Another translation
“So it’s me who’s wrong here?” by Tatsuya Mori
From the collection “Oh, it sure drives me nuts!” edited by Sawako Agawa.
There are some woods near my house, where oversized garbage gets dumped.
About half a year ago, I found a rusty bicycle in the brush there. Broken brake cable, but if you put a bit of work into it, you could ride it. Had gears too, quite a bit higher class than the shopping bike that I was riding for two years. Sad to see a bike like this mixed with garbage.
So this is how I came to be riding that bike, used it to commute between home and the train station.
Two months ago, in the middle of the night, I am hurrying home from a bar that I frequent, in the best mood ever. Of course, riding that very bicycle, rust all cleaned off and the brake cable fixed. As I turn a corner, all of a sudden a red lamp appears. A police checkpoint! Got stopped, and inquired politely by a police officer: “Is this your bicycle?”
“Yes,” say I, not quite able to conceal the pride.
“When and where did you acquire it?”
“Picked it out of trash, must have been about five months ago, I guess...”
And that’s when all the commotion started.
If only there were someone at the station to contact by radio… The younger cop is inspecting the bicycle frame with the flashlight, the one older one questioning me over and over. Must have taken them an hour; all the while quite a few bikes and cars are passing by, and a few of those do suddenly change direction and speed off in a hurry, probably not quite prepared to be able to provide a satisfactory account either; but it never crosses the minds of my leisurely policemen to maybe think about following those.
So in the end, I get dragged to the local police station. Looks like they are trying to verify if a theft report has been filed, but of course there wouldn’t be one for a bicycle that was thrown out. If there were any suspicion that the bike was stolen, shouldn’t it have been cleared at that point? But no, they just wouldn’t let it go. Is it a crime to pick up something that the owner abandoned? Well, in the case of a bicycle, they tell me, even if the owner threw it out, you can’t pick it up. So after they file the protocol and fingerprint me, I get taken in the police car to the place where I picked up the bike, and get God knows how many pictures taken of, while posing, pointing at the place where I took it. Imagine if some neighbor were to walk by, they probably would have thought that some utter villain is confessing where he dumped the body.
The whole thing is finally over past three in the morning.
I did ask them what they were planning to do with the bicycle. “Can’t identify the ownership, sir, so it will have to be properly discarded,” was the answer.
And you say it’s my bad for not being satisfied with that answer? I really got to liking that bike!
From the collection “Oh, it sure drives me nuts!” edited by Sawako Agawa.
There are some woods near my house, where oversized garbage gets dumped.
About half a year ago, I found a rusty bicycle in the brush there. Broken brake cable, but if you put a bit of work into it, you could ride it. Had gears too, quite a bit higher class than the shopping bike that I was riding for two years. Sad to see a bike like this mixed with garbage.
So this is how I came to be riding that bike, used it to commute between home and the train station.
Two months ago, in the middle of the night, I am hurrying home from a bar that I frequent, in the best mood ever. Of course, riding that very bicycle, rust all cleaned off and the brake cable fixed. As I turn a corner, all of a sudden a red lamp appears. A police checkpoint! Got stopped, and inquired politely by a police officer: “Is this your bicycle?”
“Yes,” say I, not quite able to conceal the pride.
“When and where did you acquire it?”
“Picked it out of trash, must have been about five months ago, I guess...”
And that’s when all the commotion started.
If only there were someone at the station to contact by radio… The younger cop is inspecting the bicycle frame with the flashlight, the one older one questioning me over and over. Must have taken them an hour; all the while quite a few bikes and cars are passing by, and a few of those do suddenly change direction and speed off in a hurry, probably not quite prepared to be able to provide a satisfactory account either; but it never crosses the minds of my leisurely policemen to maybe think about following those.
So in the end, I get dragged to the local police station. Looks like they are trying to verify if a theft report has been filed, but of course there wouldn’t be one for a bicycle that was thrown out. If there were any suspicion that the bike was stolen, shouldn’t it have been cleared at that point? But no, they just wouldn’t let it go. Is it a crime to pick up something that the owner abandoned? Well, in the case of a bicycle, they tell me, even if the owner threw it out, you can’t pick it up. So after they file the protocol and fingerprint me, I get taken in the police car to the place where I picked up the bike, and get God knows how many pictures taken of, while posing, pointing at the place where I took it. Imagine if some neighbor were to walk by, they probably would have thought that some utter villain is confessing where he dumped the body.
The whole thing is finally over past three in the morning.
I did ask them what they were planning to do with the bicycle. “Can’t identify the ownership, sir, so it will have to be properly discarded,” was the answer.
And you say it’s my bad for not being satisfied with that answer? I really got to liking that bike!