Japanese Portraits: Pictures of Different People by Donald Richie Page B

the low caliber of youngsters these days.
    I did not enjoy my sushi, watching this and further humiliations, but then I had not come to enjoy sushi. I was there to satisfy my curiosity.
    My curiosity unsatisfied, I called up the Fuji several days later and ordered some sushi to be brought to my house.
    Sure enough, it was delivered by the kozo. One finger was bandaged, either caused by the scalding or some later enormity.
    - Why do they bully you like that? I asked.
    - Me? Bullied? I'm not bullied.
    - I see, I said. And so, indeed, I did. Loyalty to the shop would prevent him from criticizing it, particularly to a stranger.
    The next time we met, however, he apparently thought differently. This was again in the bathhouse. It was early and he was alone. I looked at his black eye and said nothing. He glanced at me several times, then joined me in the hot water.
    - It's a tough life, he said after a while, now wanting to talk: And it gets worse all the time. I just don't know what to do.
    After that it all came out. The two new sushi-ya from Asakusa, from the tough and manly downtown of Tokyo, had only recently moved to the Fuji. He himself, Saburo Sasaki by name, now just nineteen years old, had come up from the country. The two had been pleasant enough at first but then had changed. He pointed to his black eye.
    The reason then appeared. If he wanted to stay and work with them and make his way up and become a sushi-ya himself, which he thought he did, then he ought to get tattooed, as they were. He had demurred, then refused—hence the present mistreatment. What did I think he ought to do, since I had earlier expressed an interest in his case?
    Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the brutal pair. One of them had Fudo, guardian of hell, fanged and clawed on his back, which seemed appropriate. The other, I now saw, had, incongruously, Kannon, goddess of mercy.
    - Hey, shit, yelled Kannon, get your ass out of the hot tub and start scrubbing.
    - Yes, piss-pants, shouted Fudo, and on the double or we'll black the other eye for you.
    The others in the bath joined in the genial laughter that greeted these sallies and I left, not wanting to see any more. That evening, very late, Saburo knocked softly at my front door.
    Over cocoa we talked. Getting a tattoo would provide an entrance into the small world of the sushi shop, but it would slam forever the door to the great wide world. No one would hire a man with a tattoo, some uptown bathhouses would not admit him—why, he couldn't even go to the beach.
    Yes, he knew all that, but if he lost this job he would have to leave Tokyo and go back to Ibaraki. No, he didn't think he could get another job this good. And did tattooing hurt?
    Saburo was, I saw, a person caught in an archetypal situation; but he was already predisposed. The pain of being excluded was greater than the pain of having his skin needled.
    - At least it wouldn't cost much. They said they'd pay half and the other half could come out of my wages. It's expensive, you know, tattooing.
    It was not only the pressures he was thinking of. He was also thinking of the joys of conforming. And after all, he added, smiling, shikataganai de sho , it can't be helped, I suppose.
    No, it can't be helped. Not even when it can. So he finished his cocoa and stood up, smiled, and thanked me for this opportunity to discuss his problem, to sodan suru, to help him make up his mind.
    I did not see Saburo again until several weeks later. It was again at the bathhouse. This time he was seated on a low stool, and Fudo and Kannon were crouched on either side of him. Fudo was drawing hot water and testing it with his finger. Kannon with a soapy rag was carefully washing Saburo's back on which were the deep blue lines of Koi-Taro, a popular and husky little boy riding a carp up a waterfall.
    - It's just bound to hurt a little bit at first, said Fudo solicitously: And the hot water is going to hurt a little