writing from
Scars Publications

Audio/Video chapbooks cc&d magazine Down in the Dirt magazine books

 

Order this writing
in the collection book
Dark Matter

available for only 1495 		Dark Matter, collection book front cover, 2008

This appears in a pre-2010 issue
of Down in the Dirt magazine.
Saddle-stitched issues are no longer
printed, but you can requesting it
“re-released” through amazon sale
as a 6" x 9" ISBN# book!
Email us for re-release to order.

Down in the Dirt v056

this writing is in the collection book
Decrepit Remains
(PDF file) download: only $9.95
(b&w pgs): paperback book $18.92
(b&w pgs):hardcover book $32.95
(color pgs): paperback book $75.45
(color pgs): hardcover book $88.45
 Decrepit Remains, the 2008 Down in the Dirt collection book
The Intruder

Tony Concannon

    “You’re not going out there?” Lisa asked.
    “Of course I am.”
    “Be careful.”
    She sounded sarcastic.
    I opened the door and bounded down the steps. My apartment on the north side of Tokyo was at the end of an alley and I had to go out to the street and then around the vegetable store on the corner. In front of me, in the middle of the intersection, four men were holding down an old man on his back. I froze ten feet away.
    The intersection was well-lit. The old man was giving the four men a battle. He shook free one leg and landed a kick in the side of the man holding the other leg. Before the old man could get a second leg free, the man who had been shaken off pounced on the free leg.
    “Hey, give us a hand,” one of the men shouted to me in Japanese. “Hold him down.”
    I didn’t move. The old man continued to struggle. His bare arms were thick. One of the men called for me to help again.
    I was standing in the same place when the first black and white police car arrived a minute later. The old man had given up when he had heard the siren, and he was lying tamely on his back, each of the four men holding an arm or a leg. A second police car, followed by two policemen on bicycles, came up the narrow side street. Two of the policemen handcuffed the old man and shoved him into the back seat of the second car. A third police car, the siren off, came up the wider, main street and pulled in behind the first car. A thickset, middle-aged policeman got out on the passenger’s side and walked toward the intersection.
    “There was a second man,” one of the policemen shouted. “He got away through the park.”
    The dark, tree-ringed park was on the right, beyond the police cars. The two policemen got back on their bicycles and rode down the street. One of them turned into the street in front of the park. The other waited for a fourth police car, which was slowly coming up the street. The car stopped and the driver spoke to the policeman on the bicycle. The siren came on and the car turned into the side street. The policeman on the bicycle rode into the park.
    The sirens had brought out the neighborhood. I looked for Lisa even though I knew she wouldn’t be there. She was of Japanese descent, but the only thing that seemed to interest her in Tokyo was the money she earned as a model.
    Sachiko, the daughter of my landlord, was standing alone at the edge of the crowd. She was wearing a red sweater and a long, brown skirt. She had seemed older since she had gotten married in the spring. She and her husband lived with her parents in the big house at the end of the alley. She had studied in the United States, and four years earlier, when I had first come to Japan and when I had spoken no Japanese, she had interpreted for me with everyone else in the neighborhood. Now we always spoke in Japanese. I walked over.
    “Good evening. What happened?” she said.
    “I’m not sure. I think they caught a thief. They have him in the police car over there. I heard the shouting and I thought it was a fight.”
    She took a couple of steps toward the car. The rear door was open, but the policeman guarding the old man was leaning forward, blocking the view.
    The man who had called for me to help had lit a long cigarette and was accepting the congratulations of his neighbors. He looked as if he had scored the winning touchdown in a football game. In Japan he wouldn’t have to worry about a lawsuit over a citizen’s arrest. I didn’t know if there was even a word for it. I could hear the other three men talking with two of the policemen. Everyone was smiling.
    “After last month we’ve all been on the lookout,” one of the men was telling the police. “We figured they’d come back for the car.”
    A gray car was parked several yards behind the police car into which the old man had been put.
    “You scared them off once and then they came back in a taxi?” the older policeman asked loudly, not smiling now.
    “They almost took us by surprise. We didn’t know there were two of them, either.”
    “The other one was younger?”
    “Younger and taller. Hair cut very short. Thin face.”
    The other policeman had a flashlight under his arm and was using it to write in a small notebook. Sachiko came back.
    “You can’t see his face,” she told me.
    “He’s old. He must be sixty or seventy.”
    “Really?”
    “Yeah. I feel a little sorry for him.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’s old, I guess.”
    “Did something happen around here last month?” I asked her.
    “Several cars were broken into in the parking lot behind that building.”
    She was referring to the big apartment building just in front of the intersection.
    “That must be what happened again.”
    One of the policemen opened the door of the gray car and shone his flashlight inside. He shut the door and walked over and spoke to the older policeman.
    “He might have dropped them or thrown them away around here. In any case, radio for a tow truck,” the older policeman told him in his booming voice.
    I was beginning to feel cold in my t-shirt. The temperature had dropped since evening and most of the other people were wearing sweaters or light jackets. Summer was over. I looked around for Lisa again but she wasn’t there. She had probably gone home. The woman who owned the futon shop was talking with Sachiko. When the woman saw me looking at her, she bowed and greeted me. She always greeted me even though I had been in her shop only once, four years earlier. The policeman who had searched the gray car was now looking with the flashlight along the edge of the road. The beam of another flashlight was moving behind the apartment building.
    I took a few steps toward the police car. The policeman guarding the old man was sitting back. The old man had his face in his hands.
    Two policemen slid into the front seat. The driver started the engine and switched on the siren. The man who had called for me to help waved at the police car as it passed him and headed down the street.
    There was nothing else for me to do and I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I said good night to Sachiko and the woman who owned the futon shop and headed back to my apartment.
    The door was locked. I knocked even though I knew Lisa had gone home, or more likely, to Roppongi or Shinjuku. I had run out without my key and I would have to ask my landlord to let me in. I had a good excuse, at least. I didn’t really care about Lisa, either. It wasn’t the first time and it wouldn’t be the last. Still thinking about the old man, I went back down the steps.



Scars Publications


Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.




Problems with this page? Then deal with it...