Moses

I am sitting here in a lounge chair just outside the ICU ward where my father is currently lying in one of the beds.  It’s my second night on duty and I have been waiting for hours for the cardiologist to tell me the 2DECHO test they did to my father this morning.  It’s almost 1 am. The results are in my bag. 

Thickened mitral valve leaflet without restriction of motion; mitral annular calcification… Thickened right and non-coronary cusp without restriction of motion; aortic annular calcification… Reversed mitral inflow pattern indicative of Grade I left ventricular diastolic dysfunction… Mild mitral regurgitation… Mild tricuspid regurgitation. 

Words that form sentences and that ramble into ribbon of spells like some witch concocting a curse of some kind. I had to Google every word to understand the whole shitload of words and piece them together like some puzzle.  I have an idea already of what my father’s condition is.  I just need to talk to the damn cardiologist.  I can’t blame him – the cardio guy.  He seemed nice and straightforward with somewhat of an affable personality when he delivered the preliminary prognosis to me at 2 am yesterday.  “Your father has difficulty in breathing…  possible solution would be angioplasty… still need to run some tests… before we can wean him off of the tubes." His delivery was effortless, with just the right pinch of bedside manner.

Drinking what probably would be my fifth coffee for the day; I stare at the electric fan on the ceiling and think of its rotating blades, and wonder how many times it rotates in a second.  

My father is sick.  And I’m here in a hospital waiting room on New Year’s Eve waiting for the doctor to tell me when they can take off the tube in his mouth. All I could think about is going home with my father and tell him that he’ll outlive me and he can be the prophet he always claimed to be when my siblings and I were mere kids. 

I used to hate him, my dad.  Loathed him even.  My coming out party was on 9-11 and I punched a cabinet door just to prove a point.  He hated my gay guts. I hated his philandering gonads (at 63!).  I stormed out of the house that night, stayed with my best friend in another city and came back home after 6 months when he had a stroke. He survived a fatal one.  He was damn lucky.  I had to wipe his ass for one whole week.  

Truth be told as much as I hated my father, I love him in my own weird and dysfunctional way.  We were dysfunctional to some extent, our family. We’re a Filipino family in the ghetto with the portrait of the Marcoses in our hallways. He is Catholic by choice, I think; but his parents were Seventh Day Adventists. And every time he’d be in one of his saviour moments (those times when he would be thinking that he would be the new Moses or something), he’d make his children sit in the living room and proclaim the gospels for hours.  We’d be sitting there, me and my older siblings, looking at him standing in front of us, one hand holding a very worn out  Bible, the other hand gesticulating while he spurts out the Gospels with such gusto and bravado like those televangelists we see on TV.  He’d be in that mode for hours, thinking of salvation and rapture, while my mom would be by the kitchen door shaking her head thinking what a nut job my father was, while me and my siblings would be thinking of dinner.  Anything, but this, would do. We could eat paper with mayonnaise and we’d be ok. I’m probably not alone in this, but back then, whenever he was having his salvific moments, I was thinking or even devising of ways to avoid fire and brimstone that was about to beset the sofa where me and my brother and sisters sat.  I was thinking if I could fake shitting in my 6 year old pants and my mother would save me from Leviticus and Revelations.  My brother and sisters were prolly thinking of faking a seizure or something.   The living room sermon will all come to an abrupt end when my mother would finally announce dinner. Then we’d go scrambling to the kitchen and eat as fast as the Marcoses could say Honolulu.  That’s my father, the new Moses. 

I spent this Christmas in our house in Caloocan.  The house is different now.  The house in 4^th Avenue has lost its old charm.  It’s worn out now, despite the repairs my mother commissioned.  It pretty much looks and even feels like my father’s worn out Bible.  Me and my father, we’re tight now.  Age (both his and mine) became the catalyst of our father-son bond.  He doesn’t care that his son is a homosexual.  He prolly doesn’t remember.  But my mother tells me that he knows and he’s ok with it.  I can hug him now, I can even kiss him.  He gets teary eyed whenever I do that.  He never spurts the Gospels like a garden hose but he never fails to give his fatherly wisdom:  “You take care of yourself… Eat right… Exercise… Stop smoking…  Work hard… “I nod and say the customary yeses and uhums every time he says these things.   He walks with a make shift cane, made from some polished tree branch with like hundreds and hundreds of rubber bands on the handle so he can get a better grip of it.  From a short distance he did look like Moses to me. 

Three days later, the whole family (including my father’s siblings) agreed to confine him in the hospital.  He had a heart attack at 3 am.   I was in my box sleeping and only found out at 7 in the morning.   One of my nieces left a message on my phone telling me that Tatay was in the intensive care unit.  I closed my eyes and counted backwards.  I was thinking of the last thing I said to him last Christmas that he’d outlive me… that he’d live to be a hundred or two.  

It’s my second night at the hospital.  I told my family that I would be staying with Tatay till Sunday so I can talk to the doctors. With all the medical jargon they tell us I didn’t want my mother to have an aneurism just trying to understand what caused my father’s heart attack.  At least I have Google and some episodes of ER and House for some references.    I’ve only seen him once since yesterday.   He has this tube in his mouth which helps him breathe but it looked like it hurt.  It did, according to the doctors that’s why they gave him some sedative.   Tatay’s still lucid.  He wanted the tube taken off.  He wanted to drink and he wanted to eat.  He wanted to go home.  He prolly misses his old staff.   Like some clichéd line that was pulled out from some Emmy Award winning series, I told him that we were going home once he gets well.  That he needs to listen to the doctors and not threaten to punch the nurses (he did according to Nanay) and that he should not make Nanay worry and that he should not  write “I Want To Die” on paper.   He was still strong, I said.  He was still gonna outlive me (he waved off his hand at that remark).  I held on to his knee and said those words over and over again.  It was effortless in my part.  He gestured something, he wanted the blanket over his legs.  My sister and I put it.  I patted his knee.  My sister kissed his cheek.  I kissed his forehead.  Put the customary sign of the cross on his forehead and told him that we will be outside. 

My sister had tears when she went out.  I didn’t.  My eyes were dry. Did I want to cry?  Hell yeah.  But I couldn’t because I had to be strong for now.  I remember reading somewhere, or someone telling me or some shit that came  in a dream or something that in a room full of people crying, there’s always somebody mopping the floor. 

I remember that story in the Bible, when Moses was holding the magic staff with his arms outstretched for hours while the Isrealites were fighting of whoever they were fighting off so that they could pass the desert and go to the Promised Land and Moses was getting shit tired because his arms were outstretched for hours and hours.  There was a person helping him, supporting him (I think it was his brother Aaron or some dude named Joshua) so that the Isrealite army would go for the win.  They won.  I need to be that guy for my father right now.   I need to be his Aaron and his Joshua and his devil’s advocate for now.  I need to wait and pester the cardiologist to just lay down the cards to us and for the damn 2DECHO results to be interpreted by a person not by some search engine.  And to be honest, I need to rant and rave about mortality and the human condition and all that crap that I learned in Philosophy school.   I need to channel Nietzsche or Moses or some dead writer.  In the end after one thousand four hundred and sixty five words, I realized that I am my father’s son.   I embrace it.  

69 Lessons

 

 

The past year  taught me a lot of lessons in living, loving, learning and the whole shitload of everything that we call the human condition.   I can’t say that I became wiser. I consider myself as a decently smart individual,  however, I have my blond moments.  {* These days I’ve been getting them a lot. }.   Yes, I would not say that I am wiser now… Maybe a bit smarter than before.  Wiser, well I honestly don’t know.  

Ah yes, the 69 things I learned so far in the past year.

1.  I learned that  having a second had fridge  that I bought in some Japanese surplus shop so that I can have cold water in the morning is a bit extravagant, considering that I live in a box.

2.  I learned that buying second hand / cheap products doesn’t mean it’s cheap in the long run .  Wait till you get your electric bill.

3.  I learned that  an unused second hand fridge makes a real good storage cabinet for books, sugar,  and shitloads of cosmetics and beauty products.  

4. I learned that you need to act stupid sometimes in order to get your point across.  

5. I learned that it’s good to let others see your blonde side {and let them revel in it} so that you can UNLEASH the raging brunette later.  

6. I learned that money is really important in all facets of relationships.

7.  I learned that money isn’t everything.

8.  I learned that it’s easy to find a job but it’s shit difficult to establish a career.

9. I learned that there comes a point in your life where you need to choose between establishing a career or establishing a relationship.

10.  I learned that what I do in life is always about choices.  That the choice  I make may not necessarily produce my desired result in the end but I still make the choice because the intent is there. 

11.  I learned that there are times that things may not come out as planned.

12.  I learned that it is always good to have a Plan B.

13.  I learned that you start praying to the Universe/Jesus/God/Allah/Buddha/Mary/Paul/Ringo/Krishna/Shiva/Patrick/Tom when your Plan C fails.

14. I learned that it’s always good to have a day job.  

15. I learned that it isn’t enough to just have a day job in this economy.

16. I learned that the taxes I pay can pay for two maids in some places.  

17. I learned that I pay way too much taxes in this country.

18. I learned {a looooooooong time ago} that none of the taxes I pay go to public spending.

19. I learned that democracy is a very loose word…

20. … and so is Socialism.

23. I learned that Obama is not Jesus.

24. I learned that Noynoy can never be an Obama.

25. I learned that Manny Paquiao makes a Gazillion dollars in boxing.

26. I learned that I can never be a boxer.

27. I learned that Filipinos in general are really good singers.

28. I learned that I can never be a singer.

29. I learned that I really need to quit smoking.

30. I learned that buying an electronic cigarette does not mean I quit smoking already.

31.  I learned that I can eat 8 cups of rice in one seating.

32.  I also learned that eating 8 cups of rice ain’t good for my tummy. 

33. I learned that my maximum is 3 cups of rice.

34. I learned that I can get really fat in a span of 4 weeks.

35. I {re}learned that beauty is a philosophy,  a state of mind.

36. I learned that a person can be here on a Tuesday evening and be gone by Wednesday morning.

37. I learned the importance of telling the person of his/her worth. 

38. I learned that talent is discovered, but genius is reared and cultivated.

39. I learned that consistency is the key to everything.

40. I learned that family is cool.

41. I learned that you really don’t have to believe in Christmas as long as you believe in free food.

42. I learned that friends who fly thousands of miles just so that they could spend a night in my box apartment on my straw mat are the kewlest people in my book.   {Thanks guys}

43. I learned that 32 is just a number….

43.  I also learned that 32 is still 32.

44. I learned that people would do anything to get a job in this economy.

45. I learned how to say no to these people.

46. I learned that a lot of Filipinos are so fixated with American English. 

47. I learned that there is really no difference between toilet paper and paper napkins.  

48. I learned on how I could save on toilet paper and paper napkins.

49. I learned that I was living a really good life in China. 

50. I learned that sulking in one corner and thinking about the human condition {at least my condition} will do me no good except to magnify it.

51. I learned to smile on occasion.

52. I learned that it’s ok to be happy even when you’re life is really shitty at times.

53. I learned that love is sometimes a hard pill to swallow.

54. I that staying quiet doesn’t mean I  have acquiesced. it meant that I’ve understood.

55. I learned that I am indeed an Urban Sinner.

56. I learned that despite of this, I still love you.

57. I learned to believe in myself and myself alone.

58. I learned not to trust people who are cops, lawyers, doctors, business people, presidents, preachers, priests, nuns, motivational speakers, yadi yadi… because they swindle me everyday.

59. I learned that even 80 year-old cab drivers can still swindle me of my money when they get the chance.

60. I learned that it doesn’t matter whether I own a Blackberry or an Android or an iPhone because what really matters is how I use it  and why I bought it in the first place.

61. I learned that Google Sync is really a cool app. 

62. I learned that my ‘wow factor’ is only a day  when it comes to smart phones.

63. I learned that the best way to communicate is a face to face conversation.

61. I learned how to clean up my own mess.

63. I learned that it isn’t all about sex.

64. I learned that sex is great! But cuddling is better.

65. I learned that sleeping with the one you love {as in actual sleeping} when yer really knackered to the bone is way better than masturbating yourself to sleep.

66. I learned that I need to masturbate my mind more. 

67. I learned that it is important to be happy.

68. I learned that at the end of the day, I alone will experience my death.

69. I learned that there is a God/Universe within me.  

All Souls, Saints and Sinners…

 

photo credit: badongski

The streets are quiet tonight.  I can even hear the quiet under the music playing in my digital player.  I’ve been running for over 30 minutes and I don’t feel like stopping, but I know that I have to stop in a while.  Just a few more meters, I tell myself.  Forget the rain, forget the strain in my legs.  I just need to stretch it out a little for just a few more meters and then I’m good. 

The light drizzle, softly touches my skin and blends with my salty perspiration.  I quicken my pace a little as the rain begins to build momentum. I am practically running in the middle of the street.  Not a lot of cars tonight. only a lonesome sedan or taxi and  a desolate jeepney  every twenty paces.  

I stop for a quick breath in a street corner, in front of a closed restaurant.  I bend a little just to so that I would not lose balance.  My tank top is drenched with the salt of my fluids and the rain.  I lick my lips to rid of the accumulated sweat.  They are very salty.

I need to sit down so I sit by the curb to rest a little.  I turn off my digital player and just sat by the curb watching some people and cars pass by.  There were people passing by, mostly hobos and the occasional hooker and hustler.  The hobos stare at me as they push their cart pass me, while the hookers and hustlers give me the sideward glance.  Nobody bothered me though.  They probably thought I just another crazy person running in an ungodly hour like tonight. I try to read each of their minds when they look at me as they pass me by.  I don’t have the powers to do it but I try all the same.   I wonder what they were thinking.   They prolly thought I was some pervert looking for a trick, or some killer looking for a kill, or some runner practicing for an upcoming marathon,  or probably just a nobody trying to get noticed.   Who knows…

As I take the night’s silence, I notice something different tonight. The lit candles outside the doorsteps.  In fact there was one a few meters away right beside where I was sitting.   I remember now.  I though IU have forgotten because I slept most of the day.  It’s the First of November – the Feast of All Saints.  Tomorrow would be the the Feast of All Souls.  

In the Christian Tradition, November first is for the commemoration of all the holy men and women who have dedicated themselves in the service of Christianity, The Feast of All Saints.  The rest of the departed are remembered the day after.   In this country, people forego the commemoration of the saints and go right to remembering their dearly departed. I think that it  is just fitting. Why would one bother remembering someone he does not know, who has no relevance or significance in his life?  I am not one for holidays.  I enjoy them because I get to not work.  I slept most of the day because I figured that this was the only day that I get to sleep in.   Fuck’em saints and let me sleep a little.   I’m pretty sure they’d understand.  

Today is a national holiday.  People go in throngs to the cemeteries and columbaries and ossuaries of this country to clean their departed’s tombs and light candles and pray and even sing karaoke (they do, and this is how we roll in the Islands). 

The irony of the matter is, I never went to the cemetery today.  Reason is, I didn’t want to.  Not just because I slept most of the day, but mostly because I didn’t see the point of going just because it was a day to commemorate dead people, albeit it’s actually the day to commemorate holy Christian people. 

I’m prolly making excuses to myself, being the asshole and cynic that I am.   I look at the candles burning bright and I could smell the wax and burning wicks.  Another hobo passes by and gives me an odd glance.  He’s prolly wondering why I’m looking at the candles with such diligence of a schoolboy.  He prolly thinks that I was going to steal them. He prolly went to the cemetery today.   He prolly bought his own candles and matches.  Or maybe he just borrowed some matches from another hobo. 

I don’t get it sometimes.   Why do we have to light candles in front of our doorsteps when we’ve already lit the candles in the cemetery.  Would it make any difference if we place lit candles in both our dearly departed’s tomb and our doorsteps? In the the greater scheme of things, it probably serves a purpose.  It probably gives us a certain level of comfort or security.   That they may have passed but us left behind who bear the bittersweet yoke of remembering must assure ourselves more than the departed that we will never forget.   This is probably the reason why nobody remembers the Feast of All Saints.  Because in the microcosm of our own universes, they never mattered. They mattered to those that knew them.  But then again, they are all dead. In the end, it’s all about the souls and not the saints.  We are all sinners in our last breath. 

I snap out of my reverie and stand up and start my run again. 

……………..

I continue southwards.  I go to the park where I usually run in the mornings.  I haven’t ran in a long time.  I have been mostly busy with work and trying to stay afloat.  I’m sweating again and I like the feel of it.  I try to quicken my pacing but gravity humbles me. The rain is building up a little and  I do not mind. I cross the elliptical road, not bothering to use the pedestrian underpass since there are not a lot of vehicles tonight.  Once on the other side I circle the park three or four times till my legs begin to give in.  

There aren’t a lot of people in the park tonight.  Most probably because of the holiday or more likely because it’s a Monday.  There are couples in benches, kids playing frisbee in the grass, hookers and hustlers roaming around looking for their Johns and Johns looking for their tricks and security personnel trying on the look for the unsuspecting John caught in the act.   The amusement park is closed.   Some kiosks are open (prolly trying to break even or something).  Nobody’s buying though. I only saw a couple of people running like me. It’s a bit of a relief to see that I am not the only one running at this time of night. 

In the middle of the park is a monument, three obelisk like structures, with an angel holding a wreath sitting on each structure while appearing to be gazing downwards.  The obelisks are connected by three horizontal beams that forms into a triangle if you stand at the center of the structure and look up.  Below are three powerful headlights that change color every 3 minutes or so,  each positioned on each obelisk which kind of gives the viewer an ominous and foreboding feeling when one actually gives time to look at it from below. It does look eerie if you sit on one the benches and try to look at one of the angels.  I once did that in one of my morning runs and I could faintly see that the angels have their eyes closed or seem to be asleep.  Sometimes I wonder if they ever open their eyes when people are not looking.  

The monument is actually a mausoleum that houses the remains of a dead president.  It is rather ironic to think that I did not want to go to the cemetery today and light candles and shit because I wanted to sleep in, only to end up running around a supersized tomb.

I stop at the foot of the monument, sweat and rain and all.  I head for home as I take that realization as a sign. I maybe a cynic but I am a cynic that believes in palpable signs.    A cynic still, albeit a superstitious one.

…………..

I took the jeepney going back.  There were only a handful of us inside the jeepney.  Most of them probably went to the cemetery as some were carrying a bag of candles and flowers and all.  As I was going back to my apartment, I began thinking of the people I’ve lost that actually mattered to me in one way or another. They are not many, but there are some.  And they mattered to me. 

I came into my box apartment and took out some candles and incense which I “borrowed” from my upstairs neighbor.  I lit them.  I placed some candles in my room.  I placed one outside my door by the stairwell.  I placed the incense outside.  Should I say a prayer?  I don’t know.  But instinct or something inside me told me to light the candles and burn incense.  I do not know if it was guilt for not having gone to the cemetery or because this was a selfish act of self preservation or because of some divine or cosmic mandate that I should revere this day.

But “something” told me to light and burn tonight.  I have never forgotten them, truth be told.  They remain in my thoughts.  They remain in certain places, in certain books, in certain food, in certain things, in certain films and songs, in similar situations, in other people.  They remain.  And I bear the bittersweet yoke of their memory not because I of tradition, but because they mattered. And to this sinner,  they continue to be significant. 

Nanay and Tatay and Fried Chicken

Showering with My Parents

I had Sunday lunch with my parents today to celebrate their wedding anniversary on Monday. Since I have work on Monday, I told them I'd take them out to lunch on Sunday. They happily obliged. Nanay and Tatay (Filipino for 'mother' and 'father') came in early and they arrived in my box apartment when I was about to take a shower. As usual, they were both arguing about something trifle – this time it was about my father's shoes. My mother is waving her arms in her usual fashion while she tries to wake up the neighbors, and my father wincing at my mother's every gesture. When I reached my twenty second threshold, I told both of them that I needed to take a shower and the three of us should be leaving in a few minutes. That seemed to settle the two of them. I was about to step into the bathroom (which was like three paces from my doorstep and one pace from bed) when I suddenly realized that I do not have a bathroom door. Tatay was already settled in my bed and Nanay was fiddling with my computer and asking me how to open You Tube (or "yu choob”).

I felt really weird all of a sudden. I realized that I am gonna be showering naked in my capsule of a bathroom with both of my parents just a fart's smell away. It's like back when I was nine or ten or two when I caught both of them doing the nasty. I was playing hide and seek with my nephew and I decided to hide under my parents' bed where I know he wouldn't find me. True enough, my nephew didn't find me, but I was stuck under the bed for almost an hour because my parents came in from the bathroom (yes, back when gravity still had a slight effect on them, my parents used to shower together). Now I couldn't get outta the bed you see because their room was off limits and both of them would have a cow if they see me under their bed. So I bidded my time. Well, they did too. I was hoping that they would just get dressed but no, they decided to do the quick nasty. To say that I was terrified and scarred for life would be overstating it. I already knew about sex. I didn't know much back then but I knew enough. 

Ugh.

The picture of my mother and my father doing the deed brought me back from my childhood reminiscing to my bathroom. I needed a shower badly and I was really sweaty and rank from running. So what I did was to just to switch off the bathroom lights so there would be some decency left in me after this ordeal. I realized that the only way to survive this ordeal was to be casual about it. I got my towel and my change of clothes and put it beside my kitchen sink cum pharmacy (which was a half pace away from my bed ¼ pace away from my bathroom door). I stripped off my running gear and put it in the sink (I live in a prison cell, but a nicely painted one) and got the water running. I started showering while talking to both of them about this and that, mostly about Manny Pacquiao's latest bout with Clottey. “Do you think he'd win (Pacquiao)?”, I shouted at them while in mid lather, just to make everything sort of casual. “Does the pope shit in the woods”, my father quips in English in a very staccato fashion then laughs at his own joke. Then I hear my mother saying something about bears and the pope and about my father at laughing at his own jokes.

Waiting for the Taxi

I decided that we should take the taxi since it was gonna be a long walk to the restaurant if we were to take the jeepney. Besides, both of them already have weak knees. We were walking towards the taxi stand and I noticed that Tatay was lagging behind. I told Nanay that we oughta wait for Tatay but all she said was, 

“Hayaan mo yan, makakasunod din yan sa atin."

Naaaah, don't worry about it, he'll catch up.

She didn't say it with contempt or anything but just in a matter of fact manner. My father is growing old. He will be 73 coming June. I looked at my mother and I saw the same thing. She is more resilient though. Her knees may be weak but she still has that youthful vigor in her that I cannot not see in my father these days.

They used to be young, my parents. They used to have that vigor that boasted of their youth and boldness. They used to fight like Stanley and Stella. I remember how they'd wake up the whole neighborhood with all their insults and their mockery of each other's parents, siblings and uncles and aunts and past lovers (my father's side only since Tatay was Nanay's first and last). My siblings and I would hear the crashing noise of broken plates, glasses and windows. My sisters would be crying a little and my brother would be in his room and I'd sit by the stairs and wait for the shouting match and the throwing to end so I could count the broken plates and glasses later. One of my sisters would be cleaning up the the mess they made in two hours or so. The house will be quiet after the fight, like it was just bombed by the Japanese or something. Stanley would be out somewhere with his drinking buddies and Stella would be packing an overnighter to stay with her sister (whom my father had an affair 15 years later). We all know that she would not go to her sister's and that my father would be back just after midnight, pissed drunk lying on the floor sleeping on his own vomit. Mother, the dutiful wife that she is would be cleaning him up and bringing him to their bedroom. We'd all wake up to a nice Filipino breakfast the next day – tapas and tocinos and fried rice and sunny side ups and all. Of course the whole spread is served on plastic plates and cups. Thank God for Tupperware. Living with my parents is like living in a soft core Prince of Tides alternate universe.

I have never realized how long that I've been gone till I saw Nanay and Tatay in their old age. I worry about them. I don't tell them that I do because they'll worry about me because I am worrying about them. I asked Nanay for us to slow down a bit to wait for Tatay who seemed to be taking his sweet time in walking. He doesn't look frail when he's walking and all, he's just slow. His walk reminds me of Yoda sorta – slow but sure and with such fortitude and resoluteness. He doesn't seem to mind that we went ahead and we were waiting for him at the taxi stand. He finally arrives and the crowd goes wild. I hail the next taxi so we could go to the Quezon Memorial Circle or the “Circle” as it is more popularly called. It was the place where I just took my run this morning. My mother used to tell me that they used to go out on dates at the Circle when they were younger, that's why I decided to take them there for their anniversary lunch.

We got into the cab and I told the driver to take us to the Circle but to first make a stop at the nearest ATM so I could withdraw some money. The AM radio was abuzz with Paquiao's latest bout with Clottey and it was no wonder why the streets were almost deserted in a Sunday morning like today. Filipinos are besotted by Manny Paquiao and so are my parents. I hear my father talking to the taxi driver about how Paquiao will win against Clottey and how he's going to be the next Flash Elorde. Flash Elorde has been dead for years and Manny Paquiao has broken every Filipino boxer's record. Yet even this fact is common knowledge to all of us except my father, the driver promptly agreed and told my father that Paquiao was going to win this game even with his hands tied.

Eating Fried Chicken

I decided to bring them to Max's. It was actually my mother's idea since they are both fond of that restaurant. Last week when I was asking her where they wanted to eat, she just told me anywhere except fast food, Chinese food or some weird food. Like me, she didn't want to go to some restaurant in a mall since she hates going there unless she wants to buy something quick, so Max's at the Circle was the restaurant that came to my mind. I remember taking her to a Max's restaurant some years back and she liked the food.

The restaurant was quite empty on a Sunday. I surmised it was because of Manny. Everybody was waiting for that fight, my parents included. I was probably the only one who wasn't. It's not that I don't like Manny Paquiao, I admire the dude's methodical boxing, but I'm not that really interested in boxing or the glory of the Filipino people and all that jazz. And besides, I kinda had the feeling that he'd win anyways. Now, if I knew that Paquiao would lose, then I'd prolly watch it. Not that I want him to lose or anything, because Filipinos are die hard Paquiao fanatics and I could be put to death by stoning if they get as much of a hint that I want to see Manny lose. I'm just saying that it would be an interesting and noteworthy scene to see Manny Paquiao lose a game, not because of his personal title as the Pound for Pound King or any of that crap, but because of the millions and I mean millions of people rallying for him. I mean, imagine the grief of the Filipino people if Paquiao loses. People will cry. People would grieve. My parents would have a bad day. It would be like the day when the Marcoses fled to Hawaii back in 1986. The masses would have lost their hero, their Jake Sully that will free them from the grips of oppression, poverty and hopelessness. Manny Paquiao is not just a Filipino for the Philippines, he's THE Filipino. He's bound to lose a fight, that's a fact as the laws of the universe would suggest. I just hope by the time that he does lose a bout with somebody, the whole country is sure of itself already and does not need a Messiah-Jake-Sully figure to look up to. Fat chance.

The place looked semi deserted with just a couple of tables occupied by couples eating away their fried chicken (Max's is known for it's fried chicken). The waiter seated us to a bigger table since we were three. When we got hold of our seats, I saw that Tatay was a bit giddy all of a sudden telling Nanay that's it's his first time to eat at Max's. I just smiled at my father's statement because true enough, my mother started telling my father that it's just his Alzheimer's acting up because they have eaten at Max's so many times and the fried chicken here was his favorite.

“Ah ganun ba?"

Is it?,  

says my father.

“Oo nga, ang kulit mo talaga!"

Yes, how many times do I have to tell it to you?!

says my mother.

I kept smiling at the two of them knowing that this is a normal interaction between my parents ever since my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's years back. I tell both of them that we should start ordering and signaled the waiter to bring in the menus. A nice looking waiter approaches us, he's probably mid twenties, a bit on the chubby side and with an affable smile on his face. I tell my mother to order anything they like, but she tells me to do the ordering. I know this routine, she knows what she wants from the get go but I play along by telling her that I know what I want (which was their all day Filipino breakfast) and she should order what they want since it's their day.

“Sigurado ka ba?"

Are you sure? 

she asks me. I nod.

“OK”, 

she says then flips through the menu.

I ordered the breakfast plate and they ordered the whole fried chicken, pansit (fried noodles), spring rolls, chop suey, 2 cups of rice, soup and halo-halo for dessert. As the waiter was taking note of our orders, my father couldn't help but tell him,

“Anniversary namin ng asawa ko ngayon kaya dinala kami ng panganay kong anak dito para mag celebrate" 

It's me and my wife's anniversary today and my eldest son took us here to celebrate.

“Jusko Bibing! Bunso natin si Omar!"

Jesus Bibing! Omar's our youngest! 

tells my mother, with fork gesticulating and all. Then she adds to the waiter in mock whisper, “Pasensya ka na, matanda na kasi eh."

I'm sorry, old age.

My father, still possessing the faculties of hearing, was quick to tell the smiling waiter, 

“Ay ganun ba? Ay sorry, may Alzheimer na kasi ako. Bunso naming anak si Omar." 

Is it? It's my Alzheimer's acting up again, I'm sorry, Omar is our youngest. 

I was slightly embarrassed to be honest, because the whole restaurant prolly heard the whole thing. I tell the waiter that we were good and he got our menus and went to the kitchen.

While we were waiting for the food to arrive, I asked them if they wanted to do something else after lunch, like walk a little around the Circle or watch a movie somewhere or something. They both said lunch was okay and they wanted to get back home quick so they could catch the Paquiao fight. My parents, on their 52^nd year of being married wanted to watch Paquiao on tv.

The food finally came and we started eating. Nanay called the waiter to ask where was the bottle of Mang Tomas liver sauce but the waiter told her that they only have Jufran Banana Ketchup at Max's. Mother just shrugged and continued putting food on my father's plate.

Truth be told, I like watching my parents eat. I dunno why, but I can see this intimacy whenever they eat together. Ever since I was a kid, I have never seen them eat by themselves. They've always eaten together except when they are fighting. Sometimes they even eat on the same plate. Nanay would always eat Tatay's left overs, which is a rarity nowadays (to think that my father is pushing mid seventies!). I honestly think that a sure sign of true and enduring love between two people is when one eats the other's left overs. I watch my mother as she puts chicken and chop suey and noodles on my father's plate. She may not admit it, but she loves the bastard. I try to be the dutiful son by setting the dinner conversation and talking about anything that I could think of – Manny Paquiao, my siblings, neighborhood gossip, my job, the coming elections, the Marcoses and more neighborhood gossip. At one point during the meal, I asked them about being together for fifty-two years and how it felt like going this far and my father, seeing an opportunity to exercise his ever infinite wisdom told me,

“Anak, ang sikreto sa isang pagsasamahan ay ang pagiging committed sa isa't isa at ang pag amin ng kani-kanilang pagkukulang, pagpapatawad at pagsusumikap na punan ang bawat mga pagkukulang.”

Son, the secret to a lasting relationship is to be committed to each other and by admitting one's shortcomings and by forgiving the other for these shortcomings and by working together to fill these shortcomings.

My mother snarled in mid-chew and with a bone in her left hand she said,

“Hay naku Bibing...”, in which the closest translation would either be “Jesus, Bibing” or “Yeah, right.” or “Shortcomings my ass.”

Tatay didn't seem to mind Nanay's last comment and continued,

“Inaamin ko, marami akong pagkakamali, pero nanghingi na ako ng tawad sa Nanay niyo.”

I admit that I did a lot of shitty things in the past but I already asked for forgiveness from your mother.

Nanay just grunted and put more food on Tatay's plate.

Forty minutes later, they were full. I am drinking my coffee and Nanay is eating her halo-halo. Tatay is patting his stomach telling us that the meal was great and he was sure that this was his first time to eat in a restaurant like this. We had the leftovers doggie bagged (it wouldn't be a Filipino lunch out if there wasn't any doggie bag). My mother was hoping to score a free bottle of ketchup from the waiter, but the waiter wouldn't budge and gave her six sachets of ketchup instead.

They wanted to go home and watch the fight but I told them to drop by at my box apartment first so that they could freshen up before they go back to Caloocan. Reluctantly, they agreed. I just really wanted to spend more time with them is all. I rarely spend time with my parents and to be honest, I don't want to spend a lot of time with them. But today's a different day I guess, probably their anniversary or it's probably the balmy weather that's making me act funny. Times like these I wish I had my own tv so I could let them stay in my box to watch the fight but the thing is I didn't bother to buy a television since I don't really watch TV.

We took a cab and went straight back to my apartment. I looked at the back seat and true enough, the two of them were near dozing off.

Billie Holiday

Watching my parents take a nap on my airbed made me feel fuzzy inside all of a sudden. Fifty-two years is not a walk in the park, it's more like climbing Mt. Everest. It came upon me that as much as my mother hates my father's idiosyncrasies and as much as my father hates my mother's loud mouth, they still sleep (and probably sometimes do the nasty) in the same bed every night. I don't believe in perfect relationships and have never been fond of such. I believe in good relationships but not perfect ones. Seeing them laying in my bed while a Billie Holiday song plays in the background makes me hold to my belief more. They have a good thing going. Gravity may have taken away a lot from their body and their minds, but this one, this one stayed. And as I look at these two ancient figures in my bed, I could not help but imagine if ever I'm going to have something like this. As cynical as I am (I wanted Paquiao to lose just for the sociological value of him losing), I want to have something like this – nothing perfect or rosy but something real good. I am sorta teary eyed by the scene before me (it's prolly the Billie Holiday song). My parents are two lucky bastards. I secretly envy my father, who was already waking up and fanning himself with his hat, from this vantage point. I wanted to tell him that he was one lucky motherfucker to have something like this still going in the so called twilight of his years. I didn't have to, because even though he has Alzheimer's, Tatay already knows that. I guess I finally found the reason for his odd smiles.

I just wanted to say...

... that this has been a meaningful year for me.  Harsh, yes, but profoundly beautiful all the same.

I want to thank all the people who have touched me this year.  If you happen to be one of them and you are reading this blog post, then I thank you.  I am humbled and honored and yes, lucky to have people like you touch my life (very Hallmark but fuck I don't care because I mean it). I wish you all a great and more profound life this coming year.  Be well and safe winds.

XMAS.09

I've always maintained that I don't celebrate Christmas... Not that I don't believe in it; it's just that I don't have enough affinity to celebrate the spirit of the Holiday cheer or whatever you call it these days.  I love the free food and free gifts though, so you can call me a hypocrite. Like I said before, I used to love Christmas when I was a kid.  I used to look forward to everything that was Christmas - the decors, the Christmas tree, the fake snow {I live in the tropics}, the loud disco Christmas songs that my mother used to play in full volume the whole of December, the Christmas table with all the Filipino trimmings {by that I mean shitloads of Filipino food that mostly consists of noodles, rice, cake, fruits, and assorted Filipino dishes of pork, chicken, some beef, more pork and moooore pork}, the nine morning masses, the carols,  the Christmas lantern that my father prepares in late November and hangs on the first day of December... then there's the new clothes and gifts and money. 

As a kid growing up in the ghetto parts of Manila, Christmas for me was the time to be in another place, albeit make believe, it was valid enough for me to be real.  I'd pretend I'd be having a white Christmas wearing my new sweater and drinking hot chocolate and watching Superman (I don't know why, but they always show Superman on TV during the Holiday season {probably because of the Messianic overtones}.   I loved Christmas. When your  a kid, you see the world through different eyes, especially during the Holiday Season.  You believe what the TV tells you.  You believe in cigarette commercials bringing joy to the Season of Giving.  You believe in the Santa Claus that comes through those American chimneys bearing gifts of Coca Cola and more Coca Cola.  You believe that everything outside the Philippines is America and that every god damn place in America is laden with snow, fluffy white and clean like they are made from the same machine that makes ice cones and shit and you just want to lick it off of the television screen. You wonder how snow might taste like... Is it sweet? Does it taste like Tang or ice cream? Does it taste like America?  That was me, a kid who jizzes over the Holidays like some nymphomaniac on uppers.

Then you're 31 all of a sudden.  You realize that snow doesn't make your Christmas white or perfect or cheery, it makes it muddy and cold and you could get frostbites and gangrene and probably end up in a hospital somewhere, high on morphine as the doctors try to amputate you right leg.  You realize that not everybody celebrates Christmas or your version of Christmas.  People also celebrate Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, sometimes the Hajj, the Winter Solstice and whathaveyou.  You also realize that not everyplace is America and not all people are Americans.

What happened? Pubic hair happened.  Sex happened. Growing up happened.  Bills  and taxes happened.  Knowledge happened. Politics happened.  Death happened.  Diseases happened. Wars happened.  Everything. just. happened. I became an adult. Adulthood became me. And when you're a grown up, you suddenly dwell on other things aside from snow and Christmas trees, and gifts and new clothes. They fade in the background.  You want to go back to the time when they were the most important things but you realize that you can't.  So the only way to relive a semblance of your youth is to just commit it to your memory, and hope in all hopes that you won't forget it as you advance in your years.

I probably sound jaded to you.  Maybe I am. I don't hate the Holiday Season.  In fact, I still think that in some fucked up way, it's good for kids and for most people.  It doesn't work for me though.  Free food works, but the whole silver bells jing-a-ling ruh-puh-pum-pum snowman glistening yadi yadi doesn't do it for me.  Scrooge much?  Naaaah, me and the Ghost of Christmas Past are tight.  Dude, if it works for you, by all means celebrate it.  Revel in it.  You are one lucky bastard, I tell ya.  Hold on to it.  But don't feed it in my throat, except the food on your table.

I must confess that  I like the idea.  The Christmas narrative revolves on the theme of god made man, born in a manger from supposedly poor biological parents.  The cosmos, fate, destiny, the stars and the eternal weave of the universe or whatever you may call it conspired for the baby's birth.  Once born, the child is visited and honored by learned men and rural folk from all corners and proclaimed and sung by angelic beings, which ensued a king's wrath and sparked the hope of a struggling nation.   The story is epic, yet the message is profoundly simple.  A god that authored all of creation willingly becomes the created because of love.  The idea of a supreme artisan humbling himself/herself/itself in front of the beloved opus, by becoming insignificant and unimportant is noble. It is pure and innocent love. It is good.  I think that's the whole gamut of this Christmas hoopla once you remove all the commercial trimmings and the Hallmark  greetings.   You don't have to be a believer of a religion to understand and appreciate the message.  It's what lies within the message that counts. And it's a good message.

I like the idea of that "innocence" in the Holiday Season. I have to admit though, that I can never again fully experience that innocence, that purity.  It is a challenge to reconcile even that 'idea' of innocence with the human condition.   I can't sure as fuck be seven again; and to be honest I don't think being a kid all over again appeals to me.  In spite of it all, I like my adulthood; and for all it's worth, I am at peace with what I have become.  Do I believe in Christmas still? Perhaps. I really don't know.  To be honest, I really don't care.  But I think what's important is holding on to those memories of past Christmases.  That I was once a kid that loved the Holidays.  I remember one Christmas Eve,  I think I was 7 or 8. My mother had outdone herself - she cooked for an army and our house exploded of the holiday cheer.  The decorations were tacky but we didn't give a fuck.  We were able to coax my father to go to the Christmas vigil.  All of us had gifts, even I had gifts for my parents.  My brother wasn't high on something for a change.  My father was trying to be low key. He wasn't preaching or anything. In fact he didn't drink one bit that night. My sister called us from the States because she couldn't come homre.  I'd stare at the Christmas table and I'd keep asking my mother what time it was and if it was ok to eat already.  She said it wasn't time yet so I'd stare at the Christmas lights for hours and hours listening to Christmas songs and while thinking of snow and wondering if it tasted like Tang or ice cream.   That was a perfect Christmas. And for once, the whole family actually ate together.  I remember my father pulling me to his lap after dinner to tell me the Christmas story.  He didn't use big words,  in fact they were very simple and dry, yet I was hooked with every word.  I believed every word.  I loved every word.  And at that moment I thought, in all my innocence, that I had everything I could have ever asked for.  Even though at 31, a part of me still holds on to that memory dearly.

After the Flood (Updated)

www.goes.noaa.gov

Rain and floods are not an uncommon phenomena in the Philippines. Just today it rained and God how it poured for six hours. The weather bureau said it was the longest ever recorded surpassing the one in 1967. 

Today's flood was my first in a very long time. The last flood experience that I had was back in 2002. I was just days away from leaving the country for China and I was also sick with pneumonia at that time. Our house in Caloocan was flooded waist deep and I couldn't do anything but watch my brother and my father rummage through the water trying to salvage everything they could from our house. The flood waters receded later that day and I was rushed by a friend to the hospital. That was seven years ago.

With an average of six to seven typhoons hitting the Philippines each year, floods have become an anticipated yet an unwanted guest in Filipino households all over the country come the wet seasons. Blame it on climate change, poor urban planning and sanitation or just plain bad management from the people in power, the floods grow worse each year. It amazes me how the Filipino survives these catastrophes even if the floodwaters seem to rise higher every time a typhoon comes visiting. As a Filipino, I can find fault on a lot of things about my people but never on their tenacity for self preservation. The flood, along with a multitude of problems that this nation faces, has become part of the Filipino human condition. The task that ordinary people face is definitely gargantuan yet the people face it squarely. The tragedies that they undergo are epic yet the people survive it. I've noticed this as I was wading through the floodwaters in Tandang Sora. My friend and neighbor, Oscar, invited me out for a walk and see what was happening outside. Our apartment was not flooded but the streets was already overflowing with rain mixed with river and sewage water. Part of me was excited because I haven't walked in the the rain in the Philippines for a very long time. Yet another part of me was worried about my family in Caloocan which was just a 45 minute jeepney ride away from my apartment in Quezon City. I knew that rains like these would bring floodwaters in our part of the neighborhood as we were near a polluted creek. They told me not to worry and they would keep me updated on the situation.  I try to block the thought out because there was no use for me to worry about my family. I called them and they said they were already bringing the household things to the second floor of our house. They have survived far worse floods before, they can survive this one, I keep telling myself.

I walked along the streets of Tandang Sora with my friend and what we saw was quite unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time. The street was already flooded, some even knee-deep, vehicles were trying to find their way out of the traffic and the floodwaters yet in vain, people were walking outside – people coming from schools and universities, from their work places and probably even from their very homes. Just looking at the rising water I picture submerged houses and shanties in the low lying places in Metro Manila. Homes submerged in a soup of rain, sewage and garbage. Quite a fitting poster for my country. My cynicism tells me that this could have been avoided. That if people, me included, would have had the discipline to manage what they consume and had the local and the national government possessed the right amount of management wisdom instead of traditional politicking and lip service campaigning, laid out a concrete plan of action on disaster control combined with a realistic urban planning, then this could have been a different picture altogether.

There is one good thing about the flood. It never discriminates. Outside the streets I saw jeepneys and buses alongside with fancy cars submerged in floodwater. I saw people in plain clothes walking alongside people with fancy clothes looking for a dry place to tide them through the heavy rain. Young, old, rich, poor, straight or otherwise were all walking in knee (some even chest) deep pool of watery shit.

In a way, it is very biblical. This is probably our punishment for being too human. I don't think it's nature that is our nemesis but ourselves for we have been way too proud of our humanity that we forget that even the minutest of our actions reverberates through the cosmos. Drenched with rain and floodwater in the middle of Tandang Sora, I asked myself if we deserved this – this punishment. Perhaps, but my humanity got the best of me. I knew at the back of my mind that it's not man against nature but man against himself yet I am comforted at the former and I pretend not to know the latter. Part of being human (which means it's not just a Filipino trait) means that we have the capacity to disguise thoughts that do not appeal to our emotions – we put layers upon layers of thoughts until they are covered and hopefully never to be recovered. But once the rains come pouring and the water rises, truth reveals itself plain as day. The plastic bags, the soda bottles, the shit, the vermin come all gushing out the streets like it was being played by the Pied Piper in our heads. We are too human sometimes, I reckon. Perhaps an ark is sufficient with us not in it. I imagine the world would be a far better place without humanity in the picture. Call me an anarchist but it's probably true. But then again, my spirit of self-preservation kicks in. And like the rest of the humanity that is drenched in this rain, I battle the flood and walk against the rising tides trying to find something, someplace warm and dry.

Hours passed and the waters receded all over Metro Manila. Tandang Sora's electricity was restored just a few hours ago, the reason I am writing this in Consuelo (my laptop). Our house in Caloocan was obviously flooded almost reaching the second floor. I was rather disappointed that they failed to bring my grandmother's antique narra table upstairs because it was one of the only heirlooms she bequeathed to my mother before she died. It was heavy after all and I couldn't expect them to bring it up. Somehow I know that the narra table will survive this flood like it has survived the previous ones. And like our narra table, the Filipinos will survive this flood. I watched and listened intently to the news on television for a few minutes, a first ever since I arrived here two months ago. Even Cory Aquino's death and funeral didn't make me watch the news as intently as I was watching the news for a few, brief minutes. Perhaps it's because this flood was personal and it hit closer to home. The networks didn't have to hype the news today. Drama was everywhere. A lot of homes were havocked by the typhoon and the flood - from shanties made of a mosaic of plywood and carton boxes to houses built of stone and expensive wood.  Many families were even stuck in the rooftops waiting for rescue. I am thankful for two things – one was that my family didn't have to go to the rooftops and the other was that there were a few casualties, 46 in the last count. Still, the look on the face of woman going home from work and realizing that the home that she help build with her family is now submerged in floodwater with her mother carrying her two-year old son and holding her five year old daughter waiting to be rescued is still not a cause for relief. The sad fact is that my country has been experiencing Katrina for decades and people both in the government and the private sector are not doing enough to prevent a solvable problem.

The Filipino rises from the tides. We are no stranger to typhoons and earthquakes and landslides. The country has survived centuries of colonization and has survived wars and countless of political upheavals. We have survived far worse and we can survive this one. After all, it's just but another flood... another Katrina and Milenyo among countless others. The question is, until when can we keep rebuilding our homes and our lives after every natural disaster or political upheaval comes in our midsts? Can our spirit of self-preservation still keep us afloat if the next flood comes? I do not know the answer but one thing is for sure, after the floodwaters recede, that mother of two who just got back from work along with the thousands of mothers affected by this flood, will collect the remains of what was once her home and she will put dinner on the table and her children will eat. My mother along with my nieces are probably doing the same thing right now – rebuilding a home trying to collect the things that held memories left by this flood. Hopefully, they will eat dinner at my lola's narra table.

This flood was my baptism. When I left the country seven years ago I realize that I have shed a lot of skin that was Filipino and that was of my former self. I have decided to come back for many reasons – some I know and many that I do not have any knowledge of. This was probably one of those mysteries. I do not know if I came back to shed the skin that was China or to reinvent myself yet again for the n^th time. I do know this – that I am here, experiencing this flood and what came after it and I am taking it all in. I came back two months ago and felt very alien to what I once called my home. But now after the flood, somehow, I feel quite familiar.

*************
for those who are interested in helping the victims of typhoon 'Ondoy', please follow tthe links provided below.  

Filipino Bloggers Vigilant with Typhoon Ondoy Floods

Where to send donations for victims of Typhoon Ondoy

or you can donate directly through the following


TXTpower.org (via PayPal)
Philippine National Red Cross 

This has been a long standing tradition of mine ever since I started this blog.  I dedicate this to the boy who smiled at me by the church yard.   It's September and it's raining today.  Where ever you are, I hope you are happy and I hope somebody is smiling with you. 

September Rain Blues

a story of the remnants of my youth

by Rufus Omar Bartleby

August 2006

I woke up with this morning with the smell of rain. I thought it was from my dream but when I looked outside the window I saw it was pouring. September beckons on my doorstep. I sit on my bed and tried to focus on the many images of Buddha hanging on my living room wall. They all look so peaceful, like Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. In two days it’s going to be September. For us Filipinos, September signals the beginning of the “ber” months, the countdown before Christmas and New Years. In happier days of not so long ago, you could hear Christmas carols being played on the month of September in shops and malls as if trying to hypnotize the listeners to buy Christmas gifts as early as possible so they wont have to bother going through all the rush in purchasing a very late Christmas gift. You’d even see the ominous Santa Claus (I don’t know why but he always scares the hell out of me) holding the bell of doom and a whip heralding the coming apocalypse lest the kids do not repent and turn back from their evil ways. But those were the happier days, when people had the luxury to spend their hard earned cash on a September day. Now these lean days of economic and political crises, September for many Filipinos is just, well, September. But for me, it’s something else. September, ever since that day on the church grounds, held a special place, dare I say it, in my heart. It’s been what, 8 years (?) since I last saw his face. But I can still remember how he looked like, how everything took place, or how it shouldn’t have taken place. I could still remember what I was wearing that day. I could still make out his face and that smile. I could still smell the cold September rain.

September 1998

It was a rainy Tuesday September morning. Michael and I just got out of the church after attending the morning mass, exasperated by Father Constancio’s (Consti as Michael and I would like to call him) latest homily. This time it was about astral projection. Michael was also crazy about crystals and new age shit, but to hear that every friggen mass was a wee bit too much even for a Wiccan such as Michael. But we gave up on the priest a long time ago. He was one of them 60’s children, flower power chakra crystal shit, but a late bloomer. Meaning he discovered the wisdom of the 60’s during the late 80’s, when he was already in his mid 50’s. And by God, woe to the man who is a late bloomer, or rather have pity on the dude (I think it’s in the Bible somewhere). God help us all if he starts forgiving our sins with his crystals while scooping out the evil from our chakras. Well, another Tuesday morning unwisely and ridiculously spent. But hey, it was our ritual of sort, what we do, Michael and I. Every Tuesday and Thursday mornings, before we start our day in school, we would attend the morning mass for kicks. We’d look at students reviewing for the exams; lovers trying to kiss and make-up (or break-up) at 7 in the morning; and the recognizable John Doe’s trying to ask God to give them a cosmic sign from heaven which winning number combination would be in the next lotto draw. And yeah, we also come there to nourish our spirits of course. For me, I’d like to observe people. It gives me peace to look at someone and not think about myself and all the shit that I had to deal with for a change.

 

Say that old lady in front who prays earnestly and holds on to every word that comes from the Great Reverend Consti’s mouth, which is mostly pure horse turd. She knows it, but still she nods and smiles whenever the great Reverend Consti would glance on her direction as if they both know that they’re playing the same game of pretend-that-you’re-listening-to-me-and-I’ll-look-in-your-direction-and-you-nod-in-total-agreement-of-any-cow-turd-that-comes-out-of-my-filthy-unbrushed-mouth. I’d count how many times she’d nod and smile. It passes the time.

And then there’s this old man who repairs watches outside the university gate. He never fails to come to the seven o’ clock mass. He’d always be standing at the back, in his Sunday best, which always consisted of this 70 ensemble of corduroys or bell bottoms and always a striped semi fitted shirt that hung comfortably on his torso like the shirt found its home. He wears those shiny shoes that never seem to have touched the earth like it just came out of the factory. And don’t forget the pomade. His hair shines during the ‘Our Father’, and I don’t have one iota of a clue as to why. I like to look at him. Once he caught me staring at him and he smiled. I was so embarrassed. The dude must have thought I was perving over him or something.

I don’t know why we do it, Michael and I. We attend the morning mass and listen to the same bald priest saying the same boring topic of politics, crystals, astral projection and salvation and eternal damnation (in that particular order) over and over again. It’s a vicious cycle really. I guess we were just Catholics, like the rest of the 20 or so people who attend Consti’s morning Eucharist. We sit and complain to God asking Him to make Consti shut up, yet the irony is that we still respond to this bald priest as he stands in front holding the crystal like he’s Lex Luthor when he cues us to stand up, sit down, hold hands or go in peace. And after hearing the Gospel according to Consti, which is about an hour or so (Consti likes overtime), we go to our normal saturated lives in a state of constipated bliss, while the Great Reverend goes out to the back door that leads to the priests’ quarters to catch his late breakfast of cold sunny side ups, Australian bacons, French toast and brewed java. I just hope that God Almighty really has a sense of justice and makes Conti choke on his French toast. Catholicism is such a bad habit I tell you. You can try to quit, but it’ll just leave you cold turkey.

August 2006

So that was my life every Tuesday and Thursday mornings in the university. Nothing much, nothing fancy. Boring as it may seem, I was quite happy. I had a boyfriend at that time. He was a junior majoring in Political Science with minors in Music Appreciation and I was a sophomore in Philosophy with a doctorate in Bullshitting. Michael doesn’t like him though. And so does my other best friend, William. They keep saying he’s like Elmer’s Glue, too possessive and clingy. What can I say; I guess that was young love for me. I kind of like being possessed from time to time. Although he may go a bit overboard sometimes especially when he gets jealous of Michael and William, or if I’m wearing tank tops (they’re too revealing, he says) or if I was 2 minutes late. There were even times that he called me “bakla” and “puta” and I got pissed at the “puta” remark. The former I can deal with. Hey, I was a true to the bone closeted gay guy (at that time, I was still in the closet dusting off the cobwebs and trying to see if my granny’s shoes would fit me… NOT); being called a whore however was another (well… I still had principles at that time… I was young damn it). I’d like to say that we didn’t talk for a week because of the remarks he made. We always kiss and make up after about a day or so, then we’d fucked like rabbits.

I was in love. He was the center of my known universe. He was my being. He knew it. But that didn’t stop him from calling me names when he had tantrums. Like me, he was also Catholic, and a very devout one for that matter. Like me, he was also in the closet but with a slight difference. He was in a safe box and in the closet. But he was the reason for my happiness. I was happy. The tantrums, the taunts, the fights plus lukewarm sex we shared from time to time kept us occupied. He loved me. And I loved him, in my own catholic schoolboy kind of way, I did. That was my life back in college - a routine of celebrating the Holy Eucharist with a demented priest, a boyfriend, my two best friends and philosophy. I was happy.

I thought I was, until I saw him.

September 1998

There was a slight drizzle when we went outside the church. It started raining during Consti’s homily but it stopped afterwards. I guess it’s God’s way of letting us know that he does know our plight when we listen to Consti’s dementia in full action. I could still smell the scent of the after shower. I love the rain more than I love anything. I believe that the rain was God’s miracle consummated. For me it was a sign from heaven. I have this theory about the rain. I think you can actually know what God is feeling after a downpour. I play this game after every rainfall. After every downpour, I’d go outside and try to smell the rainwater, and I try to ‘taste’ it in my thoughts. If the smell and the ‘taste’ was too salty then God was pissing down on us because He’s royally pissed. But if its kind of acidic then God is shedding unshed tears for the outcasts of this world, like them fags, dykes, trannies, Goths, geeks or the athletically challenged (you get the picture).

So I took in the humid air and tried to taste the smell of the rain in my thoughts. God was definitely pissing on us today, I thought to myself. Then a weird thing happened. It stopped drizzling. The sun shone so bright like nothing happened. Just that. It was like it never rained at all. God must have a urinary tract infection, I thought.

Then he passed by.

August 2006

The way he looked that day was embedded in my consciousness forever. And like anything that is embedded in your psyche, the thing that has been embedded can never be removed even if someone wishes to remove it. Back in my elementary days they taught us the number pi (π) in math class. Truth be told, I loathed math or anything that involved adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying. One time, the school decided that I should join a regional math quiz bee without prior consent. I had a real bad case of diarrhea that day. I realized that I hated math because I hated solving equations or rather trying to solve problems that required exact answers. For me that was absurd. At that young age I was already aware that I was never gonna be a CPA or some math whiz with a good paying job. However, there was only one thing that I liked about math - it was the number π. 
 

π = 3.141592654……………………………… 
 

They told us that pi was this number that expressed the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle and appears as a constant in many mathematical expressions. I didn’t get any of the shit of what the teacher told us but one thing stuck in my head – that pi continued on to infinity. It didn’t have an end, an exact number to put a stop to it. It was uncertain. That was the only thing certain about pi, that it was never certain. I never forgot about the pi lesson. And I’m sure all of us who listened to our math teachers never forgot about it either. I mean, look, if you do not know about pi, it’s either you didn’t go to school or you’re probably some retard who miraculously passed high school and got teleported to law school or business school or what shit have you right now. The point was, I didn’t forget about pi. At that very young age, it stuck itself to me like glue. Later on in life when I was in my freshman year I learned a word that I could associate with my favorite number – transcendent. I love saying that word. Transcendent. I realized that pi became transcendent to me. And like π, he became transcendent to me. A constant – something that can never be removed even if I wished to.

September 1998

His silver blue umbrella was still open and he was trying to close it. His faded blue jeans clung to his waist and to his lower extremities like there was no tomorrow. His shirt was inexplicably dry even after that glorious downpour. He was two or three inches taller than me. Probably five foot nine or ten. He had this Tommy Page haircut, which was so cool those days, and it suited him very well. And his face…

August 2006

Even after 8 years I still couldn’t forget his face. Sometimes I would forget what he’d look like and his face would be like a vague memory, like he was just some figment of my imagination. A phantasm. Then in my waking moments he would slowly reveal himself to me, and I would remember him again in such clarity. Sometimes his face would look different than before, more refined, and more beautiful. I would forget him for a moment, then he will come back again. He’s always there, inside my head, constantly swimming in my thoughts.

September 1998

He looked like Jay Manalo especially with his lips, but more pleasant (not that Jay Manalo was unpleasant to look at) and gentler. His eyebrows, come to think of it, reminded me of some Japanese actor I saw in some movie in some art house cinema. Takeshi Kaneshiro, yes, his eyebrows was almost an exact copy of the cop who kept eating expired pineapple chunks in Wong Kar Wai’s Chunking Express. His eyes were different though… incomparable to any movie star that I’ve seen in the movies. He looked at me with those eyes. They looked like raindrops. For about five seconds while he was passing by, he looked at me. Five seconds. I forgot about the Rizal exam that I was supposed to review that day. He was going inside the parish grounds. Where was he going? He wasn’t a student, but he was carrying a backpack on his left shoulder. He wasn’t an altar boy either. Having heard the mass every Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would’ve become familiar with his face already if he was. And he certainly wasn’t part of school security either. Why was he going inside the parish grounds… and inside the parish comfort room?(!) Then I had this sudden urge to take a leak.
  
Looking back, I realized that it was so low, I know. But hey, he was after all, my pi. 
 

He was already inside the parish comfort room and I was about to follow when Michael woke me up from my trance,

“Where are you going? Have you been listening to ANY word that I just said!?” said Michael who was obviously annoyed at the fact that I wasn’t really listening to his rant about Consti’s latest homily. Then he added,

“Is Ricky giving you a hard time again?”, he asked the last question placing emphasis on the ‘hard’ part with a wicked shit eating grin on his face. I swear, Michael could really be a witch sometimes. I dismissed is smart assed comment and I told him that I had to pee.

“Okay, fine. Be that way. Don’t take long because you still have to tell me the pages to review in our Rizal exam.”

And as fast as my feet would carry me, I went into the proverbial comfort room to catch a glimpse of my mystery guy with the Tommy Page haircut, Jay Manalo lips, Takeshi Kaneshiro eyebrows and raindrop eyes.

I would be a hypocrite if I did not admit that there was nothing sexual about my actions. But I was more interested in seeing his lips, his face, his eyebrows and those raindrop eyes. I just felt this urgency to be close to him. Sexual or non-sexual, I just felt that I needed to be close to him.

I went inside. Nobody else was there except me, and him without a shirt and he was already in the process of pulling down his pants. He was changing! I tried to be casual (in a friggen comfort room!!!!). I tried to focus on pulling down my zipper to pee. I looked at him for a few seconds. All it took me was a few seconds to register everything about his body. He was slim, but not skinny. His skin reminded me of a cup of Nescafe coffee mixed with six tablespoons of Bear Brand Milk Powder. His back was smooth and was so inviting to touch. When he tried to bend over to slowly pull down his tight pants, his spine and his white Hanford clad buttocks were proudly protruding towards me as if he was trying to do it on purpose. I was thinking that if Boticelli and da Vinci and Michelangelo and all them great DEAD artisans could see me right now, they’d probably have a post humus ejaculation. Yes, he was marvelous. Perfect. Like a transcendental number trying to express itself to the depths of infinity. I wanted to look up to the heavens and tell all them dead artists watching us that I declared SHOTGUN first. 
 

I was still ogling over him and I could just imagine my psychic self wearing this shit eating psychic grin. I was declaring SHOTGUN to the whole cosmology of the men’s room and that he was mine and mine alone. And then I had this feeling. This fear and trembling kind of feeling that he knew that I was watching him with all the peripheral vision I could muster.

Silence. 
 

Small beads of perspiration rally on my forehead. 

My metaphysics professor, a 40-ish man who speaks 10 languages and has a voice like Barry White, used to say that if there was sudden silence in a room it meant that an angel (a seraphim) was passing by to take pictures. 
 

It was indeed a Kodak moment. With him already partially clothed, and me trying my very best to urinate. The whole time I was there I hadn’t even let out a single ounce of urine. I was so embarrassed, to say the least. He must think I’m some kind of perverted Catholic college kid who still confesses to some demented priest every single masturbatory practice he does in his bed. I had to focus. And with all my faculties, I willed myself to pee. I tried to do a little exercise:

Pee…

Pee…

The Peelippines vs. Benigno Aquino, Jr.

Nanny mc Pee…

Pee…

SnooPee and the Peenuts …

Peeace on earth and goodwill to fucking mankind and to the flora and fauna of the universe…

Peeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…

Pleeeeeeease peeeeeeee.

PEE MOTHERFUCKER PEEE@!!!!!!!!!!!!!

God in heaven please let me fucking pee…

(Of course I was Ally Mc Bealing the whole time!)

And I let out a few drops. I quickly zipped up and scurried myself out of the comfort room without ever looking back. I left him in the comfort room. 

Yet he remained in my head.

I was out already when I saw Michael under the tree waiting for me with a more vicious shit-eating grin on his face. Oh my God! He fucking knew! For a split second, I felt that I was really Ricky’s proverbial “puta”, the whore of Babylon, Mr. President’s fluffer, the bitch of Nardong Tarugo in Cell Block B. But I cast them all aside trying to say to myself, “I didn’t do anything wrong! Everybody looks, so why can’t I? Can’t I have my fucking moment?” But who was I kidding? I didn’t just ‘look’, I studied and analyzed him like the way I study my philosophy books – with ardor and fervor. I was about to defend myself to Michael when he said,

“I hope you’ve enjoyed yourself since we are going to be 5 minutes late for English Lit.”

I told him to lighten up since Boobs Mc Phee, as I like to call my English Lit lecturer was probably going to be late anyway for class since she takes her sweet time in brushing up and trying to look sophisticated and booby, in matte and all.

She was beautiful in fact, my English Lit Lecturer. And she did indeed have big boobs, which my best friend William keeps staring at during class. Come to think of it, all the guys, except for Michael and me, kept on staring at her boobs like it was some lab experiment gone mad. But hey, I wasn’t a breeder. I’m friggen bent. It’s like I can will myself to like her breasts and then get an erection, you know. Peeing is one thing, but women and breasts, they’re another are another.

Michael was in his element today (must be the effect of Consti’s crystals) when he said,

“Since we are going to be absolutely late, I think I will brush up and go to the comfort room.”

The bitch!

Without thinking I told him that he couldn’t go there because ‘he’ was changing.

“Oh, so we are using personal pronouns now? When did this happen? I didn’t get the memo.” Michael quipped and then added, “And what’s with the face?!”, he said in mock disgust, “Why in the world are you affected? Forget it, I need to go to the bathroom and you can’t stop me!”

I could not hold Michael with my powers. He was a witch after all, his clan tracing its roots in the mountains of Aklan, and quite a powerful one. And I couldn’t go with him. It’ll be too obvious. What will ‘he’ think of me? All I could do was wait and pray to the God that I have been devoutly praying for every Tuesdays and Thursdays for the past two years that His divine providence would somehow play on my favor. Was I being selfish? I mentally asked myself. I shook the thought away when I saw Michael enter the comfort room. And after four seconds he went out. Jesus! He could be so blunt sometimes! He did not even pretend to urinate! I was about to admonish Michael about his behavior when he said with a look of a disappointment on his face,

“He was already fully dressed in school uniform.”

A surge of relief rushed through my veins, then the last two words of what Michael had just said registered themselves into my central nervous system. School uniform? He was a student!? But why was he changing in the parish comfort room? Where does he live? What’s his major? Why was he changing in the parish comfort room? Which building does he go to on Tuesdays and Thursdays? Why was he changing in the parish comfort room? At seven thirty in the morning?!?! As if reading my thoughts, Michael said,

“He’s a callboy Phil.” 

Insight

August 2006

Looking back now, he was too good, too attractive, and too sleek with his movements when he passed by me after the mass. And that look in his eyes. They were beautiful, but it registered something different. They were tired, his eyes. They were kind of sad. 
 

September 1998

I suddenly felt bad all over. I wanted to throw up. Not because he was a rent boy but because of something else which I couldn’t pinpoint. Come to think of it, I never did get an erection while I was looking over him. I realized that it was not sexual, the incident at the comfort room. It was more of admiration, of praise to a perfect being that was slowly unfolding itself in front of me. I felt like some kid trying to catch the end of the pi number even knowing all along that it was infinite.

I felt bad. I felt bad for him because if what Michael said were true… well, what if it was true? Why was I feeling this way? Why was I feeling at all? 
 

I pretended to dismiss what he said and told Michael that we were late for English Lit already. We passed by the church gate until Michael told me he forgot something at the front desk of the parish office. I told Michael that I’d wait for him in front of the church. 
 

Thoughts of ‘him’ came back, like water from a spring trying to make new rivers and streams by carving itself to unknown territories. This in fact, was unknown territory for me. A terra incognita as one of my philosophy professors try to call it. Ricky was never a terra incognita to me. I knew him well. I knew his quirks and his tantrums well, his sensibilities on conservative fashion and classical music and on Mary, Jesus and the Catholic Church. My friends, like Ricky, were certain to me. I know them like I know my own shadow. My life before ‘him’ was quite predictable. But with ‘him’ it was totally different. He was totally unknown to me. Which made me even more uneasy. Not afraid, but uneasy. Like there was no certainty. 
 

I was lost, still drowning in my thoughts when a girl form my Rizal Class passed by me and greeted me with a smile. And on the same direction, ‘he’ passed by just behind my girl classmate, quietly gazing at me where my girl classmate was walking. Not knowing what to do, I smiled at my girl classmate. And he SMILED BACK. He thought I was smiling at him! His teeth were so baby powder white that it again accentuated his eyes, which again reminded me of raindrops. His face, was how could I describe it… transfigured would be the closest word to describe his face at that time when he thought I was smiling at him.

Then out of nowhere, I heard a song playing in my head. The voice, all too familiar, was Aretha’s:

“The first time………… ever I saw your face………

I thought the sun ……… rose from your………………………………………”

Aretha never got to finish her song number because my moment OUR moment was trashed by the girl, who greeted me with,

“Hi Phil!!!!! Hope you’re ready for our Rizal exam today!”

I wanted to rush to the hardware store (if there was any open at that time) and buy a friggen sledgehammer, to thank her for ruining my OUR moment.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw his smile fade. Then his eyes became tired again, perhaps even more tired than before. I couldn’t see his raindrop eyes no longer because he quickly shifted his gaze to the damp ground. He passed by me, casting those raindrop eyes into empty space leaving me sadder than I was a while ago. I wanted to call him, but I didn’t know his name (at least he knew mine now). And even if I called him, what would I say? That the smile was actually meant for him? How more lame a reason could it be?

He was already crossing the street, with the back of his white polo uniform and light gray slacks bidding me farewell. I have never felt guilty in my entire life, until now. I wanted to cry. Not really wail-cry, you know. I was far too butch for that. But I wanted to shed tears, even a single one. I wanted to. But somehow, at that moment, I couldn’t. It seemed like hours, what transpired between us (and that girl) and I was still dazed until Michael came up to me and said,

“Phil, you lucky fag, he smiled at you! And don’t deny it, I saw everything! What the hell did you do? You gotta teach me that technique sometime…” he said excitedly. 
 

Then I told him about the incident between me, him and the girl from Rizal class. I could see the concern in Michael’s face as I told him the story. He knew. Michael always knew. He is after all, my best friend.

“Don’t worry, I saw his uniform. He’s engineering and some of our college algebra subjects would probably be in his building. We could stalk him! It’ll be fun you’ll see,” he said trying to cheer me up. 
 

I tried to smile at his lighthearted comment. Then I finally told him that we were royally late for English Lit and Boobs Mc Phee was probably royally pissed by now. I instantly went back to my known universe, to my certainties, to my life, as I knew it before ‘him’. I was once again, this Catholic college kid who studies philosophy and goes to hear Mass every Tuesdays and Thursdays with his gay best friend for kicks. I was once again this college kid who has a straight best friend who likes to look at their English Lit lecturer’s breasts. I was once again this college kid who dates a conservative Republican boyfriend. I was once again this college kid who loves the rain more than anything else. Life was again certain for me. But who was I fooling? He was already there in my head. Like that number that I learned way back when I was in grade school. He became that number. And like a kid mystified, I was chasing the number just to see if it ever has an end.

It never happened I keep on telling myself. But he was the lone constant in all variables in my head.

Michael and I walked towards the north campus gate. Michael was talking about something, but I could not hear him. Al I could hear was Aretha Franklin singing in my head. 
 

I wanted to cry. I wanted to shed at least a single tear for ‘him’. But it was not my element, crying genuine tears. I can ‘fake’ crying but I can never shed genuine tears. I learned at an early age that I was not one to shed tears outside. I cry within. I wanted to will it but I couldn’t. Peeing was one thing. But shedding tears was another. But as we were walking toward the north campus, something happened. It started to drizzle again, yet the sun was still shining. I inhaled the scent of the light rain and I noticed that something was different. It was odd, the rain. It wasn’t salty or acidic. The rain that I smelled and tasted in my thoughts just now tasted bittersweet. Bittersweet. At that moment as we were crossing the street, I was feeling exactly the same way. 
 

August 2006

Eight years. Looking back at everything, how it happened, and how it didn’t happen, I realized that I was far too young to understand the whole scheme of things. Well, I guess I still haven’t understood most of it. My youth, as I would like to believe it, was my seedbed. I’d like to think that I grew up a little that Tuesday September morning. I’d like to think the ending turned out different. I remember playing all the possible endings in my head. I did for months. Then I got tired and went on living my life in concrete sureness that I was living it the way that I should. But life is not all about certainties, I learned. It’s also about the opposite of anything that is sure and concrete. Like those mornings when I wake up from a dream and then I have this vague memory of his face smiling at me. This phantasm. This dream. 
 

In the dream, I smiled to him, and said the word that I was never able to say eight years ago:

“Hello.”

He’d then tell me his name and his major. We’d have coffee or lunch at the cafeteria. We’d smoke the same brand of cigarettes. We’d meet in the hallways both of us itching to tell our latest rant on life, politics and the boring professor. Then he’d smile and I’d smile back. Then when I am about to say his name…

I wake up from the dream with the song still lingering in my head.

And I could still taste the smell of the bittersweet rain.

I always look back on that Tuesday September morning eight years ago, especially when it is raining. And most especially when it’s raining on a September day. I have become less innocent of the world and more of a romantic cynic (if there is such). I would wear a face that says “who gives a fuck” but my psychic self will always smile at the rain. Sometimes I’d even play my game just for kicks. I’d smell the rain and taste it in my thoughts, hoping that the taste would be the same taste of rain eight years ago and then… well, it never tasted that way again. So I will never know. (One thing I do know is that God is definitely royally pissed at humanity for the past couple of years or so. Well good luck to mankind)

That Tuesday September morning, God wasn’t pissed at humanity…nor was he crying for fags, dykes, trannies and the outcasts of the world. That day was meant for two people, and two people alone. He was crying for these two people, for he knew that neither could cry to himself nor to each other.