Chapter 3: Edo Period Japan

Rows of Buddhist monks chanted sutras in rhythmic unison within the Jodo Shinshu temple. Their droning voices carried outside the massive wooden building through its rice paper windows, muffled by fresh snow on the dirt and cobblestone dusk streets of the tiny rural Japanese village of Fukui Prefecture on the northwest Honshu island.

A peasant woman in a snow-dusted, wide-brimmed straw hat and wooden geta, or clogs, silently deposited a dark ceramic urn filled with grains of rice on the temple's door step. She then bowed deeply, hands clasped, wrinkled eyes closed tightly, and muttered the Nembutsu prayer to herself as the droning voices continued, "Namu Amida Butsu."

Inside, the monks sat erect in lotus position in the near darkness, the pause between verses punctuated by short measured inhalations. Scores of bald shaved heads framed by jet black robes bowed in symmetrical rows before the candlelit golden shrine of Amida Buddha, the Enlightened One.

The Elder Priest kneeling at the head of the room raised a cylindrical ebony mallet and struck the cast iron temple bell several times. Its bellowing ring resonated through the chamber, through each narrow temple corridor, echoing endlessly through minds empty of thoughts, focused only on the Void within.

One monk, Hideo Sako, could not concentrate. His torso rocked gently back and forth, brow wrinkled with stress as his lips formed the syllables of rote prayer. Beyond tightly closed eyes he was crouched behind the wide trunk of an elm tree at a river's edge. Hugging the trunk, he pressed his head against the chalky bark, scraping his cheek as he edged his face out ever so slightly, straining for a view.

The Elder Priest rose slowly until he was standing. He gazed out at the rows of chanting monks, focusing on the orange-red dot painted on each forehead, studying them. Picking up his ebony mallet in one hand, he began walking down the aisle.

In Hideo's mind, sitting nude on a smooth flat rock in the rushing river currents was Kumiko, a beautiful village girl of fifteen. Hideo spied her as she wrung her hip-length ink black hair of water in her tiny hands, her knees slightly parted and dark pubic triangle in view. Kumiko's developing breasts were full and perfect, her round nipples pink and erect from the cold water, and her smooth, unblemished skin pale and milky.

Hideo breathed heavily and irregularly, gasping at her luscious female symmetry. Short moans escaped his lips. Sweat trickled down his furled brow as blood engorged and distended his pulsating male organ. He reached down inside his robe to free his manhood from his clothes.

Ripples of bright, undulating points of light flickered before Hideo's eyes as the back of his head took the full impact of the Elder Priest's swinging mallet. Blood trickled down his neck as he slumped over in his place unconscious, forehead touching the tatami mat floor.

The other monks continued their chanting, never missing a beat. The Elder Priest continued down the aisle.

Introduction

I am a Japanese-American, a third generation sansei born in 1956 in Detroit, Michigan -- the deteriorating urban sprawl in the heartland of America known colloquially by African Americans as "Motown", or by the Silent Majority as "Motor City", the birthplace of the modern factory assembly line, Rhythm and Blues, and once home of America's fallen and iconic auto industry.

I am the product of two parents of pure Japanese ancestry and amusingly think of myself as "Made in America with All Japanese Parts".

My paternal grandfather was a Buddhist priest of the Jodo Shinshu Pure Land sect, and my family have been Buddhist priests in Japan for 29 generations, over 700 years. My maternal grandparents are gone; my mother's mother died when she was barely a teenager, and her father, a destitute photographer, abandoned his wife and 7 children years earlier and never returned. To this day we don't know where he went.

As an American of Japanese ancestry I have straddled two cultures and two identities with vastly different points of view. My disconcerting ambivalences have forced me more than once to take The Middle Path, and in so doing I have developed a degree of subjective-objectivity (yes, this is possible, but totally schizoid), introspection, and insouciance. However, more often than not, in my youth I was left confused and undecided and in emotional disarray.

I have spent my entire life engaged in a process of self-definition and -examination in the search for the essence of who I am, where I came from, and where I am going.

To keep things interesting, I have combined memoir and fiction, imagining ancient ancestors whose stories were spoon-fed to me by relatives in bitesize morsels, enough to get the flavor and texture, but always leaving me hungry for more.

I believe that my story and the story of my family, though unique, is a universal story of the American Immigrant Experience -- that forging of an identity within the simmering ethnic melting pot of the New World, the gold paved mountain, skyscrapered metropolis, and idealized land of plenty that beats in the heart of every foreigner who longs for opportunity, riches, and freedom -- and the right to call themselves an American.

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I have a confession to make. In my haste to get off my butt and do something, damnit! I put up this blog/website and posted chapters that are not quite completed; I'm sure those of you who have read ahead will realize this. I apologize.

I've been working on this novel for over 20 years and have only 7 chapters to show for it. Those of you who are writers will understand. We all believe that writing our novel will happen when things are just right: when your kid has graduated high school and is away at college, when you retire and never have to work again, when you have a long break and can just sit down and do nothing but write till your keyboard explodes.

Writers procrastinate endlessly. The smallest excuse like, Geez, that LOST re-run I've seen 3 times is gonna be on again -- or -- God-dangit, my car does need a wash right now. Need I go on? So, having taken Buddhist impermanence to heart, I realized that I could be mowed down by a 40 foot semi at any time and then, by golly, no one would ever even know I was working on my opus novel.

Yes, I promise to complete those incomplete chapters. I will make them whole and they will sing like Caruso. I will make time. Because this matters.

Thank you for reading. If you're so inclined, please subscribe to stay tuned for future chapters -- if I ever get around to them (I will).

Your confidante on this voyage,
Bruce Hidemi Sakow