A Lump Is Removed, Ito Meets a Demon and the Sparrow-Dog Devotees
I WAS WORRIED ABOUT AIKO. She was still only ten, so it made sense I wanted her by my side. My husband alone couldn’t keep up with her. On the phone, he’d complain, I’m exhausted, really exhausted, I couldn’t get anything done today, not a single thing, my hands are full here, I’m all alone, all I do is drive the kids around and take care of meals. He was constantly complaining, but deep inside I laughed at him. You think that’s suffering? Even so, I wanted to get home to stop his complaints and to be with Aiko. But being ten years old is totally different from being three or five. She had school, her friends, Daddy, and the dogs. I’m sure she missed Mommy, but she seemed fine even when I wasn’t there.
Honestly, I worried more about our puppy than Aiko.
Last year when Aiko and I were in Japan for four months, my husband bought a dog, hoping to curry Aiko’s affection. I had no intention whatsoever of breaking up with him at the time. I planned on returning to California as usual, but apparently my husband was consumed with anxiety that he might never see Aiko again.
Aiko had been pleading on the phone. Daaaaady—she pronounced the vowel in the nasal way that Americans do, as though trying to wring as much out of it as she possibly could—I want a dog. He heard her and said, fine, I’ll get you one for Christmas, what kind do you want? Not even a second passed before she shot back, a sparrow-dog! Like Grandpa’s got! Like Chunsuke!
My husband hates dogs. When we got our shepherd a few years earlier, it took tons of patient consensus building and persuasion before he got on board. This time, however, when we arrived home the day before Christmas, a sparrow-dog was already waiting at the house. For a while, I kept mistakenly calling it “Chunsuke,” but eventually I got used to it. A while back, when I mentioned that a dog bit my nipple—well, this was the dog I was talking about.
You’ll remember that the shepherd my oldest daughter had taken to college had a hard time adjusting to life in the city, so that dog came back to live with us, and one dog became two. Morning and night I found myself walking them, holding two leashes, one big, one small. I felt like a cormorant fisher with his cormorants waddling along on leashes.
The shepherd picked fights with just about every dog she perceived as a worthy opponent. My heart was warmed by the fact that she perceived the new puppy not as an invader but as a member of the family, and she interacted with him patiently. The puppy understood how to interact, he recognized the shepherd as the alpha dog and was willing to give up whatever was necessary. I was impressed.
The puppy got bigger and bigger, and within a few months, he hit adolescence. When dogs move from regular peeing to marking their territory, boy, do they smell like pee. The stench continued from when he grew his second set of teeth to when he was neutered. While I was away, sometimes I wanted a hug, but not from Aiko or from my husband. I missed his little puppy body—his warmth and his strange smell.
BY THE TIME I CROSSED the Pacific, the season had shifted in California too. The oleanders growing in the freeway medians were past their prime, and the fleabane was covered with hairy tufts of white. Pampas grass was sending up silvery white spikes in the wild land and on the roadsides.
A number of small lumps had grown on my husband’s face. Before, he only had one on his right cheek, but now they were on both cheeks and even his forehead, where they looked like failed attempts to grow demonic horns.
When I asked him what was going on, he said, they just developed, like nothing was the matter at all.
But you didn’t have them before?
He played innocent. It seems you can get them anywhere.
The old lump on his right cheek had grown larger, red, and shiny, and stuck out of his whiskers. It’s apparently infected, he told me, I’m going to have it removed, the center’s full of pus. We called the doctor and made an appointment.
Lumps. I’ve been meaning to write about his lumps for ages, but I let it slide until now.
Here’s how it started. My husband got a lump on his back. It grew noticeably larger and shiny. It was too big to be a pimple, so we started calling it a “lump.” There was a black dot on top, which I recognized as an opening. Remembering how nice it feels to pop a pimple, I couldn’t keep still. I made him lie on his stomach, explaining that I was going to give him a massage. I rubbed the lump with my fingers, pinched it with my fingernails, and squeezed like I was trying to pop a ground cherry out of its papery husk. Suddenly the stuff inside began to come out. It was thicker than pus and softer than what you’d find in a pimple. It kept coming and coming, as though his entire body was filled with it. What’s more, it stank. I’m not sure how to describe it. Maybe like a concentrated animal smell? Maybe like the gamey wild animals Europeans ate so many generations ago? Maybe like the dregs of fermented milk?
Before long, the lump grew red, feverish, and swollen. In the end, my husband went to a doctor, who cut it open and cleaned it out. My husband complained that the reason it got so bad was because I’d been fiddling around with it.
Popping a pimple is a lot like having sex. It’s also like rubbing someone’s shoulders or masturbating. You use your body to fool around and forget yourself completely. And while we’re on the subject of sex, let me just say how pathetic it is when people think that repeatedly sticking a penis in a vagina and pulling it out is all there is to it. One of my partners complained to me once, saying that was what he believed—I just remember thinking how little he knew.
But back to my husband’s lump. It came back. I didn’t touch it this time, but it festered, became swollen, and began to hurt. He went back to the doctor and had it cut open again. I don’t remember how many times he repeated this. Then one day, a lump appeared on his cheek.
As his cheek grew round and puffy, there was something about my husband’s appearance that brought back memories. I felt like I’d seen a similar face when I was a child. Like I was remembering someone I’d encountered before. When I thought about it, I realized I was remembering the folk tale about the old man who had a lump removed from his cheek. I felt like I’d been sucked into the old story.
This is how the folk tale goes. There was an old man who had a lump on the right side of his face. One day, he went into the woods and encountered a group of demons having a party, drinking, dancing, and carrying on. The old man joined in and danced around the bonfire so well that the demons insisted he return the following day. To ensure that he would return, they decided to take something valuable from him, and not knowing the ways of the world, they chose the growth on his face. When the lump was removed, the old man felt no pain at all. Back at home, he and his wife were overjoyed. It just so happened that his next-door neighbor also had a lump on his face. When he heard the old man’s story, the neighbor decided to go find the demons so they could do the same for him. Unfortunately, he was a bad dancer, and so to get rid of him, the disappointed demons slapped the lump they had removed from the other man onto the neighbor’s healthy cheek, leaving the poor man with growths on both sides of his face.
Like the wife of the lump-faced old man in the folk tale, I was with my husband all day long. I didn’t set out to observe his lump, but I couldn’t help noticing it. My husband was no good at dancing. He was more like the neighbor—a crappy lump-faced dancer who lived nearby. In fact, when I consider my husband’s personality, I’d have to say, yes, he was more like the neighbor. He was the kind of guy who would run into a demon, miss his chance to have the lump removed, and end up coming home with another. And sure enough, when I got back from Japan, I discovered he had more shiny red lumps on his face.
HE RETURNED FROM THE DOCTOR wearing an extremely grumpy expression. As soon as he was in the door he started ranting, as if foisting his dissatisfaction onto me might improve the situation. What the hell was that? That man calls himself a doctor but can’t take care of something this simple in a single visit? The medical system in this country is rotten—rotten to the core. He continued to shout and curse, so much that I don’t entirely remember everything he said.
After he finished his tirade, I said, berating me isn’t going to change anything.
He snapped at me, I’m not berating, I’m expressing myself. In my culture, this is how we talk in situations like this. It’s okay for you to point out cultural differences, but not okay for me?
I quickly changed the subject. So, is the doctor going to operate?
He told me, it’s right in the middle of my face, it’s not something we should trust to an ordinary surgeon, I ought to go to a specialist to have it removed—a plastic surgeon could do it without causing nerve damage. But the doctor predicts that even if it’s removed, it’ll likely come back again. He referred me to a plastic surgeon. If I contact the surgeon now, maybe I’ll be able to get an appointment in two weeks, but there’s no way he’ll operate the same day he sees me, that’ll probably take another two weeks, or if I’m unlucky, three or four. So much goddamn waiting just to remove a tiny lump. I could tell that he was trying hard to show he wasn’t attacking me—he was attacking the American medical establishment.
Just like the old man with the lump in the folk tale, my husband had a wife by his side. I’d had the vague sense that I’d have to live with him and his lumps for good, but I suppose there comes a time to say goodbye to everything.
I looked it up on the net. He had what is called a trichilemmal cyst. Inside is a little packet of grimy stuff. While I was poking around online, I happened across a video on some dermatologist’s site. The lump was disinfected and cut open, revealing a flesh-colored packet inside. Using a fine pair of tweezers, the doctor pulled it out—(sigh). The flesh-colored packet was a little bloody as he slid it out—(sigh)—and laid it on its side. The doctor cut it open with a sharp scalpel and pulled out a butter-like blob of keratin from inside—(yet another sigh)—to show the camera. Watching the procedure, I felt a jolt of joy that left me trembling, so I added the site to my favorites. Since then, I’ve visited the site often to rewatch the video. Ever since I heard the old folk tale as a kid, I’d been imagining what lump removal might be like—I imagined the demons twisting and wrenching the lump off the man’s cheek and sticking it back on, like they were screwing it on and off. In reality, however, it involves cutting it open and sliding the slimy center out. (Sigh, sigh, the joy of accomplishment.)
AROUND THAT TIME IS WHEN I first heard about a club for sparrow-dogs.
Back when it was only me and the shepherd taking walks, I had to pay careful attention that other dogs didn’t come near. If a dog came near us, she’d try to protect me. She’d attack other dogs on my behalf, sometimes wounding them. Several times I had to pay vet bills that amounted to hundreds of dollars each. But sparrow-dogs were different. They were happy, curious, and eager to get along.
Through the sparrow-dog, I met a number of new people. There was a housewife I often encountered in the park walking her sparrow-dog. We exchanged greetings and stopped, recognizing that our dogs wanted to play. I’d order the shepherd to lie down, then let the sparrow-dogs play while we humans chatted. The housewife was exactly like her dog—happy, straightforward, eager to get along, and full of curiosity. She frequently invited us to a sparrow-dog club. Apparently, all the sparrow-dog owners in our area got together to walk their dogs in a botanical park owned by the local university.
I wasn’t the least bit interested. Why interact with other dogs? Was I that pathetic? Both my husband and I would have been perfectly happy living out in the boonies like hermits or exiles, cut off from all human interaction. However, Aiko wasn’t a hermit or exile, just a regular elementary school student, so she started whining about going to the club. Pronouncing her vowels like melted sugar, she implored him, Daaaaaaady, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeaze! Using her newly developing adolescent body to sidle up to him, she quickly won him over.
The club gathered in the park under the pure blue skies of California. In the shadows, the shade-loving vines leafed out, crawled, and dangled from high above, while in the sun, small flowers from the chrysanthemum family bloomed profusely in different colors. Pumpkins swelled between them, becoming ridiculously large at the end of their withered vines, punctuating the field with bright orange spots. Here we are! Here we are! Sure enough, there were lots of women with their sparrow-dogs. The only males present were the husband of the woman in charge of the park and my husband, whose face was covered with gauze after the removal of his lump. He looked like he’d been through tons of pain.
To my surprise, many of the women there had various physical challenges. In fact, several had dogs tethered to their electric wheelchairs. There were some extremely old women too. No, now that I think about it, it wasn’t surprising at all. Before picking out Chunsuke, I looked into many different kinds of dogs before settling on a sparrow-dog. They’re quiet, good-natured, pleasant, loyal, and straightforward. Even elderly people with physical ailments could take care of them. The owners were like their dogs too—quiet, good-natured, pleasant, and straightforward. They extended their hands without hesitation to anyone in trouble, just as they extended their hands lovingly to their dogs.
A woman in her early seventies, who appeared to be one of the leaders, smiled and asked the three of us, do you have any questions as a new owner?
Covering for my husband, who was cramping up from giving so many forced smiles, I said, we’re having trouble housetraining him. It was easy with our other dogs, but this time, we’re having a tough time. Do you have any good ideas?
The leader turned to a tiny withdrawn lady who looked to be in her late eighties and abruptly passed the conversation to her. What do you think?
The lady in her eighties was slow getting on board. You know, sparrow-dogs are wonderful, don’t you think? They’re wise, loving, loyal, and blessed with an independent spirit—did you know they live long too? These little babies live for twenty years, unlike larger dogs who die when they are only eight or nine! Your problem is that you chose a puppy. If you wanted a housetrained dog, you should have chosen an older one. One that is five years old or so.
A woman in her early sixties and a woman in her fifties agreed. That’s right, that’s right, they’re too smart. That’s why they don’t always do what people tell them.
The crowd of fifty sparrow-dogs and fifty women were attracting attention. Someone walking by asked, is this some new cult? My husband’s cheeks grew more cramped from his forced smiles. The gauze covering his cheek stood out, white against his skin.
How can I describe how badly he fit in? The group was dedicated to the love of sparrow-dogs, but he was filled with anxiety, standing there in the middle of it. I imagined he was feeling the same kind of anxiety as the old man who couldn’t dance must have felt when he realized the demons weren’t going to take away his lump but punish him instead. It was the kind of anxiety a non-believer might feel at the prospect of having his body being ripped apart. It was the kind of anxiety that people with no faith might feel when they are unable to die, like my friend who wanted to commit suicide, my mother who was bedridden in the clinic, or my father who was bored out of his skull. That kind of anxiety.
I decided to rescue him. I summoned up my courage and said to the leader, my daughter Aiko here wants to go on a walk with all of you, but if you don’t mind my husband and I have to take care of some business at the university now. There’s someone we’ve got to see today, we’ll be back and pick her up once we’re done.
In unison, the women assured me, oh, of course, that’s no problem at all.
Sometimes a white lie isn’t all bad. We left the group and rushed back as fast as we could. There’s an expression in Japanese that goes, “piss in a frog’s face.” It means not complaining or flinching, even when all sorts of weird things happen. (They say that a frog won’t complain even if someone urinates on it, but I don’t know. I’ve never tried.) In any case, we didn’t flinch in the face of all their weirdness. My husband and I got out of there unscathed, and we were none the worse for it.
We’d no sooner reached the car, still panting, when my husband said in a loud voice, they’re absolutely loony!
And he laughed. He did it with an expression completely different from the forced smile he’d displayed earlier—the laughter burst forth from the bottom of his belly. Instinctively, I looked back at the group. For a second, I got caught up imagining what might happen if the loonies heard what he’d said, decided to take revenge, and rushed my husband as nimbly as their dogs, baring their teeth and attacking.
What a crazy notion! Such good-natured, pleasant, quiet dogs. The women too. The only thing casting a pall over my mood, however, was my anxiety about whether Aiko, whom they had led off into the bush, might ever escape their clutches.