quieted to a near-normal level. She picked up the phone, dialed a number, and said, "Yes, would you tell him I won't be able to make it tomorrow? Yes, and my son agreed to the omiai. Let's set it up. Right. Thank you. Good night." The phone clicked on the receiver. Mitsuo stood up.
He hadn't driven his Corolla for a week, but the engine started right up. He revved it repeatedly to spread the oil over all the moving parts. He released the clutch with his foot still on the gas, and the car lurched forward, snapping his head backward.
Soon he was at Koji's. The house was nearly identical to Mitsuo's, having been designed and built by the same architectural and construction firms. Mitsuo's father had spent a great deal extra on fine woods to distinguish his house from his neighbors, but they'd all ended up using the very same lumber. The construction firm had done well by the village. Once the boom ended, the company built a magnificent three-story structure for its own office.
Koji was in an old-fashioned, slanting barn. Just to stand in it made Mitsuo feel nostalgic. Koji was tying threads around the bottom of a bottle. He poured kerosene over the threads and lit them with a match, creating a ring of fire. Then he lowered the bottle into a bucket of water, bottom first. Steam rose and the bottom cracked away.
Koji snapped his fingers. "Know what I'm making?"
"Yeah, a bottomless drink." Mitsuo picked the separated bottom out of the bucket. The glass had rippled, rainbows spreading between each ripple.
"It's an invention of mine, made just for poaching carp. If we use a regular hook and line, they'll splash about so much we'll be discovered. But if we run the line through this bottle and pull 'em in, they won't be able to move at all. Great idea, huh?"
"You're really gonna give that a try?"
"Beats getting caught."
Mitsuo raised the hood of the Corolla. The reek of gasoline went straight to his brain. The hood of Koji's Skyline was muddy, and onions poked out from the grill, suggesting that Koji had rambled through an onion patch on his way home from town. Mitsuo attached jumper cables to the battery terminals of the two cars and waved to Koji, who sat in the drivers seat of the Skyline. Koji turned the key, and his engine roared into life.
Mitsuo stashed away the cables and said, "I'm feeling edgy, I don't know why. Let's have a race." Energy pulsed through him, and he needed to release it somehow. Koji waited for Mitsuo to place his hands on the steering wheel, then launched the Skyline out on the road. The two cars sped along the narrow lane, one right behind the other. Sparks flew from Koji's muffler. The outlines of the apartment complex rose faintly in the night sky. Every single room was illuminated.
Mitsuo dropped the Corolla into second and the engine screamed. He and Koji dueled on a straightaway, then split off at the apartments. They leaned on their horns to let the other know his own location. Windows opened, and residents stepped out onto their balconies. Mitsuo zigzagged triumphantly through the complex, still riding his horn. No doubt someone would be calling the police right now.
He steered toward the industrial park. The road was wide and the roadside dark. Both drivers floored the gas. The candy factory where Mitsuo had worked was fully lit. It operated round-the-clock in shifts. The glare from the windows flew behind them as they sped past. Mitsuo decided it was time to head back. He wasn't in the mood to try to outrun a patrol car.
Rain came down in sheets, and through it the apartments appeared distant and gray. A line of umbrellas waited in front of the bus stop. With the arrival of each bus, the umbrellas were folded and swallowed up as the passengers stepped aboard. The windows were entirely fogged, and Mitsuo knew that the riders inside would be suffocating. One bus had just left, but already another colorful line of umbrellas appeared at the stop. Raindrops splattered on the asphalt, reminding Mitsuo of flower petals.
Mitsuo loaded his tomatoes on a flatbed truck and dropped the load off at the co-op. Driving home, his arms and shoulders began to ache from the steering wheel vibrations. His rubber rain gear protected him from the elements but caused him to sweat profusely. As he passed the apartment playground, he saw it had been submerged by pools of water. The swings and concrete animals appeared to stand in a swamp. The water continued coming even though there was no longer any river to carry it away. As Mitsuo drove along, the water sprayed off to either side. He felt as though he were navigating a boat.
Turning into the hothouse, he quickly stripped off his rain gear and heaved a sigh of relief but shivered as his sweaty clothes met the air. The rain continued to pound on the vinyl. It was like being inside a drum.
Part of the vinyl had come loose and flapped in the wind. Tomiko hung Mitsuo's rain gear from one of the overhanging pipes. The drops of water made a tiny hole in the earth.
Tomiko said, "I was just telling Koji that I spend more time with him than you. In fact, I'm with young folks so much it makes me look all that much younger, I think."
Koji yelled from the back of the hothouse, "Or maybe it's the dirty stories you're always telling."
Mitsuo peeled off his clinging shirt and dried his chest and armpits with a towel. His mother wiped his back. He felt like taking a hot bath.
Mitsuo took the towel from his mother and ran it vigorously through his hair. "So that's why you like construction work so much, huh? Even though you could be such a big help to me here."
"You want me to be around that senile, hysterical old woman all day? If that wasn't bad enough, it's her own son who's causing us so much trouble. A person can only take so much. I've got half a mind to ship her out and make the fool take care of her in that miserable apartment of his. Think of it: it'd just be you and me. Wouldn't that be great?"
Mitsuo was tired of his mother's voice. He called out to Koji, "I'm doing omiai."
Koji came running up with a freshly cut tomato in hand. "You're kidding! With your face?" He pretended to land an uppercut to Mitsuo's chin. Mitsuo grabbed Koji's wrist and twisted it behind his back. Koji danced about in mock pain.
"Ah, how nice to be young," Tomiko sighed.
Mitsuo let go of Koji's wrist and shoved him in the back. Koji spun around and threw the tomato at Mitsuo, who caught it and said to his mother loudly, "Say, if I don't like her, we can always introduce her to Koji." Mitsuo then fled down one of the ridges.
Koji ran after him. Mitsuo slowed and glanced at the ground thermometer to make sure the temperature hadn't fallen too low. He looked up and saw a number of silver streaks running along the roof of the hothouse. Today's rain would bring him a good price for the tomatoes, he thought.
Just then a voice said, "Man, what a day. Had to take a taxi." A tense silence fell over the hothouse.
Mitsuo felt as though he had been caught directly in a downpour. Matsuzo continued complaining about the rain but suddenly gulped hard. The leaves of the tomato plants rippled in a draft.
Tomiko shattered the silence. "What happened? That woman's had enough with you, and now you're trying to make up with Michi?" Mitsuo's parents faced each other across the flatbed truck.
"I'm here because he needs help."
"You come sneaking up here like a prowler," Tomiko snorted. "Can't even come and go freely in your own home. Nope, can't come home no more."
Matsuzo
