Saved Scribbles: It`s official: I have been invited to join the Japanese mafia!

The slow-rising, swirling clouds of mist, the bastard children of hot air balloons and lazy pinwheels, rose from the hot waters of the onsen into the still night air, transforming the onsen pool into a witch's cauldron complete with children jumping and frantically swimming around like live, warty toads added to the mix for their magical properties and red-faced bathers stewing in groups of two and three along the sides of the pool like eyeballs and rabbit's feet that, as a result of constant witch stirring (which unlike 'normal' stirring continues for hours and is often unnecessary and simply for show) and hours of boiling, float in clusters and get pushed to the edges of the pot. I slid my way along the huge granite rocks that lined the pool and searched for a rock that mirrored the curve of my spine, a rock that would allow me to lounge and sit upright at the same time. When I stopped moving, exhaled, and looked up at the manicured landscape that surrounded the outdoor onsen pool, I understood why other JETs said this was the best onsen in Nagano: huge boulders guarded the delicate, multi-colored leaf dresses and jewelry of the surrounding trees like bodyguards with pinkie rings (the kinds worn on thick pinkies used to leave a specific imprint on the foreheads or cheeks of trespassers) and the main pool was studded with tiny islands of rock and sectioned into smaller pools of varying temperatures. The "cold pool" seemed as if it contained some chemical that allowed the water to sit calmly below water's normal freezing point, and, to my friend Mike, this is what made the pool appealing. He would cook his insides and redden his entire body in the hot pool and then jump into the cold pool, yelp and roll in the waters like a submerged dog who hates being wet, and then quickly scurry back into the hot pool. After listening to him eagerly endorse this type of extreme bathing behavior, behavior that seemed to go against the traditional and tranquil bathing method favored by all of the non-foreigners who sat in comatose states in the onsen, I agreed to soak my legs in the cold pool (I couldn't muster up enough machismo to dunk my entire body). After a few shivering minutes, I hobbled back into the hot pool like a frail, fur-less, runt of a penguin that had just been pushed into the icey sea by the local iceberg bully, the big one who grew plump and turned black before all of his friends. To say that the blood in my legs turned into liquid fire would be an understatement: it felt as if electricity surged through my legs from the inside out; two albino moray eels dangled from my torso, and if any passing children had happened to accidentally brush against my leg hairs in the first few moments after I returned to the hot pool, surely their lives would have ended in jaw-clenched, electric misery.

Mike, Ryan, and I soaked and talked for about an hour and tried to act as if our nakedness was no big deal. This type of acting was hard to pull off, however, because all three of us were raised in America, a hive that has yet to embrace naked socializing even though its worker bees tease the eyes and tempt the mind on a daily basis with advertisements and shows that are glossed over with a clear, cheap coat of exaggerated sexuality, the kind that disintegrates during a heavy downpour or after prolonged scrubbing. To practice proper onsen etiquette, one must look people in the eye during conversation, completely avoid looking at the birthday-suited children that endlessly circle, crash into one another during games of tag, and zigzag around their nucleic parents like over-charged electrons, and avoid staring at the tiny, jiggling, fleshy kings that rule perched high above (or sometimes barely atop) their black mountains of wiry brambles.

Now that I've grown accustomed to covering up with what I affectionately call "My Jimmy Towel" (a dangerously small washcloth that is a modern day fig leaf of sorts used by onsen regulars) I can saunter around the onsen with a swagger that is usually possessed only by droopy-skinned, gray-haired, onsen masters and men with freakishly large, rhinoceros genitalia. I can complete an onsen mission without my trusty towel, but having it rounds out the experience and makes a white guy feel a little less white. Mike refuses to use the "vanity towels," and he thinks the popular custom of putting the towel on one's head while soaking in the onsen to keep the head warm is repulsive. He explained, "No one thing should ever cover a guy's dick AND the top of his head!"

When I went back into the locker room to dry off, I saw the tell tale signs of the Japanese mafia etched into the skin of a bather a few lockers down: massive tattoos on the back and arms. I couldn't resist complimenting the man on his tattoos despite the fact that other JETs have warned me not to talk to the members of the yakuza, or Japanese mafia. I pointed to the dragon that wrapped up his arm from his wrist to his shoulder and said, "Tattoo, I like." He smiled and said that he liked my tattoos. In broken English, with the aid of his friend's choppy translation help, he explained that he started the outline for his back tattoo when he was 16 years old. He said he was currently 29 years old and that he will get a full body, traditional style Japanese tattoo that will extend from his ankles and wrists up to his neck by the time he dies (when I saw him he had a completed full sleeve and the outline of a large dragon on his back with a small patch of color). He said his arm was completed with machine, but the faded, red areas of flames on his back were completed using the point of an ivory bone, a steady hand, and a whole lot of red ink. He enjoyed a good laugh when he heard that I was a teacher at a Japanese high school, and I had to explain that I wore long sleeves in school to cover-up the tattoo on my arm. We struggled to communicate for a few minutes, and I eventually gave up trying to talk in English with a person who knew only a few English words. I went to get my things, and as I walked past the tattooed man, I was shocked by the way in which he chose to say good-bye—he firmly patted my butt twice with his right hand! I didn't know what to make of this strange gesture at first, but I continued walking and exited the onsen locker room. I'm convinced that the man's butt tap can obviously mean only one thing: I have officially been accepted into the Japanese mafia.