The “police on duty” put the newspaper into the cell for me. It was the Sankei Shimbun (newspaper). We were allowed to read newspapers.
Turning over the pages from the front page, I found black lines covering over the original letters with black magic marker.
“What is this?” I asked one of my roommates, an eleven-time convict.
“Maybe the article is about one of us. Peer through the paper.”
According to him, unless immediately after marking, we can see the hidden letters when I look through them in the light.
“What? What’s this?” How surprised I was! Big headlines jumped to the eye. “Leaders of JREU Arrested” “Union Forces its Defiant Member to Quit”
At that moment I got so scared that I could hardly read the paper. I didn’t want to read it. I remembered that the police said, “Reporters are gathering.” I didn’t know what to do. “I have come out in the papers!” I trembled with fear. Before my own arrest I had seen TV gossip show for amusement as affairs of other people. The moment I knew I was in the similar situations, I became scared to imagine that I could be chased about by the TV or news reporters.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
No. 13 I’d like to cry!
After breakfast on the first morning at Suginami detention cell, I was worrying about my wife and son. At the same time I was gripped by the shock of my arrest.
After being arrested, everything was my first experience. Above all I got cultural shock at the lockup.
I couldn’t believe that I was in the barred cell which I had seen only on TV. I got scared whenever the police officer (we call him the “person on duty”) who watched us shouted as “Get up!” or “Wash your face!” in an imperative tone. I felt vaguely scared when I was in the community cell with criminals and also had breakfast with them. I felt I was wandering off into the world where I couldn’t go under normal circumstances.
A roll-call was one of them. Police officers made roll-calls after every breakfast and dinner. “Roll-call!” When the police officer called out the cell number and my own number, I had to reply “Yes, sir.” At first I didn’t know what to do, so I was one beat behind.
Another one was smoking time. When the time came, all streamed into the smoking room next to the lockup. I saw numbered wooden boxes with two cigarettes for each person. Two cigarettes a day were all that were allowed for one person.
In this smoking room we were allowed to clip nails and get a shave. A nail clipper had a mirror-like flat part, which we used for shaving as a mirror. I didn’t shave. That was the least to express my resistance, because “I had done nothing wrong.”
Though I was not a smoker, I was sent to the smoking room. I stood by the window and looked at the scenery out of the barred window. I saw a motor park of the Suginami Police Station. Some police cars went in and out there.
I felt an impulse to cry with anger which filled my heart. I couldn’t accept my situation. “What am I doing?” However, immediately after that, I said to myself, “Just be patient a little longer. I can go home in a couple of days.”
The widow in the middle of the picture was that of the smoking room.
After being arrested, everything was my first experience. Above all I got cultural shock at the lockup.
I couldn’t believe that I was in the barred cell which I had seen only on TV. I got scared whenever the police officer (we call him the “person on duty”) who watched us shouted as “Get up!” or “Wash your face!” in an imperative tone. I felt vaguely scared when I was in the community cell with criminals and also had breakfast with them. I felt I was wandering off into the world where I couldn’t go under normal circumstances.
A roll-call was one of them. Police officers made roll-calls after every breakfast and dinner. “Roll-call!” When the police officer called out the cell number and my own number, I had to reply “Yes, sir.” At first I didn’t know what to do, so I was one beat behind.
Another one was smoking time. When the time came, all streamed into the smoking room next to the lockup. I saw numbered wooden boxes with two cigarettes for each person. Two cigarettes a day were all that were allowed for one person.
In this smoking room we were allowed to clip nails and get a shave. A nail clipper had a mirror-like flat part, which we used for shaving as a mirror. I didn’t shave. That was the least to express my resistance, because “I had done nothing wrong.”
Though I was not a smoker, I was sent to the smoking room. I stood by the window and looked at the scenery out of the barred window. I saw a motor park of the Suginami Police Station. Some police cars went in and out there.
I felt an impulse to cry with anger which filled my heart. I couldn’t accept my situation. “What am I doing?” However, immediately after that, I said to myself, “Just be patient a little longer. I can go home in a couple of days.”
The widow in the middle of the picture was that of the smoking room.
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