Chapter 33: CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

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CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

"Hey, Dave, what's hell's the matter with you? You've hardly drunk any of your beer. And I'm still waiting to hear about what happened to Mike and Fumie."

I nodded. "It's because of what happened to Mike and her brothers as well."

"So what did happen, damn it! I want to know!"

I picked up my beer mug and took a few deep swigs, hoping it would help settle my nerves. It did, a little. "It took Fumie a hell of a lot longer to tell me than she thought it would. A full two hours to get it all out of her. And by the end she was crying."

"Crying? Fumie?"

I nodded and tried to tell him as best I could what had happened to her, her brothers and Mike, downing as much beer as I could to keep me going. By the time I finished, it was John who was hardly touching his beer.

"My God, Dave! She lost all her brothers who were fighting against us in our fathers' war. Only to turn around and lose her husband who was fighting for us in our war?"

"Yeah. I just thank God we didn't get dragged into it. My birth date was in the five year span that applied when Nixon had his first draft lottery. My birth date came up as number three hundred sixty-two out of three hundred sixty-six. So I could finish my BA without worrying about getting drafted."

John folded his arms and shook his head. "At least our fathers were fighting for a war they could believe in. Why the hell should we have had to fight and maybe get ourselves killed for that corrupt South Vietnamese government in Saigon? That's not to say that Ho Chi Minh was any great barrel of laughs."

"My sentiments exactly. I mean, how many Vietnamese fought in our Civil War?"

"Well, at least our fathers could say they had won their war. We definitely lost ours with the fall of Saigon. Not like the Korean War that our wonderful generals kept insisting they had won, when all they had done was fight their way back to almost exactly the same frontline where the war had started -- and losing almost as many Americans killed in action along the way as we did in our war. When Saigon fell, the only thing the generals and top politicos could do was point their fingers and blame each other for having lost the goddamn war."

"But John, how did you stay out of the draft? Your time to get your physical for the draft must have been earlier than mine because you're older. And you must have lost your student deferment when you had to drop out of college. Did you somehow fail your physical?"

John started belting down his beer again. "Yeah. Because I had a sleeping disorder."

"You're a sleepwalker?"

"Just the opposite."

"Huh?"

"I had insomnia."

"God, I've never heard of anyone failing their physical because of insomnia."

"Neither had the corporal at the very last part of the physical, which I'd passed with no problem up to that point. He's the one who takes all the letters and hears all the reasons, etc., etc., to get each of us off the hook. When I told him I had insomnia, 'Ha, then you're just the perfect man for night guard duty!' 'Yeah, but when I can't sleep I don't give a damn who I'm shooting at!' The corporal scowled, 'Oh, alright, god damn it! I'll let you see our psychiatrist next week.'"

"And the psychiatrist let you off the hook?"

He nodded. "But not before I had to spend a whole week scared shitless that he wouldn't. And sending a special delivery letter to my college's shrink that I had been seeing weekly about my problems with insomnia and begging him to send me a letter that would convince the Army's shrink I truly did have a vicious problem. And he immediately sent me back that letter I needed."

"Well, what did it say?"

John sighed. "I just wish to hell I knew! He sent me a sealed envelope with a cover letter telling me the letter must be handed directly to the Army shrink unopened as it was being sent under professional secrecy."

"So what happened when you gave it to him?"

"He read it and when I started to explain in my own words what my problem was he just held up his hand. 'No need. I'm disqualifying you.' and red-stamped 'Emotionally Unstable!' over all my papers. As I was leaving his office he asked, 'What are you going to do now?' 'Try and get a job, I guess,' 'Do you think you can hold a job with your insomnia the way it is?' I just shook my head, 'I don't know, doctor, I hope so. But I just really don't know.' Looking back it might have been a trick question. But I was telling him the straight out truth."

"I'll bet you were really happy that he disqualified you, though!"

John surprised me by shaking his head. "You'd think so wouldn't you? But I was too emotionally drained by then from all the worrying I'd gone through to feel happy. As I was taking the train back to my home, I couldn't feel much of anything. A little bit of relief, maybe. But certainly no happiness. And after that I had to go through a full twenty four hour, royally screwed up sleeping cycle during the first week that followed it."

"A what?"

"Going to bed about three hours later than the night before and getting up three hours later the next morning. Or the middle of the night for a couple of those days. God, what I would give to be able to read that letter that saved my ass! And looking back on it now . . . . You know, Dave, I've never met anyone who's had anywhere near the problem with insomnia that I do. Maybe that's why no one believes me."

"So what did you do when you when you finally got over your messed up sleeping schedule?"

"Well, after about six weeks or so I felt healthy enough to go job hunting. But the more I thought about it, the more I didn't want to be imprisoned in some office for the rest of my life. So I decided to get a job at the nearest branch of the Berlitz Language School as an English language teacher until I could find a real job. And discovered I really enjoyed teaching English the direct method way to students of all different countries, backgrounds and ages. Much more enjoyable working with people than being stuck behind a desk shuffling papers around would have been. But I still wanted to just get totally away from everything. So after three months I decided to come to Japan. And never looked back."

"But you said you really didn't know how to teach when you first got here."

He ordered us another round of beers. "I didn't. That's when I had that stint teaching the audio-lingual method. Because as I told you, it paid a lot better. And learned damn fast just how much better and more enjoyable teaching the direct method was. That's why I took a job at this direct method school here in Osaka that's a competitor of Berlitz Japan. Even though the pay was much lower than teaching using the audio-lingual method at my first school."

Downing my God knows how many 'nth of beers, I glanced at my watch. "My God! It's getting so late telling you Fumie's story and listening to yours, I'm really going to have to hustle my ass to catch the last train back to Kyoto!"

"But what about what Fumie? When are you going to tell me what Fumie did after Mike got killed?"

Standing up and putting on my coat, "Tell you that next week. I'm out of here, man, like right now!"

"Damn! Another week of waiting!"

"Thank God I was just barely able to catch that last train from Osaka, little buddy. But we're going to have to be really careful putting back to my apartment. I've had way too many beers telling John about Fumie's story and then listening to his."

BEEEP!

"And thank God the cops here are nowhere near as strict about drinking and driving as they are in Chicago . . . at least not yet anyway."

[AUTHOR'S WARNING: What Dave says about drinking and driving in Japan was true at the time this story takes place. It is definitely NOT true today. Not only is the amount of alcohol for DUI now much lower than that in the U.S., but if you are arrested for DUI, it's automatic revocation of license for at least one year. AND you still must pass a much stricter driving test to get a new license than you did to get your first license. And if you have an accident while under the influence that causes bodily injury or death it means jail time, usually counted in years! . . .SO BE WARNED!!! -- kw]

[AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION: If you're wondering why I seem to be overdoing the Vietnam War see my explanation 'Comment' below -- kw]

Submitted: November 02, 2023

Romance romance japan gaijin travel-in-japan japan-1970s

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Comments

B Douglas Slack

I'm lightly peeved at John for his off-kilter draft rejection, although I've seen even worse reasons than that. Some of them are are really off the wall. I definitely agree with your note at the bottom. As a member of the US military, we were considered "professional" drivers and, as such, were held to a much higher standard than US civilians. No matter how you look at it, a DUI is not something you want to get.

Bill

Thu, November 9th, 2023 1:17am

Author
Reply

If you think John's reason is 'off-kilter' for a draft rejection, then you must think my reason for my draft rejection is off-kilter, too. Because every part of what happened to John including his emotional state before and after his rejection is almost exactly what happened to me including his dialogues between the corporal and the Army psychiatrist.
Cronic, life-long insomnia IS a viciously debilitating disease that almost no one who doesn't have it can understand. Even my college's clinical psychologist said he never known what a Real problem was until he treated me and wrote the sealed letter to the Army's psychiatrist that got me off the hook. People with a sleeping problem like mine would make terrible soldiers because we can't even trust ourselves. So how can our squad mates trust us with their lives?
As for drinking and driving, I NEVER drink and drive even if I've only had one beer.
As always, thanks for your comment. I sort of had a feeling you would react to this chapter the way you do.

Ken

Wed, November 8th, 2023 6:19pm

Kenneth Wright

AUTHOR'S EXPLANATION: You may be wondering why I am spending so much time in this chapter and the previous chapter about the Vietnam War. This is supposed to be a novel about Dave and his love of his cub, right? It's winter now, and you don't want to do any unnecessary biking at this time of year due to dangers of the icy streets. More on that in later chapters. As I was writing and reviewing this chapter and the previous one with Fumie, it struck me that Saigon fell almost fifty years ago ending what must have been the most divisive war in U.S. history since the Civil War. Which means most of you hadn't been born yet or were only ten years old or so when it did. So you don't personally know about the pressures the draft put on all males of my generation, the sometimes violent demonstrations for or against the war, or the anguish that more than 58000 loved ones had to suffer with the loss of their beloveds no matter their own beliefs about that war. John's experiences with the war are almost verbatim that of my own including his emotion's. I pray that you of the generations after mine will never have to endure your own Vietnam War that so characterizes my generation. -- kw

Fri, November 17th, 2023 2:26am