I went to the doctor today to get my left thumb looked at. A few weeks back, it started hurting beneath my thumbnail, and a dark area appeared. As usual, I feared cancer at first. I’m at that age where everything feels cancerous. A cough? Lung cancer. A stomachache? Abdominal cancer. A runny nose? Nostril cancer. Constipation? Anal cancer, or whatever they call it. In fact, with very little imagination, I could link any pain anywhere in my body to that dreaded illness. And I’ve been blessed/cursed with more than enough imagination.

It could also be a splinter, though, I tried to convince myself. Probably a splinter. It better be a splinter. It was deep, so I waited for it to get pushed out on its own. And waited. And waited. That hasn’t happened, so I consulted a pro.

Japanese Doctor (English-speaking): Yep, it looks like you’ve got a foreign body.

Me: (Suppressing a laugh) Ya think?

He didn’t get the joke.

JD: Huh?

Me: (Then the words penetrated my sarcastic skull like a drill) Wait! A foreign body? You don’t mean a tumor?

JD: Oh no, no, no. Nothing like that…I don’t think. But, there is definitely something in there. Are you allergic to any local anesthetics?

I didn’t like the sound of that, either.

Me: Errrrr, no. Why? Should I be?

JD: (He laughed) We will have to remove it. It looks like it’s gotten infected.

Me: Ah. Annnnnnnd, how do you propose we do that?

JD: Well, we’ll likely have to cut a portion of the nail off, won’t we?

Me: I see.

JD: Sorry.

Me: (Under my breath) So am I.

He walked away and returned with this tray filled with instruments I associated more with dentistry, or maybe carpentry, than with general practice. And a very unpleasant-looking needle. The scene from Tim Burton’s Batman with that weaselly doctor who operated on Jack Napier’s wounded face and left him with a permanent disfigurement —a chelsea smile—came to mind.

‘You see what I have to work with here.’

It made me shudder.

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JD: Now, hold still, OK? (He said this so routinely that I believed the procedure was routine, like taking temperature or blood pressure, so I didn’t flinch as he slid that mosquito-from-hell looking long-ass needle under my thumbnail.)

Me: Er, doc, I can feel that, you know.

JD: Uh-huh, just hold still, please.

Me: I said, I can feel that, doc!

JD: Just a moment more—

Me: Geezus! I FEEL THAT SHIT, MOTHERFUCKER!!

He and his two nurses jumped back in shock at my outburst. I’m sure everyone in the office, including the mob in the waiting area, heard me. I didn’t give a shit. I expected blood to come spouting out of my nail like a geyser any second and was surprised when it didn’t.

JD: (Smiling, but not happy.) You’re such an American. So dramatic. Japanese have patience. Patients must have patience.

He chuckled with pride at his anglicized おやじギャグ (Old Man Joke).

I stared daggers at him.

JD: Come on, Mr. McNeil, please be a patient patient.

He was still amused at his own cleverness. I bet he tells all his comrades at the izakaya (pub) tonight about the screaming gaijin he had in his office today. That all he’d done was skewer me with a few kushi (yakitori sticks), and I was crying like a bitch.

Me: You’re a regular riot, doc.

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JD: Sorry. I’m almost done. Let me just—

Me: You’re serious, aren’t you? Mannnn, you are sticking a needle under my fingernail! Have you ever heard of the Geneva Convention?? This procedure is a method of torture in like 195 countries. If I were a captured American spy, I’d be telling you every state secret I know right the fuck now!

He was getting a big kick out of this. And when he translated my words for his assistant and nurses, they, too, got a kick out of torture.

Sadists.

JD: Come on, let’s get this over with. (He glanced at the wall clock as if to say, ‘OK, playtime is over!’)

Me: Sorry if I wasn’t clear, doctor. You. Are. Not. Sticking. That. Needle. Under. My. Nail. EVER. Again.

He read my expression and finally took me seriously.

JD: OK, um, wait here.

He disappeared for a solid 10-15 minutes, leaving me alone with my imagination and his instruments of torture while (I could overhear) he helped one of his fucking patient patients. I tried not to fume.

Instead, I thought of the litany against pain from “Dune” and what the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Mohiam told Paul Atreides when she had the Gom Jabbar at his neck:

“A human can endure any pain. Our test is crisis. This one (Gom Jabbar) kills only animals.”

“I’m not an animal,” I told myself. “If the Japanese can take it without crying out and complaining, so can I! Time to man up, snowflake.”

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The doctor returned with his entourage.

JD: So, are we ready now?

He said this as if this was the norm, and I’d just needed a little time to think it through. Which, turned out, was actually exactly what happened. Hmmm. Maybe I have more in common with his patient patients than I realized.

Me: Sure, doc, go ahead, do your thing.

In my head, I chanted: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and--”

Me: Fuck this! Fuck this! FUCK THIS! STOP!!

Damn. Maybe I am an animal.

He put down the needle and picked up an instrument I did not even want to watch him use on me for fear it might trigger night terrors. I looked away. He jammed this thingamajig under my nail, dug around, yanking shit out like he was dealing with a nerveless human being, or perhaps one under total anesthesia. Then suddenly, he freed something.

JD: ほら!(Well, what have we here!)

I turned to look just as he tossed a tiny blood-soaked something or other on a metal tray. The sight of my blood was as alarming as the sound this thing made when it hit the tray. It sounded solid and dense like my extracted wisdom tooth did when my dentist, using similarly sadistic-looking tools, had done the honors on me two weeks earlier.

The older you get, the more you lose shit.

Me: なにそれ?? (What the hell is that??)

I was so shocked I’d gone native. At least it wasn’t cancer. I have never heard of a doctor yanking a malignant tumor out of a thumbnail.

JD: It’s a foreign body!

Me: You don’t say. It looks like part of my foreign body, doc! You sure that’s not a piece of my elbow or shoulder? You sure were deep enough in there!

He chuckled. It seemed he liked my sense of humor even when I was not joking.

JD: No, it’s not a bone. It’s an encapsulated foreign body.

He picked it up and examined it with tweezers. It looked disgusting.

Me: So, we’re done?

JD: I hope so because you’ve scared away half my patients! The nurse will finish up here.

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That night, I was kicking it with Miki and told her about what happened at the clinic and why my thumb was gauzed up and would need to remain so for a few days at least. She’d never heard the phrase “foreign body,” so naturally, she didn’t get the double entendre. And there’s no better way to kill a joke than by explaining it.

She thought “foreign body” was an odd way of saying “gaijin patient.” I gave her the side eye at that. Then I told her what my iPhone said, that it also means “any object originating outside the body of an organism.”

In this case, I explained, it was a splinter (or whatever the hell it was that got lodged beneath my thumbnail), but it could be a toy a child shoves in their ear or nose, or if you swallow something indigestible like a rock, something a doctor needs to remove.

Miki: Like that stuff in your nose? (She gestured like someone picking their nose and flicking away the icky contents.)

Me: Yeah, I guess, because it catches dust, pollen, and stuff. And, eww!

Miki: So that thing in your thumbnail was a foreign body, too? Ah! I get it!! (And laughed belatedly). Gaijin in Japan are foreign bodies. And Japan is a thumbnail!!

Me: (Grinning, starting to see where she was going with this. Not sure I dug it, though.) Uh-huh.

Miki: Wait! What if Japan is the nose?

Me: Japan, the nose?

Miki: Yeah, it’s like a, what do you call it? A metaphor, right?

Me: What are you talking about?

Miki: Foreigners come in Japan and make us uncomfortable, right? And Japanese people want to…(she made that booger-picking / flicking gesture again, giggling at her own wit).

Me: Who you calling a booger??

I tried to keep a straight face, but underneath the humor lay the truth: I most certainly did make Japanese people uncomfortable every day. Many! Shit, I could be a real irritant, sometimes. Especially with my articles in their papers.

I imagined the doctor, his retinue of nurses, and his patient patients were definitely irritated by my hollering and gaijin-ing in the clinic. I bet they wished they could flick me away, foreign body and all, and I laughed at my own おやじギャグ (Old Man Joke).

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I was jonesing for a cup of 7-11 iced coffee, so I took a break from writing and threw on a shirt. I asked Miki if she’d like a cup, but she declined. The stuff is not only delicious but potent as hell, and while I was on summer holiday, she was not. A cup that late would have kept her awake, weaving ‘til the wee hours.

I told her I’d be right back, slipped on my shoes, opened the front door, stepped out…and froze. I could hear it before I saw it, and judging from that unnerving clicking sound they make, I knew it was headed straight for me!

Fuck.

Naturally, I turned tail and hauled ass back into the house. Not fast enough, though. I felt it slam into the back of my head as I crossed the threshold, vibrating against my skull and poking me with those spindly insect-y fucking legs! I freaked out and began slapping my head like I was trying to snuff out a small fire that had broken out on my scalp. One of my slaps had dislodged the bushwhacking bug, but since the door had closed pneumatically behind me, it now darted noisily around the entranceway—

INSIDE our home!

From her seat before her handloom, Miki turned and was initially alarmed…before she realized that what had me doing an original head-pounding fire dance in the doorway was just a bug.

Just a bug, my ass…

It was a Cicada!

I remember watching “The Silence of the Lambs” way back in the day. There was a scene when Jodie Foster’s Agent Starling pays a visit to some nerdy

bug-ologists to get some intel on a hideous-looking cocoon the FBI had found in a victim’s throat. After slicing it open (eww) and examining its morphology and whathaveyou, these bug pros told her it was a Death’s-head Moth, a species only found in Asia. And I was like, “Phew! Thank God I don’t live in Asia!”

Who knew, right?

Fast-forward 30 years, and these species that only live in Asia now live in my front yard, and are my nemeses every goddamn summer.

Though many Japanese welcome cicadas as a sweet sound of summer, like wind chimes, or how a Brooklynite like myself might welcome the tinny chiming of the Mister Softee ice cream truck, Miki is not one of them. Despite her rural upbringing, you wouldn’t have found Miki lazing her summer days away trying to capture cicadas with a net in the parks and forests of her hometown. Nah. She shares my revulsion of these and most bugs and so understands my temporary insanity and tolerates my damn-near 引きこもり(shut-in) status every summer.

The door to my mantuary was open, and wouldn’t you know it? That fucker flew right inside!

One of the reasons I’m not too fond of bugs, especially creepy flying bugs, is because they emasculate me. It’s true. I’m unsure how or when I got traumatized because I used to be cool with bugs as a kid. Something happened that turned me from a lover of living things, of all God’s creatures great and small, into squeamish to the point of phobic. And, I’ve learned, in unpleasant ways, that it doesn’t matter who’s around.

I could be in full Mack Daddy mode, giving honey-dipped the sweetest taboo, and it wouldn’t matter. Let a cockroach wave an antenna in my direction, and I’m running for my life like the damn things are winged assassins, screaming like I’d OD’d on estrogen, chivalry be damned. I’ve even had girlfriends (soon-to-be ex-girlfriends) kill bugs in my crib on my behalf and, from then on, call me Mister Softee (or something derogatory in that vein).

So, my point is the irony of this insect taking up residence in my mantuary was not wasted on me. This was a very personal challenge, I convinced myself. Will this be my space or some insect’s den of iniquity?

Miki and I cracked the door, peeked into the room, and saw that it had just made itself at home in MY office! I looked at Miki. She looked at me. Then we slowly closed the door together. I’m not sure what she was thinking, but I’d made up my mind years ago.

“We got any more of that ゴキブリ(Cockroach) spray?”

“えええ!! (Dafuq)!? 殺すつもり(You’re gonna kill it)??? Miki cried in surprise.

“もちろん(Sure as God made green apples)!” I replied.

That’s not a direct translation, by the way. That’s just the feeling I imbue the words with when I use them. I did say this with a great deal of conviction and even zeal, suddenly feeling ultra-American as I realized I hadn’t considered any alternatives. I was ready to throw out the Security Council resolution calling for a final opportunity for insect-kind to comply with blah blah blah. As far as I was concerned, resolutions were for incrementalists, and overkill was underrated. I was ready to unleash some Shock and Awe and serve notice to any other insects in the vicinity: this crib here is NOT to be fucked with, ever, period.

My slogan: Mancaves for Mankind, Now and Forever.

I might be an ex-pat, but I’m still an American! Fuck yeah!

The more I thought about that approach, the more irrational I felt. So, I took a deep breath.

“What did you have in mind, beloved?” I asked. “Capture it and release it into the wild, I bet.”

“Well, yeah,でしょう(it’s only right). “殺したら、悲しいことにならない…？” (If you kill it, wouldn’t that be a sad thing?)

それは君の感じ方だよ (Speak for yourself), I said. でも俺は大丈夫だよ (But I won’t be losing a wink of sleep over that bug, believe that!)

Then, Miki told me, with uncommon patience for my theatrics, the first of her splendid Live and Let Live ideas. She was of the mind that All God’s Chillun got wings, and All God’s Creatures, even winged vermin, got the right to life. Especially cicadas, since, to her reckoning, they aren’t really vermin, only a nuisance. And once they come out of the ground and start their racket, they only live for a few weeks anyway. So I gave in and gave her plan the thumbs up. I even felt a little guilty.

Miki slipped on her shoes, went outside, and opened my mancave’s window and screen from the outside, giving the bug a way out if that was its objective. We stood outside my office door when she returned, listening to the cicada’s high-pitched whine.

Soon, the singing ceased, and after a moment of reluctance to open the door —actually, we played じゃんけん(rock/paper/scissors), and she won as she somehow always did —I opened it, slow AF, and I crept inside to investigate why the cicada quit singing.

There was no movement anywhere in the room. Outside, we could hear thousands of cicadas performing their Def Jam in the streets through the open window. It almost seemed like they were singing for their friend. A singular voice that had temporarily gone silent but had miraculously rejoined their seasonal chorus.

Miki and I smiled at one another broadly once I’d furtively searched my manhole for signs that it was still in there. I wanted to believe that it had gone about its business, that Miki’s plan had worked like a charm, a Japanese solution to a Japanese problem, peace for our time.

Miki wasn’t convinced, though.

“It might be hiding behind something,” she said.

I left her searching while I went to 7-11 and got my coffee without incident.

When I returned, refreshed and ready to resume writing, Miki was on the couch, looking anxious.

“What’s wrong?”

“I thought I heard something, but I checked everything. Nothing. Maybe it’s my imagination.”

“Probably. I keep hearing its song in my head, too. But I think it’s gone.”

I eased back into my ne-grotto, sat at my desk, and acted like my inner sanctum hadn’t been defiled. I gave the room one more cursory once-over, reassuring myself, “It couldn’t be silent this long unless it has gone stealth.”

I reached under my desk to turn on my computer’s speaker, and THERE it was, just sitting there looking at me. Those eyes! Those horrible orange eyes! They looked vengeful. My heart liked to burst out of my fucking chest like an alien!

I dove out of the cave like I’d seen a time bomb that read 00:02 on its LED.

“WHAT??!!” Miki screamed and leapt to her feet, undied wool flying everywhere, when she saw me come flying out of my Menitentiary like I’d been eighty-sixed bodily from a pub by an agitated bouncer. Then, for a second, I saw myself through her eyes – emasculated once again by a measly bug – and felt my anger at that insect spike through the roof. It made me lose face in front of my girl, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

“It’s still in there!”

“Are you sure?” she asked, trying to hide a grin...and failing.

“Well, it could have been モスラ(Mothra), but I’m pretty sure it was a cicada,” I said. “Now, can we do it my way with the spray?”

“No!” she snapped. “No killing!”

I pointed to where it had been, under my desk, but it had moved to the wall and was inching its way up. It seemed to grow in size, but it was still quiet as if it were checking out ITS new cicada club and maybe planning to invite some buddies for karaoke.

Now, I was really ready to kill it. It was crossing way over the line in my mind. This insect was desecrating my den. Miki, however, went back outside, opened the window again, came back in, and said, “What shall we do?”

“I told you my plan: Kill and ask questions later.”

Miki shot me a look before she grabbed some newspaper and put her second master plan into action. She started balling up the newspaper into little paper balls and launching them at the cicada. She missed and missed again, but on the third try, she got close enough to disturb it, and it took flight and started making noise again. We both scampered out of the room, slamming the door behind us. When the room grew quiet again, we opened the door and scanned the room.

And there it was! In the open, on the wall above my bookcase.

I felt the bloodlust rising in me. I would have made a great character in “Starship Troopers.” (One of the best sci-fi flicks EVER made, by the way). I could hear my lines in my head.

“The only good bug is a dead bug!”

“Live and let live, my ass. I’m from Brooklyn, New York, and I say KILL’ EM ALL!”

Finally, Miki conceded that since it wouldn’t leave of its own accord, unless one of us man-ed up enough to capture it, sadly, the option of exterminating it was on the table.

But how?

Miki finally got the cockroach spray and handed it to me. It didn’t have one of those nozzles on it for long-distance spraying. For the poison to reach that fucker, one of us would have to get close to it and spray. At which time, it would likely take flight.

Nah.

“You do it!” Miki cried. “You’re supposed to be the man!”

Ouch. That stung. I shot her a frosty glance. Fuck it.

I snatched up the can.

“Where’s the goddamn nozzle??? Fuck!”

Then, maybe realizing she had been too harsh, she came up with another masterstroke. She grabbed an umbrella from the rack and opened it.

“Now, that’s the woman I love and cherish!!” I exclaimed. I whipped out my celly and snapped a few shots for posterity, then added, “OK, let’s go get this thing!”

We advanced on the cicada together like Batman and Robin in the TV version, behind the bat shield. She held the umbrella handle, and I had the can of WBD (Weapon of Bug Destruction). At least, I hoped. Neither of us was sure whether cockroach-a-cide would work on cicada.

Once we were close enough, I let him have it with the poison. No reaction. Perhaps, as we feared, this stuff was useless. Then, I gave the can a good shake and sprayed a good quarter of its contents at the offending pest. Any more of it, and Miki and I would have probably been in jeopardy of being poisoned, as well.

Suddenly, I could see that the WBD was starting to kick in. He made more noise than ever as he fell to the floor, never to fly again.

Miki was right. It was a bit sad to see. She couldn’t even watch; she just walked away, shaking her head. A few seconds later, she was weaving again like nothing had happened, while I remained standing there, observing death overtake a bug.

It twirled in a perfect spiral over and over as if falling into a bottomless pit. Then the twirling stopped, and the death rattle began. It was a valiant little thing, but after a minute, the rattle quit, too. Quit permanently.

The cicada was silenced.

After throwing it away and reclaiming my mancave, I grieved for that relatively harmless cicada. I felt regret that I’d let my fear get the best of me and unleash my worst. I saw how this could have real-world implications and was even more disturbed.

Then I thought of something that gave me enough solace to put all thoughts of the cicada aside for the moment. It was likely the same thought that allowed Miki to go about her clothesmaking and not give the insect a second thought.

One of those Japanese ideas that is more universal than most Japanese realize:

しょうがないじゃん (Life's a bitch and then you die, that's why we get high. 'Cause you never know when you're gonna go.)

Not an exact translation, but that’s my spin on it.

The End

The Silence of the Cicada is a story from my third book, a collaboration with my wife, called “Words by Baye, Art by Miki.” Got some copies signed by both Miki and me on hand. Let me know if you’re looking to score one. It’s also available wherever fine books are sold.

As you might have heard, my latest book will be made available to y’all first! I will be publishing You Couldn’t Tell Me Shit! Coming of Age in the County of Kings, 1980-1985, as a serial here on From BK to TK.

For more info, visit my “About” page here

Twenty-two years ago today, I stepped off a plane at Narita with two suitcases, a head full of Brooklyn, and absolutely no idea what I was doing.

I still don't, some days. But I'm doing it anyway. Tha…

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