0a. extra 28 Feb 2007 03:42 pm
Essay: Shoe Cemetery
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I’m sure all of you are similar in some way, but when you’re a kid, your mind works in evil ways. Even I, now a model citizen, used to think up all kinds of evilness.
Although unintentional, the police became involved with some of these evil deeds, and I was a burden to the society. I’m sure all of you are same though. This story is about one of those small incidents that “happen to everyone.”
One day when I was in my second year of high school*1, I was with one of my friends who was out acquiring a pair of shoes for a class trip. On the way home, my friend wanted to try on his new pair of shoes, so he parked his bike on the side of the road and put them on. He said he was just going to leave the worn out pair there and tried to leave without them.
“Hey, hey. That’s not right.”
I was overflowing with a sense of justice then, which made me to remonstrate my friend and grab his worn out pair of shoes. At very moment I grabbed them, a grand idea came to me, so we quickly started riding away on our bikes. The destination was the tallest bridge in the town, with a large river flowing far below.
We decided that this bridge would be a shoe cemetery. Being trained in all kinds of manners, I neatly placed the shoes together on the side of the bridge. Leaving the shoes like that could cause all kinds of commotion the next day*2, so we decided to leave a note. The note we wrote read “these poor shoes were abandoned by their master. Someone please take them.” We placed the note neatly in the envelope and left it by the shoes.
After one last look, we triumphantly returned to our homes.
As I was at home thinking about my masterpiece prank, I received a phone call from that friend.
“Crap!”
He said it in a panic, just like Hachibe from Hacchoubori (who?)*3. I didn’t know what he was so panicking about, so I told him to calm down.
“I got a call from the police,”
is what he said.
No way. I was thinking there’s no way that anyone can tell who did today’s shoe cemetery prank. Though, he said,
“My mom had written my name on the inside.”
Is he an idiot?
The situation had gotten much worse than I had imagined.
“You didn’t give up my name, did you?”
I asked him just like certain politicians do, but my friend’s silence was its own answer.
As it happens that I was also called the very day, and with my mother, we were prostrating ourselves in the residential police substation. My mother was especially apologetic:
“I’m very sorry. I’ll make sure he throws them away in the garbage next time.”
Umm, mom, I don’t think that’s where the problem is. Try not to fuel the policeman’s wrath, please?
The grand idea ended up being the talk of the school and the next day we were called by the teacher. The teacher was mad beyond belief and lectured us with meaningless phrases like “no more wearing shoes for you guys!” I think he probably didn’t even know what he was saying in his anger.
Why was he so angry? The reason was that this actually wasn’t our first time (lol). So what happened the first time? I’ll leave that for next time.
Well, I think all of you have had similar experiences anyway.
*1 Japanese high schools starts from 10th grade.
*2 When people commit suicide in Japan by jumping off of tall objects, it is customary and good manners to leave your shoes neatly together at the top.
*3 I’m assuming he is a policeman-type of person in Edo period. You can see such person often in Jidai-geki (historical play).
