Show me the badge
Don’t get excited. This is of minor consequence. My wife got a call from the realtor because they had been contacted by the police. It’s pretty stressful watching someone with a worried look on their face, just intoning, “Hai…hai…hai…hai…” to someone. I guess I was getting pretty uptight because I got upset when she didn’t confirm the Yamanashi traffic police phone number (1001 or 0110 or 1001 suffix.) Or maybe I was feeling impotent while she spoke with officer Kato, got the lowdown, answered all his official questions, did all the work and I just dumbly waited like a dummy.
This is only short time after the purchase had been completed. Typhoon 19 had just rolled through and I had been sweating that the roof might cave in or the spiral staircase might topple over in heavy wind and smash through the neighbor’s wall. And when I heard there was a problem at the house, I immediately got panicky. The staircase did fall over or kids broke in or a car drove through it. The idea of a break-in caused a certain queasy disappointment. Just sick that someone would do something like that, that they would get away, and hey sorry, there aren’t any leads.
Officer Kato told us that someone had tried to make a U-turn and got smacked by an oncoming car. The cars kind of got locked up together and one of them hit our wall. So we’d need to come and look at the damage. The day before, I checked out the wall and saw a bit of black paint. I thought, I guess that’s the smudge. Would never have noticed it were I not looking for minor cosmetic damage.
Officer Kato didn’t meet us at the house. Officer Kobayashi came instead. In plainclothes. He showed me his badge. My wife hadn’t arrived yet so he made small talk. Asked me about my plans for the house. He took a photo of the smudge. He took a photo of me pointing at the smudge.
The damage…
…that’s it.
We told him we weren’t seeking damages or pressing charges. He still wanted us to meet the man culpable. He just popped around the corner and came back with a nattily dressed and coiffed and eyeglassed man. He could’ve been a tv host. Where had Kobayashi been keeping him? Cuffed in the back of his unmarked car? The dapper man offered some apologetic words, then waited awkwardly. Did he expect me to say something? I’m sure I’d enjoy shaming a nattily dressed and coiffed and eyeglassed man. We all looked to Officer Kobayashi break the ice. He sent the dapper man back around the corner, asked us our contact info, copied down our answers (though I wrote my name on his notepad myself), and said good-bye. He would definitely come check out Kotobuki House after it opened.
By the way, Fuji-kun, the mascot in the blog thumbnail, has an interesting story. Click here to find out more.