CATEGORY: MRS. ANDERSON

Our Japanese neighbors were Setsu and Hiroshi.  Setsu was startlingly beautiful and also a good oriental cook.  Hiroshi was a dentist and an instructor at the dental college associated with the University of Oregon Medical School.  Setsu had been raised in the United States, but Hiroshi had grown up in Japan during the war and had terrible memories.  Setsu told me that his father had been a doctor and, because help was unavailable during war time, he had used Hiroshi, who was only a small boy, as his assistant.  In Japan at that time it was common for star crossed lovers, especially women, to commit suicide by throwing themselves under a train.  Hiroshi had to help his father pick up body parts from these disasters, since during the war that was also a doctor’s duty.

We soon began to believe that Hiroshi had an agenda: namely that everyone should follow the rules and manners of Imperial Japan.  He intensely disliked people who did not BEHAVE PROPERLY, which was almost everybody, because most Americans had not been trained in Japanese etiquette.  Actually, he seemed slightly crazy, even when sober; when he was drunk, he was an unpredictable rampaging mad man.  He terrorized Setsu.  One night, about ten o’clock, as with the raccoon incident, we heard Setsu screaming.  Hiroshi was throwing things out of their second story front door and over the porch railing onto the lawn below.  He was throwing out all of Setsu’s things, her clothing, her jewelry, even her mattress.  Then he got in his car and started ramming it into her car, over and over.  This was a new car that he had just bought for her a few weeks earlier.  When things like this happened, Setsu would come to us for help and Bob would go over and calm Hiroshi.  Usually when Hiroshi saw Bob he would stop what he was doing, go into his room and close the door.  The next day, he was always repentant.  After this one incident, he was so sorry that he bought Setsu another new car.

We were often invited to their house for Japanese food, especially tempura. Hiroshi always had too much sake and would rave away in Japanese.  One night he was showing his disgust with people who came to the dental school to have their teeth repaired, and whose mouths were not clean.  He was excellent at pantomime.  First he was the dentist, standing, looking into a mouth, gagging at the sight.  Then he was the patient, sitting down, leaning back with his mouth open in a grotesque manner.  Although he did not mean it to be funny, it was hilarious.  It was also disconcerting.

Once they invited us to go with them to a large garden party that was to be held at the home of an associate of Hiroshi’s far out on the southeast side of Portland.  Setsu wanted to take her own car and wanted me to go with her.  She said Bob could go with Hiroshi.  I was hesitant at the thought of Bob going with Hiroshi.  I suggested that Bob and I come by ourselves in our own car.  Setsu said that she especially wanted me to go with her.  I think Bob was taken aback at this arrangement also, but finally we both consented.

The home where we went had a large back yard filled with many party guests.  Our host was a ham radio operator.  In the yard were three high, triangular radio towers about 18 inches to 2 feet across at the bottom.  Each one had metal ladders up its three sides.  A fellow at the party with whom I was conversing, remarked on what could be seen from the tops of these towers.  He said that, since the house was on a rise, perhaps we could see the whole city of Portland.  I said that I had spent a good part of my childhood climbing around on ladders in the barns on our family ranch.  My new acquaintance called over to the owner and asked if we could climb up the towers.  The answer was “Help yourself.”  So he grabbed my hand and we both climbed up separate towers.  I was wearing jeans, so I wasn’t worried about modesty.  We didn’t climb to the top; just far enough to find out that we were surrounded by trees and would not be able to see the city.

Hiroshi had proceeded to get, not just drunk, but extremely drunk.  Then he started one of his rants.  When Bob tried to joke him out of it, he told Bob he wanted to go home.  They left.  Setsu said later that his reason for leaving was that he was offended by my climbing the tower.  He said it was not something a woman should do.  Setsu and I stayed at the party for another half hour and then we left also.

We were driving quietly toward the center of Portland along S E Foster Boulevard when we heard a car approaching very fast behind us.  It did not slow down as it approached, but swerved around us and back in front almost clipping us both aft and fore.  It was a convertible.  Hiroshi’s car was a convertible of the same color.  As it sped off, I saw Bob’s bald head in the passenger seat.  Alarmed, I said, “That was Hiroshi!”  Setsu did not even raise an eyebrow.  She said matter-of-factly, “I know it.  That’s just how he is.  That’s why I didn’t want to ride with him.”  I said, “But BOB!  What about BOB?”  She just shrugged.  Then I said, “But they left a half hour before we did.  How come they were behind us?”  She repeated, “That’s just how he is.”  I didn’t say anything for the rest of the way.

When we got home Hiroshi was not there.  I ran to our house to see if maybe he had delivered Bob and then gone away again.  Bob was not home.  I was frantic.  Should I call the police?  What should I do?  About then I heard a crash.  I dashed out the door, across the bridge, and met Bob at the foot of Hiroshi’s driveway.  I could see that Hiroshi, had driven into, and part way through, their garage door.  Setsu came out on their second story porch.  She was wearing a satin oriental kimono.  Her long pony tail, which she usually wore wrapped around her head, was loose and hanging down her back.  She was an enchanting oriental vision straight out of Madam Butterfly.  Hiroshi staggered up the stairs and without saying a word, grabbed her by her pony tail and dragged her into the house by her hair.

When we got back to our own house and closed the door, Bob collapsed onto the sofa.  He practically screamed, “HOLY SHIT!”  He said “I have never been so glad to be walking on my OWN TWO FEET!”  Then he started laughing.  His laugh sounded like a car with a flat tire.  He told me that first he had argued with Hiroshi over who was going to drive, but Hiroshi would not relinquish the keys.  Then Hiroshi had started driving all over Southeast Portland, speeding down residential streets, screeching around corners, all the while ranting in Japanese.  When they got back on to Foster Boulevard and saw us, Hiroshi knew it was Setsu up ahead, and Bob was afraid he was going to crash into her car on purpose, but he skimmed around us trying to scare her.  After that, Bob slowly realized they were speeding around on streets near the Lloyd Center in northeast Portland, running stop lights and going the wrong way up a one way ramp.

Setsu came over the next day and apologized.  We remained friendly but never went any place with them again.