27. Mail Order

Bear asks if I want to order something.

“Pardon?”

“From the catalog, you can order something from it, if you like,” he says, “There ought to be a catalog under the desk.”

“A catalog? I don’t recall seeing . . .”

There are a number of documents, all encased in rubberized files, on the shelf below the desk. Turning one over, I find a catalog with columns of items listed under a variety of categories: snacks, drinks, sundries, stationery, and so on.

“Anything, you say?” I ask, looking at the snacks.

I’m not really hungry, but, ooh, some potato chips, something salty, would be nice . . . something to munch on, too . . . yeah . . . and maybe a nice bottle of tea . . . if I have to drink another cup of barley tea . . .

“Anything, but food and drinks,” he says.

Goddammit!

“You can order food and drinks on Tuesday.”

Tuesday feels like a lifetime away from today and I hope to God that I’m not still locked up by then.

The catalog is so finely printed, I can barely read it. That son-of-a-bitch, Bubbles, wouldn’t let me take my glasses in with me so I’m forced to hold the damn catalog at arm’s length.

Running my finger down the columns, I find a subsection dedicated to women’s hygiene products—tampons and sanitary napkins, and so on—meaning that somewhere in this shithole women are also moldering away. Under the heading of Men’s Hygiene is, among other items, a battery-operated electric razor, but, unfortunately, no deodorant.

After a few minutes’ careful perusal and the beginning of a headache, I fill out an OMR form with a gnawed pencil that Bear has lent me and order several pens, notebooks, and letter sets. If anything, I might be able to get some writing done while I’m locked up.

“Will I get these today?” I ask Bear as I hand the order form and pencil back to him.

“Nah. Not until next week,” the guard replies, adding another puncture to a tire that has been losing air fast.

“Here,” he says, passing two books through the bars. “Something for you to read.”

Bear has given me a nice thick novel called Glory Boys by Harry Bingham—another author I’ve never heard of—and Brigit Jones’s Diary.

“Thanks! Thanks a lot,” I say. He nods his head, then walks away, the sound of his rubber soles against the concrete floor growing faint as he clomps down the corridor.

Slouched on the zabuton and fanning myself with the uchiwa, I crack open Brigit Jones’s Diary. I’ve seen the movie twice and know what to expect, still, there’s something about reading a book after seeing it on the big screen that makes the words on the page so much more vivid than my meager imagination could ever muster.

The pages fly by and before I know it I’m already fifty pages into the novel.

You’ve got to pace yourself, Rémy; otherwise you’ll be through this fat girl’s diary in no time—off the rain swept streets of London and back in this stifling hot Japanese jail, lickety-split.

I put Bridget Jones down, and pick up Glory Boys, instead. It has the thickness of a phonebook and promises two days at least of healthy distraction.

With these two books—and let’s hope there are even more where these came from—it occurs to me that I might, just might, be able to make it.

Now, if only I can get those pens and paper, why, then the next few days should be a . . . well, not quite a cakewalk, but do-able. Yes, I think I can do this!

The radio calisthenics crackles through the squawk box: a repeat in its entirety of the very same triple-header of exercises that were piped through in the morning.

I can feel the screws loosening every time I hear the insipid tinkling of the piano accompaniment.

Next door, Digger is grunting away like a team of oxen hauling the roots of trees out of the ground.

If Digger can do it, then so can I can!

The instructions are next to impossible to follow, so I create a routine of exercises and stretches of my own.

I can do this, I tell myself as I do a set of pushups. I can . . . get through . . . this . . . I’m not . . . going to let . . . anything . . . get Rémy . . . Icare. . . Boncoeur . . . down . . . Nothing! Rémy . . . Icare. . . Boncoeur . . . will get . . . through this . . . Rémy . . . Icare. . . Boncoeur . . . will get . . . through this! Rémy . . . Icare. . . Boncoeur . . . will get . . . through this! Rémy . . . Icare. . . Boncoeur . . .

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The first posting/chapter in this series can be found here.

Rokuban: Too Close to the Sun and other works are available in e-book form and paperback at Amazon.

18. Radio Exercises

The patient evaluation concluded, the doctor initials my chart and hands it without a word to the orderly. He then retreats silently back to his office where I imagine he must spend the rest of the day counting the hours till he can go home.

The orderly then leads me back to my cell. Not that he need do so; I could just as easily find my own way by following the trail of dandruff.

As the cell door is closed behind me, the sprightly plinking of a piano comes through the loud speaker. A woman’s voice, full of verve, booms from the PA system: “Good morning everyone! Radio exercises! Let’s start with back stretches . . . Now, leg and arm exercises . . . For those of you standing, let’s really spread your legs . . . one, two, three, four.”

I don’t know if this is mandatory or not, so, to be on the safe side, I spread raise my arms.

“One, two, three, four.”

I can’t catch the next bit. Something about . . .

“Wind your arms around . . . Now do it in the opposite direction . . . Chest exercises . . . Diagonally and nice and wide . . . one, two, three, four.”

“What?”

“Do it slowly if you’re seated,” the woman instructs.

“Do what slowly?”

“Now bend all the way forward . . .”

Something pops in my back.

“Let the tension go . . .”

Yeah, right.

“Twisting exercises . . . one, two, three, four.”

Try as I might to follow along with the instructions, it’s hopeless. After a minute, I thrown in the towel and plop down on the rolled-up futon.

Judging by the grunts and slapping coming from my neighbors, it sounds as if all of them—gangsters, murderers, rapists, thieves, and hustlers, alike—are doing deep knee bends and jumping jacks.