Here it is, after midnight, and I feel like I have to write something here because I’ve just looked at about a million blogs, and they’re ALL better/cooler/more interesting than mine. But, hey, mine’s the only buy-lin-gyu-uhl one out there! Ha!
Hm. Yeah, anyway.
The dating has settled down to a dull roar of sorts now that I’ve reached the third-date phase of the, er, experiment. The only women I’m seeing now are the ones that are genuinely interesting in some way or other. Sadly, many weren’t, but, goodly, a couple were. Are. You know what I mean.
Golden Week is over now, and the more than the 10 days of holiday it purports to be it was more like a couple of back-to-back long weekends for me. But there were enough parties and various other good times to make it seem like a passable respite from the vagaries of Tokyo life. (Shyeah, right. Who am I kidding? I wouldn’t know vagaries if they shat on my nose.)
So anyway, I leave my bike (bicycle, that is) at Shinjuku station one afternoon and come back to find the back tire flat. I’m sure I’ve been yarareta by someone and I ride/wobble home pissed. When I get home I check my mail and find a flyer from a bicycle repair guy (coincidence?) who does “one-the-spot” repair for flats and other bicycle misfortune. I call him the next day and he speeds right over.
When he shows up I show him to the bike. In three or four seconds my bike is flipped over and he’s pulling the tire off. Like anyone here doing anything service-related he works at a frenetic pace, darting this way and that with a swift economy of motion and all that. Before I know it he has my inner tube in a bucket of water, pumping it up with one hand while running it through the bucket with the other. Shortly we encounter tell-tale bubbles.
“You’ve got a hole in the inner tube. Right here. See?,” he says, pointing with his free hand.
“Hot damn,” I say.
Then he pries back the tire and starts spinning the wheel around. He locates a spot where the protective rubber rim liner has been pulled aside, revealing the (now somehow menacing) head of a common screw.
“See that?,” he asks.
“Zowie,” I reply.
“The friction wore a hole in the tube.”
“Well I’ll be.”
“We’ll fix you right up,” he says, and begins rummaging efficiently through his toolbox.
In the time it would take me to pluck my nose hairs he’s patched the hole, stuffed the tube back in place, replaced the tire and aired ‘er back up. I’m impressed, and I tell him so.
“You American?,” he asks, apropos of squat.
“Uh, yeah,” I reply, never knowing where these things will lead.
“Tell me something, would you?,” he goes on.
“Uh, okay.”
“You got, like, Harrison Ford, right?
“I guess so…”
“But then you also got, y’know, George Harrison, right?”
“Yeah…”
“Well, is Harrison a first name or a last name? I mean, here we got Tanaka and Suzuki and shit, right? It’s pretty straightforward. What the fuck is “Harrison” supposed to be?”
“I dunno. Both, I guess.”
“You’re kidding me. Man, that shit keeps me awake at night, I gotta tell ya.”
“Oh. Well, gosh. Sorry, man.”
“Yeah, whatever. 1300 yen.”
“Cheers,” I say, and give him the dough.
He pockets the money and rides off with a wave. I stand there, look at my newly-mobile bike, look back at his retreating figure, and look back at the bike. I can’t help thinking that surely I must be forgetting something…