Popular Hits of the Showa Era Read Free Page A

That’s right! It’s shower time!
    “She’s going to take a shower now!”
    A shower now!
    “A nice, hot, steamy, sexy shower now!”
    Shower now!
    “The shower is a miracle!”
    A miracle! A miracle!
    “From all those, like, little pinholes in that weird-shaped thing…”
    Weird-shaped thing…
    “Hot water shoots out—just think of it!”
    Just think of it!
    “It’s got to be a miracle!”
    It is! It is a miracle!
    It was only by vigorously chanting this odd sort of call-and-response that the six of them managed to master the excitement bubbling up from deep inside. They now breathed a collective sigh and sat back to finish off the wine and beer, basking in the afterglow of perfect happiness.
    And then, at last, the rock-paper-scissors contest began.
    The theme song for the evening’s ritual, as has been noted, was “Season of Love.” Instead of the usual “ Jan–ken–pon ,” therefore, you had to count off saying, “Jan–ken–PINKY!”
    Nobue was the first to be eliminated, and he collapsed on the tatami mats and thrashed about in despair and frustration. According to the rules, he must now serve as the driver for the night. Sugiyama tossed him the keys, and he slunk outside to warm up the HiAce’s engine.
    The ultimate victory went to Ishihara. On conquering his final opponent, he leapt into the air, shouting, “I did it!”—and the moment he uttered these words, the anxiety returned in the form of a chilling question: Is it really all right to be this happy?
    As it turned out, of course, Ishihara’s anxiety knew exactly what it was talking about.
    III
     
    Because this evening’s song was to be “Season of Love,” it was necessary to determine only first place (lead singer), last place (driver), and fifth place (engineer/roadie). Naturally, if the theme song had been something by Uchiyamada Hiroshi & Cool Five or Danny Iida & Paradise King or the Three Funkys or Three Graces, it would have called for a different ranking system altogether.
    Ishihara was so thrilled to have garnered first place that he squealed and began to perform the dance the others called “The Ishihara.” The incomprehensible anxiety was still at work, but it had occurred to him that if he moved his body maybe everything would work itself out. There is a rodent known as the tremuggia that makes its home in the Kalahari Desert and looks like a cross between a chipmunk and a rat, and though there’s no reason to believe that Ishihara was aware of the fact, this dance of his closely resembled that creature’s mating ritual. He bent his knees slightly, stuck out his hindquarters, held his wrists limply at chest level, and bobbed up and down while emitting a distinctive cry: Kuun! Kuun! Kuun!
     
     
    They all carried their things to the HiAce step van and climbed aboard. Yano, who had been the second to be eliminated, took an inventory of the equipment, and when he gave the thumbs-up, Nobue steered the HiAce out to the street and accelerated. In tense anticipation of the ritual, all of the passengers were muttering to themselves—mostly about the brief striptease they’d just watched the woman with the unbelievable body perform. In the dark rear of the van, Sugiyama had narrowed his already narrow eyes until they seemed to form a single line behind his glasses. “That was amazing, amazing,” he mumbled. “Amazing, it was.” Kato was tenderly touching the spot on the back of his head where the hair was thinning. “Well, that was a shocker,” he muttered, “but the real test still lies ahead.” It’s doubtful if even he knew what that was supposed to mean.
    Piloted by Nobue, the HiAce crossed the Tama River, sped past Yomiuri Land, entered the Tomei Expressway at the Kawasaki Interchange, and veered down the Odawara-Atsugi Road to Ninomiya, where it exited via the Seisho Bypass and finally rolled to a stop at a deserted spot by the coast that Yano and Kato had discovered. Last-place Nobue was sent to appraise the