I mean it was like my first frightened realization of what to be japanese really meant—To be Japanese and not to believe in life any more and to be gloomy like Beethoven yet to be Japanese in gloom, the gloom of Bashô behind it all, the huge thunderous scowl of Issa or of Shiki, kneeling in the frost with the bowed head like the bowed-head-oblivion of all the old horses of Japan long dust.
He sits there on the lawn bench looking down and when Dave asks him “Well you gonna be alright soon George” he says simply “I dont know’—He really means “I dont care”—And always warm and courteous with me he now hardly pays any attention to me—He's a little nervous because the other patients, G.I. vets, will see that he’s received a visit from a bunch of ragged beatniks including Joey Rosenberg who is bouncing around the lawn looking at flowers with that bemused sincere smile—But little neat George, just 5 feet 5 and a few pounds over that and so clean, with his soft feathery hair like the hair of a child, his delicate hands, he just stares at the ground—His answers come like an old man’s (he’s only 30)—“I guess all the Dharma talk about everything is nothing is just sorta sinking in my bones,” he concedes, which makes me shudder—(On the way Dave's been telling us to be ready because George’s changed so)—But I try to keep things going, “Do you remember those dancing girls in St.Louis?”—“Yeh, whore candy” (he’s referring to a piece of perfumed cotton one of the girls threw at us in her dance, which we tacked up later to a highway accident cross we’d yanked out of the ground one blood red sunset in Arizona, tacking this perfumed beautiful cotton right where the head of Christ was so that when we brought the cross to New York naturally we had everybody smelling it but George pointed out how beautiful we'd done all this subconsciously because the net result was that all the hep-cats of Greenwich Village who came in to see us were picking up the cross and putting their heads (noses) to it)—But George doesnt care any more—And anyway it’s time to leave.
But ah, as were leaving and waving back at him and he’s turned around tentatively to go into the hospital I linger behind the others and turn around several times to wave again—Finally I start to make a joke of it by ducking around a corner and peeking out and waving again—He ducks behind a bush and waves back—I dart to a bush and peek out—suddenly we're two crazy hopeless sages goofing on a lawn—Finally as we part further and further and he comes closer to the door we are making elaborate gestures and down to the most infinitesimal like when he steps inside the door I wait till I see him sticking a finger out—So from around my corner I stick out a shoe—So from his door he sticks out an eye—So from my corner I stick out nothing but just yell “Wu!”—So from his door he sticks out nothing and says nothing—So I hide in the corner and do nothing—But suddenly I burst out and there HE is bursting out and we start waving gyrations and duck back to our hiding places—Then I pull a big one by simply walking away rapidly but suddenly I turn and wave again—He walking backwards and waving back—The further I go now also walking backwards the more I wave—Finally we're so far apart by about a hundred yards the game is almost impossible but we continue somehow—Finally I see a distant sad little Zen wave of hand—I jump up into the air and gyrate both arms—He does the same—He goes into the hospital but a moment later he’s peeking out this time from the ward window!—I’m behind a tree trunk thumbing my nose at him—There’s no end to it, in fact—The other kids are all back at the car wondering what’s keeping me—What's keeping me is that I know George will get better and live and teach the joyful truth and George knows I know this, that’s why he’s playing the game with me, the magic game of glad freedom which is what Zen or for that matter the Japanese soul ultimately means I say, “And someday I will go to Japan with George” I tell myself after we've made our last little wave because Ive heard the supper bell ring and seen the other patients rush for the chow line and knowing George's fantastic appetite wrapped in that little frail body I dont wanta hang him up tho he nevertheless does one last trick: He throws a glass of water out the window in a big froosh of water and I dont see him any more.
“Wotze mean by that?” I’m scratching my head going back to the car.