‘Holy shit. That looks bad.’
FJ had her foot out of her sandal and was showing me the toe she had broken the night before dancing on STR’s roof. In true SoCal spirit, this California girl wasn’t about to forfeit her flip flop fashion for a broken toe. Still, it did look bad.
‘It’s not the first time. I’ve broken the same toe on the other foot while dancing before. It’ll heal eventually.’
I looked at the other toe. It was bent inwards half way down. ‘If you say so.’
It was around 1 in the afternoon and the sun was still high over Kumamoto City. FJ and I walked the streets looking for STR, but he was hard to spot in the surging crowd of half-naked twenty-somethings, all on break from having danced with drunken horses all morning.
Maybe I should give you a little background to this auspicious day…

Once a year, every year in Kumamoto city, 68 groups of men, women, and children each accompany a solitary horse – one per group – as they scream, chant, dance, and drink their way through roughly 16 hours’ worth of winding city streets. Meanwhile, they feed their thirsty beasts a mixture of water and alcohol, leaving the horses deranged and, more often than not, blowing more chunks than my first college roommate. Back in the glory days, they horses would be butchered and eaten raw at the end of this precocious promenade, but I heard they’ve stopped doing it recently. Something about animal rights. Whatever.

The reason for all of this delicious debauchery stems from a victory by Japan over Korea in a battle about 500 years ago.

The first group of marchers to parade bye after the break had finished was the first group of the entire procession. Fortuitous, because now I can describe the entire procession to you. The first to come were Shinto priests, dressed in white and leading children who carried large offering coffers on their shoulders while the crowd pelted them with coins. Next to come was a pair of men waving giant flags, followed by several rows of men carrying pikes with black balls of fur stuck at the end. Heads of the defeated?

Shortly after that came the horses. Each group was about 50 yards apart from the other, and the horse would be generally kept in the middle of its group of courters. Every once in a while a horse would be taunted in to bucking, kicking out his hind legs at the crowd with saliva foaming from his mouth and eyes rolling drunkenly in his sockets.

65 or so horses and several hours later, we saw STR. Beer in one hand, traffic control light in the other, it appeared to be his job to keep the crowds at bay lest somebody be knocked the hell out by a flying hoof. We bade him farewell after a few minutes, and I went home. STR showed up at my house a few hours later.

‘What time to we have to get up in the morning?’
‘Papa will pick us up in front of Lawson’s at about 6.’
‘So in like 4 hours?’
‘Give or take.’
‘Fuck me.’

Daybreak had me making a pot of coffee and sharing a smoke with STR on my balcony. Today we would go to Fukuoka to visit Costco and see a Japanese pro ball game. STR would fall asleep in the back of the van. I would talk to Papa’s kid about his skull wallet chain and where he wants to go to high school. We would eat hot dogs and pizza in Costco, after purchasing bricks of cheddar and a giant jar of Jelly Bellys. And now I WILL leave behind this passive voice nonsense with one last tidbit for you to gnaw on… The setting: the Yahoo Dome, home of the Softbank Hawks, Kyushu’s only professional baseball team.

It’s the bottom of the ninth, and Chiba is up by two runs. In a fairy tale series of events, the Hawks load the bases. Two outs. The batter steps up to the plate.
Swing and a miss. Strike one.
Ball, low and inside.
Ball, low and inside. The batter is holding his ground. The tension is rising in the stands. People are on their feet.
Foul ball, strike two.
Ball, high. The stadium is electric. The pitch comes – and the batter connects! The ball rockets to the left of the shortstop, it will find a hole! But no, the shortstop makes a spectacular diving catch. Game over. I look down at my beer. I wonder what became of those horses.