Gentleman Thief

Here in Japan, apart from my books and clothes, my most important possession is my bicycle. It is the worst bicycle in the world. It is called “The Sunflower.”

Today, one of the brake lines snapped, causing me to slam into the wall of an Italian restaurant. There is a hole in the seat cushion – right where I typically put my nuts. The tires slowly leak air, so I have to fill them up every week. Did I mention that it is called “The Sunflower”? On the plus side, it is purple – the color of royalty.

Every week I have to go to my local gas station and ask for their air pump to fill up the tires. I hate doing this, because it makes me feel like The Poorest Man in the World. Everyone else is a paying customer, putting gasoline in their cars, and then I wheel in on my shambles of a bike to beg for mere air.

The contrast between me and the customers is most apparent when I am actually pumping the air into my tires. Everyone else is standing by, relaxing, waiting for their tanks to fill, and I am furiously pumping up and down in some kind of mock sexual frenzy – saying the word “fuck” in an exasperated tone of voice whenever the little air nozzle comes off the wheel.

Sometimes I also end up running around the parking lot because the wind has blown away the greasy plastic bag that the pump comes in. I’m usually saying “fuck” then, too.

Today, when I went to the gas station to borrow the air pump, no one was behind the counter. There was a Japanese attendant waiting outside, but I hated the idea of summoning him into the store just to ask for the air pump, so I decided to wait. He would eventually come in of his own accord.

He didn’t.

To get his attention (I knew that he could see me out of the corner of his eye), I decided to steal something. Well, not actually “steal.” I would simply pick something up – an item of negligible worth – and slowly move it towards my jacket pocket. All the while I would be staring at the attendant and making him uncomfortable with my intense eye-beams. He would be forced to look.

The thing that I chose to “steal” was a small figurine with a moving head. There was a solar panel in the base of the figurine, and this is what caused the head to move. Maliciously, I covered the solar panel, thereby depriving the tiny creature of sunlight, and its head stopped moving. It gave me a feeling of real power. I flicked the head. It jiggled. I decided to “steal” it.

Just as I had started to raise the toy from the counter, the attendant came in. He did not greet me, but instead, with a very serious expression, he looked at the toy in my hand.

“Do you like it?” he asked.

“I do,” I said.

“Please take it,” he said. “It is my gift.”

“No, no, I couldn’t.”

“Please. Go on. I insist.”

“Ok,” I said, depositing it in my jacket pocket.

He smiled.

“By the way,” I said, “can I also use the bicycle pump?”

Not only did he produce the pump, but he also filled my tires with air. He didn’t even swear when the little nozzle came off, or when the plastic bag blew away in the wind and he had to go chasing after it because I had just eaten a bag of Doritos and was afraid of getting a cramp.

This is the kind of thing that only happens in Japan.