In the Miso Soup Read Free Page B

moving train, you can like lose yourself or whatever and not have all these weird thoughts, because at the time I kept having this weird thought about poking some little girl’s eyes with a pin or a toothpick or a hypodermic needle, something pointy like that, and it scared me to think about what if I really did it, but once I started playing with my blocks on the floor of the train I forgot about that obsession or compulsion or whatever you call it, because it’s not easy to stack blocks on the floor of a moving train, you really need to concentrate, and the Yamanote Line has some major curves, like between Harajuku and Yoyogi especially, and I had to cradle the little castle in my arms to keep it from falling apart. Sure I got yelled at, man. I don’t know how many times conductors and station workers yelled at me, and I was even picked up by the railway cops a few times, but, hell, it’s not like I was doing it during rush hour. Anyway, this went on for about six months, but then when I came to Kabuki-cho it cured me. Hey, I wouldn’t say I love Kabuki-cho—I mean, I doubt if anybody loves it—but it’s an amazingly easy place to be, and who’s going to think about sticking needles in little girls’ eyes when they’re working in a town they like and have a chance to go to the university of their choice?
    “One of our girls speaks a little English, man. If she’s available I’ll send her over to you for no extra charge.”
    Satoshi led Frank and me to a green door in the basement of a nearby building. I’d been to this pub any number of times, but I can’t remember what it was called. All these places have similar names, for one thing. No one racks their brains to come up with something original because no customer in Kabuki-cho would ever choose a club just because it has a clever name.
    The interiors of all lingerie pubs look pretty much the same, too. They don’t actually share a common design, just the same sort of crappy materials. Frank looked at the girls clustered on the sofas in their underwear and gave his bizarre bashful grin.
    The girl who could speak a little English was called Reika. She wore her hair up and expensive-looking purple lace underwear, and aside from a flattish nose and coarse skin, she was pretty cute. Along with Reika came Rie, a big girl with average features and a physique like a volleyball player, who liked white underwear and laughed a lot. Just because a woman laughs a lot doesn’t mean she’s got a sunny disposition, though, especially in the sex trade. Once we were all seated and the whiskey tray was brought to the table, Satoshi turned to me and said thanks, man, and headed back out to the street. There were only two other customers in the place, and I vaguely wondered how much Satoshi would get for bringing us here. We know each other fairly well, but we don’t talk about stuff like that. Not trying to find out too much about other people’s finances is one of the most important rules for surviving in Kabuki-cho.
    Frank nodded at the girls on either side of him, that weird smile still scrunching up his face. His cheeks were turning pink, and I don’t think it was only because the room was so warm. It’s hard to relax with girls sitting next to you in their underwear, even for guys who go to lingerie pubs all the time. It’s not like seeing girls on the beach in bikinis. The swell of breasts in a lacy brassiere, the waistband marks on tummies, the subtle shadow of pubic hair through white panties—unless you’re drunk, it seems almost cruel to look and you find yourself averting your eyes. Turning away from the girls and Frank’s bashful grin, I fixed my gaze on the computerized tropical fish in a virtual aquarium against the wall. Anyone who didn’t know better would have thought the two brilliantly colored angelfish were the real thing. I don’t know much about angelfish, but even the way they moved their mouths looked real. There did seem to be something