Passerby
So…had an interesting lunch run yesterday involving an old guy, an ambulance, the police, and general hysteria. Here’s a recap. Oh the life I lead. (Read on.)
I was given a full period off at Oshima High School to goof off or do as I would. My local supervisor, top notch Japanese Teacher of English and friend, Murakami-sensei, told me we’d get together and figure out lesson planning for the next day when he got out of class. Being a prudent type, I decided that I should go to the supermarket to grab lunch while I could – it would save time and smooth out the schedule later in the day. Usually this takes approximately 10 to 15 minutes. It took more than 2 hours this time. Here’s why.
I headed away from school and made a turn two blocks down to take a side road back out to the main road. It meets the main road at the corner of a Komeri Home Center (like a Home Depot or a Lowe’s, or your generic hardware, fertilizer, and animal feed store). When I’m about 150 yards from the stop mark at the T-intersection, I see an accident. An old man on a motorcycle came careening from my right hand side down the main road and acted as though he was going to turn onto the side road that I was leaving. He is speeding, and doesn’t make the turn – this results in his slamming into the raised concrete curb. He flies over his handlebars and skids on the ground a bit. His motorcycle dings and flips up onto the curb and lies there.
I do the only thing I can. The normal thing, as far as I’m concerned. I pull over, park my scooter, rip my helmet off and run to the guy’s side. He’s moaning through his cracked helmet and squirming a bit. At first I don’t think he understood that I was speaking in Japanese because he was just seeing a white face murmuring at him. I stood up and watched the road – and was sort of horrified that 3 or 4 cars pulled up to the stop sign, gave us a thorough rubbernecking, and promptly pulled out and went on their way. Hello? Man down. Hello? I decided not to wait for someone to volunteer to help, and instead I knocked on the window of the next car to stop. The guy cautiously rolled his window down. I asked him to call an ambulance. 「救急車呼んでください。」 The guy nodded and parked for about 30 seconds to phone it in. He got out of the car and hollered that an ambulance was on the way, then got back in the car and drove off.
I decided to stay with him until the ambulance showed up, because I couldn’t imagine doing anything else in that situation. I dunno. I just squatted near the fellow and made him talk to me – name, what hurts, where will the ambulance come from, where will the police come from, where do you live, etc. Anything that was simple. He mumbled something about gasoline and pointed at the bike. The tank was leaking onto the ground. I turned to him and said I’d stand the motorcycle back up, and he nodded. I grabbed a rag that had fallen out of the basket he had bungee’d to the mounting brace on the back of his bike and mopped up what I could, then I wedged the cloth over the cap and stood the motorcycle up. It was my first time putting a kickstand down on a full motorcycle, so it took me a second and I felt like a goober. I sat back down and the guy was taking his helmet off – it had shattered the faceplate and all. I told him not to move, that the ambulance was coming – I could hear it at this point.
The ambulance got there and the team got the guy onto a gurney. They asked him about what happened, pointing frequently at me and my scooter. That made me nervous. A story from a buddy in Imabari came crashing back to the forefront of my mind. We’ve had a few problems with really racist cops on the mainland here. A foreign guy was hit by a car on a sidewalk and the blame was put on him despite evidence and testimony (from the driver!) to the contrary. An official apology was supposedly rendered – this is all second or third hand, so take it with a grain of salt. I was relieved to hear the man very lucidly annunciate that he had crashed by himself and that I had nothing to do with it. Whew.
They loaded the gurney and started to take him to the hospital. I asked if he’d be ok, and where they were taking him (the island has no hospital). Then, I started to put my helmet back on. Ha! The driver of the ambulance hopped back out and said that the police would want to question me. I repeated that I had not been involved in the accident, and he said it wasn’t that – it was that I was the only witness to the accident that hung around. I told him I was a teacher and that I had classes scheduled after lunch. He said if it took too long that I should go back to school and they’d dispatch officers to talk to me there. Great. Ha ha. I asked if they wanted me to wait at the scene, then. They said yes, and drove off, sirens wailing.
I sat alone on the curb or walked it back and forth for about an hour. Thank goodness my iPod was in my pocket. Ha ha. I called my supervisor’s cell, and left a message – he came and waited the last ten minutes with me. Just us, a dented up motorcycle, and a bunch of shattered plastic. Fun. The cops finally showed up – in one of their ridiculous Transformers vans with the nine foot spoilers. The officer hopped out and talked to us. He asked me what happened, and I explained as best as I could, with Murakami-sensei chiming in when my Japanese was too murky. The officer thanked us, and the evidence made it pretty clear that it happened exactly as we told him. He took down my information and said he didn’t think that any further questions would be necessary.
While we were finishing up, as the officer was taking photos for the files, two funny things happened. First, the vice principal of the school pulled up to the stop sign. He saw two teachers from his school standing there next to a beat up motorcycle and police officer taking photos. Ha ha ha. He panicked. We calmed him down and he laughed about the situation as he drove away. Of course, right after he left, as I’m putting my helmet on, an entire elementary school walked by. The kids were staring us down, and Murakami-sensei was cracking me up by telling them we weren’t bad guys and that they should be careful crossing the street. 「僕らは悪くないよ。関係ないよ。気を付けて道を渡ってくださいね。」 Their teachers were laughing. It was hilarious and embarrassing at the same time.
That ends my adventure. It’s the second time I’ve helped an elderly Japanese guy. The first time was at the Imabari port. A man lost his balance and fell down, hurting his hip. I helped him up and ushered him inside the ticket office. He didn’t know what to make of me either. Weirdo foreign boy, speaking Japanese, helping out when other people just walked by. I dunno – it’s how I was raised. My coworkers laughed at me and made it into some big deal, but honestly, I can’t imagine having done anything else. Anyway – I was quite impressed that I was not asked to show my alien registration card during the whole ordeal. I was treated fairly in a situation that tends to cast suspicion on foreigners in my area. That feels good. That’s all for today. One last thing: seriously be careful driving out there, guys – accidents do happen.
