A PROUD FUROSHA By Andrej Koymasky Š 2010 Written on July 1, 2002 Translated by the Author English text kindly revised by
USUAL DISCLAIMER
"A PROUD FUROSHA" is a gay story, with some parts containing graphic scenes of sex between males. So, if in your land, religion, family, opinion and so on this is not good for you, it will be better not to read this story. But if you really want, or because YOU don't care, or because you think you really want to read it, please be my welcomed guest.
Chapter 6 - Cohabitation and collaboration
I was gradually again in good shape, thank to Saburo's care. He started to let me go out of the tent. To thank him, I wanted to take care to keep his tent clean and tidy.
I was asking myself if, once I totally recovered, I had to stay with him or not. As he told me, I was totally free to choose either of the two solutions, and that meant it wasn't a hindrance for him, having me in his way. It wasn't a hindrance, orÉ or he hoped I would stay? He made me clearly understand that having me close to him awakened his desire. If therefore I remained with him, wouldn't it be cruel to him?
But if I went away, he would be alone again, and he told me as much clearly that loneliness was a burden to him. And all summed up remaining alone would also be a burden for me, possibly for all my life long. Saburo told me that usually the furosha are solitary people. Out of their character, of a choice, of need, of diffidence or for what? Surely I was not at all attracted by the prospect of a lonely life.
When Saburo judged I was finally healed, he took me to a public bath - we thoroughly washed and relaxed, alternating immersions in the warm and in the cold water tubs. Although when we changed in the tent we could quite often see each other almost totally naked, there in the public bath, possibly because of the different atmosphere, our nudity was exposed with a greater naturalnessÉ and we looked at each otherÉ Inside the tent instead we usually turned our backs to each other, both the one who changed his clothes and the other one. In the baths we were lying, or moving around, without the least worry about showing our nudity to the other.
Therefore for the first time I could look with ease at Saburo's naked body. He was in the full of his vigour, he had a beautiful body. And also between his legs he was well builtÉ I felt desire awaken in me, after so many monthsÉ But I still didn't feel ready to let myself go.
Even if it was true that he never did touch me again, the way how that first time he took advantage of me was still weighing on me. At times I told myself I was being too childish, feeling still wariness and a veil of resentment towards him, I could feel he desired me and all summed up, the desire was waking up in me also. And yet, in spite of all that, his physical closeness was still making me feel a little ill at ease.
One sure thing was that, after we went to the public baths together two or three times, which happened about once a week, in the tent we also started to feel less shy to be seen naked.
Now that I had totally recovered, I felt that I couldn't go on staying with Saburo at his expense. The little he could earn gathering waste matter and selling it to who could recycle it, surely didn't allow him to support one more person. I therefore talked about it with him.
"Saburo, either I find a way to earn my living, or it is better I leave. It is not fair, I don't like to weigh on you longer."
"For the moment it's not a problem, I can manageÉ"
"It's a problem for me. It is just that I really don't know were to startÉ I could come with you to wander and gather things that people throw away, that they don't use any moreÉ but I don't think that doing so would really increase what you already find. But then, what could I do?"
"Magazines and comic stripsÉ it's not yet a really exploited field."
"What do you mean?" I asked, not understanding what he was referring to.
"You have surely noticed that most of the people buy magazines and comics, read them quite fast, mainly while they travel in the city trains or in the underground, then leave them on the luggage racks or throw them in the stations' bins. And they are practically new, used just once. You could gather them, then you can sell them for half priceÉ"
"Touring the stations?"
"Yes, and the trains. Look, this is the map of Tokyo city transports. The underground network with its twelve lines, and the JR surface network. Buying just one ticket with the lower fee, you can tour the whole network, all day long. You take a train and walk along all of it from the front to the back while you go between one station and the next and gather all the abandoned magazines. You go out at the next station and check all the waste paper bins, and take more magazines. Then you take the following train and start it again. You have just to have with you two big plastic sacks, the stiff kind you can find at the Isetan stores. When they are full, you come here to deposit them, and you restartÉ"
"And then? Where can I sell them?"
"In several places. Every Saturday and Sunday, when the people don't go at work, you can put up a stall here or in other parks. If the weather is bad, there are other points, like the underground entrance of Shibuya, or the JR station of Shinjuku, and several more."
"But will people buy them?"
"Of course, as they can buy magazines and comics almost newÉ and mainly the boys, who always have little money in their pockets, or the old people, who are always careful to save their moneyÉ Some of us already do so, and it seems that the business is going rather well - Of course not well enough to become rich and buy an estateÉ" he commented with a low laughter, "But enough to buy a change of clothes, food, and what one needs for personal hygieneÉ To get a life of aÉ decent tramp!"
"But will we ever be able to come out of this condition? To go back to beingÉ civilized, normal people? Like all the others?"
"Civilized? We can be civilized even in this kind of life, it is enough we don't let ourselves goÉ About getting back to being normalÉ it is not really normality that we refusedÉ or that refused us? Would you be ready toÉ to pretend not to be gay? Only to have back all you lost? You could go on enjoying all you had, if you just did what your family wanted you to do."
I looked at him amazed, "What do you know about my family? I never told you anythingÉ"
He smiled, "I passed through it, I too, did you forget that? You told me you too are gay and, so young, if you are out of your familyÉ Two and two makes fourÉ I don't think I am wrong, thereforeÉ"
"No, you are not wrong." I told him, and finally told him what happened to me, why my family, my friends, and even my lover excluded me from their world.
"You see?" he said, "You now possibly would be ready to go back, to marry in order to get back what you lost, butÉ"
"No!" I exclaimed. "Of course, I would like to enjoy, if not the luxury, at least the comfort I enjoyed before. I would like to be able to carry on my studies, if not at the Todai, anyway in a university, I would like having aÉ normal life. But not at the price of falsity, of hypocrisy. No. In spite of allÉ if I can't be what I really amÉ this society is not for me."
"Right. In the depth of your heart you are a furosha. I possibly wasn'tÉ but now I too have become one. I too would not go back." Saburo said with a serene but determined expression. He then added, "Not all the furosha are soÉ Many of them would go back, if they could. I don't condemn themÉ One needs to have a really strong character to be like youÉ or like me."
He said these words without prideÉ anyway he told me he lost his pride a long time ago, didn't he?
"But according to you, Saburo, pride is a good or a bad thing? Positive or negative?" I asked him, not being able to find an answer by myself.
"PrideÉ it can have two sides. One is a strong feeling, surely exaggerated, of one's merits and of one's personal value. The other instead is showing dignity and awareness of one's real value. At times these two kinds of pride are confused, are thought to be the same feelingÉ But you see, the first one leads to arrogance, to haughtiness, while the second one leads to dignity and to courage. Therefore I prefer to talk about dignity more than just about pride."
"I see. I too then would like better to have pride with dignity rather than with haughtinessÉ"
"Yours is a pride with dignity. Also because of this I like you." Saburo said looking in my eyes.
The way he looked at me made me shudder. It was a look of appreciationÉ not only of desire. Saburo once told me that he desired me because he found me beautiful, but for the first time I felt he appreciated me as a person and this pleased me.
I started to do what Saburo suggested to me. It was incredible the great quantity of magazines and comics I could gather each day. I took them to the tent and put them in several boxes, dividing them according to their headings. And really plenty of people bought them on Saturdays and Sundays. So I started to earn some money, so I could share the expenses with Saburo. And finally I could even buy two good changes of clothes in a second hand shop.
It might seem weird, but I felt at that point almost richer than when I was living in the rich family from which I cameÉ The day when I had a box only for my clothes, I was so happy that Saburo at a certain point caressed my cheek.
I knew it was given only out of tenderness, it was just a way to share my happiness, and yet I stiffened. He felt it and at once drew away from me and started to tidy his thingsÉ that were already in good order.
On one hand a feeling of friendship, of closeness, of sharing was growing between us, and yet on the other hand there was still a wall separating us. I was not yet able to forget how he took advantage of me, forcing me to have sex with him, using me to give vent to his lust. I had already rationally forgiven, excused, understood himÉ but I was instinctively still hesitant.
The most intimate contact between us was on a physical level when we washed each other's back in the public baths, and on a different level our long glancesÉ and nothing else.
Saburo found a futon that somebody threw away, dirty but still in good condition. We washed it thoroughly in the fountain, dried it well, and so now each of us had his own futon, therefore we slept separated. The futons were spread near each other, but the pole holding up the roof sheet was a concrete symbol of the fact that between us, willing or unwilling, there was no intimacy.
At times Saburo was called by one of the tramps because he or another furosha was feeling ill. He went, visited them and at times bought drugs to treat them. Really everybody respected him for his availability and the help he gave them. At times, more often than he wanted, one of the tramps couldn't overcome his illness, then Saburo called the 110 asking them to take away the corpse, after the comrades of the dead shared his poor belongingsÉ
In these cases Saburo came back with a dark face, taciturn. He didn't talk about it with me, and I learned not to ask him questions. He was, in the deepest of his heart, still a doctor, and each of his dead "patients" was to him a defeat, a sorrow, a pain. I liked his sensitivity.
On one of these occasions, I went near him and caressed his hair, with tenderness. I would have liked to be able to do something for him, for his grief. He put his hand on mine, squeezed it against his head, gave a kind of restrained sob, but then brusquely stood up, drew away from me and started to tidy his thingsÉ that as always were already in perfect order.
One afternoon I was going back to the tent with my two bags overfilled with magazines; upon entering the park where we had moved the tent, I saw an old furosha that I had noticed before. A group of four big boys more or less my same age, well dressed with designer clothes, had surrounded him, shoving him and making loud, heavy, and offensive remarks about him.
While I was approaching, one of the boys shook up a can of beer and tore away the closing tongue, spraying its content on the old man, "Wash yourself, you stinking rag-man!" he yelled and his friends burst into laughter,
The old man was trying to shelter himself with his hands, without reacting. Near him there was his little cart with all his belongings. Another of the boys knocked it to the ground. In the park there were other people, but nobody intervened, everybody pretended not to see and walked their own way.
I dropped my heavy bags on the ground and ran toward them screaming, "Leave my grandpa in peace, go away, bastards!" and flew on one of them thrashing him with all my might.
The boy, caught by surprise, couldn't defend himself from my attack but just tried to avoid my strokes. I was furious, I hurled myself on another of the boys who was standing there, looking at me agape. I don't know if out of fear, or because I was scary as I seemed mad with anger, or simply because they were cowards, but all four ran away.
I then turned towards the old man, "Did they harm you, old man?" I asked him.
"Thank youÉ" he answered and I saw he was trembling.
I went to put up his small cart and started to put his poor things inside it. He came to help me. I then remembered my two bags full of magazines. They were still there. I went to get them, then went back near the cart and helped the old man to tidy his belongings.
"Did they hurt you?" I asked again.
"NoÉ you came just in timeÉ" he said with a low voice.
"Come here, let's sit for a while on that bench, you have to recoverÉ" I said.
He pulled his small cart, I carried my heavy bags, and we sat down.
"My name is Ken Kinoshita." I said to him in an oddly formal tone.
He looked at me with his eyes washed out by age, "AkibaÉ my name is AkibaÉ thank you, boyÉ YouÉ you are doctor Oishi's boyfriend, aren't you? I saw you with himÉ He is a good man, you are right being with him. The Merciful Buddha sent him amongst usÉ"
"I am not his boyfriendÉ I am just a friend, or rather an acquaintanceÉ" I hesitantly said.
"What a pity. He would need and would deserve a good boy like you, yes, the doctor Oishi. But if you aren't his boyfriendÉ I will pray to all the Buddhas and all the Kami (spirits - ed.) he can find soon a good boyÉ"
"Why not a girl?" I asked him, curious.
He looked at me somewhat astounded, "You live with him and you have not yet understood that heÉ Oh, I see, you are not interested in men, evidently. I'm sorry for him, I hoped he had finally foundÉ"
I felt embarrassed. The old man might have felt my embarrassment, as with a suddenly firmer voice he said to me, "You know, I have grand-children who are more or less of your same age. When you shouted to those boys that I am your grand-fatherÉ I almost deceived myself it was one of themÉ as a silly old man."
"Don't they take care of you?"
"No, they don't even know if I am still alive, they don't even know where I am."
"ButÉ and your children?"
"I have three, two daughters and a son. When my wife diedÉ none of them wanted me in their housesÉ you know, too small apartments, and then they had childrenÉ I don't have a retirement pensionÉ And soÉ You know how it is, each of them said to the other two they had to take care of meÉ as he or she could notÉ"
"But at least your sonÉ he has the duty toÉ"
"If it were me who died, I am sure they would have taken their motherÉ But IÉ She was a good woman, always took care of themÉ I, as long as I could work, worried only to bring home the money, to have them to want for nothingÉ You know, I made them study, because in our times somebody like me, barely able to read and write, has no futureÉ"
"You supported them, gave them a good position, and now they forget you so?"
"I was almost never at home. After work hours, I liked better to go and drink with my matesÉ After all I am almost a stranger to themÉ"
"But you are their father. You gave them life and all they needed!"
"You are an old fashioned boy. Once everybody reasoned in that wayÉ but nowadays all has changed. MoreoverÉ I didn't want to impose my presence on themÉ I noticed they were ashamed of me, with their children, their neighbours, their colleaguesÉ I like betterÉ this life than to feel that my children are ashamed of me."
I could feel the pained resignation in the words of that old man and I felt sympathy for him. I was so pained for him that I didn't even dare look into his eyes.
Then, in a whisper, I said, "I don't think I would be ashamed having a father like youÉ"
"You are kind, but you don't know me. Don't judge my children. This is possibly just my karma. Possibly in my previous lives I didn't live correctlyÉ and possibly not even in this one. Who knows that in the next oneÉ I will possibly be reborn as a dogÉ if the Merciful Buddha doesn't lay his eyes on meÉ"
"Will we meet again, old man?" I asked him, not daring to offer him my friendship, so as not to embarrass him, but trying to tell him that I wanted him to know he was no more a stranger to me.
"We are living in a floating worldÉ we are like autumn leaves, exactly like my name means, that the wind drags here and there. It could be, boy, if the wind drags both of us into the same whirlwind. I will pray to all the Buddhas and all the Kami to assist you tooÉ We old people are good only to pray, we are useful only for thatÉ and I will do it. Now go. Go and do what you have to do."
I stood up and greeted him with a short bow, as it is to be done amongst civilised people, and he bowed lightly his head in answer to my goodbye. I picked up my bags and went towards Saburo's tent.
But I was recalling the words of the old man - he would need and would deserve a good boy like you, the doctor OishiÉ He would deserveÉ And I? What did I need? What did I deserve? A man like Saburo?
That evening, in the tent, as we were preparing our supper, I asked Saburo, "Do you know old Akiba?"
"Of course. He is a man of little culture, but really intelligent and good."
"Today some boys were bothering him, they amused themselves by insulting him and annoying himÉ"
"It happens, unhappily. Some people feel important only if they can despise somebodyÉ"
"I intervened, I beat them, and sent them away."
"You did the right thing."
"He too is a very lonely manÉ"
"No. He built an inner world. He fits very well with his self therefore he doesn't feel the loneliness. Akiba speaks a little with everybodyÉ with all us furosha, I mean."
We started to eat.
All of a sudden I told him, without looking at him, "Akiba believed that I was your boyfriend."
Saburo raised his eyes to me for a moment, then resumed eating.
"I never said so." he simply said.
"But you let think soÉ"
"No, that neither. But you are living here with me. Did it annoy you?"
"No. I just told him it is not so. And he accepted my word."
"Good."
"But then Akiba said it is a pity." I then added.
"Akiba is a romantic." Saburo said and shrugged his shoulders.
With that small gesture he had closed that conversation, therefore I didn't insist, despite that I desired to talk about it some more. Well, no, I desired it and at the same time was glad he didn't want to talk about it any more. For some time there was a slightly embarrassed silence between us.
We went to sleep. The nights were starting to grow cool, even though the daytime was still warm, and it was good. A light sheet was enough to not feel cold in the night, body heat was sufficient to itself.
Usually Saburo needed some time to fall asleep, I could hear him, night after night, toss and turn on his futon. We both were sleeping wearing only our underpants and undershirts. That wooden pole dividing our futons and holding up the roof was really creating a barrier between his futon and mineÉ a barrier that at times I was starting to wish didn't exist.
Yes, because I was feeling increasingly attracted to that young man. And yet, I still didn't feel ready to take the first step towards him, I didn't feel ready to let him understand what I was feeling for him. Even though I was aware that he would never take the first step, after what happened that first time he hosted me in his tent.
No, Saburo, despite that he continued to feel attraction and desire for me, would never take the first step. At times in my mind I called him a dumbass - if he had respected me that first night, now almost certainly we would have slept in each other's arms.
He picked the apple without the owner's permissionÉ Because he was hungry. A man who is starving, doesn't he have the right to steal, even, to avoid dying? Therefore, why was I still unable to forget that moment of weakness he had had towards me? Possibly because I didn't, or couldn't, or not yet wanted to free myself from my pride?
The more I knew Saburo, the more he seemed beautiful to me. No, objectively he wasn't beautiful, even though he was pleasant and attractive. But when you start to discover the inner beauty of a person, this paints with beautiful colours also his physical aspect, so that that person seems to you to have also beautiful features.
"Are you sleeping?" I asked him in a whisper, in the muffled darkness of the tent.
"YesÉ" he answered also in a whisper, but with a voice that was all but drowsy.
I giggled. I turned on one side, facing him. I was not able to see him, but I could guess at him, there just an arm-span away from me, lying on his back on his futon.
"Do you feel like talking?" I asked then.
"What about?" he asked and I heard him move, and understood he turned on his side, towards me.
"I don't know. Just talk."
"Let's talk, then." he quietly said.
But we both kept silent. I didn't know what to talk about, in fact. Mine was just a veiled offer of peace. A way to tell him that the pole that divided our futons was just a pole, not a boundary, not a frontier. That a passport was no longer needed to pass beyond itÉ
"Do you think I am too proud?" I asked him after a while.
"No. Perhaps just still a little scaredÉ"
"ScaredÉ" I repeated, telling myself he guessed to what I was referring; Saburo really had a remarkable skill to understand also the unsaid words.
I then asked him, "And how can one overcome fear?"
He didn't answer at once. I could understand it - we were not talking in abstract, about a concept, but about him and me. Therefore his answer had to be fully honest and well balanced. He had to choose well his words.
"Alone, it's difficultÉ" he finally said.
"But how can one do it?" I insisted almost in a whisper, as in reality I was asking him how we could do it.
"What makes one overcome fear, is courageÉ Having courage means to be ready to assume a riskÉ but knowing well what one risks."
"Possibly I still don't know well what I riskÉ" I then said.
"Possibly. But in this I cannot help you, only you can understand it. My help could seem, or even be aÉ forcing."
"But then, who could help me?" I asked him, and the answer came clearly in my mind - Akiba.
But he said, "I'm sorry, I don't know."
Yes, I knew that he was really sorry, that he would have liked to really help me, but I understood he could not.
"Life seems easy, when one doesn't have to face it, when there is somebody facing it for you." I said.
"It just seems, as you say." he commented.
"Possibly time is the best helperÉ" I ventured.
"Possibly, but time alone is not enough. AnywayÉ you are still so young, you can still afford to waste a little of it."
"You too are still young." I said, and what I really meant was that I hoped he too wanted to wait a little more.
"When your teeth are aching, it seems that the whole world is turning on your tooth. But it is not true." he said.
Yes, he was right. When you have a problem, it seems that you have nothing but that problem. One has to learn to look around and become aware that there are infinite other things, possibly bad, possibly good, and the problem is scaled down.
"I possibly have to forget the pastÉ" I then said.
"No, not forget. That is neither possible nor wise. But possibly just learn to not give it too much weight, can help."
"A little weightÉ but not too muchÉ" I commented, thinking he was possibly right, thinking he had finally given me an answer.
I was happy, I felt satisfied.
"Good night, SaburoÉ"
"Good night, Ken."
Sleep, that earlier had been so late to come, now at once welcomed me into its arms and I felt myself gently sink into its embrace.
CONTINUES IN CHAPTER 7
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