A Woman's Nails Read Online Free PDF

expression of surprise it makes me wonder if the dog’s got it right.
    “You know oyafukô mean?” Kazuko barks.
    I shrug. I couldn’t care less. I just want to go home.
    “You don’t know? Why? Why you don’t know?” Kazuko says with theatrical disbelief. I feel like whacking the girl.
    Kumiko says that she and her friend are oyafukô , causing the two of them to split their sides laughing. It’s highly unattractive and I want to escape. Kumiko, well, I could manage spending time with her, perhaps even enjoy being with her, but this Kazuko? Let’s face it, Kazuko’s a pig and standing next to her is an embarrassment--p eople might think that we are, G od help me, actually friends.
    “I haven’t the slightest clue what the two of you are talking about.”
    Kazuko leaps at the opportunity to inflict her Engrish onto me: “ Oya mean mamma, pappa. Okay? You got that, Mistah Peador?”
    “Parents? You mean parents, right?’”
    “So, so, so,” Kumiko replies, “pahrento.”
    Kazuko continues, “So, fukô mean ‘fee-ree-ah-ru pie-ah-chee . . . want of.’”
    “Huh?”
    She repeats the same gibberish a few times, then digs a dictionary out of a large army surplus canvas bag that’s slung around her shoulder. After thumbing through it, she passes i t to me, pointing at the entry.
    Incidentally, even though it’s evening, it’s so brightly illuminated downtown with glaring street lights, building facades bathed in the glow of flood lights and massive neon billboards, you could read a newspaper, or, in this case, an entry in a dictionary.
    After crossing the street, I pause to read. “ Fukô : unfilial behavior; disobedience towards one’s parents; treat one’s parent’s disrespectfully.”
    “You got it, Mistah Peador-san?” Kazuko asks loudly.
    “I, I guess so?”
    “We are oyafukô !” Kumiko tells me again. The two of them point to their noses saying, “ Oyafukô ”, then burst into laughter.
    “Ah, you make your parents cry, don’t you?”
    “So, so, so,” replies Kumiko. “Pahrento. Wah! Wah! Wah!”
    I take it this is how parents cry in Japan. No boohoo-hoos in the Land of the Rising Sun.
    “So, so, so,” adds Kazuko. “My parents, too. Crying ohru za taimu.”
    “ All the time ? Why do you make your parents so unhappy?”
    Kazuko answers, “We still don’t marriage.”
    I would prefer to speak with them in Japanese than endure this woman butchering of the English language, but the pug-nosed brute is relentless.
    “You haven’t got married yet ?”
    “No, still not marriage.”
    Ah! “But, the two of you are still young. I mean, what’s the hurry?”
    They get a kick out of that. “Oh, we love you, Mistah Peador. You gentleman!”
    “Don’t get too excited. You haven’t seen me drunk yet.”
    Kumiko asks me how old I think she is.
    I guess she’s a few years younger than myself, but say “Thirteen?” which causes her let out a shriek. She turns to her friend and says in Japanese, “I can’t believe it, he thinks I’m thirty.”
    “Thir teen ,” I repeat. “Thir teen ! Not thirty . Ah, never mind. I was just joking.”
    “ Jokku ?” asks Kumiko. “American jokku ?”
    What the hell is an American joke? “Yes, American joke.” Whatever .
    Kumiko tells me she can’t understand “American jokes.” I reply that I don’t really understand Japanese jokes, which seems to consist primarily of one man slapping the other on the head and shouting, “Fool!”
    “Oh, you just put us on, then Mistah Peador?” Kazuko said. “Don’t surprise us so. Bad for heart.”
    It’s tempting to whack Kazuko on the head and shout, “Fool!”
     
    We come to a second signal where food stalls, or yatai , serving ramen and yakitori , are lined up on the sidewalk. The steady stream of pedestrians coming and going are forced to pass through a narrow path between the yatai and the street, walking over an obstacle course of electrical cords and hoses.
    Looking across the street,