Hitokiri Orange Road
Chapter 3. Chancy Days
In late November, student riots had stopped the city. The government had posted a the New Regulation for the Preservation of Youth Discipline and Future Prosperity or the Fuhrer Fives. Fliers had appeared on the the walls of the abandoned house, street corners, and store fronts. The police walked their beats instead off huddling around their heaters.
Five youths (defined as 19 years and younger) may congregate at one place.
Five o'clock in the afternoon is the curfew, unless accompanied by an adult in good standing with the Bureau of public safety.
Five zones is the maximum transit distance in one day. The zones have been designated by the Board for Transportation and Urban Planning.
Five thousand yen is the maximum expenditure by a youth per day.
Five years, from the second year of middle school to the last year of high school, shall be the new span in which participants in the program will be chosen.
This law is effective immediately. Special permits can be obtained from the appropriate government body to gain variance from rules 1-4.
The bland bureaucratic speak only meant more paperwork for Kyosuke, which he duly filled out and filed in triplicate. The local officials made the mistake of throwing together a rally to support the new law. Students and student gangsters, who rarely showed for class, arrived with a different rally in mind and exploded in violence. The thousand of angry bodies overwhelmed the police with rocks and Molotov cocktails. Sympathy protests began at the college campuses. Kyosuke had been excused from the official rally for work.
Hours after it had started, Arisawa had carried a small black and white TV into the lunchroom. A woman reported in a tinny voice that the major arteries had been blocked by heaps of burning tires and debris. Coarse black smoke rose to meet the full clouds. Angry students threw themselves at a shield wall of armored riot police. Sweaty officials trotted before the cameras to mumble canned speeches.
School was canceled. The delivery trucks stopped delivering, and the factory fell silent. The quiet and inactivity was refreshing to Kyosuke for the first few days, but he soon became restless. During the stillness, his dreams were full of running. He awoke sweaty and breathless as if sprinting in ground churning heats. It struck the boy as strange. He had never been athletic or enjoyed sports much. Kyosuke supposed that the stillness had made him restless.
Kyosuke was not the only restless one. Eighty idle men could not fit into rooms made for forty. Arguments broke out over chairs and tempers rose until a scuffle broke out over an old mechanical journal. On the third day, the manager ordered the day shift off the factory grounds.
Kyosuke trudged with a somber group headed to the outskirts of town. Only a few bodies were outdoors. Every few minutes, the group stopped for a squad of black garbed riot police to jog by. It took twice as long as usual to reach the bars.
The clouds broke and the rain poured down in cold sheets. The droplets were gritty with ash. Kyosuke darted for the closest shop, but was rejected by the crush of bodies. A second store was similarly flooded. The polluted rain stung his eyes. Kyosuke ran down the street with his jacket pulled over his head. The soaked boy found shelter beneath a the eave of a store. He shivered from the cold. A thickset woman opened the door. She focused immediately on his armband.
"No loitering," she snarled. "Shoo."
"I'm not doing anything," Kyosuke answered in a surly tone.
"Beat it, before I call the police," the woman threatened. Contempt was plain on her face.
Kyosuke saw a patrol approaching from the end of the street and retreated. He jerked the shabby coat over his head. The left arm gave a sharp retort and tore. Disgusted, he stalked back into the rain. He hadn't reached a half of a block before a voice called from several doors down. It was barely audible above the hissing rain. He located the source of the voice down a stair; a young woman stood outlined in an open doorway full of warm yellow light.
"Hey mister!" she called. "It's drier down here."
The boy hurried down the slippery stairs. The speaker was a young woman with a round face that seemed familiar. A apron clinched neatly around the waitress's narrow waist. She wore a green polyester American army shirt knotted to expose smooth white skin above her khakis. Her hair was neatly clipped a finger's width below the nape of her neck. She smelled faintly of perspiration; it was not a bad scent. Kyosuke waited at the doorway, expecting a reaction to the band on his arm.
"Get in, already," the waitress urged warmly.
Her voice was fresh and mildly husky. She closed the steel door, which cut off the sound of police boots passing by. Kyosuke picked his way over a newspaper path to a bathroom. Finding no paper towels, he wrung his shirt and jacket into the sink. He used his Power to drive away the moisture from his undershirt and pants. He left the bathroom exuding steam. The effort made him dizzy.
The boy made his way to the closest corner seat. The thin waitress took his order of beer and octopus puffs. She smiled and left. Kyosuke's eyes followed her around the room. Her presence made him ache for glossy magazines, television, and even shampoo ads. The pale five inches of exposed back and bony spine mesmerized him. He broke off his stare once he noticed that the other patrons tracked her movements. His orange band was reason enough to pick a fight. There were several other patrons, but the room was mostly empty.
The octopus puffs were hot and greasy. Kyosuke devoured the first one quickly, and then slowed. Constant hunger had taught him how to stretch out each meal. When he finished, he took in his surroundings. The bar was neat and orderly. For the first time since landing in that world, he felt peace.
A short time later, a small man in a trench coat entered with his umbrella lowered. He walked behind the bar and hung his coat and umbrella on a rack. He drew a grid on a blackboard and filled the boxes with numbers and names.
The other patrons migrated near the bar. A steady stream of bodies came in from the street, turning the newsprint into a soggy mat. The newcomers took the remaining stools and filled the nearby tables. The crowd had grown to thirty or so men. They debated in lively voices as the white belly slipped between their dark overcoats. Smoke filled the room. The crowd fell silent as a radio switched on.
Kyosuke sipped his way through his first beer. After checking the thin fold of bills in his pocket, he ordered a second.
"What's going on?" Kyosuke asked the waitress.
"Oh that, it's just the horses," she said. She flashed him a grin that included a crooked tooth. "They're listening to short wave from Hong Kong."
"What's with the numbers?"
"They're setting the odds. Why don't you try it yourself?" she asked. "If you win, you could get a girl something nice. And I'm a girl if you haven't noticed," she said with a wink.
"I noticed," Kyosuke replied, but she'd already turned to another patron.
Kyosuke wondered at his comment. Kyosuke did not remember being so forward, but women were far and few between. He brushed his words aside, the waitress probably heard far more each day. Kyosuke walked to the far side of the room. Two men at a nearby table clutched slips of paper. The announcer rattled names and positions in a breathless stream.
"Aberdeen's Landing is coming down the final stretch. She's three lengths ahead of War Chariot and then it's Moped, Green Valley, and Galleon. War Chariot is gaining. And it's AberDEEN's LANDING keeps the lead and finishes first. War Chariot follows with Green Valley, Moped, and Galleon coming in."
Both men tore the slips of paper with curses. They drained their glasses and rose to queue for the next bets. The broadcast switch to the sound of the crowd and the rumbling of hooves. As Kyosuke heard the galloping, he remembered his dreams of running and fresh turf.
Kyosuke studied the board and debated on whether to trust the dream. In the past, they had become significant. His hand dropped to his pocket. The thin fold of bills nearly convinced him to head out, but a whoop of joy jarred his thoughts. A heavyset man in a shapeless beret displayed his ticket to the crowd and cashed it with a flourish. He then toasted with the waitress. Their arms crossed as they swallowed down their drinks. Her young face flushed a pretty pink. She planted a resounding kiss his cheek to the cat calls of the crowd. Kyosuke felt a hot surge of jealousy. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd.
The young man stood at a lost in front of the bookie. The short man asked for his bet, and grew impatient at repeating himself. The waitress cut in.
"He's new," she explained.
"Still that doesn't mean that he can hold up the line," the bookie said.
Kyosuke nearly backed down, but solid presence of the waitress bolstered his pride. He could smell bourbon on her breath. "I'm thinking," he retorted.
"Minimum bet is 200 yen. Just pick a lucky number or two if you feel like it," the waitress said pointing at the board. "Or you can go by name or colors. Good luck, and don't forget me if you win," she said with a wink before disappearing into the crowd.
Left alone with the bookie, Kyosuke was flustered. His inner eye saw the churning runner with a blaze of bright color sitting on the saddles. Kyosuke named a pair of number from his dream induced instincts. The bookie shrugged and issued the ticket. Kyosuke retreated from the bar. He felt foolish and wanted to leave, but found the idea of wasting money distasteful. The announcer rattled off the race in the breathless stream that he had called out the previous race. Kyosuke could not follow the blurted names. He searched the slate for the matching katakana.
Kyosuke was not surprise so much as relieved that his premonition was right. He made his way to the bar again to show the ticket. The bookie froze with his jaw open. The cigarette in his hand burned unnoticed as his jaw worked dumbly.
"What's the matter?" Kyosuke asked.
The waitress looked around his shoulder. She gasped and double checked the board.
"Flustered Love and Romeo," she read aloud. "Twenty to one and eight to one."
The bookie pulled out a palm-sized abacus to calculate the winnings. Sweat stood out on his forehead. Kyosuke felt thirty pairs of eyes on his back. Kyosuke jumped as the door boomed open. All eyes turned to the disturbance. The stench of burning flooded into the room. Though it was another Japan, Kyosuke immediately recognized the white surgical masks, boots, suicide squad jackets worn by the high schoolers; it was a girl gang. He also recognized a long-haired figure; his heart pounded hard in his chest as his mouth dried like droplets under the desert sun. He had no doubt that it was her. As she raked the room, their eyes locked. Kasuga found himself meeting Ayukawa Madoka one more time.