The Messenger

Todd: Um , Kawabe you said you used to be a bike delivery person.

Kawabe: Yes, I was. It was not very long but I was doing that for like 6 months.

Todd: Do you mean push bike or motorcycle?

Kawabe: Push bike? What is a push bike?

Todd: Push bike is like the one you ride with you legs.

Kawabe: Oh, no, no. no. The motorcycle.

Todd: Motorcycle! OK.

Kawabe: Yes! Yes! 400 cc. I forget the name of the bike, but it was kind of one really fast, and then, you know what they are doing, they just go, OK, if you are sending a letter, a very important document, you want to send it to somewhere really fast, very, very quickly!

Todd: Like for a signiture of something.

Kawabe: Yeah, whatever it is! Like and then, you call me. You call to my company and the company call to my mobile or beeper, and then, "hey Kawabe, you go to that place," and you get the address, and I look it up in my map, and I go to your place and pick up the thing and deliver to your receiver.

Todd: Oh, to the receiver, to the recipient (Yeah), the recipient.

Kawabe: And then since it's a bike delivery it's always something you've got to deliver really fast, so which means it's a really dangerous job, you know, so many people, my colleagues had a car accident.

Todd: Oh really!

Kawabe: Definitely, if you,..

Todd: Not you right? You were OK?

Kawabe: Not me! Since I thought I, you know, I can have a really big accident if I keep on this job, that is why I quit.

Todd: Good choice.Yeah!

Kawabe: If you do that job for one year, definitely, you'll have one accident at least.

Todd: Seriouly!

Kawabe: Yeah! Seriously!

Todd: Man, wow! I heard something similar in the U.S. Big truck drivers, on average over their career, kill at least one person.

Kawabe: Yeah, the same kind of thing, you know! Especially in Tokyo. You know, there's millions of cars and motorcycles, and people walking on the street, you know it's really dangerous, and even if you are a safe driver, someone's gonna hit you, (Yeah) so.

Todd: There's nothing you can do.

Kawabe: You can run away if you are on the street but there's no place to run away, so, anyway, that was, that was an exciting job. I really enjoyed that because you are always outside. The rainy days, you know, I didn't like that, but on the sunny day, autumn, spring, and it was great to drive in Tokyo city. You could go everywhere and meet a lot of people and so. Yeah, I met one person, he was a manga writer. How do you say?

Todd: Yeah, manga writer, sure, yeah!

Kawabe: And then the publishing company asked me to take, how do you say, the document for the next week?

Todd: Oh, like the, the new issue. (Yeah) Yeah, the first draft, or whatever.

Kawabe: Yeah, and then he had to finish that one like until that day, so "Hey, Kawabe, you go to that manga writer's house and pick up the documents he's gonna give you, and then you bring that, the draft, how do you say? (Yeah) **** to the publishing company." OK, and I'd been to his house and I had to wait like four hours in front of his door cause you know, you can imagine, he couldn't finish up his work (Yeah, yeah) so he like in every thirty minutes he comes to the door, and says, "Oh, I'm so sorry! I'm gonna finish it in 10 minutes. It will be done in the next 10 minutes." And then he goes back and I wait and I just kept waiting from the door and actually, four hours later, he gave me the manga.

Todd: Really! (Yeah!) Did you read it on the way?

Kawabe: No, yeah, I was really tempted but I couldn't do that, and yeah, I brought that to the publishing company. That was so funny!

Todd: Cool story!