My friend has a knack for getting into trouble.
By William Wetherall
Last year about this time he was shopping at an upscale Tokyo market. The place is patronized mostly by locals with higher incomes -- boutique owners, foreign diplomats, corporate elites and the like. My friend, a freelance nutritionist, is not rich, and the store is a bit out of his way, but he has a weakness for imported oatmeal.
Outside the store one day, sitting on the sidewalk, was a man in his 20s, waiting for his girlfriend or wife, who was inside shopping, my friend surmised. The man was wearing sunglasses and gripping a red leash, to which was tethered a restless ball of white fluff that strutted an unbroken line of descent from Jinmu's fondest lapdog.
In front of the man, on a Pierre Cardin hankie, was a stainless steel dish of water the dog lapped between yaps at passersby. My friend, not yet having done anything kind that day, dug a one-yen coin out of his pocket, tossed it into the water, smiled at the mutt and his master, and disappeared down the gullet of a nearby subway.
The dog lapped up the coin before the man could pluck it out of the dish. A patrolman who had just emerged from the mouth of the subway, seeing the dog trembling, called the fire department, and an ambulance took the dog to the nearest animal hospital.
While the dog was dying from acute aluminum poisoning aggravated by cooties, the man described the suspect to the police, who immediately recognized him as the notorious cell-phone hater who had recently been released on bail for snatching and destroying people's mobiles. A police artist's sketch of my friend's face had been posted on koban bulletin boards throughout the Tokyo area, and the weeklies were still running "Grinning cell-basher" stories.
My friend was caught off guard the next morning by a knock on the door. Charged with both harassment of the rich and tip and run, he told the police he had just made a wish.
Unable to recall what he had wished for, he confessed he had spared a yen for what he took to be a panhandler. His smile had been without malice, he insisted, and he had walked, not run, to the subway.
"What was I supposed to think, your honor?" he told the court. "The dude was wearing shades and squatting on the pavement beside a bowl. And when I came out of the store he had moved to the other side of the entrance."
My friend was tried before a jury of peers who found him charming and full of good intentions. Nonetheless, they agreed with the prosecutor that he was guilty of destroying a family's happiness.
In lieu of a prison term, he was was ordered to pay the veterinarian fees, the cremation and funeral costs, and the bill for a crypt in a pet columbarium with sixty years of maintenance and morning -- arfs, woofs, and bow wows every death anniversary, punctuated with howls and growls in Years of the Dog.
The court also awarded emotional damages to the canine victim's bereaved human companions -- the man, his wife who indeed was shopping, and the daughter who was with her. On top of which my friend had to pay his own and the family's attorney fees, and buy the daughter a new pedigreed puppy and a lifetime supply of her favorite dog food. Last week she was hauled into juvenile hall for chasing cars.
My friend, yen-less by judgment day, opted for a year in prison, where he got lots of fan mail. "God bless you for the wonderful work you're doing with Tokyo's street people," one wrote in a long letter, enclosing a picture of herself, on the back of which she had jotted her name and cell number. A less charitable writer scribbled "Cheapskate!" across the back of a postcard.
The last time I visited my friend he appeared to be enjoying his stay. He feels safer in prison, where the TV crews can't hound him, paparazzi can't snap at his heels, and muckrakers can't get a leg up on his private affairs. He is also grateful the prison prohibits cells, though he misses chocolate bars. "They're afraid someone will break out," he winked.
With nothing better to do, he is busy on a book about his life. A major publisher has shown interest and movie rights are on the table. The working title is "Stepping in it: The confessions of a public nuisance".
Until he gets out, I'm feeding his mongrel, Machiko, who whines most of the day and deep into the night.
27 September 2009
