Chapter 22 Chapter 20 The Old Man Hitchhiking

It was past eight o'clock in the evening when the driver of the large refrigerated truck put Nakata in the parking lot of Fujikawa Service Station on the Tomei Expressway.Nakata stepped down from the tall passenger seat with a canvas bag and an umbrella. "Look for the next car here," the driver said through the window, "you can always find one if you ask." "Thank you, thank you, but you have helped Nakata a lot." "Be careful on the road." After saying that, the driver raised his hand and left. The driver said it was Fujikawa. Nakata had no idea where Fujikawa was, but he understood that he had left Tokyo and was heading west a little bit. He could understand it instinctively without a compass or a map.Just get on the westbound train to go down.

Feeling hungry, Nakata decided to have a bowl of ramen at the restaurant.The rice balls and chocolates in the canvas bag should not be moved now, and should be reserved for emergencies, Nakata thought.Because I can't read, it takes extra time to understand systematic things.To enter the restaurant, you must first buy a meal ticket.Meal coupons are sold in vending machines, and Nakata, who cannot read, has to ask for help.He said that he could not see clearly because of his amblyopia, and immediately a middle-aged woman pushed the coin button for him and gave him the money he got back.Nakata knows from experience that it is better not to reveal the fact that he cannot read in front of certain people, because he is often cast as a monster.

After eating, Nakata picked up his canvas bag and umbrella, and greeted the person who looked like a truck driver beside him. "I want to go west, can you allow me to take a ride" - so many questions.The drivers looked at Nakata's appearance and attire, then shook their heads.Old people with free rides are extremely rare, and they are instinctively wary of rare things. "The company won't give you rides," they said, "sorry." Speaking of which, it took a lot of time to enter the Tomei Expressway from Nakano Ward.After all, Nakata had hardly left Nakano, and he didn't even know where the entrance to the Tomei Expressway was.I have taken the Toei bus that can use a special pass when necessary, and I have never taken the subway and electric trains that require a ticket.

When it was almost ten in the morning, Nakata stuffed a change of clothes, toilet utensils and some simple food into the canvas bag, carefully put the cash hidden under the tatami into the belt bag, picked up a big cloth umbrella and walked out of the dormitory.He asked the driver of the Toei bus how to get to the Tomei Expressway. The driver smiled and said, "This bus only goes to Shinjuku Station. The Toei bus does not run on the expressway. You need to take the express bus on the expressway." "Where does the express bus running on the Tomei Expressway come from?" "Tokyo Station." The driver said, "Take this bus to Shinjuku, then change trains from Shinjuku to Tokyo Station, where you can buy a reserved seat ticket and get on the bus, then you can enter the Tokyo Expressway."

Although it was unclear, Nakata took the bus and went to Shinjuku Station. Unexpectedly, it was a huge downtown area, crowded with people, and it was not easy to walk.There are many kinds of trams going north and south, and it is completely unclear where to go to get on the tram bound for Tokyo Station.Of course, the words on the signs are not decipherable.I asked a few people, but they spoke too quickly and complicatedly, full of unheard of proper nouns, and Nakata couldn't remember them anyway, thinking to himself, it was like talking with Cat King Kawamura.I also want to go to the police station to ask questions, but I am afraid that I will be taken in as a dementia patient (I have experienced it once before).While walking around Tokyo Station, looking east and west, I gradually felt uncomfortable due to the bad air and noisy people and cars.Nakata tried his best to pick a place with as few people as possible, found a small park-like space among tall buildings, and sat down on a bench.

Nakata felt disappointed here for a long time.From time to time, he talked to himself and stroked his short-cut hair with the palm of his hand.Not a single cat in the park.Crows come and peck at the litter box.He looked up at the sky several times and guessed the approximate time based on the position of the sun.The sky was clouded by car exhaust, whether it was sunny or not cloudy, I don't know what color it is. In the middle of the afternoon, men and women who work in nearby buildings came to the park to eat boxed lunches. Nakata also ate the stuffed bread he brought and drank the tea in the thermos.There were two young women sitting on the stool next to him, and Nakata tried to strike up a conversation, asking how to get to the Tomei Expressway.What the two taught was the same as the bus driver said: Take the Chuo Line to Tokyo Station, and from there take the Tomei Expressway Bus.

"I tried it just now, but it didn't work." Nakata told the truth, "Nakata, I have never been out of the Nakano area before, and I don't know how to ride the tram. I have only taken the Toei bus. I can't read, and I can't buy a ticket. .Take the Toei bus to get here, and it’s hard to go any further.” The two were quite surprised when they heard this.Can't read?But he looked like a not bad old man, smiling and neatly dressed.It's somewhat puzzling to take an umbrella in such a great weather, but it can't be seen that it is a homeless person.Good looking too.If nothing else, the eyes are black and white.

"Have you really never been out of the Nakano area?" the black-haired girl asked. "Yes, I haven't gone out all the time, because I lost my way and no one found me in Zhongtian." "I can't read," said the girl with dyed brown hair. "Yes, I can't recognize any of them. Numbers, I can understand them roughly, but I can't calculate them." "Then, is it difficult to take the tram?" "That's, very difficult. Tickets can't be bought." "Sometimes I would like to take you to the station and let you take the right tram, but we have to go back to work in a while, so we don't have that much time to go to the station, sorry."

"Where is it, please don't say that. Nakata, I always have a solution." "By the way," the black-haired girl said, "Didn't Togeguchi from the sales department say he's going to Yokohama today?" "Well, so he did. Pray that kid, it's a little hard to get around, but not bad," said the brunette. "Hey, old man, since you can't read, you might as well hitchhike." The black-haired girl suggested. "Hitchhike?" "I just ask the car there to pick you up. Most of them are long-distance trucks, and ordinary cars are not allowed to take you."

"Whether it's a long-distance truck or an ordinary car, I don't understand such a difficult thing..." "It always works out there. I did it once when I was a student. The truck drivers are very friendly." "Hey, old man, where are you going on the Tomei Expressway?" the brunette girl asked. "have no idea." ————— ①It means "free ride along the way". "have no idea?" "I don't know. But I will know when I get there. Anyway, I have to go west along the Tomei Expressway. It's not too late to think about the next step. Anyway, I have to go west."

The two girls looked at each other.But there was a unique persuasiveness in Nakata's tone, and the two had a natural affection for Nakata.After eating the box lunch, the two of them threw the empty box into the trash can and stood up from the stool. "Hey, old man, come with us. We'll find a way for you," said the dark-haired girl. Nakata followed them into a nearby building.It was the first time that Nakata entered such a big building.The two asked Nakata to sit on a chair in the company's communication room, greeted the woman in charge of the communication, told Nakata to wait here for a while, and then disappeared into several parallel elevators.The male and female employees returning from lunch break walked past Nakata holding a cloth umbrella and holding a canvas bag. This was a scene that Nakata had never witnessed before.Everyone was neatly dressed, wearing ties, carrying shiny purses, wearing high heels, as if they had been agreed upon in advance, and hurried in the same direction.What are so many people doing here?Nakata was completely unpredictable. After a while, the pair of girls led out a tall, thin man in a white shirt and twill tie, and introduced Nakata to him. "This guy, his name is Togeguchi-kun. He happened to be driving to Yokohama right now, and he said he could take you there. You get off at the Tomei Expressway called Kohokujo, and then find another car. Anyway, you said you wanted to go west. Go, ask them one by one. If you are given a ride, just treat them to a meal when you park somewhere. Got it?" the brunette girl asked. "Old man, do you have some money?" The black-haired girl asked. "Yes, Nakata, I have the money." "Hey, Togeguchi-kun, this old man is an acquaintance of ours, we have to treat him well!" said the brunette girl. "On the other hand, if you treat me well." The young man said shortly. "Soon, don't worry." The dark-haired girl said. When they parted, the two girls said to Nakata, "Old man, it's a farewell fare for you—I ate it when I was hungry." After that, they handed out the rice balls and chocolates bought in the small supermarket. Nakata thanked me again and again: "Thank you very much. I really don't know how to thank you for being so warm to me. Let Nakata, beyond my means, wish you both good things!" "I hope your blessing will bear fruit soon." The black-haired girl sneered. The guy from Togeguchi let Nakata sit in the assistant seat of the "Ziboga" and drove from the Metropolitan Expressway into the Tomei Expressway.When the road was blocked, the two chatted a lot about this and that.Togeguchi is naturally afraid of meeting strangers. He didn't talk much at first, but after getting used to Nakata's presence, he soon talked endlessly by himself.He has a lot to say, and he can speak freely in front of Nakata who will not meet again-the engaged lover left him a few months ago; My boss couldn’t get along no matter what, and even wanted to resign and leave; my parents divorced when I was in junior high school, and my mother remarried, and the person I found was dubious, just like a liar; Also; a student next door to the dormitory listened to music at a high volume until late at night, which made him unable to sleep well... Nakata listened to him seriously, echoing his voice from time to time, expressing insignificant opinions.When the car arrived at the parking lot in the port area, Nakata knew almost everything about the young man's life.Although there are many things that I don’t fully understand, the main line is clear after all: Togeguchi is a sympathetic young man. Although he himself desires to live authentically, he is entangled in many nonsense. "I can't thank you enough. I'm so lucky to have you here, Nakata." "Where, I'm also very happy to be here with you, old man. It's much more refreshing to be able to confide in someone like this. I haven't told anyone before. Let you listen to me so much. It's good that you don't feel impatient." "No, no, where did this go. Nakata, I am also happy to be able to talk to you, young man. There is no such thing as impatience. Don't mind. I think you will have good things from now on .” The young man took out a phone card from his wallet and handed it to Nakata: "This is for you. The phone card made by our company can be regarded as a commemoration of the journey. It's embarrassing to give such a thing." "Thank you." With that, Nakata took it and carefully put it in the wallet.He couldn't call anyone, and he didn't know how to use the card, but he thought it best not to refuse.It was three o'clock in the afternoon. It took Nakata almost an hour to find a truck driver to take him to Fujikawa.The driver I finally found was driving a refrigerated truck to deliver fresh fish. He was about forty-five or sixteen years old, tall and big, with arms as thick as tree stumps and a bulging belly. "It smells like fish, can it work?" the driver asked. "Nakata, I like fish." Nakata said. The driver smiled and said, "You are a little different." "That's right, people often say that." "I like people who are different." The driver said, "In this world, you can't trust a guy who looks decent and lives like a real person." "Is that really the case?" "Certainly. That's my opinion." "I don't have any disagreement with Nakata, but I like eels." "That's an opinion too—like eels." "Eels are opinions?" "Yeah, liking eels is a pretty good idea." In this way, the two drove to Fujikawa.The driver's surname is Ogida. "Nakata, what do you think the world will look like in the future?" the driver asked. "I'm sorry, Nakata, my brain is not working well, and I don't know anything about this kind of thing." "Having an opinion of your own and having a bad head are two different things." "But Ogita-kun, your brain is not working well, and you can't think at all." "But you like eels, don't you?" "That's right, eel is my delicacy in Nakata." "It's called relationality." "Uh." "Would you like a big bowl of rice with chicken and eggs in sauce?" "That's my gourmet food in Nakata, too." "This is also relational." The driver said, "Relationships are assembled one by one in this way, and meaning naturally emerges from it. The more relationships, the deeper the meaning. Whether it's eel sauce rice or grilled fish set meal, what? It doesn't matter. Understand?" "I don't quite understand. Does that have something to do with food?" "It's not limited to food. Whether it's trains or the emperor, it's everything." "Nakata, I don't take the tram." "Alright. So, what I want to say is: no matter who it is, as long as he lives like this, there will naturally be meaning between him and everything around him. The most important thing is whether it is natural. This has nothing to do with whether the brain works well. It's not the same thing, it's whether you see with your own eyes—very simple." "You have a good brain!" Ogita laughed loudly: "So it's not a question of whether my brain is good or not. I'm not good at my brain either, but I have my own thoughts. So when everyone sees me, they feel chest tightness, and they say that guy is always irrational. When a person thinks with his own head, it is often difficult for everyone to figure it out.” "Nakata, I still don't quite understand—Is there some connection between Nakata's liking for eel and liking rice with sauce?" "To put it simply, it's like this: There must be a connection between Nakata and the things Nakata is involved in. At the same time, there is also a connection between eel and rice with sauce. If such a network of connections is greatly expanded, Then the relationship between Nakata and the capitalists, the relationship between Nakata and the proletariat, etc., will naturally emerge from it.” "Proprietary—" "Proletariat." Ogita took his big hands off the steering wheel to show Nakata.To Nakata, it looked like a baseball glove. "A person like me who works hard and sweats is a proletariat. In contrast, a person who sits on a chair and uses his mouth to give orders to others and earns a hundred times more than me is a capitalist." "I don't know what a capitalist is like. Nakata is poor, so I don't know what is going on with the big man. Speaking of the big man, Nakata, I only know the governor of Tokyo. Is the governor a capitalist?" "Ah, sort of. The governor is like a capitalist's dog." "Is the governor a dog?" Nakata remembered the big black dog that led him to Jonny Walker's house, and superimposed its unlucky image with the governor. "Dogs like that are everywhere, all over the world. People call them lackeys." "running dog?" "Walking around, a dog is a dog." "Are there no capitalist cats?" Ogita laughed loudly when he heard that: "You are different, Nakata. I like people like you very much. The capitalist's cat——is really an ingenious idea." "I said Ogida." "Ok?" "I'm poor in Nakata, and I receive a monthly subsidy from the governor. Maybe this is not appropriate?" "How much do you get every month?" Nakata said the amount.Ogida shook his head in astonishment. ①The pronunciation of the word "running dog" in Japanese is different from that of "dog" (written as "狗") as a daily vocabulary. ② "It's not easy to live on that little money nowadays, isn't it?" "That's not true. I can't spend a lot of money in Zhongtian. But in addition to the subsidy, Zhongtian also found a cat gentleman who disappeared nearby, and I got a gift for it." "Hmm. Professional cat hunter?" Ogita said admiringly, "Amazing. You are truly extraordinary." "To be honest, Zhongtian, I can talk to Maojun." Zhongtian resolutely confessed, "Zhongtian, I understand Maojun's words, so I can find cats whose whereabouts are unknown." Ogita nodded: "Understood. You can do such a thing. I'm not surprised at all." "But not long ago, I suddenly couldn't talk to Mr. Mao, why is that?" "The world is changing with each passing day, Nakata. It's dawn every day, but there is no longer the world of yesterday, and you are not the Nakata of yesterday. Understand?" "That is." "Relationships are also changing. Who is the capitalist and who is the proletariat? Which is left and which is right? The information revolution, preferred stock privileges, asset mobility, functional reorganization, multinational corporations—which is evil and which is good? The boundaries are gradually blurring. This is probably the reason why you can no longer understand the language of cats." "I know the difference between left and right, Nakata. In other words, this side is left and this side is right. Right?" "That's right," Ogita said, "That's right." The two ended up walking into the highway service station restaurant for dinner.Ogita ordered two eels and paid for them himself.Nakata insisted that he should thank him for giving him a ride, Ogita shook his head. "Forget it! Although I'm not a rich man, I'm not reduced to the point where you can treat guests with the teardrops that the governor of Tokyo gave you." He said. "Thank you. Then I won't be polite." Nakata accepted the other party's kindness. After asking for an hour in the southeast and northwest of the Fujikawa service station, I still couldn't find a driver who was willing to give Nakata a ride.Even so, Nakata was neither anxious nor discouraged. In his consciousness, time flowed extremely slowly, or almost stood still. Nakata went outside to change his mood and walked around the area.The sky was cloudless, and the moon was so clear that its flesh could be seen.He tapped the asphalt with the tip of his umbrella as he walked across the parking lot.Countless large trucks rest here side by side like animals, and some of them have more than 20 wheels as high as a person.Nakata stared at the scene in front of him for a long time.In the middle of the night, with such a huge monster running on such a criss-crossing road, what exactly is in the trunk?Nakata couldn't imagine.If you can read every word written on the container, can you know what's inside? After walking for a while, I saw a dozen or so motorcycles parked in a place with few cars on the side of the parking lot, and some young men were gathered beside them, shouting something in one go, as if forming a circle to enclose something.Zhongtian became interested and decided to go up and have a look, maybe he would find something rare. Taking a closer look, it turned out that young men were punching and kicking around a person in the middle.Most of them were unarmed, but one person was seen holding an iron chain, and some people were holding black sticks that looked like batons.The hair is mostly dyed blonde or brown, and the clothes vary: open-chested half-sleeved shirts, T-shirts, vests.Some have tattoos on their shoulders.Those who fell to the ground and were beaten and kicked were also dressed in the same age.When Nakata tapped the asphalt ground with the tip of his umbrella and approached, several people turned their heads and cast sharp eyes. Seeing that it was an old man with a kind face, they lifted their guard. "Old man, don't come here, go over there." One person said. Nakata ignored it and walked up to him.The fallen one appeared to have blood dripping from its mouth. "Bleeding, that would kill you," Nakata said. As soon as this remark came out, the group fell silent. "Hey, old man, let's get rid of you as well!" The man holding the iron chain finally said. "Killing two people by one person is also cutting them down. Anyway, it's troublesome!" "You can't kill for no reason!" Nakata said. "You can't kill people for no reason!" Someone imitated Nakata, and several people beside him laughed. "We did it for our own reasons. We did it for a reason. Kill or not, it's none of your business! Open that broken umbrella and go away before it rains!" said another. The man on the ground squirmed, and a bald man kicked him in the ribs with a heavy construction shoe. Nakata closed his eyes.He felt something quietly rising inside him, something he couldn't stop.He felt a little nauseous.The memory of stabbing Jonny Walker flashed through his mind.The feeling when the knife stabbed into the opponent's chest still remained in his palm.Relational, Nakata thought.Could it be that this is also the kind of relationship that Ogita mentioned?Eel → Knife → Jonny Walker.The voices of the group were distorted and out of tune, making it difficult to distinguish clearly.In addition, the continuous sound of wheels from the highway was mixed in, forming an inexplicable sound.The heart contracts dramatically, sending blood to every part of the body.The darkness surrounded him. Zhongtian looked up at the sky, then slowly opened the umbrella to cover his head, and stepped back carefully to distance himself from the group of people.He looked around, then took a few steps back.Seeing that group of people smiled. "This old man really has him," said one person, "he really has an umbrella!" However, their laughter couldn't last—suddenly, a slippery strange object fell from the sky, hit the ground under their feet, and made a strange sound of "bajibaji".The group stopped kicking the prey surrounded by them, and looked up one by one to the sky.There were no clouds in the sky, but something fell from the corner of the sky.It was sporadic at the beginning, and then the number increased, and it poured down in a blink of an eye.The thing that fell was about three centimeters long, pitch-black, and looked like shiny black snow under the lights of the parking lot.The ominous black snow-like thing landed on the shoulders, arms, necks of the group of people, and stuck to it.They clawed at it with their hands, but they couldn't easily pull it off. "Leeches!" said one. Hearing this, a group of people yelled something in unison and ran across the parking lot to the bathroom.On the way, a person crashed into a small car heading towards the passage. Fortunately, the car drove slowly and did not seem to be seriously injured.The blond young man fell to the ground, then stood up and slapped the front of the car hard, yelling at the driver, but he didn't make any more noise, and ran to the bathroom with his feet dragging. The leech slammed its head and brain for a while, then gradually became smaller and stopped.Nakata folded the umbrella, shook off the leeches on the umbrella, and went to see the situation of the fallen person, but the surrounding leeches were piled up like a mountain, and he couldn't get close to him no matter what.The person who fell to the ground was almost buried by leeches.Upon closer inspection, the man's eyelid was cracked, blood flowed from there, and his tooth seemed to be broken.Zhongtian couldn't handle it, so he had to call someone.He returned to the restaurant and told the clerk that there was a young man lying injured in the corner of the parking lot. "If you don't call the police, you might die," Nakata said. After a while, Nakata found a truck driver who was willing to take him to Kobe.A sleepy-eyed young man in his twenties with a ponytail, earrings, and a Chinese-Japanese Dragons baseball cap, smoking a cigarette and reading weekly comics.Wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and a pair of large Nike shoes, he is not very tall, and he flicks soot into the leftover ramen soup without hesitation.He fixedly looked at Zhongtian's face, and nodded impatiently: "Okay, just sit down. You are very similar to my grandpa, you are dressed up, and you speak in a strange tone... In the end, you are completely confused. Died soon." We won't be in Kobe until morning, he said.He delivered furniture to a department store in Kobe.As I was driving out of the parking lot, I saw a crash, several police cars came, red lights spun back and forth, and the officers waved flashlights to clear the traffic into and out of the parking lot.The accident was not serious, but several vehicles collided head-to-tail.The side of the light van collapsed, and the taillight of the car was broken.The driver opened the window and stuck his head out to talk to the policeman, then closed the window again. "Baskets and baskets of leeches fell from the sky," the driver said indifferently, "and they were crushed by the wheels again. The road surface was slippery, and the steering wheel seemed to be unable to move. The police told them to drive slowly. In addition, there were gangs of local racing drivers. Running wildly, as if someone was injured. An inexplicable combination of leeches and racers! The police were in a hurry." He slowed down and drove carefully towards the exit, but the wheels slipped a few times, and each time he manipulated the steering wheel slightly to find his way back. "Tsk tsk, it looks like it's been down a lot." He said, "The road is slippery like this. It's true, leeches are quite scary. Hey, old man, have you ever been stung by a leech?" "No, as far as I remember, I didn't encounter that kind of thing." "I grew up in Mount Gifu, and there have been several times. Sometimes when I was walking in the woods, one would fall from the top. When I went down the river, it stung my leg. It's not me. I'm quite familiar with leeches. Leeches, once bitten, are very difficult to tear off. The big guy is so strong that he can tear off a piece of skin 'Gulu' and leave a scar. So it can only be baked next to the fire. It sucks blood, and when it sucks blood, it becomes chubby. Scary, right?" "That's, it's really scary." Nakata agreed. "However, leeches don't drop from the sky in the middle of the highway service station parking lot. It's not the same as raining. I've never heard of such a bizarre thing. The guys in this area don't know I know what a leech looks like. How could a leech fall from the sky? Huh?" Nakata remained silent. "A few years ago, there were a large number of millipedes in Yamanashi. At that time, the wheels slipped and it was a mess. It was so slippery, and there were many traffic accidents. The railway was out of service, and the tram stopped. But the millipedes didn't fall from the sky, they did. It’s not hard to understand who crawled out from that area.” "Nakata, I also stayed in Yamanashi in the past. It was during the war." "Oh, what war?" the driver asked.