Snakeskin Shamisen Read Online Free

red-framed glasses. “May I get you all together for a group photograph?”
    Mas narrowed his eyes. Didn’t look Japanese, but then who said he had to be? Mas remembered that the photographer’s byline in
The Rafu Shimpo
had a Latino name. They were all touched by Latinos in California and the rest of the Southwest. Since Mas had worked the lettuce and tomato harvesting circuit when he first returned to the U.S., he should have been used to the mix of cultures, but it always seemed to catch him off guard.
    “Sure, sure,” G. I. responded, but the rest of the group weren’t as eager.
    “And the musicians in the back—” The photographer addressed the two men who had begun setting up sheets of music on stands. They must have been a father-and-son team; they had the same long, sad-dog faces, except the older one’s hair was a brilliant silver as bright as a full moon. They both wore matching black kimono and
hakama
, long, flowing pants. They waved their hands in front of their faces, a sign that they wanted to refrain from the photo opportunity.
    The group pushed Mas, the shortest in the bunch, forward. Then Mas felt someone new at his side. The freckle-faced man, Jiro. From the corner of his eye, Mas spied Juanita rolling her eyes. She didn’t think much of G. I. and Randy’s Vietnam War comrade; that was clear. G. I. whispered something in her ear—maybe telling her to behave?
    “Say cheese,” said the photographer, and Mas mouthed “Chee-su” as the flash went off. He didn’t think he was smiling; he might have been clenching his teeth, in fact.
    The father-and-son musician team waited patiently as the group dispersed to make room for their performance. Mas headed for the bar. The televised football game had finished, and all bar stools were open now. “Sapporo,” he told the bartender, and the beer bottle was twisted open, letting out a mist like the smoke from a lit cigarette. The bottle was nice and cold, and Mas enjoyed letting the bitterness dance on his tongue. This party was not half-bad, he thought to himself.
    Another man in his seventies perched on a stool beside Mas. He hunched over as if he didn’t want anyone to see his face. He, too, had heavy bags under his eyes—didn’t anyone sleep at night anymore? Mas wondered. The man ordered sake on the rocks and barely acknowledged Mas, which was fine with him.
    An emcee was saying something, and then the music began. The two men sat in chairs, their
shamisen
in their laps, while a Japanese woman and a
hakujin
man dressed in a short kimono jacket called a
happi
coat stood in front of a microphone. Mas didn’t know that much about traditional music. Chizuko had gone through a phase of studying
shigin
, Japanese poetry set to music. Most people would think the combination of poetry and music would be relaxing, but
shigin
was anything but. When Chizuko sang, she sounded like she was about to give birth, only this baby would never come out. The shrieking and deep guttural groans continued for months, until Chizuko tired of her classes and, thankfully, joined a needlework group instead.
    The
shamisen
tune here was livelier, happy almost. It was definitely singsong, with the melody traveling back and forth over the same notes. Mas watched as the two men guided large, flat picks over the strings and sang of islands and old kingdoms. The woman and the man yapped into the microphone, strong bursts of energy that startled even the most drunk and tired of guests.
    Some people were standing and clapping their hands, but Mas sensed great sadness in the song. The man next to him had already gone through two more glasses of iced sake, and Mas himself gulped down one beer and asked for another. After the third one, the music was still going and Mas needed to go to the restroom. The bartender pointed toward the back of the room and Mas slipped off the bar stool to find relief.
    As he walked down a narrow corridor, he heard yelling, and not of a musical kind. It