The X-ray

It's done.
I can now give "the company", as I've come to call them, an x-ray of my chest which will complete their medical records. Obtaining the x-ray was not, however, without its difficulties. The trip would be my first outside of the 10 square blocks around my apartment which I have anxiously been ambling about for the past 3 days. In fact, if the locals have come to recognize my presence, if they have an image, then it is of a timid and uncertain, lanky fellow walking about: one time, as someone might recollect, looking toward the sky while toting a package of toilet paper precariously out of an unzipped backpack; maybe lost, they would think, but most probably stupid.
The trip to Namba section where the doctor is located can be no more than a 30 minute commute but, curveball, there is a transfer from train to subway. The only complication this offered, and indeed the only one I encountered, was the necessity to change ticket types. Turning to the handiest tool I have ever owned, my pocket dictionary/phrasebook (Thanks Jake), I was given a beacon of hope. The book included a diagram of a standard ticketing machine which showed, to my delight, a button promising a full walkthrough in English.
Firsthand, no button exists. Rather, my solution for depuzzling the Japanese ticket machine was to start with small bills and work my way up to cut loses as I would inevitably screw up. A fine plan but it takes some guess work, guess work that holds me wide eyed in front of the automatic teller for some time. The people backing up in the line make me nervous and it isn't long before I abort the mission and let the crowd at their business. It's okay because there are quite a few tellers about the station but scattered wildly which sends me walking back and forth in a curious bee line looking for a vacant machine and shying away when the next train empties its cars of people back into the lobby and so back into the intimidating queues. If my dazed shuffling about the station concerned anyone, if they could comment to one of my neighbors, they might receive a dismissive wave of the hand, they might say, 'Oh, he does that.'
Tickets purchased. Things go smoother. Outside of the station I've reached Namba, Osaka. I rarely need to consult my map and can enjoy walking amongst the many towers and animated billboards, past the flamboyant traffic men waving their flags and the crowds they are herding, to find the tower where the doctor's clinic should be. To be brief, I am ushered into the lobby by a pleasant receptionist and asked to fill out a questionnaire while I wait for the doc.
Do you smoke? Have you had a serious illness? Do you break 2 days in between drinking? The last question hints at a touchstone for alcohol abuse in the country much higher than I would've granted and I begin to reconsider my allowances when the doctor steps in and calls me back. He introduces himself and asks 'How are you?' not 'Ogenki desu ka.' He speaks English and the potential conversation is exciting.
I gush a little about the trip telling him that 'It was difficult but I'm fine now though its been warmer than what I would have imagined for the fall though I suppose..." when his slack expression interrupts me to say 'I'm sorry, what?' My face answers back, 'This is going to be like everywhere else isn't it?' and his quiet says 'Yes.' While the doctor and I banter quietly, a lovely nurse has stepped with us into the examination room. She motions for me to take my shirt off and her gesture strikes me as a little provocative but, alas, I am the one on stage. I'm coached onto a platform where I'm instructed to rest my chin and shirtless belly against a dull, brown, metal rig. I wonder briefly about the lead vest one would expect but disregard it because the doctor and nurse are standing in place behind me, the doctor prompting me to inhale and exhale slowly. By the third breath I've chalked the lack of radiation protection up to advanced Japanese technology when the doctor says 'Stop' and hopes quickly out of the room and shuts the door. I've been tricked.
Out of the corner of my eye, I can catch the bastard going for a button and then a quick clicking noise behind me spools up. Next, I swear I feel a lethal, carcinogenic, gamma pulse working its way through my chest; recruiting cells to take up the fight and revolt like some cancerous Paul Revere.
In an instant he's back in the room, smiling. He tells me to put my shirt back and I remember how to ask 'How much?' in broken Japanese. Looking back on the scene I must've appeared like a first time prostitute without much confidence: standing shyly after an unpleasant experience and snapping my shirt back on while hoping that he'll cut me a fair price.
To set a fair comparison, Wilkes Regional Medical Center gave me a quote. $148 dollars for the x-ray plus technician's fees and 3 days to process. The doctor told me it would be 2,000 yen, roughly 20 US dollars, and if I waited for 5 minutes, then the receptionist would bring everything I needed right out.
Sure. I can live with that.