Boyhood 5

Every time the boy and his father visited his uncle, he took them to a restaurant across the street and feasted on a big pork cutlet. The uncle, who was at the height of his business, urged them in front of a big pork cutlet to eat it without hesitation.

The boy went out by himself and got a magazine and a plastic model and made cars or airplanes in the back room, read a horrifying story and had a nightmare later. Mostly accompanied with his cousin and occasionally with his aunts and her daughters. he used to go to a public bath in the evening. After the bath, they usually drank a bottle of coffee milk.

The tailor shop adjoined a tatami mat shop. There lived two young boys who were about the same age as the boy, and the boys became friends quickly. Upon entering the workplace, tatami mats were piled up along the walls, from which the smell of rush drifted, and the boys’ father rhythmically laid their elbows with leather elbow pads on a table placed on a concrete floor, hitting the long needle and sawing the tatami mat. A tense atmosphere that the boy had never felt dominated in the room.

After a week or so, the boy’s father came to pick him up and mercilessly took the unpleasant boy behind the scooter and took him home.

The boy’s aunt was concerned that the boy was being treated cold by his stepmother. In fact, since the stepmother had two daughters, she began to ignore the boy on purpose, breaking the boy’s toys and making snide remarks about the boy to his father. However, because the grandmother took the place of the mother he didn’t feel constantly interfered by his stepmother.

Also, the aunt came sometimes to the boy’s house by car and brought sweet. Every time she came, she gave him some pocket money. At local summer festivals or Tanabata festival, she appeared in black formal kimono, cooking with the boy’s grandmother and stepmother, and had a large meal. She talked with the boy’s grandmother about the careless stepmother.