(Illustration by Rebecca Otowa)
An excerpt from The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and other Short Stories from Japan
By Rebecca Otowa
Tuttle Publishing (March, 2020)
I hate my dad.
Every day of my life when I was a kid, he used to beat me. Some days it was just a tap across the face or a box on the ear. Other days it was a real drubbing around the shoulders and back, with his fists or anything handy – a piece of wood, a rake handle. My dad used to be really strong. He was a builder. Carried heavy ceramic roof tiles and installed them all over the village. He had huge muscles in his arms. I used to go around with big bruises all over me.
His voice is really loud, too, and he never shuts up. All the time he was hitting me in my boyhood, he was yelling. I think kids’ hearing must be more sensitive than adults’. His yelling made my head hurt. Some days I didn’t know which hurt most – my head or my body.
I’m big now, I’m a grown man, so he doesn’t beat me – that’s changed, at least – but he still yells, and I can’t stand it. Sometimes my head hurts so bad it feels like it’s going to explode. That’s how it feels tonight. He just got through yelling at me because I forgot to bring the sake back from town. So what? He drinks too much anyway.
Tonight’s the night. I’m going to pay him back.
I think it’s dark enough now. He’s watching TV with my mother. I hate her too, for letting him do those things to me. But it’s him I really hate. Wait till he sees what I did!
Sneak out the back door with the kerosene can. Boy, it’s heavy. Don’t forget the matches. Don’t turn on the light in case they notice. Sneak down the lane in the dark, all the way to the shed where he parks his precious truck. He won’t let me drive it. I have to go everywhere by bike. I hate him.
Squeeze past the piles of roof tiles. Open the truck door in the dark. It smells like him – his revolting breath, his clothes. My head is throbbing. Lift the can and slosh the kerosene all over the seat. Now the match. Whooo! Look at those flames. I feel the heat on my face. Shut the door and sneak into Mr. Sato’s yard next door, hide behind the fence.
The fire gets bigger and bigger. The light shines through the chinks of the shed. I hear the fire roaring. What’s that? Another sound. Someone has seen the fire and called the volunteers. It’s the siren on the big red fire engine they keep down by the school. It’s coming this way.
Hey – what are you doing? Let me go! Hey, Sato-san, let me go!
⁂
(two years later)
It didn’t work. All the planning, all the guts it took to set dad’s truck on fire, and what it got me was a jail sentence for arson. It’s not fair. No one ever asked me why I did it. No one ever thought that dad might be to blame. That dumb Mr. Sato caught me and they figured out I did it, I don’t know how. The truck didn’t even burn much. Just the seats. The firefighters got there before the fire reached the gas tank. I was hoping for a big explosion. Oh, how I was hoping the whole shed would go up – dad’s livelihood gone. But it didn’t work. My head hurts worse than ever. It never stops now.
They sent me home – but I won’t live here anymore. They can’t make me.
Only, where can I go?
Actually… why should I leave? This is a perfectly good house.
Dad is out shopping with mom in his new truck. Fire insurance. Holy hell. He gets everything and I get nothing. Well, that changes now.
The official seals and bankbooks with his name – out the front door with them. They land on the path. I don’t want to leave him with nothing. I want him to live and think about what he did and be miserable every day.
Lock the doors on the inside. Move the furniture — the big wooden kitchen cabinet, the chests, the bureaus — up against the doors and windows. Barricade the place. I’m strong now, myself — as strong as he used to be. He’s an old man now, he can’t do anything.
Let him live in the shed, him and mom. They won’t ever get into this house again. This is my home now. The son takes over from the father, that’s the rule, and it starts now.
Oh, my head.
Copyright Rebecca Otowa, courtesy of Tuttle Publishing.
The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper available for order here.
About the Author
Rebecca illustrates all her books. She lives in Shiga Prefecture.
