J Pop Metal

by Santino DeFranco


After he parked the car he sat for several minutes before finally pulling his baseball cap low to cover his eyes. He couldn’t be seen. He didn’t know what would happen if he was seen, but he knew it would be detrimental. Would it ruin him? He didn’t know. Would it ruin his marriage? Most likely. On his drive there he thought about turning around and heading home. He’d tell her the movie he said he was going to watch was sold out. Would it be sold out? he wondered. Maybe the theater was disgusting. Or he had a stomachache. He didn’t know the right answer, but he knew it would involve a lot less explaining than the alternative of being found out. Exposed.
        
His emotions oscillated. Excitement and life and youth and sexuality intoxicated his stomach. Filled his groin. They quickly dissipated as fear and shame and guilt replaced them. Going home’s the right thing to do, he thought. But he didn’t go home. He drove all the way to the other side of town, to the old warehouse, where he sat in front of the building in the parking lot. His body raged with excitement. He had to go in. He was going to go in.

When he exited the car, he quietly shut the door and swiftly walked to the entrance. His collar popped high on his blue windbreaker jacket. He looked like a caricature of a burglar or CIA agent in a B-movie. His balding head felt warm under the cap. Sweat seeped from his pores as he approached the door. His moist hand reached for the door handle. He pulled it open and went in.          

The music--loud music--blared through the large speakers. There were more people inside than he thought capable, based on the number of cars in the lot. He handed a man a twenty-dollar bill and walked into the forbidden scene. The crowd of other middle-aged white men, just like him, stared at the stage just as he did. Their eyes glued to the young looking Japanese girls on stage. I shouldn’t be here. When he saw the underage girls his stomach flared. He didn’t know if it was the fear or excitement or guilt or shame or lust that he felt. He just knew he felt. He hadn’t felt in a while. There were three girls on stage. The youngest couldn’t be more than twelve or thirteen, he thought. Then again, they were Japanese, and maybe they were thirty for all he knew. He never could tell the age of Asians. The stage girls were clad in short maid-looking dresses with red stockings pulled up to their thighs. Garter-belts held them up. He imagined where the garters attached. Each had hair with streaks of colors woven into their heads. Was it their hair? Dyed, of course. Or were they weaves or extensions? Their little bodies exuded such femininity, but their voices shrieked like banshees as they belted their words into the microphones. Then the femininity returned as they covered their mouths and in pretense acted submissive and shy.

He stood at the edge of the crowd, of at least a thousand, and watched the trio on stage when something bumped him, jarring his concentration.
            
“Oh, shit! Sorry, bro,” the man said. Beer splashed on his foot.
         
A man about his age with thick plastic glasses stood wide-eyed back at him as if to say, don’t punch me. I beg you, don’t punch me. Look at me, do I look like I can fight?
           
“It’s no problem. No problem at all.”
           
“Is this you’re first time?”
           
“Huh?”
          
“First time at a Jap Pop Metal concert?” he yelled as the guitars swelled from the speakers.
           
“Yeah. Not yours, I presume.”

“What? Just because I’m wearing a small red dress you think I’m a regular?” he joked. But he wasn’t joking about the red dress. Or the red and black fishnet stockings he wore. Or the black gloves. Or the chopsticks that stuck out of the wig he wore on his head—one black, one red. He wasn’t a tranny, though. He was just a J-M-popper.
           
“I’m Jim,” the dress wearing man said.
          
“Hank.”
         
“Let me buy you your first JPM concert beer, Hank! I feel like I’m popping your cherry!”
        
“Sure.”

Hank had first heard about Japanese pop metal while surfing the web. He didn’t even remember where it was. Facebook? Twitter? He clicked on the link because he saw some hot Japanese girls in school outfits and wanted to investigate before his wife returned home. The link took him to a video, though, and he watched. He sat there in awe as the young girls mixed the Japanese pop music with heavy-metal lyrics and guitars. The mess before his eyes blended into one cacophonous sound that delighted him. At first he didn’t know if it was just the girls and their childish giggling and promiscuous clothes and wild hair that kept him watching, but then he found himself humming the tunes later in the day and went back for a second and third and fourth dose of the group’s single Hate the Nanny. He Googled the band and learned of an entire sub-culture of Japanese Pop Metal followers, J-poppers, or JPMers. Many of the hardcore JPMers, like Jim, dressed the part as well. Hank couldn’t imagine himself, a grown-ass-man, dressing like a Japanese schoolgirl in goth, but after seeing Jim in his dress, the only thing Hank felt was pure jealousy.

As the two men approached the beer counter a woman behind the bar spoke in a Japanese accent.

“What you like drink?”

“I’ll just have a Coke,” Hank replied.

“No Coke!” The woman snapped.

“You gotta have a beer, man,” Jim replied. “Besides, all they have is Sapporo and Kirin, anyway. Well, they have Sake, too. But that’ll get you into some trouble if you know what I mean!”

“Sapporo’s fine,” Hank replied as he looked up at the woman and noticed something was amiss. He stared at her as if he’d seen Elvis reincarnated from the dead. She recognized the look and coyly placed her hands to her mouth and fake laughed.

“That woman’s not Japanese,” Hank said.

“Yeah, that’s a true statement,” Jim said.

“Why do they dress up like that? I mean, she had fake-slanted eyes.”

“For us, man! They know we’re just as fine with fake Japs as we are real Japs. This is the Midwest. How many Japanese girls you see working at concert venues?”

“Well, damn.”

After the beers were paid for Jim asked, “What’d you tell your wife?”

“Huh? Oh, shit, yeah…the wife.”

“You seem too nervous to be here with her approval.”

“Fuck, man. I told her I was going to see a movie by myself. To get out of the house. She’d kill me if she knew I was here. I think I could bang a hundred hookers and get caught and she wouldn’t care as much as this. At least that she’d somewhat understand. Where’d you get that outfit? You’re a big guy and those are women’s clothes.”

“I got the dress at the band’s website. They know most of their fan base are guys like us, so they stock our sizes. The rest of it I got at a drag store for cross dressers.”

                                                          ***

On his way home, Hank stopped at a gas station and bought a soda to pour over his shoe to mask the beer smell. He figured he could rinse it off when he got home and it would be a believable story.

Sharon was already in bed when he opened the door and snuck passed his daughter’s bedroom door and into the bathroom.

“Hank, that you?” Sharon called from the bedroom.

“Yeah, honey. I’ll be in in a minute. Some asshole spilled soda all over my shoes as we were walking out of the theater. I’m gonna rinse them and I’ll be right in.”

After he shut the bathroom door he unbuttoned his shirt revealing a newly purchased t-shirt with the faces of three Japanese girls on the front. His hands warmed and his face reddened. Electricity flowed through his muscles and seeped into his bones. He felt ten years younger. Ashamed. Exhilarated. Warm. Alive.