07 April 1979
The Ruth’s Café Collision Derby
1979 Abroad on Japan’s Kanto Plain
Editor’s Note: On this morning in the pre-Spring of 2023, the President of China is talking to the Czar of Russia about how to effectively end the American Century. Accordingly, we thought this little slice of life would show how some people thought about it while living it.
– Vic 
It had been a busy week, and we were leaving again soon. It meant there was madness in the air, the madness that went with the going-to-sea, maybe-to-war mind set. In the grips of that, we found our heroes enjoying their last hours of liberty with gusto.
They had found themselves delivered back to the tender mercies of Ma Midway (CV-41) after a remarkable line period. A busy workday on Friday, hauling gear up the ladders and into Ready Room Four. It could have been a night for a nice dinner and quiet contemplation of the rigors to come. But Fridays are The Night at the Officer’s Club at Atsugi Naval Air Station, and thus it was time for a pre-disco dining extravaganza out at Ruth’s house.
Ruth is a Navy Nurse, and she is a very nice person who takes care of Her Boys. Gaijin women who are not already attached to someone are a rarity on the Kanto Plain, which helps account for the beauty magnification factor. West of Hawaii, 5’s become 8’s, and 7’s become 10’s. Fact of life. Ruth handles it well, though, and has adapted to the situation by more or less adopting us as her own personal fighter squadron. She feeds us and leads us around for our own protection. She is a queen, she knows it, and treats her subjects with an even hand. Neat lady. What’s more, with her hefty nurse’s Basic Allowance for Quarters, she can live off-base out by the Hayama resort on the Sagami-wan, in a little house halfway up a hill. It has a splendid view, made the more so by the constant exposure to the gray steel windowless walls of our current abode. It is a general delight to be at her place.
This night the pre-Disco meal was chicken-stuffed crepes, hearty neo-Caesar salad and wonderful warm loaves of bread. The Japanese have great bread. They encountered it for the first time after the war, and discovered it had many uses. They even decided the American variety was too bland, and, in typical Japanese fashion, looked around for the best bread in the world and found it in France. Voila! Here it is! The ambiance was delightfully non-industrial, the food was outstanding, the wine divine. If anything, the bottle of rum that Scooter poured into the dessert daiquiris was superfluous. But good.
We have a variety of cars strewn up and down the hill. Cars are one of the little quirks here. First, you drive on the wrong side of the road. That is sorta cool. Second, the cars are only worth the amount of Japanese Compulsory Insurance that remains on the policy. There is a public law that any vehicle over four years of age has to go through a rehabilitation and certification process that in effect costs more than buying a new car. They call it the Beautification Law. Due to the Status of Forces Agreement, we are exempt. Accordingly, if you see a trashed-out car hurtling down Telephone Pole Road headed for Yokohama, you can be sure it is one of us. I own a clapped-out1970 Toyota Publica mini-wagon with three months left on the policy, making it worth exactly 42,000 yen. I had artfully painted the squadron tail flashes on the sides. Although you could see the roadway through holes in the floorboards, I considered it a beauty.
I have been stashing the little gaijin-mobile over at Ruth’s during our at-sea periods. It has an old battery, not worth replacing, that has a tendency to go dead as a doornail. So as our group was leaving the house I enlisted the hearty bodies of L.P., Jambo, Space, Splash, Scooter, Scotty, and Nasty in levitating the little econo-box out of the driveway, bouncing it backwards over the curb.
“Cut the wheel! Cut it hard port!” someone shouted. I wondered if they were talking to me….
A near run into the benjo ditch on the other side of the road, a quick transition, and I almost hit L.P’s 911 Porsche Targa. He had brought it over with his household goods with the idea of selling it on the local economy. The Japanese love hot cars. Given traffic moves about five miles an hour during the day, it is amusing to watch the Jags and Mercedes creeping along. I decided a look behind might prove helpful as I navigated backwards down the steep hill. The trick was to get the thing rolling and pop the clutch, using the motion of the wheels to turn the engine. Splash stayed with me almost the whole way down the hill, till I figured out it was just not going to start in reverse. I swerved into the curb and got it rolling forwards. I jammed it into second gear with my left hand and slipped my foot of the clutch. Well alright! The little monster started right up. I put the clutch in, kept the revs up, and hoped it wouldn’t die before I ran out of incline. Splash watched me disappear around the corner, about a half-mile downhill from his car.
“Hey, thanks Splash!” I yelled into the slipstream, “see Ya!”
I reached the traffic light at the bottom on the hill and stopped. It was red, and it was the right thing to do so I pulled over, foot on the gas, way short of the white line so as to have a fighting chance if the car crapped out. Space’s patented Space Shuttle van pulled up next to me. Scotty leaned out the passenger side and inquired if it was O.K. “No sweat” I replied, about the same time the Nasty-mobile showed up and intentionally read-ended them. I saw the impact push the van about five feet down-slope. Space crammed it into reverse and hit the gas. Nasty sort of got pushed back uphill. Tires were smoking on the wet pavement, and the sound of the vehicles rubbing metal was real interesting.
I noticed Ruth’s horrified face in the passenger side of Nasty’s car. The light changed, Space went into first and roared off toward Atsugi. Nasty appeared to take it as a challenge and vanished in pursuit. I had to keep the revs up anyway, so what the hell….
We joined the frantic procession of normal traffic out on the highway. The road is narrow, as they all are in the Kanto Plain, and has steep open benjo sewers on each side. This doesn’t keep the locals from driving at breakneck speeds and performing outré maneuvers. About the only thing it does keep them from doing is driving drunk. You see, up till about fifteen years ago, drunkenness was a perfectly legal excuse for accidents. Unfortunately, with the onset of massive casualties it became obvious that this remarkable notion had to give way to a more rational approach. As they so often do, once the Japanese make a decision they make a tough one. Even a beer – a single beer – will make you legally drunk. Should you cause an accident, or hurt someone, you may as well throw away the key.
Unfortunately, we were drunk Yankees, driving $175 cars, in a toy-sized land. And it was off to the races. My first indication of this was Jambo flying by into oncoming traffic. He cut off a taxi and gained the lead. We rounded a bend, the line slowed down, and out of nowhere flashed a yellow Porsche 911, beating out the entire crowd and disappearing into a curve. This was an outrage too great to be borne …. it was pandemonium on the roadway …. the drivers were flying their aircaft, unconscious of the civilian life around them. We approached the first light on the way into town. Red. The racers were in line astern. Oh my goodness…I saw the green station-wagon’s back up light go on; in an inexorable chain reaction the cars bumped, jumped, and began to move toward my grill…the Space Shuttle into first!
Tires smoking, the line begin to move out into the intersection … the taxi behind me is keeping his distance … the light goes green and the race is on … it’s a cacophony of straining water pumps, abused gear boxes, over-revved little engines. I am working with my handbrake only, to avoid taking my foot off the accelerator …. Around a downward curving turn, into another red light …. the Porsche stops …. the Jambo special goes left, the Nastymobile to the right, drifting through the red signal with tires burning …. past two amazed Japanese policemen …. Oops …. I try to look inscrutable …. a crowd of pedestrians are bent over in amazement …. their mouths are beginning to work as the signal changes …. see ya! …. the racers roar down the narrow Ginza …. hard port! A light, hard brake, then onto R-16, four lanes and it is all guts and drag-racing technique …. the last quarter mile to the gates of the Atsugi Naval Air Station…. hard starboard and into the chicane …. I stop the car, dim my lights, and the Marine on duty salutes me. I turn on the lights, turn right and follow the slow procession up to the Club.
We park the cars giggling like the drunken idiots we undoubtedly are. A leisurely stroll up to the doors where I can hear the sound system blaring some repetitive beat. On the way in I see one or the guys from Attack Squadron 56.
“Hey Vic” says one of them. “How’s it going?”
“Oh you know” I say with a negligent wave, “there just ain’t nothing to do in Japan.”
“Yeah,” says Jambo, “except for maybe fifteen years.”
Copyright 2001 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com