1.22 Benkai

"Number Six."

I look up from my book to find Bear peering in through the window.

It may be a new day, but I’m already feeling like Sisyphus going through the same routine with the same guard as yesterday.

"Yes?"

He mumbles something I don't catch.

“What?”

"Benkai," he says. "You're lawyer's here. Get ready."

“My lawyer?” I say brightening up.

I'm so delighted I could do a little jig right here in the cell.

Maybe now we can get this matter all settled and Rémy can finally be on his merry little way.

If I had my druthers, I'd have them release me before Gilligan wheeled lunch around. Three nights in jail is more than enough time for an innocent man to do.

I want out and I want out now!

I put the gray shirt on, making sure to tuck it in properly, and then kneel before the door, legs tucked under my fanny.

Benkai, yet one more truncated word in the Ministry of Justice's lexicon. I give the word some thought, turning it around in my head like a Rubik’s cube until it occurs to me that it may be shorthand for bengoshi menkai (lit. attorney visitation).

Several minutes later, just as the radio exercises are starting to kick in, a dull metallic clank at the front of the cell tells me the door has been unlocked.

"Number Six," a guard says as he opens the cell door. "Benkai."

After confirming my name and number, the guard leads me to the right, and up the corridor.

As we walk past the windows of my neighbor's cells, I can't help but have a peak. The boy next door in Cell 25 is at his desk writing what looks like a long letter. In the next cell, the long-haired, bearded castaway sits against the wall, knees pulled up against his bare chest and bony arms at his sides. He stares vacantly, rocks slowly.

At the end of the corridor we come to a wall of bars. The guard orders me to face the wall as he fiddles with the lock. We do a dosado of sorts upon passing through the opening, and, once again, I’m told to face of wall while he locks the door behind us.

The guard takes me up a flight a stairs, then down a broad hallway. Similar to the hall on the other western side of the jail, the outer wall is adorned with posters featuring Kyushu's scenic spots.

Wouldn’t it be more humane if there were windows offering a glimpse of the world outside the jail, something real and familiar to hold on to so the prisoners don’t go completely bonkers, than these teasers from destinations as distant as freedom for many of these men is?

At the end of the hall, we arrive at another wall of bars. A guard on the other side, sitting at a wooden desk cluttered with forms and rubber stamps, asks for my number.

"Number Six."

He makes a notation in a register, and gives me an inkpad to dab my finger on. I put my fingerprint on the form.

We dosado, and yet another guard comes round the outside to escort me further up the hallway which narrows and slopes downward. The floor changes from bare concrete to white tile. Through a door on the right, and down a flight of steps brings us back to the first floor. Passing through one more locked door, we enter an "L" shaped hallway, windowless and antiseptic with evenly spaced doors running along the inner wall. The guard opens one of the doors and orders me to get in and take a seat. He turns the air-conditioner on and locks the door behind me.

The room is small, and lit up like a showcase. I sit down on a metal chair that is bolted to the floor and rest my hands on the cold stainless steel counter before me. A thick pane of glass separates my side from an identical, but unlit room on the other side.

This is how germs must feel when examined under a microscope.

On the wall is a list of rules:

No yelling.

No banging on the glass.

No standing.

And so on.

Fluorescent lights on the other side flicker on. The door opens.

My lawyer hurries in looking just as disheveled and confused as when I first met him a week ago.

"I tried to get here as soon as I could," he says, placing his briefcase on the metal counter and sitting down. He takes a long hard look at me, and then exhales slowly. "Things have gotten rather serious, haven't they?"

"Yeah."

© 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.

No. 6 is now available on Kindle.