Regardless of culpability, 95% of those arrested in Japan confess to the crimes of which they have been accused. Once indicted, 99.9% of defendants will be found guilty, their confessions being the single most damning piece of evidence used by prosecutors against them.
When the show is over, I return to the zabuton and read the final chapters of a book that has had the ride of an Oldsmobile. I can’t say my socks were knocked off by the novel’s plot, but Melancholy Baby has helped me get through this my first full day in the can.
“And for that, I am grateful, Mr. Robert B. Parker,” I say to the black and white photo of the author on the back. “Thank you.”
With the radio calisthenics providing light background music, I resume reading Robert B. Parker’s Melancholy Baby.
Of the many alarming prospects currently facing me, the most pressing at this very moment is the fact that I’ve only got fifty pages left of this novel. Mysteries have never been my cup of tea, but I have to admit that I am indebted to Parker: were it not for the author’s words transporting me out of this dingy cell and onto the streets of Boston and New York, I really don’t know how I would have made it through the first night in the joint.
So, what am I going to do when I finish this book?
Odds are the jail doesn’t have an extensive collection of entertaining novels and stimulating books in English, let alone in French. For all I know Melancholy Baby may be the token foreign language novel. If worst comes to worst, I can always read something in Japanese, I suppose. I passed the night at the prefectural detention center, after all, by reading Murakami Haruki’s translation of A Catcher in the Rye, didn’t I? But my soul needs nourishment like a baby needs a tit; a Japanese novel would only leave me hankering for something meatier.
“Hey you!"
"Me?"
"Yes, you!” A guard yells at me through the small window. “Get off that futon!”
“Huh?”
“Off the futon. You’re not allowed to sit on the futon now.”
Oh, for the love of God.
The guard asks if I have a zabuton.[1]
“A zabuton? No.”
A few minutes later, Gilligan comes by with a thin, spongy gray square floor cushion for me. Folding the zabuton in half, he shoves it through the bars.
Dropping it onto the tatami mat, I sit down, cross my legs, and go back to reading.
The radio calisthenics, meanwhile, have given way to a ten-minute long Pilates workout, followed by another ten-minute session of a stretching and wellness workout. The twinkling of a piano is replaced by new age ambient music. And I can’t help but look up from the pages of the novel and wonder: how many of the thugs in Cell Block C are presently healing their tired souls through low impact isometrics?
[1] A zabuton (座布団, lit. “sitting futon”) is a square floor cushion for sitting on.