Table of Contents
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Chapter 1
Deception
I stole the cell phone on nothing more than a spur-of-the-moment whim, without any sense of wanting to do anything with it. The man sitting next to me at the McDonald’s counter had absentmindedly laid the dark-blue device on the left side of my tray, which I had pushed so far in his direction that he apparently took it for his own. I hadn’t even seen it until I started to get up. As I took out my Walkman earbuds, I glanced at him. He was dressed in a suit, with his back to me, jabbering away at what appeared to be two subordinates seated farther down. He struck me as a total bore.
“That’s why I don’t use those eco-bags. Mind you, I admire whoever it was that came up with the idea, but not the jerks who go out and get one as soon as they see other people parading around with them . . . Like you . . .” He said this as he pointed down to the feet of one of his listeners. “You and me, we’re in the marketing business. We’re the ones who should be doing the parading, not the other way around, which is strictly for losers. Do you get that? Because that’s the trick of our trade. If it’s eco-bags, we should get people to want more and more of them. Of course, there’s nothing at all ‘ecological’ about the things. With so many out there, they become just another kind of garbage. Come to think of it, if you take it all to its logical extreme, the most environmentally friendly thing you can do is eat shit. There’s even a bug that does just that—a dung beetle or something . . . So what do you call the shit of a shit-eating beetle? See what I mean? Putting off a dump feels good, doesn’t it? I sometimes wait as long as possible. Hey, now that’s ecological!”
I picked up my tray with the cell phone still on it, stood up, and left.
Working at Megaton, the volume-sales electrical appliance store, I had Mondays and Thursdays off. On Thursdays I would brunch at McDonald’s.
After I walked out, I went up to Tenichi Books on the third floor of the Hiyoshi Station Building, where I leisurely leafed through photography magazines before going off to a convenience store nearby to buy a dinner box. I then took the twenty-minute walk back to my apartment, where I emptied my pockets on the top of the quilted foot warmer. It was then I remembered that I had swiped the cell phone.
What a hassle! I thought, grumbling to myself. Why the hell did I walk off with the damn thing in the first place? I was contemplating how I would throw it away, when I happened to peek at the latest message:
Okay, Daiki. We’ll start off at 5,000 yen per person, and then we can adjust the amount up or down, according to individual circumstances. You or I can give him the money in advance when we go to the hospital. Later we’ll provide the account number for bank transfers.
I went back over the history of the e-mail exchanges. A former school buddy had been responsible for an automobile collision while driving under the influence, resulting in serious injury to his fiancée, who was riding with him. Under the circumstances, the insurance wouldn’t come close to covering what he’d have to fork out, so his friends were rallying round to provide some support.
It occurred to me that I really couldn’t ditch the cell phone without pulling off some sort of prank, so as a return message I tapped in: Go ahead and pay the money. Right now I’m holding back on a big turd. It feels fantastic!
But then I thought that actually sending it would be much too stupid and so abandoned the idea. I snapped the cell phone shut, resolving to throw it away after all, when suddenly it began to vibrate. On the screen I could see: Mother. It was a call, not an e-mail. Needless to say, I didn’t respond, but when the vibrations stopped, I checked the log, found that she had left a message, and listened to it.
“Ah, Dai-chan. This is your mother. A postcard has come from your high school about a reunion. If you need it, I’ll forward it to you, but you might consider coming home once in a while. Please return this call.”
My first reaction was to feel a modicum of sympathy for this Daiki fellow, stuck with a mother who could work herself into a tizzy over some class-reunion postcard and then order him to pay her a visit. His fondness for holding back on his bowel movements struck me as a good indication of how overprotective and meddlesome she must have been while bringing him up. But then I thought that he might have been so unfilial that in desperation she had used the card simply as an excuse. Okay, I said to myself, I’ll send the turd e-mail to her instead.
I looked for her address in the family folder but could only find a ten-digit number beginning with area code 048. Only his sister’s home and cell numbers were listed, suggesting that the mother had no cell phone of her own.
I was disappointed at not being able to send a message to “Mother”; I had wanted to add a little joy to her life. There was nothing else to be done: I’d simply call her.
I practiced imitating the voice and tone of the McDonald’s man: “Hey, it’s me, Daiki. Look, I’m sooo sorry! I couldn’t pick up because I was in the middle of postponing a major drop.”
I was surprised at how authentic I sounded and so carried on with my monologue. Just then the cell phone started vibrating again. It was Mother.
At the end of all my dithering, it seemed to me that swiping the cell phone was all part of some karmic plan. Okay, I said to myself, I’m Daiki. So let’s do it! I pushed the answer button.
Before I could speak, I heard Mother say: “Ah, Daiki? It’s your mother. Did you get the message I just left? You’ve got to let them know by May 7 whether you’ll be attending or not. Please come pick up the card. It’s been over six
