The Ballad of Billy Joe

I almost feel like I need to give you, my readers, a special assurance that the following is true, because one doesn't usually meet characters like this in the US, much less in Japan. Well, after picking up Kate and Lindsey on Sunday and spending the day gallivanting about Sasebo with them we planned to meet with some of Kate's friends in town and head out drinking. Maia had been feeling bad that day and a bit the night before, so she elected to stay in for the night while I went out, promising to come back in an hour and a half or so and bring some snacks. While I was getting the snacks from a Daily Yamazaki conbini (the best!) I stood in line with a fat, balding, 5 o'clock shadow-sporting man wearing a “FS” hat and clutching a free Japanese employment newsletter. The people ahead of us were taking forever so I made some uncomfortable small talk with my American “buddy”, asking him if the “FS” stood for “Fresno State”. In a thick southern accent and with a curl of the lip in what must be disdain for any mention of we godlesscommieliberalfeminazis in California he responded “Oh fuck no, it's Florida State football. Guess you didn't see the other side.” He showed me the other side bearing just the embroidered name of some Florida State quarterback I'd never heard of and I wondered to myself how seeing that would have tipped me off. I guess he feels every red-blooded American watches college football. “Ohhh...right. Yeah. Definitely not Fresno State”, I said.

He offered to let me go ahead of him in line, but I politely declined. He said he only had to ask the cashier if the employment newsletter in his hand was the newest one. A cursory glance at the thing said it was, but in Japanese. So this man was looking for work in a Japanese-only employment newsletter with no Japanese under his belt at all. “I don't know if this dude will even understand me” he said. Lo and behold the 60+-year-old cashier didn't understand a word and I stepped up to translate, confirming that it was, in fact, the newest one since the publication date said it had printed that morning like I told the guy a minute before. My new friend gave a mangled thanks to the cashier (“airy-gay-tow”) and left the store, waiting for me just outside. Dear Jeebus, what have I done...

He thanked me for the help and said he should “get on learning Japanese” to which I gave the perplexing response of “Oh, no problem. We have to watch out for each other and all that.” What the hell did I mean by that? Who are “we”? We men who watch college football? Whatever, it was time for his sob story as he followed me down the shopping arcade towards my hotel. According to my uninvited companion he had recently been discharged from the Navy not exactly dishonorably, but for something he was reluctant to go into. He was deposited in San Diego, given his pay and promptly bought a plane ticket back to Japan to live with a woman he has been seeing for two and a half years that I assume was his girlfriend. With so much prostitution around Sasebo though one can never be sure if he confused the deal. His efforts to get a job on-base in one of the contracted service corporations (Halliburton, for example) that pretty much compose the nuts and bolts of the military were not exactly turning up roses and his old friends in the service were slowly abandoning him or shipping out for duty. He was out of money at the time and had two bills that needed paying and his pre-paid cell phone was dry. That being the case he asked to use mine to call his girl, which I couldn't think of a lie quick enough to prevent getting Southern Man Cooties on my baby. She didn't pick up anyways.

The depressing tale of this misguided soul was harshing my 3-beer buzz and I quickly looked for an alley to duck down. When I found one I interrupted a tirade about the inequities of the world and said my hotel was down this way, but good luck to him. “Well, thanks for your help back there. And by the way, the name's Billy Joe.”

Billy Joe...I thought that name only cropped up in the movies or parody sketches of the Deepest Darkest South. How could parents do such a thing? What kind of beer, turpentine and NASCAR-fueled haze must mom and dad have been in to name him this?

On the way back I debated with myself whether or not brushing him off like that was the most moral thing to do, but really what other option did I have? No amount of money short of a plane ticket back to Pensacola could help him and no amount of advice about where to search for jobs would have done a thing with no college education or Japanese to back it up.

So godspeed, Billy Joe, wherever you are out there. Maybe there's a market for college football-themed English conversation classes there in Sasebo. And maybe not.

--Matt