1.06 Neighbors

No sooner is the morning roll call over than a commotion, like racehorses bursting through gates, comes from the corridor. Outside the window, guards, far too many to count, are galloping by, billy clubs and fists and the glint of malice in their eyes.

The door to my cell is thrown open. A guard calls out at the top of his voice, "Inspection. Out of the cell now!"

As I’m rising to my feet, the guard shouts, “Get the lead out, Number Six!”

I’m coming. I’m coming. Ah, Christ.

Stepping out into the corridor, I find it is none other than Mr. Congeniality himself who’s breaking my balls. And now Bubbles is yelling at me to put my slippers on.

Slippers? What slippers?

“Oh, right,” I mumble, noticing a shabby, old pair of rubber flip-flops set to the side of cell door. "C-1-24" scrawled on the insteps.

Sliding my feet into them, I can’t help but feel a little bit like a disconcerted Goldilocks: the left one is far too small--my heel hangs over the back; the right one, with its strap torn, is far too loose. Taking an awkward step forward, the right one flops off.

“A for crying out loud.”

"Slipper!"

I know. I know. Sheesh.

After giving me a good pat down, Bubbles gestures towards the opposite wall and orders me to stand with my face against it.

“But there’s a trolley . . . “

“No talking!”

“How do you . . . “

“Silence, Number Six!”

“But this trolley’s in the way.”

“Number Six! Oh, you’re right. I didn’t . . . ,” he says. Then, in faltering English, he tells me to “Shit down”.

When I sit down on the trolley, he shouts in Japanese, “Get your ass off that trolley!” Adding, that he didn't mean sit, he meant squat.

Whatever, Bubbles.

So, I squat down in front of the trolley. Meanwhile, the others guards are tittering and sniggering among themselves like junior high school boys.

“Hey, Satoh. Great English there,” one of the guards says. “Ooh, I’m impressed.”

“Oi, Satoh,” another says, holding up his billy club, “Is this a pen?”

As a guard goes through the meager belongings in my cell, I take a curious gander down the length of the corridor where a good two-dozen inmates have been forced out of their cells like worms from the soil after a heavy rain. Four-dozen eyeballs are looking daggers back at the only gaijin in the joint.

To my right, a broken twig of an old man, dodders out of Cell Number 26. His shoulder-length gray, disheveled hair, and scraggly beard make him look like a castaway, long forgotten and given up for dead. All bent out of shape, the old man’s movements are so pained and deliberate, you can’t help but wonder what on Earth a bag of bones like him could have ever done to wind up in a shithole like this.

Between Castaway and me is a skinny young kid, not much older than twenty, who’s been given a real hack job with a mad pair of clippers. The kid fidgets restlessly with his mouth--fingering his lower lip and giving it a good tug now and again. He steals nervous glances at me, the castaway, the guards, and now me again. It wouldn’t surprise me if the kid in 25 were retarded.

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men do, indeed, gang aft a-gley.

To my left, and much too close for comfort, stands my neighbor from Cell Number 23, a lout of a man a few years younger than myself with nearly double the waistline. Dressed in his boxer shorts and a sweat-stained t-shirt, he digs into the crack of his arse like he's mining for gold, then, gives his finger a good, long whiff. I think he found a nugget.

As bad as things are, they could be so much worse had I been forced to share a cell with any of these fine gentlemen.

© Aonghas Crowe, 2010. All rights reserved. No unauthorized duplication of any kind.

注意：この作品はフィクションです。登場人物、団体等、実在のモノとは一切関係ありません。

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

The first installment of No.6 can be found here.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.