Popular Hits of the Showa Era Read Free

means the enemy’s coming with paper, see?” Sugiyama was rubbing his right palm with a chunk of ice. “After all,” he mumbled, “even your balls get tougher if you ice ’em.” Ishihara held his right hand on top of his head and was making rocks and scissors and announcing, “Rock!” or “Scissors!” as he did so. “How come I always know which one I’m going to choose,” he wondered aloud, “and no one else does?”
    Tonight, in addition to One Cup Sake, they were drinking beer and wine. As for cuisine, beef jerky took the starring role. There was also macaroni salad—that begetter of a new era—not to mention various dry snacks, but none of these could compete with the headliner in terms of aroma and sheer visual appeal. The beef jerky had been supplied by Kato, who worked for a small importer of foodstuffs. Kato subsisted almost entirely on his company’s products, but it had never before occurred to him that the things he ate every day could lend pomp to a party. His main staple was giant corn from Peru, though when he wanted meat he would grab a package of this same beef jerky—produced by the American firm Tengu—and rehydrate the strips by boiling them in water à la sukiyaki. When he sensed that his body needed veggies he would open a can of apricots preserved in syrup—a product of the People’s Republic of China—never for a moment doubting that the apricot was a vegetable. He’d brought the beef jerky on this particular evening thinking only that it might mildly please the others, but in fact it was a sensation. When he casually plopped the four packages of Tengu teriyaki-style down on the tatami mats of Nobue’s apartment, a rare hush fell over the room. It wasn’t that none of them had ever eaten beef jerky before. But the excess energy that they themselves knew least what to do with helped lend an otherworldly glow to this austere food product, so redolent of the frontier spirit. None of them said a word, but with an intensity that might have made an impartial observer wonder how they would react to something like stone crab, they began tearing the jerky to shreds and wolfing it down.
    Complemented with wine from Yamanashi and Portugal, the beef jerky had rapidly disappeared; Ishihara had ceased laughing like an idiot; and preparations for the rock-paper-scissors showdown were in full swing. But just as they were about to start the actual competition, Nobue made a discovery that turned their entire world upside down.
    It seemed an eternity since they’d last seen a light in the window of the room across the parking lot. That light was on now, and through the lace curtains they could make out the silhouette of the woman with the unbelievable body. Sugiyama instantly grew so tense that he squeaked and probably would have gibbered had he not bitten his own left hand. The woman with the unbelievable body was brushing her long hair, and now she casually tossed it back over her shoulders with two or three graceful flicks of her fingers. That was enough to elicit a commotion of sighs and exclamations from Nobue and the others, and Ishihara went so far as to mutter, “Anyone mind if I jerk off?” He wasn’t the only one who was thinking of masturbation, but even as the woman undid the buttons on her blouse, the sublime aura of inviolability she radiated through the curtains prevented them from putting any such thoughts into action. The blouse slid off, the lines of her shoulders and back were revealed, and as she began to wriggle out of her skirt, tears welled up in Yano’s and Sugioka’s and Kato’s eyes. “This must be what it’s like to see a UFO, or the earth from the space shuttle,” Nobue murmured, and everyone nodded breathlessly. The woman shrugged out of her slip and unhooked her brassiere, and then her silhouette disappeared from view.
    “Shower time!” shouted Ishihara, and the other five responded almost in unison, like the chorus in a grade-school play:
    That’s right!