Overdue Dues
For the entire year of 2025, my only contact with the matsuri group consisted of serving nihonshu and red bean soup to those who came to the shrine after the start of the new year and cleaning up afterwards, leaving around 3 am on the first and the matsuri itself in October. Thus, I did not pay my dues for that year. When I attended the one meeting I had this year, back in February or March to officially quit the group I had dues money for the previous year and for the 1 or 2 months of the current year before leaving the group but the way things went after my announcement, I forgot all about the dues. Last night was my first opportunity to make it to the end of a meeting to pay what I owed.
The last few months I have been teaching a 13 year old boy over zoom. His family is moving to the States in a couple of months. I am being paid to speak in English with a 13 year old but my own 12 year old won’t speak to me in any language. The lesson finishes as 8:30 pm and I quickly jumped on my bike and rode to the small community center next to the shrine where the matsuri group meets.
A cheer went up as I entered, one friend quickly cleared off the one chair not occupied by a person as others started pushing several cans of beer towards the chair. I immediately paid my dues owed for last year but the kaicho refused any for this year as I had already informed them that I was quitting. This is at odds with what the treasurer told me over the phone but he wasn’t there to confirm.
Without the beer, nihonshu and comradely, the mixed emotions would probably have been overwhelming. In the prepanic era, my wife and son spent a lot of time in the room with I and the gang. We all stopped here after our bowling trips for a catered lunch and award ceremony for those who bowled good games. We also attended one of the several new years parties the group holds as a family each year. Lots of memories here. Lots of ghosts.
In the past, I would walk back home with the then kaicho and his neighbor, one living in the oshare house, the other one of the “Dog people” of whom I wrote about earlier. Both are now no longer with us. It was the latter’s widow who came up to me at a restaurant near my apartment soon after her husband’s wake. Turning right at the street light instead of going straight along the well traveled way to what was once my home, where my son and cats still reside, was a test in self control.
Despite what I drank at the after meeting get together, it being relatively early, I opened a beer. Despite not sleeping in because I zoom with my mom and niece and her family and being tired all day, I was wide awake and kept drinking and watching various scenes from “Sharpe”. Passing by my kitchen window on the way to the restroom, I saw that the sun had already risen! I went to bed at 5:30 this morning!
The day before, Friday, I made a trip to the house, the first one in 2 months. In fact, it was the first time to even pass in front of the place in that time. During the last zoom meeting he participated in, my son, on his own, offered his Plarail trains to my niece’s young son. As they had not been received, I asked my ex if our son was actually going to send them. I learned that they had boxed them up but that she did not have time during the work week to take them to the PO and asked if I could. She left the box outside and I rode my bike over to pick it up and take it to my apartment. They didn’t check to confirm the batteries were removed, so I will do that tonight before bringing the package to the PO on the way into work tomorrow. Actually, with the new system for mailing parcels, I anticipate having to make two trips. I do not have a postal scale and need the weight before I can get “permission” from the US gov. to mail it to that country and be able to print out the mailing label and customs forms.
I rang the doorbell but no one answered. The bush that stood next to the mail box for the entire 20 years we lived there was gone. The ex over pruned it last summer and it died. Trimming and pruning it had been my task. My family name was still on the name plate for the mail box. Debating whether I should say anything about this or not.
Riding my bike back to the apartment, I passed by the parks we used to play in for the first time in 2 months too. Lots of kids in both with on pair of parents in the one closest to the house. I wish them the happiness I was not to able to achieve.
I still have not heard from my son. He still has not checked the app we once used to communicate. It has been almost a month since I asked his mom about he and I meeting for dinner and asking him directly over the app. Originally, I planned to keep doing so in order for him to know that he was still on my mind. I come to suspect that he might get some enjoyment over the power of disappointing me, for lack of a better way to state this.
When his mother told me that he has no plan to see me again, I asked if that included for his birthday and Christmas gifts. She replied “…….as for gift, I thought they are not for trade, but up to you.” Not actually what I meant but it does raise an important question. It took me a couple of months to get him to remember to thank his grandmother for the large sum of money she gave hime for Christmas. He never did thank me for the Christmas gifts I gave him. I want to give him gifts but not sure I should reward such behavior. The last time we went out for dinner was the night of his graduation from elementary school. I asked him what he wanted for graduation. Immediately he said “high lighters”. I told I could get those but that I was thinking of something bigger and that he could use for much longer. He said he would think about it. But now, he won’t even speak to me. I did buy a small gift for him the other day. Have no idea when I can give it to him.
My printer/scanner suddenly began printing after an update. After I printed the few photos I downloaded to print for my son, this function once again disappeared. So the project of printing pics of he and I and sending them to him is on hold. How much better were the days when I could just drop off my negatives and get reprints. Another technological revenge episode.