J-Boys

by Shogo Oketani

  Yasuo started chattering away. “Otohsan is going to be late today because he has to work extra, so we’re going to the bathhouse by ourselves. Okaasan is waiting at home for Otohsan. Then they’re going to the bathhouse too. But we’re—”

  Otohsan: Dad, Daddy. A less formal form is Otohchan.

  Kazuo pushed in front of Yasuo to stop him from talking. “By the way, sir, is Nobuo-kun home? Since it’s just Yasuo and me going to the bathhouse today, we wondered if he wanted to go with us.”

  “I don’t know about that kid. He hates bathing and just went yesterday, so I’m not sure. But I’ll ask him.”

  “Nobuo!” His father shouted up to the second floor. “Kazu-chan and Yasu-chan came to see if you want to go to the bathhouse.”

  Kazuo could hear the raucous sound of an electric guitar upstairs. It was playing a popular English-language song.

  Nobuo came bounding down the stairs. “Hey, Kazuo, Yasuo. Headed to the bathhouse, huh?”

  “How about it, Nobuo, want to come?”

  “Umm . . .” Nobuo gestured down at his legs. “I already put my pajamas on.”

  “Son, these boys came all the way over here to pick you up. Are you going to turn down their invitation?” Nobuo’s father said. “Here, I’ll give you some money. You three can have some sodas after your bath.” Nobuo’s father took a fifty-yen coin from a change basket.

  “And Nobuo,” he continued, “tell Haruo to quit listening to that ridiculous music for once and go with you.” Haruo was Nobuo’s older brother, who was in his second year of middle school.

  Nobuo nodded and ran up the stairs.

  In a few moments, the music stopped, and Nobuo came back down with a basin in his hands. Behind him was his older brother, Haruo, who was pimply with a close-shaven head and a sullen look on his face. He was carrying a basin, too.

  His father frowned. “Haruo,” he said sternly. “You’re not going to spend your night listening to that silly record, you understand me? I want you to go straight to the bath, come home, study, and then get to bed early.”

  “It’s not a silly record—it’s the Beatles,” Haruo said quickly, averting his eyes.

  The Beatles: One of the most popular rock music groups ever, active in the 1960s. At first the Beatles, who were British, were known for their “mop-top” haircuts and catchy tunes, but they became symbols of the cultural changes taking place in America and Europe in the 1960s. The Beatles came to Japan in 1966. They stayed only five days and played five shows.

  “What did you say? I’ve had enough of your talking back!” Nobuo’s father smacked Haruo on the head with the palm of his hand. “I buy you a record player because you tell me you’re going to study English. Then you stop helping at the store and spend every waking moment listening to those ridiculous songs. Get to the bathhouse, will you, and clear your head of that garbage!”

  “I’m going. I’m going.” Muttering and rubbing his head where his father had smacked him, Haruo left the store. The three younger boys followed.

  Outside, Nobuo whispered in Kazuo’s ear that Haruo had gone completely nuts over the Beatles, playing their songs over and over, day after day.

  Kazuo knew that the Beatles were an American or British music group—four men with long hair. He also knew from the TV news that they would be coming to Japan the following year. But Kazuo had no idea why these four men were so popular among high school and middle school students.

  Up ahead, Haruo was walking down the street with one hand stuck in his pants pocket as he sang something like “Rok-kin roru myu-jik.” Kazuo guessed that was a Beatles song, too, maybe a hit song called “Rock and Roll Music.”

  Rock and Roll Music: A song by famous American guitarist Chuck Berry and performed by the Beatles on their album Beatles for Sale (1964). Berry helped invent the style of what came to be known as rock ’n’ roll music.This song celebrates the music that young people all over the world, including Japan, were listening to.

  Soon, they saw the entrance to Fujita Yu.

  Haruo continued to croon strange words as the boys passed under the half-curtain at the bathhouse entrance. Inside were separate doors to the men’s bath and the women’s, each flanked by a wall of shoe lockers that had large, wooden keys.

  The boys found a spot in the entryway for their shoes. Stepping out of them, they slid open the door made of fogged glass and entered the men’s side.

  Just inside the doorway to the changing room was a tall counter where the woman who ran Fujita Yu sat to supervise the bathing areas.

  “Well, if it isn’t a small army!” she said to the four boys. Her round face broke into a smile.

  “Yeah, I got stuck watching these babies.” Haruo stopped singing and put his money on the counter.

  Young men dancing at a rally.

  “I’m not a baby, Niichan, and you know it,” Nobuo said testily.

  “You are so a baby. People who wet the bed at night are babies. There’s just no other word for them.”

  “I did not wet the bed, you jerk.” Nobuo turned bright red and tried to kick Haruo’s leg.

  “Oh yes, you did, just last week. That makes you a baby.” Haruo easily dodged Nobuo’s foot.

  “All right, that’s enough quarreling,” said the supervisor.

  “Oi, Haruo.” Just then a voice called to Haruo from the corner of the changing room. Three middle-school boys with shaven heads, Haruo’s classmates, stood there, completely naked.

  Oi: “Hey!” or “Hey you!” An attention-getting word used by boys and men among close friends. It is very informal and a bit rough.

  “Well, as proof that you’re not babies, my babysitting duty ends here. Have a nice bath.” Haruo headed toward his classmates while once again singing, “Rok-kin roru myu-jik.”

  Nobuo made a nasty face in Haruo’s direction. “Moron. When I get home, I’m telling my dad what he said.”

  “Well, they say siblings who fight are the close ones, but my goodness!” The supervisor laughed. “Okay, boys, that’ll be fifteen yen for each of you.”

  “Two, please.” Kazuo handed thirty yen for himself and Yasuo to the supervisor.

  “Thank you very much. By the way, where are your mother and father today?” she asked.

  Yasuo told her about their parents having to come later. “So we came all by ourselves,” he explained.

  “Did you really?” the supervisor said with a laugh. “Well, have a nice hot bath!”

  “One, please,” Nobuo said next, holding out the fifty-yen coin he had received from his father. “And after our bath we would like three sodas.”

  “No soda for your brother?” the supervisor asked.

  “Big boys in middle school don’t drink soda like us babies,” Nobuo muttered grumpily.

  The three boys found some baskets in the stack at the side of the changing area and put their clothes inside. This was the time of day when the bathhouse became the busiest. Both the tubs and the rows of faucets were crowded. Before heading to the tubs, Kazuo, Nobuo, and Yasuo hunted for an open faucet and sat down in front of it. They alternated running hot and cold water into basins until the water was just the right temperature to rinse off with. Then they rubbed soap on their towels and began scrubbing themselves clean. It was a bathhouse rule that you had to wash off completely before you got into the tubs.

  Kazuo had learned that there were a lot of other unwritten rules. For example, if the water in the tub was a little too hot, you had to put up with it rather than add cold water to cool it down. When you washed at one of the faucets, you had to rinse all of your soap bubbles off the tiles so the next person could wash in a clean place. When you left the bath, you had to dry off completely to avoid dripping on the floor in the changing area. Et cetera, et cetera. If a child ever failed to follow one of these rules, an adult would surely correct him.

  While Kazuo, Nobuo, and Yasuo were washing off, Haruo and his classmates came into the bathing area, all of them singing. The tune had changed from the
one Haruo had been singing before, to something like “Ee-tsu bina hahdo deizu naito”—a song called “A Hard Day’s Night.”

  "A Hard Day's Night:" A hit Beatles song (1964), featured in both a film and an album of the same name.

  “Hey, is that a Beatles song, too?” Kazuo asked Nobuo, whose body was covered in suds.

  “Probably.” Nobuo kept scrubbing, showing no interest in the older boys’ song.

  “It sounds a little better than the tune he was singing before, don’t you think?” Kazuo asked, looking over at Haruo and his friends.

  “It just sounds that way because the bathhouse echoes,” Nobuo replied.

  Nobuo had a point: in the bathhouse, people’s voices and the sounds of bathing bounced off the high ceiling and sounded much louder than they actually were.

  Kazuo, Nobuo, and Yasuo got into a circle and washed each other’s backs. Then they washed their heads off with soap and headed to the tub.

  There were two tubs in the bathing area. The large one was not very deep, and the water was not very hot, so both children and adults could use it. But the smaller tub was for adults only. It was deeper, and the water was very hot. There were already six adults and four children in the bigger tub, leaving barely enough room for the three boys to squeeze in. But there were just two people using the adults’ tub, leaving more than enough space for three boys.

  “Oniichan, can we still play Gourd Island?” Yasuo asked, seeing the crowded main tub and blinking his eyes.

  With this many people in the tub, it would be hard just to get into the water, never mind float the model of Gourd Island and swim around it, Kazuo thought. But he couldn’t say that to Yasuo, who was looking a little sad.

  “You wait here,” Kazuo told him. Ignoring Mother’s earlier warning, he sat down on the edge of the adults’ tub. Gingerly, he dipped his right toe in the water. He wanted to check exactly how deep it was.

  The water was hot—very hot. Steeling himself against the heat, Kazuo reached his foot down and felt the bumpy tiles underneath. By then, his entire body was in the water. It went right up to his shoulders. The water would definitely be over Yasuo’s head.

  Kazuo carefully lifted himself out of the steaming bath and went over to Yasuo. His little brother was clutching the model of Gourd Island protectively to his chest.

  “Yasuo, it’s not going to work today. Like Okaasan said, the adults’ pool is too deep for you, and the regular tub is too crowded. We’re not supposed to bother other people, remember?”

  Yasuo stuck out his lip, but nodded reluctantly.

  Once the three boys got into the main tub, they folded their legs and sat, feeling cramped. The water was warm, and beads of sweat soon appeared on their foreheads.

  “Lion-kun,” Yasuo spoke to the bean-sized version of Lion-kun on the model of Gourd Island. “It looks like today won’t work after all.” The drifting island bobbed up and down near Yasuo’s neck.

  Nobuo darted a glance at Haruo and his classmates. “My brother and his friends sure are making a racket.” They were hanging around near the end of a row of faucets and still singing “Ee-tsu bina hahdo deizu naito.”

  Kazuo had thought the song was cool at first. But hearing the same phrase over and over again was starting to drive him a little crazy.

  “Is your brother this way at home, too?”

  “Yeah, plus at home he plays his records, so I can’t even watch TV in peace,” Nobuo said. “I’m definitely telling my dad.”

  If they keep this up, they’re going to get in trouble with the supervisor, Kazuo thought.

  Just then he heard a loud splash.

  The voices that had been repeating “Ee-tsu bina hahdo deizu naito” like a broken record suddenly stopped.

  “Hey! That water’s freezing!” Haruo yelled. The eyes of every single person in the bathhouse suddenly focused on him.

  “What’s that, little boy? The water felt cold?”

  That was not the voice of the supervisor.

  Through the steam, Kazuo could see bright colors moving closer. He focused his eyes. The colors belonged to a tattoo. It was a big tattoo of a blue dragon, the kind that gangsters had across their entire back or chest. Maybe Kazuo was going light-headed in the thick steam, but the vivid blue dragon seemed to be widening its eyes and opening its red mouth, about to sink its teeth into Haruo and his friends. A long, thin, forked tongue stuck menacingly out of its mouth.

  Tattoo: Japanese traditional tattoos are colorful images of geisha, dragons, or various mythological gods. The tattoos often cover the chest, back, and upper arms, and are usually not visible when the person is wearing regular street clothes, so sometimes the only place to see the tattoos is at a public bathhouse. (Many bathhouses used to forbid entry to anyone with tattoos.) Yakuza: Japanese mobsters, members of organized criminal gangs, traditionally involved in stolen goods, gambling, and loan sharking (loaning money at very high interest rates). There are many movies about yakuza in Japan; sometimes they are portrayed as folk heroes, similar to outlaws in American western movies. They often wear traditional tattoos.

  “You got some kind of problem with that?” Every time the dragon yelled, its blue body bulged, and its bright red mouth opened even wider.

  Kazuo was transfixed by the combination of vivid blue and deep red. The tattoo belonged to Sabu-san, a young yakuza, or gangster. Everyone knew he and his buddies operated out of an office near the bars by the station, so the neighborhood was his “turf.”

  “You’re the butcher’s kid, aren’t you?” Holding an empty plastic tub, Sabu-san stood squarely facing Haruo, glaring at him. Kazuo now realized that the gangster had thrown cold water on Haruo and his friends.

  “Your old man works hard and sweats with all he’s got,” Sabu-san went on, “while you go around hollering in the bathhouse, bothering other people. What’s wrong with you?”

  By now Haruo had also realized who had thrown the water. He grew as meek as a kitten as Sabu-san yelled and banged the plastic tub against his thigh. Every time the tub hit his leg, it made a hollow sound, like a small drum.

  Sabu-san’s lecture went on for several minutes, and during that time, instead of “Ee-tsu bina hahdo deizu naito,” Haruo and his friends were forced to repeat, “Sorry. We’re sorry,” over and over.

  After drinking the sodas paid for by Nobuo’s father and leaving the bathhouse, Kazuo, Nobuo, and Yasuo walked back through the shopping area. The stores were closing one after another.

  Nobuo flared his nostrils and hummed as he walked.

  “Nobuo, you seem downright thrilled,” Kazuo teased.

  “You bet I’m thrilled! My stupid brother had it coming, telling all those lies about me wetting the bed. That’s why he got it from old Sabu-san.”

  Nobuo had obviously been mortified by Haruo’s teasing. Maybe that was because the story was true, Kazuo thought. He kept this thought to himself as the night air cooled his flushed cheeks.

  Yasuo, walking at Kazuo’s side, was speaking to Lion-kun on the model of Gourd Island again. “Looks like Okaasan was right, Lion-kun. In the bathhouse, you can’t go around bothering other people. A lot of people use the bathhouse.”

  Kazuo listened to his little brother with a smile. Tonight had reminded him of something: all different kinds of people went to the bathhouse to wash up and soak in the hot water. There were children, students, company workers, people who worked at stores, and even yakuza like Sabu-san. Policemen and thieves probably got into the same tub and sat right next to each other sometimes without even knowing it. In the bathhouse, where everyone was naked, everyone was equal. And that, Kazuo thought, is why it feels so good to bathe at the bathhouse.

  J-Boys

  That November Kazuo made two new friends.

  One was a tall, sturdily built boy named Minoru Kaneda, and the other was Minoru’s physical opposite, a skinny boy named Akira Nishino. Kazuo got to be friends with Minoru and Akira after being assigned to the same small group for a class project. Also
in the group was Keiko Sasaki, who lived in company housing just like Kazuo. Keiko was the group leader, and Kazuo was the assistant leader.

  Nobuo was disappointed that he did not get to be in the same group as Kazuo. But he was glad to make two new friends too.

  MINORU AND THE SCRAP CART

  Five months earlier, on a Saturday in June, something had happened to make Kazuo want to be friends with Minoru. Kazuo had spent the afternoon rambling through the streets of West Ito, doing nothing in particular, and had ended up on top of the hill in District 4. There had been days and days of gloomy rain, and he was staring at the big houses with yards, watching the town below him gradually light up in the sunshine. Whenever he stood here, looking out from this height, Kazuo felt like a bird soaring through the sky. Sometimes he would pick out different tiny roofs in the town and imagine what kind of people lived underneath them and what they might be doing.

  Kazuo felt a thin layer of sweat form on his forehead. The June sunlight was growing stronger. He closed his eyes against it, and behind his eyelids, the light seemed to gather various sounds: people’s voices and footfalls, car engines, the rustling of leaves. . . .

  Chirin, chirin.

  Somewhere in the mixture of sounds, he heard the faint ringing of a bell.

  Kazuo opened his eyes. It was a brass bell from a two-wheeled cart piled high with bundles of old newspapers and magazines. Pulling the cart was a man. He wore a towel tied around his head and a dirty white T-shirt. Like a snail, he was inching ever so slowly up the slope.

  “It’s a scrap man,” murmured Kazuo.

  Scrap men bought people’s old magazines and news­papers, empty bottles, iron scrap, and other unneeded items for low prices. On days when the weather was good, they walked through town pulling their carts, ringing a bell and calling, “Scrap man, will haul! Scrap man, will haul!”

  Today, now that the weather had finally cleared, they were probably trying to catch up on work they had missed due to the rain.