Window Seat

A Trip to Japan

The window-seat passenger's few extra pounds were not enough to mark him as overweight, but they made it a tight squeeze between the seatback and Gavin's knees.

"Sorry. When you gotta go you gotta go," he said with something between a laugh and cough.

The young woman in aisle isle seat lowered her book and frowned. When the man was out of earshot she said, "Your friend likes to talk."

"We're not friends," he said quickly.

She laughed. "You can't choose who you sit next to. Interesting conversationalist, though."

"Yeah, he seems to have a lot on his mind."

"He's certainly not shy about sharing."

"No, he is not."

She looked back down the aisle and saw the man was returning.

"That was fast," she said and snatched the book from her knees and quickly focused on the pages.

"Sorry," the man said and wedged his way back into his seat.

"Sure, " Gavin said.

The man fished his seatbelt from between the seats and snapped it togeher.

"Can't be too safe," he said laughing again.

Gavin nodded into his inflight magazine.

The man leaned forward to the tiny window and watched the clouds and glimpses of ocean slowly unroll far beneath the airliner powering its way on to Tokyo.

"You know," he said, looking back at Gavin and launching back into his spiel as if he'd never left his seat, "life as we know it does not exist in Japan."

The woman looked up, but when their eyes met, quickly dropped back to her book.

He shrugged and continued.  

"It's true. What does an American live for? Work? Sacrifice? Are you kidding? Well, some, yeah. But the average American, no way. The bell rings, he's outta there. A house, time with the wife, kids, friends. Weekends, vacations, time away. But the Japanese? I tell you, you ask the average Japanese if he loves his wife, he'll look at you like you're crazy. I'm not kidding. He'll look at you like you're clear out of your mind. In love with his wife? Geez, that's the last thing on his mind."

The woman couldn't help herself. She let her book drop and looked over at him. He ignored her.

"I'm telling you. You know what's important to the Japanese? Work. And you know what else?" He paused half-a-beat, not waiting for an answer, "Nothing. Work, start to finish. That's it."

Gavin became aware that the woman was facing him. He snatched a glance and saw her looking, eyes wide, eyebrows raised. He waited for her to contribute something but realized she was waiting for him to get the window seat passenger in line.

He took a long breath to give himself time and turned back.

"Well," he said, reaching deep, "they must at least get some satisfaction from their jobs."

The man's eyes darted quickly to the woman then back to Gavin. "You gotta be kidding," he laughed. "Enjoyment has nothing to do with it. They just do it because they're supposed to—well, we all do— but that's the long and short of it for them. Now, you take your average American—doesn't like what he's doing, what's he going to do? He'll complain, for starters. And he'll take it for a while and then when he gets fed-up, he'll go for a walk and find something else."

Gavin started to fidget, but the seatbelt pressing into his hip reminded him there was nowhere to go. Not for many thousands of miles and another seven or eight hours. There was a slight bumping against the plane as invisible air currents buffeted the craft and the chime sounded announcing the illumination of the seatbelt light. He cursed himself for not getting up when he'd had the chance and decided not to miss the next one when the light went off. The light stayed on.