Min Lee - Pachinko

Goro considered the boy and Sunja, one of his favorite ajumma s in the market.

“Officer, I know this family. They’re very hardworking, and Mozasu is a good kid. He won’t get in trouble again. Right, Mozasu?” Goro stared directly at Mozasu.

“ Hai ,” Mozasu replied.

The officer repeated his speech about how citizens should never take the law into their own hands, and Mozasu, Sunja, and Goro nodded as if the officer were the Emperor himself. After he left, Goro lightly smacked Mozasu in the back of head with his felt hat. Mozasu winced, but of course it hadn’t hurt.

“What are you going to do with this boy?” Goro asked the women, both exasperated and amused.

Sunja looked at her hands. She had tried everything she could, and now she had to ask a stranger. Yoseb and Noa would be angry with her, but she had to try something else besides what they were doing now.

“Could you help him?” Sunja asked. “Could he work for you? You wouldn’t have to pay him very much—”

Goro waved her away and shook his head and turned his attention to Mozasu. That was all he needed to hear.

“Listen, you’re going to quit school tomorrow morning and start working for me. Your mother doesn’t need this shit. After you tell the school that you’re done, you’re going to head to my shop, and you’re going to work very hard. I’m going to pay you what you deserve. I don’t steal from my employees. You work, you get paid. You got it? And stay away from the sock girl. She’s trouble.”

“Does your parlor need a boy?” Sunja asked.

“Sure, but no fighting. That’s not the only way to be a man,” he said, feeling sorry for the kid who didn’t have a father. “Being a man means you know how to control your temper. You have to take care of your family. A good man does that. Okay?”

“Sir, you are gracious to give him a chance. I know he’ll work—”

“I can see that,” Goro said to Sunja, smiling. “We’ll make him a pachinko boy and keep him off the streets.”

Mozasu got up from his stool and bowed to his new boss.

March 1956

Goro was a fat and glamorous Korean, notably popular with beautiful women. His mother had been an abalone diver in Jeju Island, and in the neighborhood of Ikaino where Goro lived in a modest stand-alone house by himself, there was talk of Goro having once been an agile and powerful swimmer. That said, it was rather difficult to imagine him doing much beyond telling funny stories and eating the tasty snacks he liked to fix for himself in his kitchen. There was something plush and sensual about his thickly rounded arms and swollen belly; it might have been the smoothness of his clear, tawny skin, or the way he fit into a well-made suit, resembling a self-satisfied seal gliding across a city street. He was a good talker — the sort of man who could sell lumber to a woodcutter. Though he made plenty of money from his three pachinko parlors, he lived simply and preferred to avoid expensive habits. He was known for being generous with women.

For six months, Mozasu had been working for Goro in his main pachinko parlor, doing whatever was needed. In that time, the sixteen-year-old had learned more about the world than in all his years of school. Making money was ten times easier and more pleasant than trying to stuff the kanji he had no use for into his head. It was a tremendous relief to forget the dry books and exams. At work, nearly everyone was Korean, so nothing stupid was said about his background. At school, Mozasu hadn’t thought that the taunts had bothered him much, but when the mean remarks had utterly disappeared from his daily life, he realized how peaceful he could feel. He hadn’t had a single fight since he’d started working for Goro.

Each Saturday evening, Mozasu handed his pay envelope to his mother who, in turn, gave him an allowance. She used what she needed for the household expenses, but she was saving as much as she could, because Mozasu wanted to be his own boss one day. Each morning, Mozasu rushed to work and stayed as late as he could keep his eyes open; he was happy just to sweep up the cigarette butts or to wash the dirty teacups when Kayoko, the kitchen girl, was busy.

It was a mild morning in March, only a couple of hours after dawn. Mozasu ducked into the back door of the shop and found Goro setting up the pins on his chosen machine. Each day, before the store opened, Goro would gently tap a few straight pins on the vertical pachinko machines with his tiny rubber-coated hammer. He was tapping the pins very, very slightly to alter the course of the metal balls to affect the machine’s payout. You never knew which machine Goro would choose, or which direction Goro would direct the pins. There were other pachinko parlors in the area that had decent businesses, but Goro was the most successful, because he had a kind of touch — a true feel for the pins. The minuscule adjustments he made were sufficiently frustrating to the regular customers who’d studied the machines before closing hours for better payouts in the morning, yet there was just enough predictability to produce attractive windfalls, drawing the customers back to try their luck again and again. Goro was teaching Mozasu how to tap the pins, and for the first time in his life, Mozasu had been told that he was a good student.

“Good morning, Goro-san,” Mozasu said, running into the shop.

“Early again, Mozasu. Good for you. Kayoko has made some chicken rice; you should eat some breakfast. You’re a big kid, but you need to fill out some more. Women like to have something to grab on to!” Goro laughed heartily, raising his eyebrows. “Isn’t that so?”

Mozasu smiled, not minding the teasing. Goro-san talked to him as if Mozasu, too, had many women when in fact, he’d never once been with a girl.

“My mother made soup this morning, so I already ate. Thank you.” Mozasu sat down beside his boss.

“How is your mother?”

“Good, good.”

Despite Noa’s strict disapproval of Mozasu working in a pachinko parlor, Sunja had relented in the end. She had allowed him to work with Goro, a widely respected man in Ikaino. Mozasu had fought against the other schoolboys so often that she’d feared for his safety and let him leave school for good. Mozasu would never finish school, but Noa was still trying to get into Waseda, and this was the family consolation — at least one of the boys would be educated like their father.

“How’s her business? Sugar is an addictive substance. Good for making money, nee ?” He laughed while tapping gently at one pin then another.

Mozasu nodded. He was proud of the confectionery stall his mother, aunt, and grandmother ran in the open market by the train station. They wanted to have a proper shop of their own, but they’d have to wait until they had the money to buy the building, because no one would rent good locations to Koreans. Mozasu wanted to make enough money to pay for Noa’s tutoring and to buy his mother a beautiful shop.

Goro handed Mozasu the hammer.

“Try it.”

Mozasu tapped the pins while Goro watched him.

“So, last night, I met my lady friend Miyuki, and we drank too much. Mozasu, don’t be like me and spend all your free time with fast girls,” Goro said, smiling. “Well, unless they are very pretty. Ha.”

“Miyuki-san is pretty,” Mozasu said.

“ Soo nee . Beautiful tits and a stomach like a mermaid. Women are so tasty. Like candy! I don’t know how I’ll ever settle down,” Goro said. “Then again, I don’t see why I should. You see, Mozasu, I don’t have a mother or a father anymore, and though this makes me sad, no one cares enough for me to get married and is willing to arrange it.” He nodded, not looking at all troubled by this.