Subduction. Todd Shimoda
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pinched between his lips. Not a safe practice, I thought. I did a quick mental review of burn treatments.
They were talking at the same time: “turn it that way,” “no, no,” “it’s that one over there,” “watch it, you old fool!”
I said, “Need some help?”
Three heads popped up. The floppy hat hit the compartment wall and drooped to one side. With a scowl, he adjusted it.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. I’m the new doctor, Endo.”
They reluctantly grumbled their names. Harada was the one in the floppy hat, Nishio the one with bowed legs, and Ouchi, the smoker.
They stared at me for a second or two, then went back to work. I got down on one knee and watched them. Of course I knew very little about engines, so I wasn’t going to offer any advice. Harada seemed to be in charge. He fiddled with a few connections, tightening some of them. He checked wires, opened and closed valves. Seemingly satisfied, he told Nishio to start the engine. The old guy climbed up the ladder and ignored me as he went into the cabin.
The engine sputtered a little and died. Harada yelled at Nishio to try it again. The engine caught a little longer but still died. Harada and Ouchi argued about something, and then Ouchi climbed out of the engine compartment. He went over to the side of the boat where I assumed the nets were hauled in, and picked up a pole with a three-pronged hook on the end. I guessed it was used to pull the nets loaded with fish onto the deck.
Coming toward me, he waved the pole like a weapon. He was a scrawny old man, with the weak, raspy cough of someone with emphysema, but he wielded the pole like a pro baseball player. I made a quick and strategic retreat.
4
At the inn, Mrs. Takahashi served me a pot of tea and dried cuttlefish. I’m not a big fan of dried cuttlefish, especially with tea. With beer, okay, maybe. I chomped politely on a piece, smacked my lips a couple of times.
Recalling her patient file, I asked her if her shoulder had healed. She gave me a another one of her suspicious looks. What did she expect? I am her doctor now. She told me her shoulder was perfectly fine, although after I mentioned it, she started to favor it.
Aki came into the inn. Mrs. Takahashi served him tea and a plate of jerky. He gave the fish a look that said he wasn’t a fan either.
“How is Marui-jima treating you?” he asked me, holding a piece of fish as if it was a roach.
“So far, everything is good.” I didn’t tell him what happened on the boat; after all, it was a little embarrassing getting chased away by an old man. And for some reason I didn’t tell him about meeting Mari Sasaki.
His face pinched closed and he frowned. I guess my answer didn’t satisfy him. Or maybe the tea was bitter. We made some minor small talk about our favorite Tokyo restaurants and other things we missed being away. When that conversational thread died away, he said, “Ready for a beer at Yoshi’s?”
“I am.”
After thanking Mrs. Takahashi, we went out of the inn and up a steep, narrow path crudely worn into the rock. Ahead, perched on a cliff, was a large shack with so many different roof lines and odd angles, it must have been several small shacks tacked together. Weak, yellowish light oozed from the open windows and flowed over the rock like creeping lava.
With a flourish of his hand, Aki ceremoniously ushered me into the bar. Scattered around the establishment were a few tables and mismatched chairs. The walls were constructed of warped planks and decorated with nets, octopus pots, oars, and a splintered rudder. The decorations were so random, it looked like a shipwreck had been picked up from a beach and placed as found.
The three men who had been working on the boat sat on stools with their elbows resting on a bar made from a polished plank of wood salvaged from a boat hull. They gave me a glance and then turned away. One said something I didn’t catch, but the other two nodded in agreement.
The bartender welcomed us in a voice as deep and throaty as a fish market auctioneer. He was bald, short and round, his nose squashed in and off-center. He wore old-fashioned, yet somehow stylish, thick square-rimmed glasses. As if he were lounging at a hot springs resort, he had on a long-sleeve, threadbare, dark blue summer robe with a bamboo leaf brushstroke pattern.
Aki introduced me to Yoshi, the owner of the bar. He said, “So the new doctor has arrived. Let’s hope he’s better than the last one.”
perhaps
a facade
The three boat builders laughed, Ouchi’s laughter dissolving into his feathery cough. Yoshi started to introduce the three when Harada interrupted, telling him they already met me. His tone of voice made it clear he didn’t want another introduction.
Aki ordered beer for us, and Yoshi told us to take a table while he dug into an old ice cooler. Aki and I sat at one of the tables, scratched and worn, the chairs rickety.
Yoshi brought us a large bottle of beer and thick glass tumblers so scratched and worn they could have been dug up from ancient ruins. As he poured I noticed extensive scarring on his wrists. The scars appeared to be from burns rather than cuts.
We thanked him, and Aki and I toasted and took a drink. Beer never tasted so cold and sweet.
“Tell me more about your patient mix-up, if you don’t mind me asking such a personal question,” Aki said. “We have to entertain ourselves here because there is nothing else to do.”
After another greedy swallow of beer, I said, “If you don’t mind, I’d rather not mention the specifics. Let’s just say I didn’t do something I should have.”
“So you made a mistake. Doctors aren’t perfect. The news reports mistakes all the time. Of course, they don’t report the thousands of correct decisions to each mistake. In my opinion, you were punished very harshly for one mistake, however bad it was.”
“Actually, it could have been worse, but the hospital and medical licensing board figured stashing me away here wouldn’t be too damaging. Just a few old people with one foot in the grave, one earthquake away from the other foot in the grave.”
Aki’s brow furrowed. I quickly added, “I’m kidding, of course. I hope I don’t come across as rude and cynical. Of course, I am rude and cynical, I just don’t want to come across that way.”
“Sure, whatever you have to do to survive,” he said. “So what did you leave behind in Tokyo?”
“What?”
“I mean, who did you leave behind. A wife?”
“I’m not married. No steady girlfriend. Okay,” I chuckled, “no girlfriend, not for two or three decades. How about you?”
“I’m married, wife’s name is Mitsuko. One kid, a son, Hajime. He’s seven.”
“I assume you miss them.”
He thought about that for a while, long enough for me to wonder if I’d asked the wrong question. Instead of an emphatic Oh, yes, or Of course, he said, “I assume I do too. But I’ve been moving toward working here for a long time.” He paused again. I used the time to drink some more beer, figured he would get around to telling me what he was thinking. He did: “I was a teenager when the Great Hanshin Earthquake decimated Kobe. I remember staring at the TV as they showed the elevated highway that toppled onto its side. It seemed so unreal, like it was a toy model, only the cars flipped precariously against the guardrail gave it scale.
“Then the reporting jumped to a close-up of a firefighter spraying water on a house engulfed in towering flames. It seemed like a dribble. The reporter explained that water lines were damaged and pressure was low,