Black Passenger Yellow Cabs: Making of a Sex Addict

MAKING OF A SEX ADDICT

“Steve, put down that magazine and find a book to read.”

“Yes Ms. Chambers.”

Another reason I love to go next door is to see Ms. Chambers’ magazines. Ms. Chambers is a teacher. She has many National Geographic magazines. I like the ones with the bare breasted African women on the cover.  I wish I was in Africa. I wish I could live with these women in Africa. How come these men don’t want to do it all the time with these women?

Sometimes the church sisters ask me to undo their brassieres for them and I get to see their breasts. They are big and they hang down. They are not nice like the African women’s breasts.  Ruth Anne and Peter-Gay show me their breasts sometimes too. I nag them every day to show me them.

“Why don’t you stop touching me and following me around? I’m going to tell yu madda.”

“Just show me them nuh, pleaaaase?”

Ruth-Anne is Sister Cordell’s grand-daughter and Peter-Gay is Sister Lindo’s daughter. Ruth-Anne is 16 and Peter-Gay is 15. I am 7. We are the only children on the church commune. Sometimes they come and help me with my school work.

“Ok Steve, mi will show you if you show me your own first.”

“Pinky swear?”

“Thunder roll and break my neck. Ruth-Anne stand up by the door and tell us when big people coming.”

I am nervous and excited at the same time. If grownups know what me and Peter-Gay are doing, they will beat all 3 of us with the bamboo cane or the leather strap, or tree branches until all of us dead. Peter-Gay lifts up her T-shirt. She raises her bra over her breast. My 7 year old teapot is trying to break through my shorts.

“Somebody is coming.”

This is it, we dead now. This is the worst thing we could be doing. Peter-Gay pulls down her brassier and shirt and pretends she’s helping with my school work.

“Ok, let’s practice your 2x table again. Two times two?

“Four.”

“Two times three?”

“Six.”

“She went back downstairs, it was Sister Rose.” Ruth-Anne notices the front of my shorts.

“Jesus Christ! Take it out so we can see it nuh?”

“You have to watch out for the big people, mi will show it to Peter-Gay if she takes off her panty and show me down there.”

Peter-Gay is taking off her panties, I’m pulling down my shorts.  Her panties are at her ankles. I reach out to touch her down there. She slaps my hand.

“Where is yours?”

I start removing my white fruit of the loom briefs. I can’t believe she’s going to let me see her downstairs parts. I’ve peeked at them before when they take a shower. But now she’s going to let me see everything. My little teapot is now a big teapot.

“Jesus Christ! Where did a little child like you get that thing from? I wouldn’t want to meet you when you become an adult, you will be killing women with that weapon. Ruth-Anne, come here. Come look at this!

“Jeeeeezas father! Peter-Gay, can you believe this?”

“Steve, you want to do the thing?”

“With you and Ruth-Anne?”

“But how you so greedy? No, wid me.”

I really want to do the thing with Ruth-Anne. She’s pretty, black like tar, with meat on her body. She has a small nose and a nice round bottom. Peter-Gay is too skinny and ugly even though she’s a fair skin girl.

“For true?”

“Yes, tomorrow.”

Sister Rose is coming up the stairs. We can hear singing, ‘Onward Christian Soldiers Marching As To War.’ I pull up my shorts. What am I going to do with my teapot? It’s still standing up. I put my hands in my pockets. Peter-Gay pretends to help me with school work.

“Two times eight?”

“Seventeen”

“No, sixteen. You know the answer, but yu just not concentratin.’

Sister Rose is in her room next to ours.

“You helping that lazy boy with his homework? All he likes to do is play. Play play play, that’s all Steve likes to do.

Next day, Peter-Gay and I are under the house. We are going to do it under the house. It’s dark, it’s dusty. There is cardboard on the ground.The cat is under here with her kittens. We scare her. She starts to carry them in her mouth. I’m even more nervous than I was yesterday. If the church sisters catch us, they will crucify us. I know the word crucify. That’s what they did to Jesus.

“Put it in nuh?”

“Put it in where?”

“Right here so.”

I can’t find the hole. Peter-Gay helps me.

“Right there, just put it in.” Peter-Gay pulls my butt toward her. Jesus Christ! Lord God! I shouldn’t take God’s name in vain, I will go to hell. It feels good. It’s the bestest feeling I ever had. Scorpions and centipedes live under here. Usually I am very very afraid of them. Not today. Today is the best day of my life.

When I see dogs doing it on the street, I always wonder what it feels like. It feels like I’m in warm jello. I don’t want to kill myself anymore. I want to do this for the rest of my life.

“Move up and down. Hurry up. Move like you have some life in yu.”

“Alright, we have to stop now before somebody catch we.”

“Wait nuh?”

“No we have to stop now. Somebody will catch we.”

I don’t want to stop, this is the most enjoyable thing I’ve done in all my 7 years.

Peter-Gay pushes me off her.

“We have to stop now. Is kill you want them to kill we? Next week we do it again.”

I’m 7 years old, next week will take a year to come.

“I will go out first and see if there’s anybody there.”

Peter-Gay crawls through the opening we came through. Sister Davis is there.

“Peter-Gay what are you doing under the house?”

“I went to get my ball, but a couldn’t find it.”

“Yes, we need to cover those openings with some mesh so that your ball doesn’t keep going under there.”

I’m waiting for the all clear signal from Peter-Gay.

“Come out now, hurry up.”

I rush out and brush myself off. I don’t want to do anymore school work, I don’t want to go to any more church services; no more Sunday school, no more young people’s meetings, prayer meetings. I just want to do the thing everyday. I want to do it with the church sisters. Not all of them, some of them are old. Jesus, if they know what I am thinking, they will murder me. I want to do it with women in the street, with my friends’ mothers, with my friends’ sisters. How come my friends don’t want to do it with their sisters? I wish I had a sister, I would do it with her everyday. I can’t get it out of my head. I’m always thinking about doing it.

Maybe, I can do it with the cat. One day I’m home from school, sick with fever.

“Come ‘ere kitty.”

“Where is the hole?” (trying to remove my pants)

“OOOuuch! Kitty scratch me.

In a few weeks I start to feel something in my teapot.

“Mummy, my teapot scratching me.”

“I will have to take you to children’s.”

“No mummy, I don’t want to go.”

I hate children’s hospital. I go there all the time. I’m always sick. Last time I went there was the worst. I was 6. Peter-Gay was picking some soursop leaves to make tea. I put my hand up her dress and touch her downstairs parts then run. She got angry and chased me. I ran fast fast fast to get away, I turn around to see how close she is, but she stop. When I turn back around to look in front of me, the church wall is right in front of me. I stretched out my hands. My left wrist is broken. Laying on a bed at Children’s Hospital, two doctors hold down my legs, one doctor hold down my right arm and mummy holds down my body, while two doctors pull my left wrist back into socket.

“ Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaooooo! Mummy why you letting them do this to me?

“We know it hurts, but this is the only way we can get your wrist back into socket. It not going to take long.”

That’s why I never want to see children’s hospital again.

“Look, don’t start with your foolishness. We are going to Children’s Hospital.”

The doctor gives mommy a light brown liquid in a pepsi bottle with a cork.

“It is very important that you pull back the little boys foreskin and wash beneath it everyday. I think that is the cause of this problem.”

“Yes doctor. Yu hear that Steve. No matter how much it hurts, we have to wash under your foreskin, eeeeeeeeeeeeveryday when you bathe. Thank you doctor.”

I don’t like it when mommy pulls back my foreskin, it hurts. It really hurts. I don’t care about pulling back my foreskin when I bathe, I just want to do the thing, or look at Ms. Chamber’s National Geographic magazines. Ms. Chambers is not a Christian. She wears pants, she wears make up and she creams her hair. She is the only person with a TV in the area. I see her in her nightgown when she lets people from the neighbourhood watch TV from her window. The next person I want to do the thing with is her.

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs: The Solo Performance. (The Exorcism)

I almost died in that doodu pit, but mummy beat me anyway. I think my mummy is a very frustrated woman. Until I was 3 years old, we lived with Brother Claire, his wife and three daughters, in their big house on a big piece of land. Mummy was going to be homeless, so they let us stay with them. The yard was full of trees and grass. There was even a river nearby.  I loved that house. Now we live in one little room on a church commune. We live on top of the church and sleep on one little bed. Sister Aspy and Sister Norma are in this little room too.  Sister Henry’s really small room is separated by a curtain.  Mummy and I sleep on a mattress made of coconut husk. They prick me every night I go to bed. Every morning when we get up Mummy picks off the chinks from me and her. Mummy says these bed bugs are little vampires, like Barnabas Collins. They suck your blood and kill you. I’m afraid of chinks. Then we kneel down by the bedside.

“Steve, clasp your hands and close your eyes. Heavenly father, we thank you for sparing our lives through another night of slumber.”

I hate praying, my knees hurt. I’m tired of all this praying. Everyday, all we do is pray, pray, pray. First thing in the morning, last thing at night. Sometimes if somebody is sick, all the church Sisters pray in the church at 4 o’clock in the morning. And then the person they’re praying for dies anyway.

“Thank you mighty Jesus for giving us yet another day. You could’ve taken us in our sleep, but you were merciful instead.

“Ouuch!”

“Close your eyes.”

Mummy is always pinching me. How would she know my eyes are open if her eyes weren’t open too?

“Lord you see the conditions we are living in. The nightly hails of gunfire, the killings, the black heart men who prey on little children.”

When I grow up to be a big man, I will never pray or go to church.

“We ask you once again oh Jesus of Nazareth, to cover us with your blood. Guide and protect us with your mighty hands oh Lord, until you come to reign again amen.”

Then we select a bible scripture from the promise box.

Mine reads: “Blessed be the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly.”

I hate all this praying and reading the bible. I hate church. I hate church, just like I hate the broken down houses in the neighbourhood; the stinking dead dogs on the streets; the sewage running in the middle of the street. I hate this place! I hate everything about this place. I want to go to America. My father is in America. He’s rich. Everybody is rich in America. My father has a Cadillac in America. A Cadillac is a big American car. We don’t even have shoes.

In America, everybody has a gas stove with an oven. We have to cook on a coal stove or wood fire out in the yard. It’s smoky, I can’t breathe and it makes my eyes water. And if we want to bake something, we have to put the pot with the batter on the wood fire, then put a piece of tin on the pot, then put some burning coal on the tin. That’s why Mummy never bakes. Everybody has an electric iron in America. We have to iron with a triangle piece of iron, that says “iron” on it, that we have to make hot on a wood fire or coal stove out in the yard. In America people eat at McDonald’s everyday. We have to go to the market every Saturday morning to buy food from people who come from the countryside. Then we have to cook the food on the wood fire outside. People have toilet and bathroom  inside their house in America. We have to pee or poo in a pot at night time and I have to take it out in the mornings. Sometimes I forget to take it out and mummy waits until night, when we come back from church, to make me take it to the toilet downstairs out in the yard. When I’m taking it out at night time, the boogeyman scares me and the stinking pee splash on me.

“Mummy I want to go to daddy in America.”

“You want to gu to your father? Yu want to go to your father? Has your father ever sent you one red cent from America?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know your father wants you?”

Mummy is right. Since my father went to America when I was 2 years old, he wrote only once, a long time ago. I don’t even know my father. I don’t know what he looks like. He’s never even sent me a picture. Mummy doesn’t have any pictures of him either. All I know is, every time mummy gets mad at me, she tells me I look exactly like him.

“Mummy, I want to roll off the bed and die.”

“Is what kind of foolishness you talking boy? You know it’s the devil in you making you say these things?”  “No mummy, it’s true. I really want to kill myself.”

Mummy yanks me by the arm.

“Come here to me!”

I know I’m going to get a good beating.

“We are going across to the churchyard. I’m going to ask Bishop to cast this demon out of you so you can stop talking all this rubbish.”

At least I’m not getting a beating. At least not yet.

Before I know it, I’m standing in front of Bishop Brown and many church sisters.

“Bishop, can you believe that Steve, at this tender age, is talking about killing himself? If that’s not the work of Satan himself, then I don’t know what is.”

The news shock the church sisters.

“That Sister D, this is the work of Lucifer and all his angels. Let me get the consecrated oil.”

Another prayer meeting. That’s ok, I was expecting a beating. Praying is better than beating any day. Bishop Brown comes back with a small bottle of oil. It says, ‘pure virgin olive oil’ on the bottle. I recognize that oil, Bishop uses it when he’s christening babies. They’re marching me back across the yard to the church. Sister Diviney starts to say something. “Little Stevie, you need to give your heart to Jesus and accept him as your personal savior. See how he saved you from the doodu pit? You need to get saved and give your heart to the Lord.”

Me and my big mouth. Next time I feel like killing myself, I won’t tell anyone. I’ll just kill myself. I’m pretty sure I’m going to kill myself before I get saved. Sister Diviney starts to ask me some questions. She’s a very important evangelist in the church.

“Steve, when did the devil start making you think these things?

“I don’t know.”

I’m standing at the altar in church. Bishop Brown, my mom and the church sisters are all around me. Bishop Brown has his very large hand on my head. He’s very old. His hand is shaking. He puts some Consecrated oil on his fingers and rub them on my forehead.

“In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit, I command thee Satan, to leave the body of this innocent child.”

Sister Diviney speaks in tongues.

“Doola Sooola makooola. Salla mallakai matoola.”

I think she’s crazy. I think they’re all crazy. Every one of them, Bishop Brown, the church sisters and mummy. I wish I could tell them they are crazy, but I’d lose all my teeth and the prayer would be longer. I want to tell them that I don’t believe in any of this foolishness. I just want to leave here and go to America. I want to run away. I want run away to grandma and my uncles and aunts in Mountain View. But I’m sure they’d just take me back here and beat me for running away.

“Oh heavenly father, drive out Lucifer from this innocent child, in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost. Amen.”

I still hate this place. I’m still sad. I still want to kill myself .  I want to kill myself or go to America.

Black Passenger Yellow Cabs: The Solo Performance. (The Doodu Pit)

“Steve?”

“Yes mummy?”

“A want yu to clean the two bicycles spic and span this morning.”

“Yes mummy.”

“A don’t want you to leave not even a speck of dirt when you are finished cleaning them.”

“Yes mummy.”

I live on top of a church on a commune of 4 buildings, with mummy and 50 other women. The church is in the centre and there are is a tenement next door, owned by the church. Mummy and I share a little bed. We share a room with Sister Henry and old, blind Sister Aspy. I don’t know why, but the doctor cut off her two legs. Mummy and the other church sisters are always making me do something for them. They call it chores. I call it child slavery. If it’s not cleaning Sister Henry and Sister Forbes bicycles, it’s sweeping the yard. If it’s not sweeping the yard, it’s going to the shop. If it’s not going to the shop, it’s going to the shoemaker. If it’s not going to the shoemaker, it’s going to the market.

“And whatever you do, don’t go over next door today.”

“Yes mummy.”

“You are to stay right here when yu finish cleaning them. Yu hear mi?”

“Yes mummy.”

“Alright, I’m gone to work. Don’t give any trouble today.”

I hurry up and finish cleaning the bicycles. After I finish cleaning the bicycles, I run straight to next door. I know they’re hiding something from me. Grownups are always trying to hide something from me.. (BEAT) Now I have to go pee. I don’t want to go to the toilettes near our room, because Sister Henry or somebody else will find something else for me to do. I run fast through the side gate. I like going next door. Some people in that yard are not Christians, they are worldians. At least that’s what mummy calls them.

“They’re jus’ living for dis worl’ but they will soon end up in a lake of fire.”

I like going next door because I get to hear music that’s not Christian music.

 

“Good morning Ms. Chambers. Good morning Ms. Ena.” I dash around the house corner to the toilette.

“Steeeeeeeeeeve! Don’t go round dere!”

Right in front of the toilette there is a rusty square sheet of corrugated tin. It is big like a manhole cover. I’m going too fast to avoid it. Once my barefoot touches that rusty tin, my foot bottom will split open, blood will come rushing out, I will have to go to Children’s Hospital and mummy will beat me for disobeying her. The rusty tin collapses under my foot and I drop into this big, black hole, just like Alice in wonderland. I land, plop in this mooshy greenish brown stuff. My feet are deep in the moosh up to my knees. I’m sitting in it. I’m sinking in it. The wall is round. It’s far away. The wall is moving. No, big drummer cockroaches line the wall. They are moving. I frightened them when I fall in. Now they’re flying around, plenty of them. They’re hitting me in the head. I can hear their little footsteps. They’re crawling on one another.  It’s very very stink in here.

 

I’M IN THE DOODU PIT.

“Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! Tek mi out. Somebady tek mi out!”

“Jesus Christ! Steve drop in the doodu pit.”

“Tek mi ooooooouuuuuut! Somebady tek mi out. I’m sinking!!!!” I’m up to my waist in doodu. I’m sitting in everybady’s doodu: Ms. Ena’s, Ms. Chambers, all the children in the yard, Sister Hudson, the skinny old lady in the yard. I can see paper mixed with the green/brown doodu.

 

“Tek mi ooooooooooooooooout!”

I can see the square hole I fell through. The sky is blue blue blue. I can make out Ms. Ena’s face. Many people from the neighborhood are looking down on me.

“Somebody soon come for you. Brother Claire, Steve drop in the doodu pit.”

I’m still sinking. Now I’m way past knee deep in doodu, I’m chest deep in mooshy, slushy doodu. I’m 6 years old. I’m going to die.

“Somebady tek mi ooooooouuuuut! Tek mi oooooouuuuuut!

Brother Claire is a deacon in the church. He’s on his belly outside. He drops pieces of cloth tied together through the hole. “Stop di cryin! The more you cry, is the more you move. And the more you move, is the more you sink! Hold on to the cloth!”

I’m trying to stop crying. I can’t wipe my eyes or my nose. There is doodu on my hands. I hold on to the cloth. I’m going up out of the doodu pit, covered with everybody’s doodu all over me. I’m not going die. I’m going back through the hole I fell through. I’m back on dry land. My feet are on solid ground instead of solid waste. Clumps of everybody’s doodu are all over my body. The yard is full of people. How did the news travel so fast?  Even Ms. Tomlinson and her children from way down by the seaside are here. I can never go to school again. I can never go anywhere again.

“Doodu boy, you’re lucky.”

That is what my name is now: Doodu Boy. Mummy is here. Jesus! I’m dead now. I should’ve just died in the doodu pit.

“Thank you Brother Claire, thank you so much. My son owes his whole life to you.”

“Is not me Sister D, is the Lord yu have to thank for that. Believe you me, it could have been much much worse.”

“Praise the Lord.” Mummy marches me over to the only cistern in the yard. She puts a hose on the pipe and starts to hose me down from a distance.

“Tek off your clothes.” She mixes Pine Sol and Lysol in a bucket of water. Now she’s washing me down with a rag. No, she’s scrubbing me down. It smells like Children’s hospital.

“Why are you so disobedient? Didn’t I tell you not to come over here?”

The scrubbing is over.

“Stay right here.”

She leaves and comes back with her handbag. It has long straps. She starts to beat me.

“Why, are, you, so, dis, o, be, di, ent? Ay? WHY?”

I’m dancing around crying. Ms. Ena is begging her to stop.

“Don’t beat him, after what he just went through don’t beat him Sista D.”

“He deserves it, his ears are too tough. Do, you know, how, much, you, made, me, worry, about you?”

“Ay, yes mummy. I’m going to be obedient next time. Mummy, mummy mummy!”

“Don’t mummy me. Stop the screaming.”

Mummy drags me back to the church yard. She hauls me upstairs and sends me to bed even though it’s almost lunch time. Wow, that was scary, I’ll never disobey big people again.

 

 

A New Chapter: Black Passenger Journals

With the roller coaster ride that is the republishing of Black Passenger Yellow Cabs still ongoing (follow my Facebook feed for up to date info on that), I’ve had less to write about on these pages for some months.

However, a new writing class that I’m undertaking right now asks me to keep a journal every day, so I thought why not share these entries with my much-appreciated readers and keep you up to date with my current thoughts on life, writing and, well, these first entries should give you the idea…

JOURNAL: SATURDAY JULY 16TH, 20011

So I’m taking this writing class and I’m supposed to write every day. I’m supposed to write a journal. But how do you write when there’s nothing to write about? Usually I write when I have a story in mind, some specific plot. I don’t have to have it all planned out from beginning to end, but I have to have at least some idea what the story is about. But this is different. I gotta write, basically by the seat of my pants. Oh well, it can’t be that bad. But it most likely will be about sadness and unhappiness. ‘Cause that’s pretty much been my feelings since coming to LA a year ago and especially since the tsunami-quake in Japan in March. It’s sad that I can’t be there.

I’m always absent at the wrong time. I’m always not there when my help is needed.

It’s like my house is on fire and I can only watch it on the internet. Can’t do anything about it. I’m 7,000 miles away. Can’t even volunteer. Can’t even take any pictures or shoot any videos. I know I shouldn’t be thinking about photo opportunities in the disaster, but I do. And no, I don’t feel guilty about it. I get off on natural disasters. Since I was a kid. I get off on large scale disasters. I’m pretty sure it has a lot to do with the death infested environment I was raised in. Every day someone, someone from the church, or some animal, some goat or dog or chicken was always dying. It’s like every Sunday I was on a funeral excursion. And they were fun. I got to leave the shanty and travel to the countryside.

My obsession with death and dying started going off the charts when I turned 40. And I mean really, it became like an obsession. What the hell is that all about?

It’s like my childhood obsession on steroids. I started thinking about death all the time. I guess it was my midlife crisis. I turned 40 and I don’t feel invincible anymore, like I did in my younger days. But the irony is, I spent my younger days, until 35 years old, wanting nothing more than to kill myself. What is going on? A few months before I left Japan for America, I started searching the internet for airline crashes. Then I found the motherload: the Tenerife air crash between the KLM and Pan Am 747s. Everyone died on the KLM plane.

Everyone, I mean everyone literally perished in a massive ball of fire. What must that have been like?

I try to put myself on that flight. No, I put myself on that flight, but I don’t die, I walk out unscathed, brushing myself of like Lee Majors in the Six Million Dollar man. I loved the Six Million Dollar man. I was obsessed with that show. Every time I ran I would make that bionic sound. When my mom sent me on errands to the store, I ran making that bionic sound, humming the theme song in my head. Sometimes even out loud. Whenever I looked at anything, I looked, effecting the bionic eye sound. Even as an adult, I walked out of my seven major car accidents, humming the six million dollar man theme song. It’s only after watching the KLM Pan Am crash over and over and over again, that it begins to sink in that, if I were on that plane, I would’ve been just as dead as those hundreds of passengers.

What were they thinking about at the very last minute? That’s what I wanna know. I want to be there, at that very moment when grim shows up. I wanna talk to him, “hey grim, what’s up? Good to finally meet you, heard lots about you.” But I don’t actually want to go with him. It would be exciting only to meet him. There’d be no thrill in actually going with him, I’d be dead and I won’t have any awareness of anything.

So I worked myself in a frenzy and pretty soon I was afraid to board the plane for that 13 hour flight to San Francisco. I don’t usually work like that, I’m usually calm and fearless. And just as to be expected, I landed at SFO without incident, not even turbulence. Recently I discovered air crash investigations on YouTube. And man, talk about a feast. I can watch episodes about widely publicized plane crashes, the Concorde crash, and scare myself shitless. So I do. I do marathons of air crash investigations. Times when I should be writing, I’m probably watching hours of air crash investigation. In fact, right now as I write, I’m thinking about episodes I could be watching or re-watching. Wanna see the one about the L1011 crash in the Everglades again. Can’t believe that a 12 cent light bulb can bring down a jet. But that was back then, back in 1972. No way that could happen now.

Another thing I started noticing when I turned 40, I’m 47 now, is how fast time goes. Before 40, one day had some 20 something hours in it. It took a full 24 hours to complete one day.

When I got to forty it seems the days, weeks, months, years whip by so fast. One day now has only about 7 hours in it. I am now 3 years away from 50. Fifty! That’s crazy. Fifty is the age for old people. When I was 10, grandma was 50. I thought that that was just an impossible age to get to. It was just some age that was way out there.

I used to look at my grandmother and think, how does one get to be 50 years old? Well, I’m gonna find out in a little over 1,000 days.

As I’m writing these regularly, there will be fresh material for these pages as long as the journal entries continues, so stay tuned.

Japan’s Island of Neglected Women

A few months ago, this video interview with Jamie Paquin discussed the bushido spirit of the Japanese male, an attitude that paved the way for the vibrant sexual encounters described in Black Passenger Yellow Cabs: Of Exile & Excess In Japan.

Some exciting news about a new partnership for Black Passenger is about to be announced in more detail on this blog. Prior to that, here’s an extract from the chapter ‘Island of Neglected Women’, the cultural phenomenon discussed in the video and at the core of Black Passenger Yellow Cabs.

“In the spirit of bushido, Japanese men are oblivious to women’s needs, and for them it is most unmanly to strive to give pleasure to their partners. No true samurai would be concerned about whether he brought his wife to orgasm. The entire society is structured around women humbly serving men and, not surprisingly, the bedroom is no exception.

Enter exhibit A: Japanese porn, where the man fondles the clitoris mechanically for a predetermined amount of strokes, twists the woman’s nipples as if trying to find his favourite radio station, then inserting, thereafter quickly releasing. A significant majority of Japanese women to whom I’ve posed the question or whom I’ve known biblically, have not had a satisfying sexual experience with a Japanese man and a hundred percent of them who had had no prior experiences with foreigners, exclaimed that they had no idea that sex could be as enjoyable as our sex. As only a small percentage of Japanese women date inter-racially or inter-nationally, this island of extremely sexually frustrated and neglected women, is paradise for the Western sex addict, especially one with a yellow preference.

Further evidence of this deprivation is the presence of host clubs for women. These are clubs patronized by women, beautiful, young and middle-aged, in order to receive attention and engage in conversation and intimacy all for a price.

Only in Japan!

In an interview with one of the hosts in Tokyo, he admitted that such clubs could exist only in Japan, because the men here are so excruciatingly unkind to women.

Japan’s male chauvinist society, the most pronounced in the industrial world and among the most female oppressive in the industrialized world, is directly responsible for socializing the most diffident and unempowered women in the developed and some of the developing world. Brow beaten for hundreds of years, they are generally naïve, unaware of their potentialand possess negative self-worth, instilled in them by their fathers’ and society’s expectations of them, only to be “baby-making machines,” as stated by one of the country’s top politicians in early 2007. His comments caused an uproar among women, who maybe are slowly starting to revolt against their subservient role in society.

With precious little expectations from Japanese men, many Japanese women find being used by Western men – to which they are sometimes unmindful – a far more fulfilling experience.“

Wa: Japan’s Harmony In a Time of Crisis

The blogosphere is awash in astonishment by the absence of looting in Japan, in the face of their worst disaster since the Second World War. From The United States to China, bloggers are confounded by the orderliness of the Japanese, even in such a crisis of hopelessness. And just as Chinese and Westerners are amazed at the absence of looting, the Japanese are shocked by looting in other countries during natural disasters and other occasions.

As a long term resident of Japan, I have come to enjoy this and other characteristics of Japan. And coming from a chaotic upbringing in Jamaica, I welcome the Japanese socialization, which places wa (harmony) at the pinnacle of the most important tenets of that society.

There is no concept more important to the Japanese than that of wa. The thought of breaking into a store and running out with a refrigerator on one’s back would be a major disturbance to harmony. If one’s foot is being stepped on in a train in Japan, in the interest of maintain wa one would not bring this to the attention of the perpetrator, as doing so would make him or her – the perpetrator, that is – uncomfortable and wa would be disturbed. Instead, the victim should just chill, knowing that the perpetrator’s action is unintentional and s/he – most likely he – will eventually discover his or her own misdeed, or disembark the train, whichever comes first.

Maintaining wa is especially important given that Japan is more a society of ‘us’ than of ‘me’, where the needs of others are more important than those of self. This requires immense trust in and of each other, without which Japan could never have achieved such rapid economic success. One of my most profound experiences upon moving to Japan was in a Taxi in Kobe on myway to work. I had hailed a cab at Seishin Chuo station to the Japanese multi-national whereI worked. Upon our arrival, the fare was 800 yen, the equivalent of roughly $8.00. However,the smallest bill I had was a 10,000 yen note, the equivalent of approximately $100.00.

Having recently arrived from the US, where – especially in New York – Black Passengers are normally ignored by Yellow Cabs, I was expecting a dramatic showdown involving the police, arrest and possibly deportation. Instead the cabbie simply inquired when I would be finishing work,and instructed me to pay him upon my return to Seishin Chuo subway station. What’s more, he continued by instructing me to pay any cabbie present in his absence.

I was shocked and wanted to remind him that I was black, and ask if he had not been concerned that I would do a runner. This early experience in Japan demonstrated to me the level of social trust that is the norm in Japan. When I relayed this incident to my students, they couldn’t even understand why it was of such importance to warrant a discussion. “Atari mae” (that’s natural orthat’s to be expected) was their response in unison.

Another important cultural tenet in Japan is the need to not be a bother to others. Hito nimeiwaku wo kakenai, or don’t inconvenience others. Looting would be a major inconvenience to others.

It is my strong desire for inhabitants of the West to take a page from Japanese social mores, but I would be joyful if those in my native Jamaica would even take just a paragraph.

 

Stefhen Bryan is available for public speaking engagements, interviews, book readings, and other assignments on the subject of Japan, its society, and the issues of sexual addiction and others that inspired Black Passenger Yellow Cabs.

Black Passenger Extracts – “Retreat To Kansai”

‘Retreat To Kansai’ is the chapter of my book that will be the pilot episode for the Vook, which we looked at previously here.

This excerpt covers the meeting of a friend playing a surrogate sex role for a Japanese guy who met this ‘reggae groupie’ online. Charged with bringing back graphic footage for him, Chef takes on his sexual mission more than willingly…

“You’re waiting for me right?” he interrupted. To which she greeted him with the typical shy Japanese grin, unlike, he relayed, “a girl who was used to getting hosed down by reggae super stars.” Her personality then was 180 degrees different from her cyber-personality, not as extroverted as had been expected and she seemed to know her way around Kobe very well, leading him to a love hotel. Their conversation was sparse on the wayand though she was shy, she appeared to be on a mission: to enter the dark side.

Upon arrival at the hotel she whipped out her cartoon character infested purse and inserted a 5,000 yen note in the slot, standing with her legs spread slightly apart and her toes turned inward. Immediately upon entering, he attached his lips to hers and commenced peeling away her layers until she stood only in her panties…”

To read the full chapter and more, you can pick up Black Passenger Yellow Cabs in paperback or on Kindle here on Amazon (US link, click here for other countries).