During our excursions (and sometimes just at random, too), there have been a few times when Mr. Fujiyama wanders off, and Cherry and I have to search for him. “He’s usually in the mall,” Cherry says, “so he’s not too hard to find”—and usually he’ll be found inside somewhere, but occasionally he’ll go outside, too. He was up on the rooftop parking lot the other day. I was worried he’d suffer from sun exposure, but fortunately, he was just fine.
Anyway, whenever Mr. Fujiyama goes for one of his walks, I try to find him as soon as possible. I asked Nami about the record he carries around—I’ve been wondering about that square bit of cardboard Mr. Fujiyama takes great care of—and she told me it is a record jacket.
I wasn’t sure working part-time was really for me at first, but once I started, I found it to be a lot of fun. I think most people take jobs like these just for the money, but I’m so comfortable interacting with the people at Sunnyside. Unlike Curiolive streams, it is refreshing to communicate with so many people I can see face-to-face and to interact with people of all ages, for that matter.
Most of all, though, I’m glad I can get to know Cherry better. Whenever we work the same shift, we always go home together. I never explicitly offered to, and neither did he. We just kinda did it. Totally natural.
“Toughboy isn’t here, is he?”
The clock at Sunnyside has just ticked past five in the afternoon, so I think it is a good time to ask Nami that. This is around the time Mr. Fujiyama’s grandson, Toughboy, (I wonder what his real name is?) comes stomping in, and whenever he sees Akiko, he starts grinning and talking nonsense to himself. It’s so silly. To me, he functions as kind of a timer to tell me my shift is almost over, but for some reason he hasn’t shown up yet.
Nami sighs, a little disgusted. “He never shows up when Akiko’s working the early shift. That little weirdo is so obvious with it.”
Akiko worked the morning shift today and left about two hours before we arrived.
Nami approaches Mr. Fujiyama, who is sitting on the sofa. “Okay, Mr. Fujiyama,” she says softly, “you’ll be taking the van back home today!”
“Hohh.” Mr. Fujiyama nods.
“Cherry, Smile… The van should be waiting behind the mall, so can you take him over there for me?”
Cherry and I briskly finish wiping down the tables, and then the three of us head for the employee entrance. Nami says we can head straight home after escorting Mr. Fujiyama, so I punch my time card and change into my normal clothes.
We step outside and discover a pretty blue-to-orange gradient sky. Something I didn’t realize before I started working at the mall is that the building has no windows at all, so it’s hard to get a sense of the passage of time. I asked Cherry about it, and he said, “Yeah, I guess so.” Maybe he doesn’t pick up on that as much?
Outside, the Sunnyside van is waiting for us, just as Nami said. The driver (who says he drives for a lot of day-service facilities like ours) opens the door for us; Mr. Fujiyama and I sit in the back, and Cherry gets the passenger seat. Nobody else needs transport today, so we head straight for Mr. Fujiyama’s place.
“Okay, off we go,” the driver says, starting the van without having to ask where we are going.
The van drives down the main road near the mall. Outside the window, the shimmering summer light (another phrase Cherry taught me) is streaming by us. I look at Mr. Fujiyama sitting next to me, staring at the record jacket on his lap.
“Here we are!”
I look outside. I actually know this place. It’s a line of shops just a short walk from my house. Mr. Fujiyama lives pretty close to me; in fact, I can walk home from here easily, so I tell the driver that we’ll be getting out as well.
When I get out of the van, I find a small one-story building that looks like it had been a prefab job. On the roof is a sign vaguely shaped like a mountain.
“Fujiyama…Records?”
The sign says FUJIYAMA RECORDS. So it’s a record store? The building looks pretty worn down, and I can easily imagine this store getting no customers at all—something likely true for the other shops along this street, actually.
Mr. Fujiyama slowly walks away, going up to the sliding door that serves as the store entrance. There is a sign with CLOSED written on it hanging from the door, but he flips it around. It bangs against the glass of the door a bit; the other side reads OPEN. Then Mr. Fujiyama rattles the door open and goes inside.
The moment we follow him in, we are greeted with an unusual scent. Even with the mask on, I pick up on it right away. A mix of dust and old paper… I feel like I’ve smelled something like this before, and then I recognize it: the smell of the shed where we keep our farm equipment.
Mr. Fujiyama walks to the back of the store, not bothering to turn on the lights, and sits down on a chair behind the counter. I slowly make my way through the darkened store space.
“Wow… What is this?”
I can’t help but ask. The space is about the size of a small café or a spacious living room. Along the walls are racks much taller than I am, and on the racks are record jackets (that’s what they call them, right?) all packed tight with zero room to fit anything else. The wall of racks alone is an overwhelming sight, but in the middle of the store, three long tables are laid out parallel to one another, and there is only enough space between them for maybe one person to pass. On top of them are cardboard boxes, filled to the brim with even more record jackets. There are T-shirts and posters near the entrance, too, and next to the counter are a fan and square box that looks like a refrigerator, but otherwise the place is nothing but records. That must be the source of the unique smell that permeates the place.
The jackets on the racks are shelved so that you can see the spines, so I can read what I guess are the titles.
Moanin’ in the Moonlight (Howlin’ Wolf)
NEU! (NEU!)
Crazy Rhythms (The Feelies)