The Scent of Showa (Part 1) [Short Story Style Essay]

“I never wanted to be an adult. I always wanted to be a man.”

　I quit my corporate job at 47, an age that was more than adult enough—a true mid-life transition. The year after I established my own castle was 1998, ten years after the Showa era ended. Sitting alone at a shiny new desk, I turned the dial on a SONY portable TV, the "Mr. Nello," which I had found at an antique market, and a "SPEAK LARK" commercial came on.
　As I listened to Ken-san’s voice and puffed on a cigarette with that nostalgic "Lark" scent, the scenes of Babashita from my student days began to rise up within me.

　Right after enrollment, there were barricades and lockouts due to protests against tuition hikes. It was a campus life where even frivolous classes were non-existent. Feeling sorry for my parents who had let me spend two years as a ronin in Sapporo and Tokyo, I told myself, "Sorry for making you cry, Mom," and "I really can't handle student activism," choosing to head straight down the non-political path. I dove into a "(money-making) club" as if to escape, trying to confirm my own "Being and Nothingness" by asking, "What am I?"

　1972. Near the Babashita intersection, where the faculty campus, Anahachimangu Shrine, and a police box were located, there was a stylish, Aoyama-esque coffee shop called SEASON that stood out in that neighborhood. It was truly a "student town coffee shop." This was the year after the first McDonald's opened in Ginza. It was an eat-in (as we call it now) for a then-rare foreign food: hamburgers. Located near the Tozai subway line station, it was bustling with students not just from our faculty, but from the main campus as well. There were three full-time employees. The part-timers were all students. About 50 of us worked in shifts between classes.
　This was my third part-time job. The first was tutoring the daughter of my mother's acquaintance in Sapporo. The second was excavating burial mounds in Fujieda, Shizuoka, right after I moved to Tokyo as a two-year ronin, invited by a high school friend. That was it. So, it wasn't my first time "receiving a paycheck."
　The shop had just opened at the end of May. A week later, I saw a flyer in the shop and applied. By July, I was acting like a veteran, working as a floor chief guiding customers. We called it a "club (activity)." It was more of a club activity than a job. The agitprop speeches "shouting" on campus and the shouting vocals of Yosui and Takuro in the shop intertwined. The air was filled with cigarette smoke and whispered love stories. It was truly the very image of youth.

　As you might expect, I had also started dating Kimiko Nose from the Faculty of Education. It started during the school festival in my first year. It was November 5th, the day before the final day. It was a night with a full moon.
　There is a reason why I clearly remember the date and the full moon. It was the anniversary of my first kiss, and three days later, the Kawaguchi Daijiro murder incident occurred. A fellow part-timer had witnessed him being dragged from the faculty campus courtyard to the student council room. Two days later, about 2,000 people spontaneously gathered in front of the Okuma statue. The rallies, which included all-nighters, continued, and the chairman of the Kakumaru faction and others were arrested. It was a chaotic year that smelled of blood.

　Until high school, I had a Spartan education from my old man, who resembled Toru Abe, the "demon sergeant who makes crying children silent." I was completely unacquainted with women, to the point where I hadn't even held a girl's hand, let alone touched alcohol or cigarettes.

　But as soon as I left the nest—alcohol and cigarettes were unsealed. In Takikawa, the rural town where my high school was, I couldn't have imagined go-go cafes or billiard halls. Sapporo was truly another world, glittering with Showa neon. I spent my days going straight there after prep school. However, even though I practiced mambo dance steps and the gesture of striking a book match with one hand to call a waiter in my boarding house, I was just a country bumpkin and no one took me seriously, so I soon stopped going. I thought, maybe I should study seriously after all... but there were other college students in the boarding house. Naturally, I learned mahjong by watching and imitating.
　About half a year later, a friend from high school who couldn't bear to watch me anymore invited me to his boarding house—which was fine, but the one who pushed the handcart for my move was Takano, another friend who was at Hokkaido University's Keiteki Dormitory. This was the first mistake.
　The dormitory was a nest and hangout for the radical Kakumaru faction. Takano happened to obtain Kenzaburo's self-censored novel "The Political Youth Dies." The two of us hit it off and decided to publish a pirated edition. Even though we called it publishing, we had zero funds. We worked hard on a Japanese typewriter. We managed to get it printed just one week before the Tokyo entrance exams. The world isn't that sweet, as in "Showa Karesusuki" (Withered Showa Pampas Grass). Thanks to my mother crying and begging my father, my second year of ronin life in Tokyo began.

　This time, I seemed to have truly repented, spending my days going back and forth between prep school and my apartment. At night, it was the Obunsha radio course. When the day changed, it was the soothing baritone of Tatsuya Jo on "Jet Stream." Just before 1:00 AM, as it neared the ending, my eyelids would start to droop. Then came the opening song of "Say! Young." Encouraged by a luxurious lineup of personalities that were too intense for late night—Masaru Doi, Monta Mino, Keiko Ochiai, Nihiko Hashida, Chimpei Nozue, Shinji Tanimura...—I survived on four hours of sleep, the "four pass, five fail" rule. I barely passed by the skin of my teeth.

　The two-year winter era ended, and I finally tasted a sense of liberation. Taking advantage of the fact that classes were frequently canceled, a life centered on "club activities" began. At the same time, the "slightly bad" seal I had kept closed during my Sapporo days was peeled off.

　Near the university, there was a string of "Sparrow's Manors" (mahjong parlors). Starting with the famous "Bunmeido" (the invitation was "Let's go eat castella"), which even the great Kisen Ohashi frequented, there were apparently about 30 of them. Because my life was centered on my part-time job, I didn't go to mahjong parlors, but on Saturdays, I would buy tiles and play pon-chi-ron-garagara at the boarding houses of my part-time colleagues or my own apartment within a 3-10 minute radius of campus.
　——— However, for better or worse. Next to the "club" was a billiard hall.
　At the time, we were in the middle of the second billiard boom that followed Paul Newman's (not Tom Cruise's) "The Hustler." The entire second floor of the Tomon Building in front of Takadanobaba Station was "Sanzui Billiards." I remember it opening in the Big Box as well when I was a third-year (was it the 5th floor?). And above all, there was "Inaho Billiards," founded in 1954 near the university's main gate. Many students held cues (the sticks used to hit the balls) between classes, and this place is the only one that still remains today.

　Kimiko Nose was from a national university-affiliated high school. Her father was a big shot at a major bank. On the other hand, I was the son of a lowly, insignificant bureaucrat who had graduated from a prefectural high school. No matter how you looked at it, I was a country bumpkin. Like the song "Tokyo da yo Okka-san," I was dragged around to various places in Tokyo. I longed for a cohabitation-like life like in "Kandagawa," but that didn't come true. That was because there was a curfew of "6 o'clock" that was too strict. Nose had apparently experienced most of her fun by high school and was allowed to enter a co-ed university on the condition of a "curfew." So, I was also a "Fistful of Dollars" who had to deliver her to her home in Meguro by 5:30 every day.

　Unless there was a special event, after that was bachelor time. The beginning of men's time. That was "billiards." It was a social gathering place for now and young men. Every day, we burned our souls on the green felt.
　The name of the men's social gathering place was "Takashima Billiards." Originally, it was a private house with an attached tobacco shop. The father was a salaryman, and it was a family of three. However, he passed away suddenly from leukemia. They renovated the first floor and opened the shop. It was a cozy space with four tables, which was convenient for us. It was sandwiched between SEASON and the coffee shop "Jardin," with three shops lined up. It is now a "Mizuho Bank."
　The one running the shop was the daughter, Micchan, who was about five years older than me. Her height was 170cm, about the same as mine. She was a master-level player who had been taught by professionals, and the shop was lined with tournament trophies. She was also good at bowling, with an average over 200. Large shields and photos of Micchan with a beautiful throwing form were also framed and displayed on the wall. She resembled "Sawayaka Ritsuko-san," who was at her peak at the time, and while she was good at sports, she also had a pale, literary-girl quality. She was a maiden who looked like a Takarazuka star. Everyone was captivated by her, especially when she wore miniskirts or pantaloons and sat on the table to perform a "masse" shot with her cue held upright.
　When people think of billiards, they generally think of "four-ball," but my part-time colleagues, under Micchan's guidance, were playing "three-ball," or three-cushion. As the name suggests, you don't get points unless you hit the ball after making it cushion at least three times against the four walls. Moreover, there are three balls. It is smaller than four-ball and requires a high level of geometric thinking and precision.

　When "club activities" were over, it was my daily routine to hang out next door. My friends all improved to the point where they kept their own "dedicated cues."
　The "Takashima Billiards Lovers' Association" included not only part-time colleagues but also regular customers of the "club." Among them, the most conspicuous were the trio who always appeared at the counter in the evening with only black coffee.
　One was Nino-san, a model-like figure over 180cm tall who wore a sailor hat. He was a student entrepreneur for a ferry travel club. Another was Iida-san, who was dressed in an Ivy League look like Kensuke Ishizu. He was about the same height as me. There was a rumor that he was a relative of the founding family of T Department Store, and as it turned out, he did get a job at T. The third was Bon-chan, who was of average build and slightly smaller than me. They were all in the Faculty of Law and were classmates from Kagoshima LaSalle. They were one year ahead of me.
　The ones who came to play billiards were Nino-san and Bon-chan. As expected of playboys from a combined junior and senior high school, their experience was different. Their cigarettes were already "foreign brands." I was still smoking Hi-Lite, but they smoked "LARK." Of course, they weren't sold at Micchan's shop. They could only be obtained in limited places like souvenirs from overseas trips or department stores, and they had an image of being a slightly more mature cigarette. As expected, the rich kids from LaSalle were particular about their brands. In particular, Bon-chan lived in a condominium owned by his father, who was a doctor in Kagoshima. By his third year, he was actually driving an Isuzu 117 Coupe.
　Nose also smoked that "LARK." Her father was an executive at a foreign exchange bank, T Bank, and apparently traveled overseas often, so she seemed to have borrowed them from the "stock" at home. Although, even if she smoked, it was only to puff on them for the pose.

　I had told my mother about Nose in letters.
　However, at the end of my second year, she passed away suddenly at 50. I put the shawl that Nose had happened to be knitting for my mother into the coffin. It was a family of three men: my father and two sons. My mother, the only woman, had wanted a daughter. So when the shawl arrived, she was apparently happy, saying, "The person who might become my daughter-in-law sent this..."
　It didn't go as far as "Kandagawa," but things were going well enough that I was invited to dinner by her parents many times. Or so I thought ———.

　Meanwhile, at the "social gathering place," from around the time the summer vacation of my third year approached, Micchan's mother started appearing in the shop more often. She would say, "Mitsuko is away on a trip," but it was too frequent for that. It was true that there were times when she was traveling in Fukushima, and she had bought me a souvenir. It was a small red cow figurine. I had told Micchan that my father's roots were in Aizu. She had remembered. However, a few days later, I also received the famous Aizu confection, Iseya's "Ganso Tsubaki Mochi," from Bon-chan, but...
　But that wasn't all ―――.
【To be continued in Part 2】

I was taught by my mentor that an essay is an "essai," an "attempt." So, I thought this pattern would also be fine, and I wrote a short story-style essay as the mood took me.
Since novelistic elements have been added, about 10% is fiction. However, the "scent of Showa" that drifts throughout is exactly as it was at the time. I hope that those who lived in the Showa era will understand. Now, how should I conclude the second part? If it doesn't come together well, I might escape by introducing a column by the "scary older sister" Minako Saito. (◎_◎;) Haha
Oh, and I didn't divide it into two parts just to be provocative. It's because I thought that when reading no+e on a smartphone screen, about 4,000 characters is the limit.

(Appendix)
In the 80s, there was also this commercial. 1987, when the Showa era was nearing its end and the bubble was beginning to emerge. James Coburn's "Speak LARK" voice in the billiard hall shook the hearts of young people.