Breakfast fisticuffs.

On the way to work t'other day, I happened upon the worst fight I have ever witnessed with my own two peepers in Japan.

We were stopped in the station (都営浅草線の三田駅) and I caught a glimpse through the window of a sneaker-shod foot flying past.  No, not a disembodied foot (that would have been a helluva thing).  It was a foot in the process of delivering a kick.  I turned around, and beheld some earnest whoop-ass in progress... at 7:00 AM... on the damn subway platform.

A construction worker was fighting with a salaryman.  Kicking, punching, wrestling... the whole bit.  The construction worker was not a big guy.  He was my size, or maybe even a little smaller.  But he was scrappy as hell.  The salaryman or office worker guy was totally getting his ass handed to him in triplicate.  The conductor on the subway platform was yelling at them: 「おい、危ないよ！」  That just means "hey, that's dangerous!"  Well, yeah!  They're going all smackdown on each other's asses at the edge of a subway platform, for fuck sake!  Many of the women on my train were covering their faces with their hands and demurely peeking over their fingers (including some of the students from our school).  They were whispering「ひどい」,「まずい」, etc.  It was eerily Victorian (though nobody actually swooned).  After my initial glance, I only looked back once more as our train started to pull away.  I could see the construction worker had the salaryman pinned on the floor.

I have no idea what started the fight: queue breaking, abstract loss of face, flatulence, fashion faux pas?  I have no idea how it ended, either.  I don't know if the police came, or the station staff intervened, or an off-duty UFC referee was handy to break the shit up.  全然分からない。 If anyone reading this knows, please leave a comment.

On the bright side, because of where we live I was fairly damn certain that neither one of those shitheels had a gun.  In everyday confrontations, firearms (particularly handguns) are like the allspice of støøpid.  Take an everyday argument and add a little sprinkle o' gun to the situation.  In no time at all, an erstwhile humdrum disagreement has transformed into a life-altering (or life-ending) disaster.

Oh well, on that note, for some folks there's nothing like a bit o' fisticuffs for breakfast to invigorate and get the blood moving... probably out of your nose.

McCoffin

Got the results of my physical back this week.  やった!  Not only did my cholesterol fall to positively un-American levels, it seems that my triglycerides are a third of what they were eight months ago.  Yay for running and green tea!  So, to celebrate my good health news, I naturally ate McDonalds for breakfast.

It's only mildly ironic.  I actually have been making healthy choices as of late.  But that has not always been the case.  Twelve years of smoking hand-rolled cigarettes and Lucky Strike non-filters, ten years of drinking grain alcohol like it was a career, countless years of guzzling cola when water or actual food would have been more appropriate, nights of insufficient sleep, and the physical toll of anxiety and anger mismanagement have all left their mark upon my little body.  (Incidentally, all those marks become plainly visible when I see my reflection in the window of the subway).

Well, when I ordered my McDonalds breakfast set, an image came to mind of me pounding a nail (one with a big trademark "M" engraved on the head) into my own coffin.  Kind of like Queequeg.  Except he commissioned his coffin in a febrile state; it wasn't wrought by his own hand.  Speaking of Queequeg and company: flying to America once, a passenger named Ishmael was paged to the counter.  If our plane had plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, I suppose he'd have had better odds than the rest of us.  But I digress.

とにかく... I'm just grateful my health is good enough that I can find the idea of driving my own coffin nails whimsically amusing (if a wee bit dark).