最近おじいちゃんが面白くなった。８６になってなるもんかと思ったが、私のおじいちゃんはこの歳になって作者としての第二の人生を生きおうと言う異常な野心持っていたとしても驚かない。過去十年間ほど、耳が遠くなり、体もダメになるところ相次義、どんどん母とおばあちゃんに頭が上がらなくなっていた。その割には特に謙虚だとか、アメリカ人がよく想像する『可愛い』おじいちゃんだと言うわけではない。ただ単に、あんまり話さなかったし、思い出話とかはかなり稀だった。

そのどれくらいは私が聞かなかったからかわからない。もしかして私が勝手に頭上がらないと決めつけて、聞かなかっただけかもしれない。聞いたら逆に母から変な目で見られる、とか。二人の間、変な関係だったらしい。正直言って、おじいちゃんは、まぁ、変な父親だったのかもしれない。でもそれとは関係なく、ジジのサイレンスの理由は主に、耳が遠いからだった。おばあちゃんと母の会話はたまに私も付いていけない。言葉とかの問題というよりも脳のスピード。ほとんど聞こえないおじいちゃんには雑音にしか聞こえないと思う。

だが、最近、おじいちゃんが新しい補聴器を買って家族会話に参加し始めた。その上に、会話だけでなく、家族Whatsappに異常なくらい参加し始め、周りを心配させている。まぁ、周りと言うよりも私が勝手に心配しているのかも。じじによると、補聴器によって聞こえいるようになり、理解力を再発させているようだという。母によると、十年間、脳が死んでいたんだという。堂々と『死ぬ』などの言葉を八十代の両親に言える母を尊敬するべきなのか恐るべきなのかわからない。

先月、グルチャに異常に面白いコメント出すだけでなく、自分から急にツイッター風の『呟き』を出すようにした。思い出を最初に紙に書いて、その後簡単スマホで一文字、一文字、記入するらしい。で、この思い出を、『呟き』と勝手に自分で名をつけ、その上に思い出によると、ちゃんとした名前をつけている。補聴器変わって、急に自分の生きた人生の長さに気づいたのとか。二つ目の呟きを送った後、ジジはまた母に怒られた。『呟きは、基本的に短いんよ、』と。「しかも、本当じゃないかもよ、と」。長くても、本当でなくても、毎朝コーヒーをゆっくり、口でコップ探しているように飲むおじいちゃんがこんな人生をおくったと思うと、なんか不思議。そして、面白い。

Recently, my grandfather got a new hearing aid. He also started blowing up our family WhatsApp. The correlation between the two events are unclear; all I know is that my grandfather, who has been rather nonverbal in my life due to a combination of poor hearing and oppression under an increasingly female-dominated household, at the age of 86, has become very funny. 

My mom thinks that his brain has been dormant for the past twelve years since his hearing has declined. She’s also not afraid to tell him that. “Your brain has been dead,” she writes, when he drops a perplexingly hilarious one-liner or sends stories from his past. My mom’s diction is daring. It’s fair to say that she’s not as charmed by his stories as I am. My grandpa, through what medium he picked up this language is unclear, started calling his stories “tweets”. Sometimes he prefaces it with a “tweets incoming” text–though recently he hasn’t done that as much–and then will drop two or three consecutive “tweets” in the groupchat. Sometimes they will be interspersed with my grandmother’s emoji-filled texts because he can’t get them out quick enough and she too is not that charmed by these stories. 

There are conspiracies of whether these stories are true. By that I mean that my mom is a little bit skeptical, and would prefer them to be shorter. “Tweets are meant to be short, Gigi,” she once texted, in between his tweets. I don’t know if my grandfather’s stories stem from his imagination or his memory, but what I do know is that his writing process is as such: first, he will write out the stories using a pencil and paper at his desk, and only then will he punch it out, letter by letter, into his new cell phone. 

To call this a rebirth of my grandfather would be a narcissistically young thing to say. But I do feel like I’m experiencing a hallucinogenic enlightenment as I try to understand that the gaunt, bug-eyed man who always meets his coffee cup halfway by jutting his head out and hunching his back up is the narrator of the following stories. 

つぶやき1 

Tweet Number 1 

会社生活を初めて間もない時初めて海外出張へ、取引先の役員のお供でオーストラリアへ行った。まずシドニーに着いたが役員のスーツケイスが無い　間違いで他の空港へご送。早速トラブル発生ろくすっぽ英語もできない上にツダイとかタイブルとかオーストラリア訛りの英語はチンプンカンプン大苦戦。荷物は帰りに戻ってきたが、昼飯の時後ろにいたオーストラリアの若者が『皆さんの日本語は大阪弁ですね』と流暢な日本ごで。それなら鼻から通訳してくれよと文句言うが後の祭り。

午後から南のワイアラへ飛行機で到着直ぐトイレへ　何か変な感じがしたので周りをチェックしたらシマツタ女便所へ入ってしまった　田舎の飛行場なので人がいなくて助かった　待っていた連中が腹を抱えて大笑い

こんな話を後年ニューヨークでしたら、上には上がいるよと言われ、ある先輩は昼飯時トイレで次々後ろに並ばれた皆さん女の人どうにもならない。トイレを飛び出したらしい。この話を東京出張時、タクシーの中でしたら、横に座っていた先輩がそれは俺だと。なんと、本人の前でドジな話をしてしまい大変失礼した。タクシーの運転手くんもみんなで大笑い・

Mere months after I started working, I traveled to Australia with my boss on a business trip. When we got to Sydney my boss’s suitcase had been delivered to the wrong airport. We tried to communicate but I couldn’t speak a lick of English and the translators couldn’t understand English in an Australian accent. My boss’s suitcase eventually did return around lunch and when it did, the Australian guy who had been with us the whole time said “your Japanese has an Osaka-accent,” in perfect Japanese. 

Later that afternoon, we went to Waiara by plane. Right after we landed, I went to the bathroom. Something felt off, and when I looked around I realized  I was in the women’s restroom. We were in an airport in the middle of nowhere so no one was there, but my boss was waiting outside and was laughing his ass off. 

When I told this story in New York, my friend told me of his boss who went to the bathroom during lunch once and looked behind him to find a slew of women in line behind him. He ran out of the bathroom. In a taxi in Tokyo, I decided to tell this story of the story to my colleague next to me, and when I was done he turned to me and said that was me. I did that. Everyone laughed, including the taxi driver. 

つぶやき２

Tweet 2: Priest

南アフリカ在住してすぐ自動車事故。救急車で病院へ、当時はアパルトヘイトの最中、日本人は黒かしろかが問題だったが、幸い白の病院へ連れて行かれた。後で聞いたが、事故を通報したのは一緒にゴルフした白人だった。彼は白人の病院しか知らない。日曜日だったので医者がいなくて車で数時間待たされた。他にも病人が8、9人いた大部屋。手術前はチダだらけだったか、黒い袈裟を着たPriestが私のベッドに来てCan I help you.?と突然言われた。この時は流石に最後かと覚悟した。Oh noと返事したら、あなたの信じる神は何だと聞かれ、信じる神は無いと答えるとそれでは何を信じるかと聞かれ、自分だと答えると、両手を拡げて救い難いとのジェスチャー。必要な時は読んでくださいと返事して離れていった。必要などないよと思ったが、手術前の病室の中をPriestがウロウロすると精神異常を起こすよ。或いは後ろを押すのが仕事か。人騒がせだよ。

I got in a car accident as soon as I moved to South Africa. In the midst of apartheid, whether Japanese people should be taken to the hospital for white or black people became an issue in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. By the grace of god I was taken to the white people’s hospital. I learned later that the person who had called the ambulance was one of my white friends (with whom I had played golf); all he knew was the hospital for white people. There weren’t many doctors because it was a Sunday. I waited many hours in the car. When we got to the waiting room 8,9 other people were waiting. All bloody pre-surgery, a priest in a black garment came near my bed and asked, “Can I help you?” I knew then that it was the end. I replied, “Oh no,” and then  he asked me which god I believe in. I replied I believed in no god, to which he asked me what I do believe in, to which I said, myself, to which he just threw his hands up. “Let me know if you need anything,” he said, and left. Why would I need him, I thought. A priest all decked out wandering around my pre-op body…it’s like he’s asking for a mental breakdown. Or maybe it was his role to deliver me to the other side, mental breakdown and all. A nuisance fr. 

呟き　3

Tweet 3: Be careful  for elephant

南ア時代、正月休みに友達の2familyと南のeast londonへ飛行機で行った。そこからcapetown迄ドライブ約8-9時間。途中道路標識に be careful For elephant とあった。像が出てきたらどう運転するんだと思いながらの記憶がある。随分昔の話しだから今はないと思うが其からcapetownへCape of good hope 、とかtable mountainとか。楽しめた旅だった

In my South Africa days, I went to East London by plane with two families for New Years break. From there, we drove 8-9 hours to Cape Town. On the way there, I saw a sign that said Be Careful For Elephant. How could I even drive if there was elephant? It was a while back so I doubt the sign is still there now but from Cape Town to Cape of Good Hope to Table Mountain man, that was a good trip.