(2005) In the Miso Soup Read Free

walking by. “What you gentlemen need is to see some world-class nude dancing—at the unheard-of price of only ¥7000 for a full hour!” Their Japanese was flawless. Frank tried to take a flier and was ignored at first. He stood with his hand out, smiling, and the black guy reached around him to hand one to a passing Japanese. I don’t think the guy meant anything in particular by it. He may have had a certain reaction to Frank being white, or it could be that his employers told him to give precedence to Japanese over impoverished-looking foreigners, but in any case he clearly wasn’t trying to yank Frank’s chain. Frank’s expression underwent a disturbing change, though. It was only for a moment, but it startled me. The artificial-looking skin of his cheeks twitched and quivered, and his eyes lost any recognizable human quality, as if someone had turned out the light behind them. They might have been beads of smoked glass. The tout didn’t notice. He handed Frank a flier and said something in English that I couldn’t quite hear. I think it was simply about the dancers being not from the U.S. but Australia and South America, but the light came back on in Frank’s eyes, and his face relaxed. Something ugly had reared its head for a second and then vanished again.
    Frank looked at the flier and said to the guy: “Your Japanese is amazing, where are you from?” When the guy said New York, Frank beamed at him and told him the Knicks were on a winning streak and looking like a new team. I know that, the guy said, handing another passerby a flier.
    “We get all the NBA action—hell, TV here even tells you where Michael Jordan played golf on his day off, and what his score was.”
    “You don’t say,” Frank said and slapped him on the back. As we walked away, Frank draped his arm over my shoulder and said: “What a terrific fellow, Kenji—a man in a million!” As if he’d known him for years.
    We came to a stop in front of a sign with one big eye. “Even I know what this is,” Frank said. “A peep show, right?”
    I explained how this one worked.
    “You get in a booth with a one-way mirror and watch the girls undress. In each booth is a little semicircular hole, and if you put your dick in there they jerk you off. These places were really popular until just recently.”
    “They aren’t popular now? How come?”
    “Well, peep shows are cheap. To turn a profit they need a lot of customers, but they can’t pay the girls that much. If the money isn’t good all the young and pretty girls quit, and if the girls aren’t young and pretty the customers stop coming. It’s a vicious circle.”
    “How much is it? The sign says ¥3000—what’s that, $25? Kenji, $25 for a peep show and a hand job? That
is
cheap!”
    “That’s just what it costs to get in. You have to tip another $20 or $30 for the hand job.”
    “Still, that’s not bad. The girl who does the stripping is the one who jerks you off, right?”
    “Usually you can’t see who’s on the other side of the wall. That’s why there were rumors about old ladies doing it, or gay guys. Which is another reason these places aren’t so popular anymore.”
    “So it’s not worth going in?”
    “Well, they
are
inexpensive, and you wouldn’t need an interpreter. I could go get some coffee or something and you’d only have to pay for one.”
    As we talked, the touts began flocking around us. Most of them were from the newer “lingerie pubs” and none of them knew who I was. The old hands know me by sight, but of the maybe two hundred touts on this street at least eighty percent were rookies. The dudes who become touts are generally at the end of their rope: guys who for one reason or another can’t work anywhere else, or who are desperate for some quick cash—which is why they tend to come and go so quickly and why they aren’t necessarily reliable. You can generally trust the touts who’ve been around a long time, though.
    “Kenji, what are