Min Lee - Pachinko

After class, he walked home alone, deep in thoughts of her, and he knew that he wanted to be with her, even if it would not be easy. The following Tuesday, before the seminar began, Noa went early to class to claim the chair next to hers. The professor tried not to show that she was hurt by this defection, but of course, she was.

Osaka, April 1960

At some point in the past four years, Mozasu had worked as a foreman at all six of Goro’s pachinko parlors. Goro had opened new parlors in rapid succession, and Mozasu had helped him to start each new one. Mozasu was twenty years old, and he did little else but mind the shops and fix whatever needed fixing while Goro scouted for new locations and came up with inspired ideas for his growing empire, which oddly seemed to work out. In business, Goro could not miss, it seemed, and he credited some of his good fortune to Mozasu’s willingness to labor without ceasing.

It was April and early in the morning when Mozasu arrived at the manager’s office at Paradaisu Six — the newest pachinko parlor.

“ Ohayo . The car is waiting. I’m taking you to Totoyama-san’s for new clothes. Let’s go,” Goro said.

“ Maji ? Why? I have enough suits for this year and next. I’m the best-dressed foreman in Osaka,” Mozasu said, laughing. Unlike his brother, Noa, Mozasu had never cared for nice clothing. He wore the well-tailored clothes Goro wanted him to wear only because his boss was fastidious about how his staff should look. Goro’s employees were an extension of himself, he believed, and Goro was strict about their personal hygiene as well.

Mozasu had too much to do, and he didn’t feel like going down to Totoyama-san’s place. He was eager to phone the newspapers to put out ads for more workers. Paradaisu Six needed men to work the floor on the late shift, and since the interiors of Paradaisu Seven would be finished in a month, he had to start thinking about hiring for Seven as well.

“You have the right clothes for a foreman, but you’ll need new suits to be the manager of Seven.”

“ Ehh ? I can’t be manager of Seven!” Mozasu replied, startled. “That’s Okada-san’s job.”

“He’s gone.”

“What? Why? He was looking forward to being manager.”

“Stealing.”

“What? I don’t believe it.”

“ Honto desu ,” Goro said, nodding. “I caught him. I had suspected it, and it was confirmed.”

“That’s terrible.” Mozasu couldn’t fathom anyone stealing from Goro. It would be like stealing from your father. “Why did he do that?”

“Gambling. He owed some goons money. He said he was going to pay me back, but the losses got bigger. You know. Anyway, his mistress came by this morning to apologize for him. She’s pregnant. He finally gets her pregnant and then he loses his job. Moron.”

“Oh, shit.” Mozasu recalled all the times Okada had spoken of wanting a son. Even a daughter would do, he’d said. Okada was crazy about kids and pachinko. Even with all his experience, no pachinko parlor in Osaka would hire him if Goro had gotten rid of him for stealing. No one stole from Goro. “Did he say he was sorry?”

“Of course. Cried like a child. I told him to get out of Osaka. I don’t want to see his face anymore.”

“ Soo nee ,” Mozasu said, feeling bad for Okada, who had always been nice to him. He had a Korean mother and a Japanese father, but he always said he felt like a full Korean because he was such a passionate man. “Is his wife okay?” Mozasu knew Goro got along with both women.

“Yeah. His wife and mistress are fine,” Goro replied. “But I told the mistress that he shouldn’t show up around here. I wouldn’t be so nice next time.”

Mozasu nodded.

“Let’s go to Totoyama-san’s. I’m tired of feeling sad. Seeing Totoyama’s girls will cheer me up,” Goro said.

Mozasu followed his boss to the car. He knew enough not to ask about his new salary; Goro didn’t like to talk about money, strangely enough. The manager’s salary would be better than that of a foreman. Mozasu had been saving carefully for his mother’s confection shop, and they were pretty close to having enough to buy a small store near the train station. With Uncle Yoseb’s health worsening, Aunt Kyunghee couldn’t make candy to sell when she was home. With only his mother and grandmother working in the stall and with Noa in his third year at Waseda in Tokyo, any extra money would be good for the family, he figured. Each Saturday evening, Mozasu felt proud handing his mother his fat pay envelope; she’d tried to increase his allowance, but he had refused except for his bus fare. He didn’t need much, since he ate his meals at the employee cafeteria and Goro bought him his work clothes. Mozasu worked seven days a week and slept at home; if it was very late, he slept in one of the spare employee dorm rooms at the parlors.

The shop door shut behind them after they exited.

“Boss, I don’t know. Do you think the guys will listen to me? Like the way they do Okada?” Mozasu asked. It wasn’t that Mozasu wasn’t ambitious; it was that he enjoyed being the morning or evening foreman at the shops; he was very good at it. Being a manager was more serious; everyone looked up to the manager. He would be in charge whenever Goro wasn’t there. Okada was almost thirty-five and tall like a baseball player.

“I’m flattered and grateful, but you know, I think some of the other managers might—”

“Shut up, kid. I know what I’m doing. You’re smarter than the other managers, and you know how to solve problems by yourself. This is the most important shop. If I’m running around checking the others, I need you to be sharp.”

“But Seven is going to need almost fifty employees. How am I supposed to find fifty men?”

“Actually, you’re going to need at least sixty men and twenty pretty girls for the prize counters.”

“Really?” Mozasu was always game for Goro’s outlandish plans, but this seemed a bit much, even for him. “How will I find—”

“You will. You always do. And you can hire any kind of girl you want for the prize counters — Okinawans, burakumin , Koreans, Japanese, I don’t care. They just have to be cute and pretty, but not so slutty they’ll scare the men. The girls are always important. Ha.”

“I didn’t realize that the dorm could accommodate so many—”

“You worry a lot. That’s why you’ll be perfect.” Goro smiled widely.

Mozasu thought about that and had to agree. No one worried about the shops nearly as much as he did.

In the car ride to Totoyama’s workshop, the driver and Goro talked about wrestling, while Mozasu sat quietly. In his mind, he was making lists of all the things that had to be done for Seven. As he pondered over which of the men he would shuffle around from the other shops, he realized that maybe he was ready after all to become a manager of a shop, and it made him smile a little. Goro was never wrong; maybe he wasn’t wrong about him, either. Mozasu wasn’t smart like his brother, who was now studying English literature at Waseda in Tokyo and who could read thick novels in English without a dictionary. Noa wanted to work for a real Japanese company; he wouldn’t have wanted to work in a pachinko parlor. Noa thought that after the family bought the confectionery, Mozasu should work with the family. Like most Japanese, Noa thought pachinko parlors were not respectable.

The car stopped in front of a squat redbrick building that had been used as a textile factory before the war. A large persimmon tree shaded the gray metal door. As Goro’s exclusive uniform maker, Totoyama had earned and saved enough to move her shop here from her home-cum-workshop near Ikaino. She and her sons, Haruki and Daisuke, now lived in three of the back rooms, and she used the rest of the building as the workroom. She employed half a dozen assistants who worked six days a week filling orders for uniforms. By word of mouth, she had picked up work from other Korean business owners in Osaka and now made uniforms for yakiniku restaurants and other pachinko parlors in the Kansai region, but Goro’s work always came first, because it was he who had told the others to hire her.