Read Online Popular Hits of the Showa Era by Ryu Murakami - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Ryu Murakami
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pachinko emporium, a car dealership, and a noodle shop, the signs of which were all written in English. But the shape of the English script, the languid manner in which the weeds rippled, and the colors and designs of the exteriors of the buildings—as well as the cars, the tables in the noodle shop, and the clothing people wore—were uniquely depressing. Can there really be such insidious colors in this world? Kato asked himself in his inner newscaster voice as the tears flowed. What paints would you have to mix to come up with colors like this, and why would you do it? Why go to such lengths to make colors that strip away everyone’s courage and spirit?
They were all feeling it. Nobue clapped a sympathetic hand on Kato’s shoulder. “Let’s go get that Tokarev,” he said, and then, choking back his own tears, began to hum the intro to “Meet Me in Yurakucho.” The scenery they walked through was horrifying. There wasn’t anything to rest your eyes on. It was the sort of scenery that seemed to rip all the beauty right out of the world, with shapes and colors that robbed you of the will and energy to act. Because they were all originally country boys, the scenery resonated with them and made them glumly pensive. How was the country different from Tokyo? they asked themselves. Well, Tokyo was so crammed with stuff that it was difficult to see the reality, and more care went into choosing building materials and English scripts on signs. That was about it, they realized, but still—it beat the country. For the briefest of moments they seemed to glimpse the truth of what had made them the sort of people they were. This was expressed well in Ishihara’s words as he set off walking toward a sign that read NOGAMI HARDWARE.
“It’s not just that the country’s boring or shabby. It’s like it slowly sucks the life out of you from birth on, like mosquitoes draining your blood little by little. Heh, heh, heh, yeah.”
At the entrance to Nogami Hardware was a sign in the shape of a huge hammer, and a thick old wooden plaque below it COMMEMORATING 250 YEARS SINCE OUR FOUNDING . “They’ve been selling hardware for two hundred and fifty years?” Yano said. He pictured people of the sort you see in period dramas on TV, men with topknots and women with blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows, rolling up to purchase sickles and spades, and he wondered how much things like that cost in those days and what sorts of coins they used and whether they got a receipt, and if they had something like the Ag Co-op to get discounts by buying things in bulk. With all these questions swirling through his mind, he led the way inside and strode toward the cash register. The storekeeper was sitting behind the counter and looked as if he might have been there for the entire two hundred and fifty years. He didn’t have wrinkles on his face so much as a face hidden among the wrinkles, a face that not even Hollywood’s most advanced special effects studio could have reproduced, with skin like a dust rag used for a century and then marinated in acid. He was reading a three-month-old issue of Central Review , and beside him was a portable TV tuned to CNN News.
“Excuse me,” Yano said to the old man. An impartial observer might have said that there was a certain resemblance between the two of them.
“Yes, what is it, the trivets are behind that shelf, the charcoal lighter fluid’s right next to them,” the shopkeeper said in a smooth and surprising baritone. It was the sort of voice that gets scouted by choral groups.
“Eh?” Yano wavered at the subtle but intense power of the old man’s speech. “What’s a trivet?”
“A trivet’s something you have to have if you want to grill meat over charcoal. You boys must enjoy barbecue parties like all the other young folks, yes?”
Yano shook his head emphatically and said:
“Do you have any Tokarevs?”
II
Central Review fell flapping from the storekeeper’s lap. His small eyes
They were all feeling it. Nobue clapped a sympathetic hand on Kato’s shoulder. “Let’s go get that Tokarev,” he said, and then, choking back his own tears, began to hum the intro to “Meet Me in Yurakucho.” The scenery they walked through was horrifying. There wasn’t anything to rest your eyes on. It was the sort of scenery that seemed to rip all the beauty right out of the world, with shapes and colors that robbed you of the will and energy to act. Because they were all originally country boys, the scenery resonated with them and made them glumly pensive. How was the country different from Tokyo? they asked themselves. Well, Tokyo was so crammed with stuff that it was difficult to see the reality, and more care went into choosing building materials and English scripts on signs. That was about it, they realized, but still—it beat the country. For the briefest of moments they seemed to glimpse the truth of what had made them the sort of people they were. This was expressed well in Ishihara’s words as he set off walking toward a sign that read NOGAMI HARDWARE.
“It’s not just that the country’s boring or shabby. It’s like it slowly sucks the life out of you from birth on, like mosquitoes draining your blood little by little. Heh, heh, heh, yeah.”
At the entrance to Nogami Hardware was a sign in the shape of a huge hammer, and a thick old wooden plaque below it COMMEMORATING 250 YEARS SINCE OUR FOUNDING . “They’ve been selling hardware for two hundred and fifty years?” Yano said. He pictured people of the sort you see in period dramas on TV, men with topknots and women with blackened teeth and shaved eyebrows, rolling up to purchase sickles and spades, and he wondered how much things like that cost in those days and what sorts of coins they used and whether they got a receipt, and if they had something like the Ag Co-op to get discounts by buying things in bulk. With all these questions swirling through his mind, he led the way inside and strode toward the cash register. The storekeeper was sitting behind the counter and looked as if he might have been there for the entire two hundred and fifty years. He didn’t have wrinkles on his face so much as a face hidden among the wrinkles, a face that not even Hollywood’s most advanced special effects studio could have reproduced, with skin like a dust rag used for a century and then marinated in acid. He was reading a three-month-old issue of Central Review , and beside him was a portable TV tuned to CNN News.
“Excuse me,” Yano said to the old man. An impartial observer might have said that there was a certain resemblance between the two of them.
“Yes, what is it, the trivets are behind that shelf, the charcoal lighter fluid’s right next to them,” the shopkeeper said in a smooth and surprising baritone. It was the sort of voice that gets scouted by choral groups.
“Eh?” Yano wavered at the subtle but intense power of the old man’s speech. “What’s a trivet?”
“A trivet’s something you have to have if you want to grill meat over charcoal. You boys must enjoy barbecue parties like all the other young folks, yes?”
Yano shook his head emphatically and said:
“Do you have any Tokarevs?”
II
Central Review fell flapping from the storekeeper’s lap. His small eyes
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