Stick with Me and You'll See All Kinds of Crazy Shiz

Riding the train through Tokyo, minding our own business, Wil and I witnessed a strange and rare thing.  First, let me say that people rarely ever use their phones on the trains, and if they do, it is very briefly and ashamedly in hushed tones.  There are even special "priority" seats on the train where phone use is completely prohibitted.  So we were very surprized and - dare I admit it - entertained, when the woman across from us began screaming into her phone.  Repeatedly.  For a good 10 minutes.  Everyone in the car was glancing nervously and/or inquisitively in her direction.  She got so loud that her voice rattled in my brain!  But we were captivated.  Here was a Japanese woman, the epitome of cultured and polite society, breaking all sorts of social etiquette rules like a bull in a china shop.  I don't know all of what was said, but the conversation ended with the Japanese equivalent of "f-ing bastard!"   Wil has been in Japan for 10 months and he said he'd never seen anything like it.  I made a joke about him seeing all kinds of crazy shit when with me.  We had our laugh.  Moving on.

Later, walking through Ueno, we came to an intersection outside the station...and something seemed...off.  I'm not sure what...it was too...quiet, maybe?  Halfway across I found out why. 

There was a guy, just laying in the street.  A cabbie was just staring at him outside his window.  At first I was sure it was a prank.  Someone being silly.  The cabbie drove off, uninvolved.  Then I thought, nah, he's too drunk and maybe the asphalt looked nice and cozy (not unusual to see in Japan).  But no, it was too early for the drunks to come out.  I was this close to taking a picture ==>| |<==. Then I realized he wasn't moving.  Shit.  I ran over to see if he was ok.  Or at least, alive. Good, he was breathing.  I asked Wil how to say "can you hear me" in JP (kakioka or something similar) and leaned over towards his face to see if he would respond...he didn't.  I was afraid to move him in any way that might worsen any possible head, neck, or spinal injuries.  Damn.  He's got a concussion, and a bad one.  All I could do was tap his skyward shoulder and repeat my questions.  Are you ok?  Can you hear me?  What's your name?  Excuse me, sir.  Other people came over and furiously looked up numbers (?) on their iPad/cell phone.  I understood enough to know they were calling for an ambulance and explaining the situation...the driver (not the cabbie) had left the scene.  Someone quickly but gingerly began digging though the man's waistpack for ID.  I was impressed by the ingenuity of such a simple action.  Being a foreigner, I am very very hesitant to touch other people's things, since foreigners carry the stigma of petty crime here.  No point in stoking the fire.  Just yesterday I found a wallet on the steps in the train station, and I made a particularly grandiose show of holding it out from my body almost distastefully so that people would not erroneously assume I was "taking" it as I carried it to lost and found.  Anyway, the guy was still unresponsive.  We were standing there for a good 10 minutes before he moved at all...and he still wasn't responding to requests for his identity or state.  Finally, he started to twitch.  His shoe was several feet away, and he was laying on his arm in a pose that I would only expect from contortionists and cheerleaders.   His face had fresh bloody scratches, and it was wet with all kinds of fluids.  His pants were all scuffed black from the asphalt, and were wet (poor guy).  When he finally managed to roll over, his eyes drifted towards the sky.  They were red, very glassy, and completely unable to track anything.  We almost made eye contact, but his eyes just drifted away.  The thought struck me that he probably couldn't see anything or at least make sense of it.  Wow.  He must have really been hit hard.  That's one hell of a concussion.  I thought, oh shit, he's going to die.  Not again, damnit. 

But no, he started to kind of move his mouth and his legs.  Phew.  By now enough people had gathered with sufficient Japanese ability that we decided it was time to get out of the way.  We had done all we could do with our limited resources.  About a block away, we encountered the bicycle-police rushing to the scene, and maybe 15 minutes after that, heard the ambulance's siren.   Damnit, I needed some caffiene.  This was sobering shit.  Starbucks - and subsequent ice cream - it is.  Over 40 minutes later on our return route, the street was almost completely blocked off with police redirecting traffic.  The man was gone, but the ambulance was still there. 

I hope he's ok.  Talk about a life changing experience.