timing and order of events here. If her Japanese Insta-Brakes™ had failed, and she’d plowed nose-first into me, and then fell down and started crying from the pain – well that would actually make sense. That would be somewhat understandable. But that’s not what happened. The Insta-Brakes™ kicked in. She stopped, went to do the apology bow, and was confused when there was a crotch where there should have been a chest. She looked up. She saw me. She fell down. And then she cried. It was…surreal.
She had been with a friend, so her friend helped her up. I went on about my way. While many of you may want to scold me for not being a chivalrous gentleman and helping out a damsel in distress, please consider the following -
1. If she hadn’t been rushing to get on the elevator, ignoring the fact that, hey, people might be getting off, this never would have happened.
2. While surprise is understandable, falling down? Seriously?
3. And then, crying? Because she fell down? Because there was suddenly a black man in her life?
Maybe I just have no perspective, but would this be acceptable in any other situation?
Me: (entering elevator in a rush)
Me: (looks up) Oh my God, a Mexican woman! *falls down, crying*
Woman: There, there. I understand your surprise. Here, you can cry on my sombrero.
And of course the 4th and most important reason -
4. I’m married.
While I’m sure there was potential for some romance or even just kinky sex in the situation (“Oh, you fell down. Why don’t I give you my number, and we can talk about it in my apartment later…”), I’m married, so I don’t care. I have a wife who didn’t fall down and cry the first time she saw me. I think that’s all a man can really ask for in life. That, and back rubs every couple of days. Yeah, that’d be good.
Yes, of course there is more, a whole website full of 8 years of it. There's *even* more out in the internet but its buried in the late ninties, you have to use the Wayback Machine to get at it and be willing to deal with a lot of broken links that hold the promise of even more.