by Jeremy Bates
I shrugged off my jacket and unbuttoned my dress shirt. Soon I stood naked as a newborn, my tweed suit, designer boxer briefs, and socks all folded neatly on the table next to me. The doctor snapped on a pair of blue Nitrile gloves and performed a thorough physical examination, which I endured silently. After he finished, he gave me a pale-green jumpsuit, matching Crocs, a white tee-shit, and a pair of shapeless white underwear. Once I was dressed, he asked for my watch and rings.
“Do I get the all clear?” I asked lightheartedly.
The doctor nodded. “You are in excellent health.” He gathered the green file folder.
“What happens now?”
“Someone will be with you shortly.”
Be with me shortly? Sounded like I was getting table service at a restaurant.
The doctor left the room. A guard opened the door, holding it ajar until an old man in a green jumpsuit identical to mine entered.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Barber,” he said, setting a small leather case on the table and taking out clippers and brushes. “Please have a seat.”
I relaxed but remained standing. “I do not want my hair cut.”
“Are you Jewish?”
“No.”
“Muslim or Rastafarian?”
“What? No. Merde. Do I look Rastafarian?”
“Then you must cut hair. It is rule.”
I stared at the inmate-barber for a long moment. He stared back, his eyes resigned, as if he were used to first-timers causing a stink such as this. I sat in the chair.
“Do I get a say in how short you cut it?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “No choice.”
He slid a very short guard onto his clipper, turned it on, and rode it over my head, moving against the grain of my hair. The clippers whined angrily as clumps of my dark hair fell onto my jumpsuit.
The old man dusted off my scalp with one of the brushes, deloused it with an insecticide, then handed me a small mirror.
“No, thank you,” I said, not wanting to see what I looked like.
“You won’t see your reflection again very long time.”
This statement hit me hard, but I didn’t capitulate, stubbornly shaking my head.
The inmate-barber shrugged, tucked away the mirror with the rest of his tools and left, leaving me to wonder who was going to clean up all the hair on the floor.
∆∆∆
A beefy man in a blue suit was the next person to pay me a visit. He looked normal enough until he opened his mouth to speak. I’d never seen teeth like this guy had. There must have been twice as many as there were supposed to be crammed into his mouth. They were yellow, leaning every which way, growing out of his gums in all the wrong places, and in several spots, growing in parallel rows. It was almost as if his baby teeth had never fallen out and his permanent teeth had been desperate for new and creative places to sprout.
I had to force myself to look away from the carnival sight. The man’s rheumy eyes twinkled amusedly, as if he was used to the reaction his teeth caused in others.
“Sorry?” I said. “What did you say?”
“Please look here.” He raised a camera and snapped a photograph of me with my new do. In natural-sounding English, he asked, “Do you know where you are?”
I nodded. “The Tokyo Detention House.”
“Do you know why you are here?”
“I know that I am not supposed to be here.”
Jaws laughed, tilting his head back and opening his maw wide. To my disgust, I saw he even had a tooth growing out of the roof of his mouth.
“If you were not supposed to be here,” he said, grinning savagely, “you would not be here.”
“There has been a mistake,” I said simply.
“If that is the case, 232, then I hope we remedy it quickly so you can get back to where you are supposed to be.”
I frowned. “232?”
“That is your prisoner number. You do not have a name while you are incarcerated here.”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t care what they called me.
“Let me rephrase my question,” Jaws said. “Do you know why you have been arrested?”
“Because two immigration officers could not find my country on a map.”
“Passport fraud, making false statements, and giving false information,” he stated importantly. “Do you accept that you are guilty of these crimes?”
“No,” I said.
Jaws leaned back in his chair. “You know, 232, Japan has much in common with many Western countries. But our criminal justice system is uniquely Japanese. So let me offer you a piece of advice. A confession of guilt is looked upon by the courts as a sign of remorse. Consequently, you can be assured a light sentencing.” He shrugged the humps that were his shoulders. “If you insist on claiming innocence, and are found guilty, you will be treated much more harshly during the court proceedings and sentencing.”
“I would like to speak to an attorney,” I stated.
“No, I don’t think that is necessary at the moment.”
“Bordel de merde!” I swore. “Under international law, I have a right to receive legal representation.”
“No, 232, you do not,” Jaws hissed, his chicanery dropped. “Under the Japanese Code of Criminal Procedure, the police can detain you in this detention center for thirteen days. If you don’t admit your guilt, the prosecutor can and will request your detention be extended for an additional ten days. During this time, you have no right to an attorney. You have no right to anything. You are nothing but a number. Do you understand what I am saying, 232?”
I ground my teeth. “You are saying you can hold me for nearly a month without charging me with any crime and without allowing me to speak to an attorney?”
“Yes, 232, that is exactly what I’m saying. Perhaps you are not as stupid as you look.”
Chapter 14
After Jaws left, two prison guards escorted me to a large holding pen containing ten other male detainees, some of whom I recognized from the white coach. They eyed me warily, their faces ranging in expression from resignation to dismay. I was feeling a lot closer to dismay, but I tried to keep my expression neutral as I took a seat on a concrete bench.
Four Chinese sat together in one corner of the pen, speaking to each other in Mandarin. Three others were Vietnamese. There was also a small black man who resembled a mini Vin Diesel, a taller black man as scrawny as a malnourished mannequin, and an Arab with a long, scraggly beard. None of them looked like hardened criminals.
Mini Vinny saw me studying him and said in English, “Are you American, my friend?”
“I am from Taured,” I replied.
“Taured? Where’s that?”
“In Europe.”
“I have never heard of your country.”
“Join the club,” I said dryly.
“What have you been sentenced for?”
“I have not been sentenced. I have done nothing wrong.”
“You haven’t been sentenced?” The small man frowned. “But you have seen the ba?”
“The barber?” I said, deciphering his African accent. “Yes. He told me I must cut my hair.”
“No, that is wrong, my friend. Un-sentenced prisoners are not required to shave their heads.”
I glanced around the holding pen at the other detainees and realized everyone still had their hair except for me and Mini Vinny, who appeared to be naturally bald.
“Did your clothing feature any foreign-language slogans?” the small man asked me.
“No. I was wearing a suit.”
“Perhaps that is why they made you change. A suit in prison is not practical.”
Realizing also that I was the only detainee wearing a green jumpsuit, I cursed.
“This is prison, my friend,” Mini Vinny said. “You must learn your rights quickly and stand up for them when you can.”
“I have been told I do not have any rights,” I griped. “I was told I cannot even spe
ak with an attorney.”
“Unfortunately, that is the case. You are only allowed access to court-appointed counsel after you are indicted.”
“After!” I bellowed.
“Over the next twenty-three days your interrogators will do or say anything to elicit a confession from you.”
“Even if I am guilty of no crime?”
Mini Vinny nodded. “Innocence doesn’t matter in this place. Only guilt, or confessed guilt, so that a sentence can be meted out and”—he smiled wryly—“justice can be served.”
∆∆∆
At what felt like noon, guards brought us a basic lunch of rice (which tasted mostly of chewy barley), a morsel of fish, soup, and tea.
Mini Vin Diesel, sitting next to me, said, “Eat enough of this crap, and even Magdonnas will taste like a feast.”
He was right. The food was tasteless, and the thought of a McDonald’s hamburger made my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten anything since the rice ball and soba noodles the night before.
“Does it get any better?” I asked.
Mini Vinny shrugged. “Once or twice a month bread is served. That is a treat.”
After wolfing down the pitiful meal, I urinated in the lidless, stainless-steel toilet bolted to one wall. Although I also needed to move my bowels, I decided to wait until I was taken to my cell, where I hoped to have more privacy.
I spent much of the long afternoon in the holding pen talking to Mini Vinny, whose name was Ugo Ndukwe. He was from Nigeria and had come to Japan seeking asylum. His application was promptly rejected, and for the last three years he had been incarcerated in the Tokyo Detention House for refusing to be repatriated to his country. Two weeks earlier, while on a hunger strike protesting his unjust and lengthy detention, he was granted provisional release. Then this morning, when he visited the Tokyo Regional Immigration Bureau to renew his release term, an official told him the duration of his provisional release could not be extended—and the next thing he knew he was being transferred back to the prison with no reason for the decision.
“I do not understand,” I said, feeling sorry for the man. “Why did they let you out of here, only to arrest you again?”
Ugo Ndukwe smiled sadly. “To set an example that hunger strikes are useless. If you starve yourself, you’ll simply be set free, allowed to return to proper health, and then locked up once more.”
“How long can they keep you locked up for? You have already been here for three years!”
“Until I give up my ‘immigration-mindedness,’ as they put it, and ‘go home.’”
“Japan must reform its immigration policies! They are archaic in this day and age.”
“Good luck getting them to do that,” Ugo Ndukwe said with a cynical chuckle. “This country isolated itself for three hundred years from outsiders. Foreigners will always be foreigners and generally unwelcomed. It is the way it is.”
∆∆∆
Later that afternoon two guards escorted me to my designated cell. They led me up various flights of stairs, across a gloomy courtyard, and down a long wing of cells to the one reserved for me. One of the jailers handed me a booklet, told me to memorize it, then swung the heavy steel door shut.
The cell was three tatami mats in area, or about five square meters. It contained folded bedding on a Western-style bed, a bookshelf, a low table and stool, a washbasin, and a toilet. An opaque window looked out onto a bit of gray sky. All the corners on the furniture, I noted, were rounded, presumably to prevent self-harm. The sink featured a button to control the water, rather than a spigot, to which a ligature could be attached to hang oneself.
The observations made me wonder if anyone had committed suicide in this cell in the past.
Not wanting to dwell on this grim thought, I flipped through the booklet I’d been given and told to memorize. It was written in English and seemed to detail the rules of the prison and the expected behavior of the inmates.
With nothing else to do, I sat down on the toilet and began reading from page one.
Chapter 15
The daily regimen for prisoners didn’t appear to be too bad, at least not on paper. According to the instruction booklet:
0645 - Wake up, stow bedding, wash face, toilet.
0700 - Roll call and prisoner inspection.
0730 - Breakfast and movement to work location.
0800 - Prison industry begins.
1000 - Fifteen-minute break.
1200 - Lunch.
1400 - Fifteen-minute break.
1640 - Prison industry stops. Prisoners return to rooms.
1700 - Roll call and prisoner inspection followed by reflection time.
1720 - Dinner.
1800 – Unstructured time.
2030 - Preparation for sleep.
2100 – Sleep.
While the regimen didn’t seem as unjust as I’d feared, the rules were absolutely draconian, regulating prison life down to the most mundane and inane details. One rule, for example, dictated where and how I must place objects in my cell; another dictated where and on what I could write; another dictated how I must stand or sit; others, how I must sleep and how I must march and speak and so on and so forth. They seemed to never end—and were clearly intended to deprive prisoners of any semblance of personal choice and thus identity.
I slapped the booklet shut and stared at a tear-shaped stain on the wall, sick with dread at what may be in store for me.
∆∆∆
A little time later I heard the other inmates returning from their work duties. There was zero conversation, only the metallic clackity-clack of cell doors opening and closing. An announcement over the PA system explained that roll call was about to commence, followed by reflection time. I knew from the instruction booklet that I was required to assume a seiza-style position during the roll call. I knelt in the middle of the floor with my calves folded beneath my thighs, my butt resting on my heels, my head bowed. I held this yoga-like pose, facing the door, without moving for several long minutes.
From faraway an inmate shouted his prisoner number in Japanese. A second prisoner followed, then a third. They seemed to be starting at one end of the wing and working cell by cell to the other end: 461! 429! 111! 904!
As my turn rapidly approached, I found my heart beating quickly and my palms sweating. My neighbor called out his number—711!—I waited an appropriate beat, then shouted: “232!”
A guard’s face appeared in the vertical slit window installed in my door. He pounded it with his fist while spitting commands.
It took me a moment to realize he wanted me to lower my eyes.
I did so and heard the door to the cell open. I waited for the man to club me unconscious with a baton for not adhering to the rules. Instead he told me to stand. He patted down my front, back, and sides. He made me open my mouth and stick out my tongue and flick forward my ears to make sure I had nothing concealed there.
Then he ordered me back to the seiza position, exited the cell, and continued the head count.
When it was announced over the PA system that reflection time had begun, I wondered what I was supposed to be reflecting on. What were the other inmates reflecting on? How to rehabilitate themselves while in prison? How to reintegrate successfully into society upon their eventual release? How to view their incarcerations objectively? How to set aside their feelings of resentment and hostility? How to stop acting impulsively and illegally to the detriment of themselves and others? Hell, for all I knew some of them were deciphering the meaning of life. All I ended up thinking about was how much my knees and lower back ached.
After twenty minutes of this torture, another announcement instructed all inmates to prepare for dinner.
I sighed and stood, shaking the aches out of my knees. I had no idea what preparations were expected of me—I didn’t even have dishes or cutlery to set my small table—so I once again waited in fearful anticipation until a guard peeked through the window into my cell. He seemed to eye me up and down before sliding
a tray of food through a slot in the door. I took it to the table and sat on the stool. Rice again, a bowl of noodle soup, and a sliver of beef. I scooped everything back with the pair of chopsticks that came with the meal, dismayed by how quickly and easily I had devolved from fine-food connoisseur to trash rat. I sipped the cup of green tea slowly to make it last as long as possible.
When the guard returned to collect my tray, he shouted through the door. His voice wasn’t very clear, and I only caught the word haburashi—toothbrush. Figuring he wanted me to brush my teeth, I gathered the toothbrush that had also come with my meal, squeezed some toothpaste onto the bristles, and began to brush my teeth. The guard went ape shit, jabbering at the top of his lungs and smashing the door with his open hand. After a good three seconds of what you might describe as high-voltage panic, I finally understood he wanted to collect the toothbrush, most likely so I didn’t carve it into a shiv or some other tool overnight. I placed it on my tray next to my chopsticks and slid the tray back through the slot in the door. Glowering, he took it and disappeared from my field of view. I spat the toothpaste from my mouth into the sink and rinsed with water from the tap.
I sank onto the bed, wondering how prisoners who didn’t understand any Japanese survived this nightmare.
∆∆∆
A few minutes later the door to my cell unlocked remotely. I pushed it open and poked my head into the brightly lit hallway. A few other inmates were stepping from their cells nonchalantly, which confirmed this wasn’t some malfunction but our so-called “unstructured time,” and we were allowed to wander.
I stepped into the hallway and followed the other inmates. Through the narrow windows in the doors I passed, I could see that all the cells were identical to mine. In several, the occupants had decided to remain put to read or write in private.
I descended the first set of stairs I came to. At the bottom I went left. The cells lining this corridor were much larger than mine, between thirteen to sixteen square meters, designed and furnished to hold several inmates together. They didn’t feature Western beds but rather Japanese futons, all of which were currently rolled up. Behind each of these was a large black case, presumably used to store personal belongings. I suspected I hadn’t yet received such a case because I didn’t have anything except the clothes on my back—and even those weren’t mine.
