By Kevin Ramsden
Officer Hideki Maruyama sits astride his bicycle outside the police box, a regulation scowl plastered across his rough, hairless features. Since the recent upgrade to the traffic safety rules in Japan, mainly targeting the nation’s cyclists, he has been focused on elevating his observational powers. Shielded from view by the entrance to the “Koban” police box, he is satisfied he can remain completely undetected until any potential perpetrator is right on him.
With more than 100 new offenses to monitor, he must remain nothing less than supremely diligent. Indeed, in the past two weeks alone he has managed to snag 4 errant cellphone users, 3 double-riders, and one old biddy, openly flaunting the “no-umbrella-in-motion” rule. This evening though, he has one specific kind of prey in mind. For days, a small gang of high school kids have been brazenly tossing obscene gestures in his direction as they storm past, jeering, ringing their bells, testing his mettle. The little shits. Today it ends though. He’s ready for them.
5.00 pm he hears them coming. As they shoot past, calling out to each other, two-up and phones in hand, he stamps down hard on his lead pedal, propelling himself forward, legs pumping as he builds up a head of steam, silently moving into their wake. Just 10 meters ahead of him now, they career across a red light. Another law broken as they race on. Almost on them, he glances down, fumbling for the whistle in his top pocket. Unaware they’ve made an abrupt right turn ahead of him, he realizes his fatal error all too late as the side of a huge panel truck coming from his left looms into view. He’s committed the cardinal sin of the highway code. Failure to come to a complete halt at a stop sign. The resulting collision is not at all pretty. Officer Maruyama is pancaked flatter than a day-old cola. But against all the odds, manages to survive.
Six months have now passed since the incident and Maruyama is back at work. He is also back on wheels, but unfortunately only the small ones attached to the chair he is now confined to. His colleagues have thoughtfully lowered the counter in the koban to allow him to continue to interact with the public, albeit in a far more static role than he is used to, and he is trying hard to adapt. But change is not something he wants or needs.
With each day that passes, looking out the koban window at the world going by without him, his frustration builds. The daily ride-by of the same little punks that have put him in the chair does not help either. Still ringing their bells, laughing and hollering, he is convinced it is all aimed at him, sitting impotent inside, forced to endure their taunts. Despite his colleagues repeated attempts to calm him, he just can’t let it go. Maruyama wants revenge –– and he’s working on a plan.
5.00 pm on a dark, miserable Thursday afternoon. A slight drizzle has coated the head and shoulders of Officer Maruyama with a light sheen of rain as he sits in his brand-new electric wheelchair outside the koban. Dressed in civvies, having finished his shift an hour before, he is waiting patiently in the murk, having brushed aside the pleas of his colleagues to come back inside for a cup of tea. He is waiting for the arrival of his nemeses and praying they are all going to be present.
Fiddling nervously with the joystick on his super-customized, Exocet II chair, pushing it back and forth, he can feel the power beneath him in the battery driven units that will allow him to reach speeds of up to 40 km per hour once the expected chase commences. For today, Maruyama is going to put things right and bring his teenage tormenters to justice. And here they come. Hoods up, two-up, a little less swagger given the weather conditions, but still as anti-social and offensive as ever. Maruyama smiles. He is going to hold back just a little longer, confident his four-wheeled rocket is going to catch up to them in no time.
And then he’s off. Whistle between his lips this time, ready to unleash as hard and as shrill a blast as possible once he is on them. And mere seconds after launch, he can almost reach out and touch the rear wheel of the tail cyclist with his night stick. Breathing in and preparing an epic blow on the whistle, he glances quickly to his left, and just in time to see he is going to be broadsided by the clapped-out old shopping bike belonging to the renegade geriatric, and serial offender, Mrs. Fumiko Tanaka. One gnarled, skinny old mitt wrapped around one side of the handlebars, the other gripping and desperately trying to control, a rogue umbrella turned inside out by a gust of wind.
The impact is phenomenal, and neither party is spared. Coming together in a grotesque ballet of rubber, metal, bone and flesh there is no possibility of anyone coming out of it unscathed. Yet, despite this, the only thought that drifts into Hideki’s mind is “that’s an Article 70 aokippu blue ticket offence”. Then his head meets the jagged edge of the curb with a resounding thwack. As the wheels of both vehicles continue to spin and the sound of approaching footsteps gets louder and louder, his eyes slowly close and his lips flutter gently shut. It is “sayonara, over and out” for Officer Maruyama this time.
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Kevin Ramsden resides in Kyoto, Japan, and is a professor of Global Studies at a university in the city. Other than writing, his interests include listening to reggae music and complaining about the performances of West Ham United football club. He has also self-published a collection of short stories titled “Here Comes Kenji – Stories from Contemporary Japan,” some of which have found homes in Japan-based journals and magazines along with a number of others accepted for publication around the world.