nodded exactly three times and disappeared from the other side of the bar.
“The person I was waiting for never came. You?”
“Same story.”
“Waiting for a girl?”
“A guy.”
“Same as me. We’ve got something in common, then.”
There was nothing I could do but nod.
“Hey, how old do you think I am?”
“Twenty-eight.”
“Liar!”
“Twenty-six.”
She laughed.
“But I don’t mind. Do I look single? Do I look like a girl with a husband?”
“Do I get a prize if I guess right?”
“We might be able to work something out.”
“You’re married.”
“Yeah…you’re half-right. I got divorced last month. Have you ever talked to divorced woman like this?”
“Never. Though I did once meet a cow with neuralgia.”
“Where?”
“In college, in a laboratory. We could only fit five people in there at one time.”
She laughed like she was having a good time.
“You’re a college student?”
“Yeah.”
“I was a college student too, once, back in the day. Maybe around ’60. Those were the good old days.”
“How so?”
She didn’t say anything, she just giggled and took a sip of her gimlet, checking her watch as if suddenly remembering something.
“Gotta make another phone call,” she said, grabbing her purse and standing.
With her gone and my question still unanswered, the dust whirled around in the air for a moment. I drank half my beer and then called J over and paid my check.
“Running away?” J asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re not into older women?”
“It’s got nothing to do with her age. Anyway, if the Rat shows up, tell him I said hey.”
I left the bar just as she finished her phone call and stepped into the bathroom for the fourth time. On my way home, I whistled the whole way. It was a song I’d heard somewhere before, but the name of it somehow managed to escape me. A really old song. I stopped my car along the beach, staring at the dark, nighttime ocean while trying my best to remember the name of it.
It was the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. I think these were the lyrics:
“Come along and sing a song and join the jamboree, M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E!”
They probably really were the ‘good old days’.
11
ON
Good evening everybody, how’re you doing out there? I’m feelin’ really excited tonight! Almost good enough to give everybody half of what I’m feeling!
It’s time for NEB’s world-famous Pop Music Requests! From now until 9pm we’ve got a
wonderful two hours lined up for you on this Saturday night, blasting the coolest hot tunes your way! Old favorites, songs that bring back memories, fun songs, songs that make you wanna get up and dance, boring songs, songs that make you wanna puke, anything goes, so hit those phone lines! You know the number. Yeah, make sure you get that number right! You run up your phone bill and upset your neighbors if you misdial, you know. By the way, since we opened up our phone lines at six, all ten lines to our station have been ringing off the hook. Hey, can we get a mic on those ringing phones for a second? Isn’t it amazing? It’s great, just great! Dial
‘til your fingers break! Last week, you guys called us so much our lines blew a fuse, but that won’t happen this week.
Yesterday we had specially-made phone lines installed. Fat as an elephant’s legs. Elephant legs, not giraffe legs, much bigger than those, maybe even a little too big. So don’t worry, just dial like crazy!
Even if our station staff goes crazy, there’s no way you guys can blow that fuse! Isn’t it great? Great! Today was too hot to do anything, but we can still have a good time rockin’! Yeah? That’s what good rock music is made for! Same as pretty girls. Okay, here’s our first song: Brook Benton with Rainy Night in Georgia.
OFF
…man…what’s with this heat? Phew…
…hey, can you turn up the air conditioner?
…hot as hell in here…hey you, cut that out, I’m sweatin’, sweatin’ bullets…
…yeah, that’s how I get…
…hey, I’m thirsty, can someone bring me a Coke? …yeah, good. No, I don’t have to piss! My bladder is like, super-strong…yeah, my bladder…
…thanks, Mi, this is great…yeah, frosty cold…
…hey, there’s no bottle opener…
…don’t be stupid, I can’t use my teeth! …hey, the record’s ending. I got no time, quit screwing around…hey, the bottle opener!
…shit…
ON
This is great, isn’t it? Now this is music. Brook Benton’s Rainy Night in Georgia. Didn’t it make you a little lonely? Anyway, do you know what today’s high temperature was? Thirty-seven degrees Celsius, thirty-seven degrees. Too hot, even for summer. Like an oven out there. At that temperature, it’s lonelier snuggling with your girl than hanging out all alone. Can you believe it? Okay, let’s cut out all the talking and start playin’ some records. Here’s Creedence Clearwater Revival with Who’ll Stop the Rain. Here we go, baby.
OFF
…hey, no, that’s okay, I got it open with the edge of the mic stand…
…man, that’s good…
…nah, I’m good. Just feel like I’ve gotta hiccup. You worry too much, yeah, you too…
…hey, what’s happening with the baseball game? …are they broadcasting it on another station?...
…hey, wait just a second! You’re telling me that in this whole radio station we don’t have a single radio?
That should be a crime…
…nah, I heard it. We should drink a beer to that sometime soon. Ice-cold…
…ah, shit, I can feel one coming on…
…*hiccup*…
12
At 7:15 the phone rang.
It happened while I was lying on a wicker chair in the living room, in the midst of gobbling down cheese crackers.
“Hey, good evening! This is Radio NEB’s Pop Music Requests. Are you listening to the radio?”
Inside my mouth, the confusion of the moment sent the beer and the remnants of a cheese cracker down my throat.
“The radio?”
“Yeah, the radio. The machine representing the cumulative efforts of…*ahem*… civilization as we know it. More advanced than the electric vacuum cleaner, smaller than a refrigerator, cheaper than a television. What were you doing?”
“Reading a book.”
“Tsk tsk, that’s no good. You’ve gotta listen to the radio. Reading books just makes you lonely, don’t you think?”
“Yeah.”
“Books, those’re things you read with one hand to kill time while you’re spaghetti’s boiling. You got that?”
“Yeah.”
“Great…*hiccup*…now that that’s straightened out, we can talk. You ever talked to a radio announcer who can’t stop hiccupping?”
“Nope.”
“Well, we’re breaking new ground. It’s a first for our listeners at home as well. Anyway, do you have any idea why I called you during a live broadcast?”
“Nope.”
“Well, to tell you the truth, there’s this girl…*hiccup*…who requested a song for you. Do you know who that could be?”
“Nope.”
“She requested the Beach Boys song California Girls, we remember that one, don’t we? Got a guess who she might be?”
I thought it over for a moment, then told him I had no idea.
“Yeah…well, that’s a problem, then. If you can guess who she is, you’ll get a special-edition T-shirt sent to you, so think hard!”
I thought it over once more. I had an idea, but I felt as if there were something stuck, blocking me from getting to the nook in my brain where the memory was stored.
“California Girls…Beach Boys…does that ring a bell?”
“When you put it that way, there was this girl in my class five years ago who let me borrow that record.”
“Tell us more.”
“Well, we were on a field trip and this girl’s contact lens fell out and I helped her look for it, so as a reward she let me borrow that record.”
“A contact lens, huh? Hmm. Anyway, you gave the record back to her, right?”
“Nope, I lost it.”
“That’s no good. Even if you had to buy a new one, you should’ve returned it. A girl lends you something…*hiccup*…you return it, understand?”
“Yes.”
“Great! So the girl from five years ago who lost her contact lens on a field trip, she’s definitely listening, yeah? So…uh…what’s her name?”
I told him the name I’d finally remembered.
“Well, it looks like he’s going to be buying a copy of that record and returning it to you. Great! …anyway, how old are you?”
“Twenty-one.”
“That’s a good age. You a student?”
“Yes.”
“…*hiccup*…”
“Hm?”
“What’s your major?”
“Biology.”
“Mm…you like animals?”
“What do you like about them?”
“That they don’t laugh.”
“Hm? Animals don’t laugh?”
“Horses and dogs laugh a little.”
“Wow, when?”
“When they’re having a good time.”
For the first time in years, I felt myself getting angry.
“Well…*hiccup*…maybe we’ll start seeing more canine comedians.”
“You mean you’re not one of those?”
“Hahahaha!”
13
California Girls
Well East Coast girls are hip
I really dig those styles they wear
And the southern girls with the way they talk They knock me out when I’m down there
The mid-west farmers’ daughters really make you feel
alright
And the northern girls with the way they kiss They keep their boyfriends warm at night
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California girls
14
The T-shirt came in the mail three days later, in the morning.
It looked like this:
(ebook editor’s note: image not available)
15
The next morning, I put on that brand-new, scratchy shirt and wandered around the harbor for a while, when my eyes fell upon a tiny record shop with the door open. There weren’t any customers to speak of, just a girl sitting at the counter looking bored as she went over the receipts while drinking a soda. I stared at the record shelves for a while before I came to a realization about the girl behind the counter: she was the girl from the week before, the one with the missing finger who was passed out in the bathroom. I said hey. She looked a little surprised when she saw me, looked at my T-shirt, then drank the rest of her soda.
“How’d you find out I work here?” she said, sounding irritated.
“Just a coincidence. I came to buy a record.”
“Which one?”
“A Beach Boys album with California Girls on it.”
Looking deeply suspicious of me, she got up and took long strides over to the record shelf, then brought it over to me like a well-trained dog.
“How about this one?”
I nodded, looking around the store with my hands in my pockets.
“I also want Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3.”
She was silent this time, coming back holding two records.
“We’ve got Glenn Gould and Backhaus, which one do you want?”
“Glenn Gould.”
She set one record on the counter, then took the other one back to the shelf.
“What else?”
“A Miles Davis album with Girl in Calico.”
She took a little longer this time, but finally returned with the record.
“And?”
“That’s it. Thanks.”
She lined up the three records on the counter.
“You’re gonna to listen to all of these?”
“Nah, they’re presents.”
“You’re a generous guy.”
“Seems that way.”
She shrugged her shoulders uneasily, five thousand five hundred and fifty yen, she said. I paid her and took the records.
“Well, anyway, thanks to you, I was able to sell three records before lunch.”
“That’s great.”
She sighed and sat in the seat behind the counter, starting to look through her pile of receipts.
“Are you always working in this store all by yourself?”
“There’s another girl. She’s out to lunch right now.”
“And you?”
“When she comes back, we switch off.”
I took a cigarette from the pack in my pocket and lit it, watching her work.
“Say, if it’s okay, how about we go out to lunch together?”
She shook her head without looking away from her receipts.
“I like to eat lunch alone.”
“Me too.”
“Really?”
She deprioritized her receipts, looking annoyed, and lowered the needle onto a new record from Harper’s Bizarre.
“So…why’d you invite me, then?”
“Just wanna shake things up once in a while.”
“Shake ‘em up by yourself.”
She went back to working on the receipts at hand.
“Forget about me, already.”
I nodded.
“I think I said it once already, but I think you’re a complete sleazeball,” having said that, with her lips still pursed, she flipped the receipts through her four fingers.
16
When I entered J’s Bar, the Rat had his shoulders on the bar and his face grimaced while reading a telephone book-sized, incredibly long Henry James novel.
“Is that a good read?”
The Rat looked up from his book and shook his head from side to side. “Still, I’ve been reading it very carefully, ever since our talk the other day. ‘I love splendid deception more than the drab reality,’ you know it?”
“Nope.”
“Roger Vadim. A French Director. And this one, too: ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.’”
“Who said that one?”
“I forget. You think it’s true?”
“It’s a lie.”
“Why?”
“You wake up at 3am, you’re hungry. You open the fridge and it’s empty. What do you do?”
The Rat thought it over, then laughed in a loud voice. I called J over and ordered beer and French fries, then pulled out a wrapped record and handed it to the Rat.
“What’s all this?”
“It’s a birthday present.”
“But my birthday’s not ‘til next month.”
“I won’t be here next month, so I’m giving it to you now.”
With the record in his hand, he was still thinking.