and stepped into the hallway. He passed from room to room, switching on the lights. The wet soles of his feet stuck to the floor. Although the cedar was of the highest quality, it hadn't dried completely before being laid. In consequence, the wood was beginning to warp and the varnish was wearing off. The living room tatami was grimy with dust, which felt like spider webs on Mitsuo's feet. The bathroom and kitchen were no cleaner than the other rooms.
The din from the TV roared through the house. Mitsuo thrust open the mahogany door of the living room, and music screamed off the walls. Angrily he yelled, "Granma, where's dinner?"
Granma slowly straightened herself on the sofa. Blue Hawaiian surf leapt from the screen beyond her wrinkled cheeks. "It's on the kitchen table. There's fried mackerel, and you can heat up the miso soup." Her voice quavered over several octaves in one sentence. She'd covered the leather sofa with a futon.
"You've been watching that damn thing all day, haven't you?"
"Did you say something?" Granma frowned and tilted her ear toward her grandson. She hardly ever bathed, leaving her white hair dull and her ears filled with wax. Mucus clotted the corners of her eyes.
"Keep watching TV like that and your cataracts are only gonna get worse!" Mitsuo tossed her a towel to clean her eyes, but it fell on the floor. It had been wrapped around his neck all day and reeked of sweat. The towel looked filthy against the green carpet. Granma's nod conveyed nothing. She shrank into the futon as she lay down again. Mitsuo suddenly felt famished and threw the door open behind him. It was as though the racket from the TV were holding the door back.
Splatters of mud traced a path up the white walls. Although Mitsuo was in the habit of washing his feet and hands at the pump after work, his dirt-streaked work clothes always brushed against the walls. A van pulled into the garden and Mitsuo's mother, Tomiko, got out. Mitsuo heard her say, "See you tomorrow." The clamor from the TV failed to drown out the sound of thin, gum-soled work shoes treading the earth. It had to be more than one person.
"Michi, I'm home." Mitsuo went to greet his mother at the front door. His best friend Koji stood there, in shorts and a T-shirt. Tomiko entered the hallway with a supermarket paper bag. She beckoned Koji to come in.
"It's good to have dinner together once in a while. I got to thinking about how it used to be. Let's all have a beer. I bought all kinds of snacks to go with it."
Mitsuo joined his mother in waving Koji in. Koji said, "OK," dusted himself off, and lumbered in. Tomiko bent down, still holding the bag, and arranged her shoes and Mitsuo's rubber boots. Leek and Japanese radish leaves protruded from the top of the bag. What's the world coming to when farmers buy their vegetables? Mitsuo thought.
Tomiko yelled into the living room through the half-open mahogany door, "Granma, you're going to drive us crazy with that TV! Think about other people for a change." She waited until the sound grew inaudible, then closed the door. The sudden silence pounded in Mitsuo's ears. His mother had temporarily solved one problem, but Mitsuo knew she'd only created another, since she would now have to do the cooking tomorrow. He stepped into the kitchen and heard the hum of the refrigerator motor. He pulled out three beers and lined them up. Instantly, beads of moisture formed on the bottles.
"Construction work's a bitch, ain't it," said Mitsuo.
Mitsuo filled Koji's cup, then his own. Each man had dirt beneath his fingernails.
"Naw, it's easy. All you need's a body." Koji gulped his beer and exhaled deeply. "But the first month was tough as hell, even though I've always done farm work. I found muscles I never knew I had. But they toughen up, and you're set for life."
"You gonna do it all your life?"
"Hell, I dunno. Got those fields of mine, ya know. Can't get it done without machines, though. Gonna get a bulldozer's license, go to a training school for it."
"Koji, that's wonderful!" Tomiko said. "No one else has as much energy as you. You know, there's no need for you to work so hard on the crew. The pay's the same no matter how much you do." Tomiko cleared away the newspaper from the tabletop and sliced the mackerel, placing one piece on each man's plate. The fish was tough and cold. There was no telling when it had been fried. In the course of chewing, the fibers separated and became stuck between the teeth, requiring beer to rinse them out.
"Ah, this is just like old times. Koji, you used to come for dinner every night. If it weren't for you, Michi would've never made it through childhood. He was so thin, and you made him eat three bowls of rice to keep up with you."
Tomiko took a cup and sat facing Koji. The sweat glistened on her sunburnt face. In elementary school, Mitsuo had hardly eaten anything and was often sick. It took him a full hour to traverse the paths along the fields and arrive at school. Concerned, Tomiko invited Koji, with his enormous appetite, to come for dinner every night, giving Mitsuo a competitor in eating. The two boys were in the same grade, but Koji was as powerful as a tractor. The boys in the upper grades couldn't match him. He fought like a madman, even against the biggest and strongest boys, attacking with stones at hand until his combatants were covered with blood. He did it quickly, too; no one ever had a chance to apologize before the blows came. Mitsuo, who never went anywhere without Koji, couldn't recall being bullied by older kids.
Tomiko tore open the paper bag and bit open packets of dried squid and peanuts. Something in a red packet caught Mitsuo's eye, and he reached for it. It was artificially colored cod roe.
"You're really popular, Auntie. The men all say you're like one of the boys, the kind of jokes you tell. I've known you twenty years now, but I never guessed you were so down-to-earth." Koji tossed a fistful of peanuts into his mouth as he spoke. Tomiko giggled, showing her gold teeth.
Mitsuo clicked his teeth in displeasure. "You go around telling dirty jokes, huh? That makes you just as bad as your husband."
Tomiko ignored her son's comments and smiled at Koji with her chin in her hands. "I may look like a worker in these clothes, but I don't do a tenth of the work Koji does. I just do traffic control. They've got those one-way streets at construction sites, right? I just hold up red or green flags, telling cars to stop or go."
"Wow, that's some power you've got there." Mitsuo poked his finger through the plastic wrap surrounding the cod roe and peeled away one long strip of it from the styrofoam packaging. He dropped the roe into his mouth and discovered it was far too salty. Feeling suddenly nauseated, he quickly washed the saltiness down with a long pull on his beer.
"It's a great feeling. Like I'm a cop or something." Tomiko's sunburnt face reddened as she drank her beer. Mitsuo sucked at the roe jammed between his teeth, then brought up something he had wanted to ask. "Ma, how about giving me a hand shipping the tomatoes? I could really use the help."
"I promised the foreman I'd be there. If I walk out, who's going to wave the flags? Everyone'll have to shift jobs." She smiled at Koji, seeking his complicity. I blew it, Mitsuo thought. I should have said I'd pay her wages. Tomiko wiped the sweat from the corners of her eyes with a muddy towel. The TV began blaring once more, and her expression changed.
Mitsuo said, "I'm gonna take a bath. I sweat my ass off working in that hothouse all day, and it puts me in a bad mood."
"When old people don't like something they just do whatever they damn well please." Gulping down the remainder of her beer, Tomiko went to draw a bath. The men heard splashing water. Mitsuo crammed cold rice into his mouth and drowned it in beer. Taste didn't matter so long as the hunger disappeared. Koji helped himself to his third bowl of rice.
"'Bout a dozen of them apartment women came to the hothouse
