Joey Wheeler sells the parts of a building nobody ever sees: behind the walls, under the floors, inside the ceilings. He knows the sample case weighs eight kilos, that the site is fourteen minutes from the station, that there are two sets of traffic lights and he always gets stopped at the second one. Counting is how he holds the day together. This one runs from 6:40 to 23:40.
This is a translation of an original work on Pixiv.
Original Title: 01 サンプルケース
Original Author: 葉人(@Hathor_yuki)
Personal site: https://prideshipping.sakura.ne.jp
I know because I weighed it. Third month after I joined. One morning my right arm wouldn't go up, and this was the only thing I could think of. How many kilos is this thing, I thought, and put it on the scales. It read 8.2 kilos. Twenty-four floor tiles, six sample boards of wall material, four kinds of lever handle. Then three big catalogues.
The old me wouldn't have weighed it. So it's heavy. Heavy is just heavy, that's all there is to it.
Now it's different. Something I can't get a handle on, I've gotta put a number on it, or I don't know what I'm carrying.
I asked one of the senior guys whether I couldn't drop one of them, and got back: "You don't know which one they'll ask for on the day, so take them all."
Makes sense, I thought, and put the catalogue back in the case.
6:40, arrive at the 3-chome site. I go straight there, so I don't stop by the office. Fourteen minutes from the station. Two traffic lights, and I always get stopped at the second one.
This block has been cleared ground since last autumn. Fenced off, and inside there's scraped earth and heavy machinery, and protective sheeting flapping in the wind. I've got a hard hat on and safety boots.
I'm supposed to be in sales. Sales, but they put me on site attendance because I'm the one with the stamina. That was the deal when I joined, so I've got no complaints about it.
"Sorry to drag you out this early, Wheeler."
Mr. Eguchi, the deputy site manager, came over pulling off his gloves. Early mornings go both ways.
"I'm good. Brought the tile samples."
I open the case and lay them out on the ground. Mr. Eguchi crouches, picks one up, turns it over, rubs the surface with the pad of his finger, sets it down again.
While he does it, I stand there with nothing to do and watch his hands. He touches the real thing for about four seconds. Four seconds and it's decided. When it isn't, it gets decided within about three goes.
Today it took two.
"We'll go with this. I'll check the quantities against the drawings and send them over later."
"'Preciate it."
I wipe the samples and put them back in the case. If there's dirt on them I get told off later. Or rather, it just means I'm the one who ends up wiping them.
On the way back I walked away from the station. There used to be a convenience store on the corner of 3-chome. There was a narrow lane behind it, and back in high school cutting through there was a short cut to the station, so it's a road I ran plenty of mornings when I was about to be late. Which is to say, every morning.
Now it's shuttered buildings and fenced-off cleared ground.
The schedule is up on the wall back at the office. Completion is set for March the year after next. A six-storey building is going up here, and the part facing the street is supposed to be retail.
What I sell is the parts of it you can't see. Behind the walls, under the floors, inside the ceilings.
I got back to the office just past eleven.
We've got our office in the south of Domino City. We sell building materials and equipment, twenty-two employees. Our parent company is a place called Omiya Setsubi Kogyo, and above that again is Kaiba Construction. Which is to say, KaibaCorp — that KaibaCorp.
I got the explanation when I joined, about how it isn't exactly a parent company, about capital relationships and so on, but all I remember is that above us there's more above.
I sit down at my desk and work up three quotations. Pull the unit prices, multiply by the quantities, round off the odd numbers. The phone rings and I pick it up and it's a request to change a quantity. I correct the quotation off the back of it. While I'm doing that the phone rings again.
"Wheeler."
Section Chief Tokura called me over.
"Next month's East District — word is it's moving with KC involved."
KC. Kaiba Construction, which is to say, KaibaCorp. Everyone here shortens it like that. Shortening it probably makes them feel closer to it.
"If we can get a piece of it," the section chief says. "Get in as a first-tier and a place like ours eats for ten years."
That building stands where you can see it from the window. You can see it from anywhere in this town. In terms of height, how many times over the artist's impression of the site I was standing at this morning would it be?
I look at it every day, and I don't know what's inside it.
My phone buzzed. It was Yugi.
Wanna get everyone together this Sunday?
Sunday. Sunday I've got a stocktake to attend. And not just this coming Sunday, last Sunday was booked too. The week before that was a delivery.
I marked it read, meaning to answer later. There are three of those sitting like that.
The desk calendar at the next seat comes into view. His Saturday squares have things written in them too. Every single one of us, packed the same way.
After 18:00 the section chief picked up his jacket.
"Wheeler, come along straight from here today. Mr. Ando from Omiya."
"Uh — yes, sir."
Mr. Ando turns up about twice a month. He's on the side that approves our quotations, and he can hold his drink. Or rather, once he starts he goes long.
The first place was an izakaya by the station. The near seat is where I always sit. It's easier to put orders through from there.
The beer comes and we drink to it.
Mr. Ando talks about the outlook for this term, the section chief laughs, and everyone laughs to match the way he laughs. Of course I laugh too. While I'm laughing the mug empties and the next one comes. It switched to sake just before 20:00.
"Say, Wheeler."
Mr. Ando looked at me like he'd just remembered something.
"I hear you were in the same year as President Kaiba?"
The section chief laughs. "That's right. Quite a connection, isn't it."
"Same year, yeah. Not that I ever really talked to him, much."
That's a lie. I have talked to him. Talked — I don't know if you can call what that was a conversation. He was a jerk and I bit back at him, and—
"Huh. What's he like?"
"What's he — I mean."
A jerk. Can't say that.
While I was hunting for words, Mr. Ando's interest moved somewhere else. It became a conversation about a new KaibaCorp product he'd seen on TV, and the section chief went along with it.
Before I know it there's a freshly poured glass in front of me. There is a moment's pause before I pick up the glass.
Somewhere along the line, this pause started being there.
My old man lost to drink. I think of him as a man who lost. From the smell when I opened the front door I could tell what state he was in that day. The cans rolling around, the volume of the TV, and then, his voice.
He didn't remember. What he'd said the night before, that kind of thing — by the next day it was all gone.
Things I'd never said had been said by me, and things I'd definitely heard him say had never happened.
After Serenity and her mother left, he stopped remembering where he'd slept, too. Some days he'd slept in the kitchen, some days in the entryway. When I woke him he'd ask me, "Why am I in a place like this." The hell would I know.
I packed up my things and left, and I haven't seen him since. Deleted his contact too. I'm the one who deleted it.
I don't lose.
Not losing means this. I go to work the day after I drink. I haven't missed a single day. The day after I drink, I remember everything about the night before. Who said what, what I said back, the name of the place, what time we left. I sleep at my own place. I get properly to my own futon and sleep. I put the money towards rent first. I've never fallen behind. I don't owe anyone.
I can count it. All of it, I can count.
As long as I can count, I'm fine.
"Wheeler can take it."
The section chief said it. Mr. Ando looked over, said huh with a laugh, and poured for me.
And I've gotta receive that gratefully.
"Sorry — thank you very much."
"Ah, it's good to be young."
"No, not at all."
I lift the glass and drink. The alcohol is hot in my throat.
On the way to the second place I remember the outside air being cold. After that there's nothing. It isn't that my memory blacked out — there really is nothing there. The same conversation repeated, the same laughter repeated, and I gave the same answers.
It ended at 23:40. I remember because I looked at the clock.
My apartment is a nine-minute walk from the station. Corner unit on the second floor. Corner units are hot in summer and cold in winter, but there's only a neighbour on one side, so it's quiet.
I unlock the door and turn on the light.
There are three plates from the day before yesterday piled in the sink. How many days has it been with the curtains left shut?
I opened the fridge. Two plastic bottles of water, four eggs, and a yoghurt three days past its best-before date. I decided I hadn't seen the yoghurt and shut the door.
I took the water out and drank straight from the bottle.
There's a deck case sitting on the shelf. The Duel Disk is next to it. I wipe them now and then, so they haven't got dusty. I wipe them, and I don't use them.
The last time I entered anything was a local tournament back in high school. I can still picture the face of the guy I met in the final. That day was fun.
I took off my tie, hung my shirt on the chair, and lay down without showering. I thought I should shower. I thought it, but my body wouldn't move.
The alarm is set for 5:20. Tomorrow there's a delivery to attend in the East District. So I'd be better off getting up at 4:50. I meant to reset it for 4:50, and my finger didn't reach.
The next morning, I lifted the sample case in the entryway.
It weighs eight kilos. I know because I weighed it.
This morning it was eight kilos too.
