THE OLD WOMAN OF THE CANDLES
by Kevin Piamonte
HOLY Thursday.
The house loomed over the street. Massive. Windows gaped open like mouths. So this would be summer for me. There were other houses nearby, but not as big and old as this one. As I stood outside the rusty iron gate, Doray came running out of the heavy wooden door. It was almost sundown.
"You're finally here. I've been waiting since morning." She kissed me on the cheek.
"The bus broke down," I sighed and gave her a hug.
She brought me inside the house. The basement was dark. A familiar scent filtered through my nose. I sneezed.
"It's old wood, remember?"
SHE had brought me to Ibajay, Aklan, a year ago for her Lola Conching's 90th birthday. We stayed for a couple of days.
Doray and I usually spend summer at beaches. She suggested that we spend this particular one in her Lola Conching's house. I declined at first, but couldn't bear the thought of going to the beach without her. So we made a deal. An hour's ride from Ibajay was a white sand beach.
"I promise." She held up her hand. "We'll go to Boracay after. You just have to see how they spend Holy Week in my Lola Conching's town."
"But I'm not even a practicing Catholic," I protested.
"Don't deny it Burt Macaraig," Doray pointed her accusing finger at me." Once I saw you lighting all the candles in church so that Rona would live."
Ask and you shall be given. I thought that was the doctrine of the Church. Rona died of abuse three years. ago. She was one of those deaf children we took care of in the Center. The twelve-year old girl was suddenly missing one day. When we finally found her in a cemetery, her body had been battered. She lingered in the hospital for two days. The pain was deeply etched on her face. Even her pleas for comfort had ceased to be human.
"All right, all right." I gave up. "We'll go to your Lola Conching's house first, purify our souls during Holy Week and burn them after in Boracay."
Doray and I have been the best of friends since college. We were drinking buddies. Everybody on campus thought we were a couple. In a way we were, since we were always together. After college we went on to do volunteer work for the deaf. We thought we would be serving the best of humanity. But the truth was we were both reluctant to get an eight-to-five job. We called that a straitjacket.
For some reason I wasn't able to make it on the day Doray and I were supposed to leave for Ibajay.
"You'd better follow, mister," she warned, her hand balled to a fist.
SAN Jose Street, Ibajay. Doray told me that on Holy Week the townspeople follow a certain tradition. Her Lola Conching owned a Santo Entierro, the dead Christ. It had been with the family for years. Every year, during Holy Week, they would bring out the statue and everybody would participate in the preparation. Some people would be in charge of dressing up the statue while others would take care of decorating the carriage that would carry it through the streets.
"What's so exciting about that?"
"It's a feast, Burt, a celebration."
I thought it was ridiculous celebrating death. There was something eerie about the whole idea.
"Lola Conching, do you remember Burt?" Doray asked as we got to the landing.
The old woman sat on a chair carefully lighting candles on the altar in front of her. Her lips reverently moved in silence and her gaze was strange as if she wasn't looking at any of the images in particular. It was this same sight that greeted me a year ago.
"The old woman of the candles," I whispered to Doray on our first visit.
"He's here to help in the activities for the Holy Week."
"It's good to see you again, Lola Conching."
"Did you have a good trip? Perhaps you need to rest."
The old woman stared at me. Her face looked tired. It sagged with wrinkles. But I could see there had been beauty there ages ago. The fine line of her brow softly curved to gray almond eyes. Her nose suggested not Spanish descent. Beside her was a wooden cane bedecked with shells intricately embedded, forming a floral design.
"Come." Doray led me through the living room. Carved lattice frames on walls complemented the chandelier made of brass and cut-glass.
"Where is the rest of the family?"
"They'll be here in the morning," Doray said as she opened the door to the bedroom.
I stepped inside.
"You'll sleep here." She indicated. "That's the washroom."
"And the other door to the right leads to your room," I recalled.
Lola Conching was blind. She suffered greatly at the hands of the Japanese. This I came to know last year. Lola Conching was a comfort woman. She had to give in so her parents could be saved. At first she resisted. Then the Japanese hit her on the head with a plank of wood. She became blind. Then she got pregnant.
Was it her story or was it for want of a grandmother that somehow had drawn me to her?
"I think I'll rest for a while," I said quietly.
"Yes, do," she replied as she opened the door to her room. "We'll have dinner later."
The room was replete with old wooden heads of saints. Some had no eyes, but they looked real. I shivered--a familiar feeling. In front of my bed was a cabinet with glass casing. It was empty. The whiff of camphor from the wooden heads made me dizzy and I fell asleep. Soundly.
I WOKE up to the sound of voices. A soft stream of morning light seeped through the gauze of the mosquito net. I hurriedly washed and dressed. Then I opened the door and stepped out of the room. There were people moving around, talking.
"Burt Macaraig?" An elderly woman looked at me knowingly.
"Yes. Burt, you've met Tiya Basyon," Doray began. "And Tiya Patring, Tiyo Lindo, my cousins Ted, Joey, Ina, Elena, Nicky and Damian."
"Well, I'm back." I didn't know what else to say.
"Let's have breakfast." She tugged at my arm. "Everybody has eaten."
The combination of dried fish, scrambled eggs and fried rice sprinkled with chopped onion leaves made me very hungry.
"Nobody here eats meat on Good Friday," Doray explained as we sat down. "It's the belief."
I was too hungry to mind whatever Doray was trying to say.
"I didn't bother to wake you up last night," she said between bites. "You were snoring and I took care not to wake you when I put up your mosquito net."
"I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow."
"Did Burt have a good sleep last night, Doray?" Lola Conching asked as she walked into the dining room.
She sat on the chair at the head of the table. It was uncanny how she could move with just a cane. She seemed to know every inch of space in her house.
"Good morning," I greeted her.
"Ah, there you are." Her head followed the sound of my voice. "Did you sleep well last night?" "Yes, I did."
"You should. You will be doing many things today."
After breakfast, we went downstairs. The light from the bulb coated the basement in amber. I sneezed. In a corner was the carriage. Black. It was lined with leaves of silver. On the carriage was a casing whose sides were made of glass. Angels with dark faces adorned each of the upper four corners. The carriage looked ominous, like a hearse. Tiyo Lindo and Tiya Patring came in.
"Boys, let's do this together." Tiyo Lindo went to the carriage and started pulling it out from the corner. All of us did our share. The wheels creaked.
"It needs oiling," Tiyo Lindo said.
We positioned the carriage under the bulb.
"Why don't we just open the door?" I suggested. "Then we can have light."
"No, don't," Tiya Patring said. "It's a tradition. Nobody should see the Santo Entierro until everything is done."
I helped polish the carriage, shining the leaves of silver lining. With agility Ted climbed the carriage and dusted the wooden top of the casing. Tiyo Lindo wiped the inside of the glass. No way would I go in there, I thought. It would be like going inside a coffin.
"We're ready with the Santo Entierro," one of the girls called out. They had been cleaning the body.
The dead Christ was laid out on a mat. My stomach tumbled over. I felt like I was looking at a corpse in a morgue.
"Are you all right?" Doray approached me. She had been arranging the flowers and leaves of palm.
"Look," I said quietly. "I don't know what this is all about, but I'm not at all comfortable."
"What is it?"
"The dead Christ. I just don't like it." I sneezed. "And this scent of old wood, it's driving my nose nuts."
She laughed.
"What is so funny?" I looked at her squarely.
"That's what you get for being a heretic." She brushed my face with the bouquet she held in her hands.
"Oh, stop that." I wiped my face. "I think I'd better go upstairs for a while and rest."
"Don't be so lazy. Lola Conching won't like that kind of attitude."
"Well, she's not my grandmother in the first place." I made my way up.
Lola Conching was sitting by the altar when I got to the top of the stairs. The subtlety of light coming from the candles caressed the features of her tired face.
"Are you done?"
I was startled.
"No, Lola Conching."
"Who are you?" Her voice was stern. "Ah, you're Burt."
"Yes, Lola Conching." I was relieved that she recognized me.
"What are you doing up here?" she curtly asked.
My throat went dry.
"I want to rest for a while. I'm feeling quite sick because of the smell of old wood."
"I light candles for the Santo Entierro because it is most precious to us. It is our indu1gencia," declared Lola Conching. "It protected us during the war. Doray's father was a baby then."
I sat down in front of the old woman.
"You mean the Santo Entierro has some kind of power?" My curiosity started to grow.
"Yes, it does." Lola Conching confirmed. "It protects us from the evil of Good Fridays. Aswang."
I almost snickered. But in her voice was the weight of her belief. Aswangs, witches were myths to my knowledge. They would fly at night using their huge bat-like wings. Their hands had claws for fingers, and their teeth were razor sharp. They would look ghoulish, eyes gleaming bright red. But at daytime they were beautiful.
My gaze was transfixed on the old woman's face. I searched for the delicate features that used to be there.
"They come out on the eve of the death of Christ." Her voice slightly quivered. Was it fright I heard? Or a threat?
I was getting edgy on my seat. Faith, belief, knowledge boiled up, blurring my mind.
"You'll see on Good Friday. When the moon rises, all windows are shut in houses except ours," she proudly declared. "Windows in this house are left wide open."
It dawned on me. The Santo Entierro was not the family's iindulgencia. It was hers--for all the fears she kept inside.
"I thought you went to sleep." Doray had come upstairs.
"No, I was talking to your Lola Conching," I stammered. Cold sweat dripped down my forehead.
"I told him stories about the Santo Entierro," the old woman said with an air of accomplishment.
"Let's go." I grabbed Doray's arm.
For the first time I felt afraid. Yet I could not understand why. I raced downstairs. Doray came after me.
"Wait," she called.
Everybody stared at me blankly when I got to the basement. I turned around and faced Doray. We almost bumped into each other.
"Can we go for a walk?" I panted.
We went to the plaza in front of the church. We were both quiet. I pondered why she brought me to this strange place. I felt she had done it on purpose. I never questioned events, phenomena. I always took them as though they were a natural order of the cosmos, like birth and death. True, I did light candles for Rona, but the girl died nonetheless. I felt humiliated. That menial task was my turning point. Never again did candles burn.
"This is where the procession ends," she said as we sat on a concrete bench. We were facing the church. "The procession goes around, through several streets and it ends here at about seven in the evening."
"Do you believe in your Lola Conching's stories about the Santo Entierro?"
Doray looked lost in thought. She groped for words.
"I don't have any answers, Burt. But this is what I can tell you." Her eyes brightened up. "What I saw was the crowd surging toward the Santo Entierro as it got to the door of the church. It was a mad scramble. Everybody wanted a piece of the Santo. They say its hair or any part of its clothing can be used as an amulet, a protection against evil spirits."
Another mythical explanation.
"I'm hungry." I stood up and we went back to the house.
Lunch was quick. Everybody was rushing to finish the morning's activity for the procession in the afternoon.
I went to sleep. In the first place, vacations were meant for naps. Besides I felt I had done my share already with the carriage.
"Burt." I heard Doray's voice through my slumber. "It's time to get ready."
"Hmmm," I protested. I was too tired to do anything.
"Wake up, sleepyhead." She sat on the bed. "You've been sleeping for hours. Come on." She gave me a gentle slap on my face.
"All right." I rubbed my eyes and got out of bed.
"Call me when you're ready." She stood up and went inside her room.
When Doray and I went downstairs, I gasped at the sight that greeted me. There was the Santo Entierro inside the glass casing of the carriage. Asleep. Its long golden brown hair was spread out like a fan. Its body covered with the richness of white and red velvet was adorned with beads of gold. The carriage was bedecked with sprays of palms and flowers, the ones used for funerals. Trinkets of lights illuminated the whole presentation. Death never had this brilliance.
"Well, we're ready," Tiya Patring said.
The boys--Ted, Joey, Nicky and Damian--opened the door and pulled the carriage out. A small crowd stood outside. They applauded as we made our way into the street behind the image. They made the sign of the cross and followed us. As we neared the church, I could see other carriages lined up, each one carrying a different image representing Lent. We were made to position somewhere at the end of the line. And the procession began. The band with scant composition of trumpets and drums lazily accompanied our strides. I snickered.
"Shhh," Doray warned.
When the sun came down, some people started handing out candles.
"Want to light one?" Doray slyly offered.
The procession went on for about two hours. People lined the streets. There were old people sitting on wheelchairs. Soon they would drown in the shadow of the evening. I thought of Lola Conching left alone in the house seeing the whole procession in her mind as she prayed for her soul. In her house candles burned like tired spirits.
When we neared the end of the procession, the carriages were brought inside the church.
"Let's go." Doray pulled me.
"Where?" I thought this would be the most awaited event of the day.
But her clutch slipped off my arm.
Then I saw a throng of people rushing towards us. Joey, Nicky and Damian struggled to pull the carriage to the entrance of the church. On top of the carriage were Tiyo Lindo and Ted brandishing wooden canes like warriors. Everyone was trying to get near the Santo Entierro. I was trapped. I couldn't get out from the sea of bodies. The wave threatened to crush me. I couldn't breathe. I was drowning. Some people had tears streaming down their faces, sobbing. Others screamed as Tiyo Lindo and Ted hit their hands with their wooden canes.
"The hair," someone shouted. "A strand of hair."
"No, don't!" I could no longer hear myself as I went down, pressed by the rush of wave.
Suddenly Tiyo Lindo and Ted were pulling me up. I slumped on the wooden top of the carriage, catching my breath. Below, the maddened faces of people receded as we entered the portals of the church.
We jumped off the carriage. Sweat pasted my shirt on to my skin. I felt we had gone through a siege. But the carriage was intact. The glass remained unbroken. The leaves of silver lining still glistened. Everything was in place. The rest of the boys, Joey, Nicky and Damian, volunteered to stay behind while we went home for dinner.
"You were lucky you didn't get crushed," said Ted.
I did not bother to say anything. I had not seen raw madness before.
"Is he all right?" Lola Conching asked me as we got to the top of the stairs.
"Burt," Doray came towards me. We need not say anything to each other. Tears were about to fall from my eyes.
"It's all right," I held her hands tight. "I'll be fine."
Later that evening we stayed in my room and drank whiskey.
"I'm sorry, Burt, I tried to get through." She recalled what happened earlier that evening.
We were silent for a while.
"It was so weird. They were scrambling. Those people were fanatics."
"The first time I saw it I thought I would go down on my knees." She smiled in disbelief.
Doray left at midnight to sleep in her room. I tossed in bed. I kept thinking about the mad rush of the crowd towards the Santo Entierro. What awesome power for one made of wood to draw the tide toward himself. My mind reeled. It was Black Saturday. The day of the dead Christ.
In the haze of alcohol, I got out of the room and cautiously made my way down the stairs and out of the house. I went out into the street and walked to the church. The moon had risen, big and bright. Its color oozed beyond its shape and bled the sky. The street was silent. As I neared the church, I heard its door open. It moaned. In the dimness of the surroundings I saw four men coming out of the church. They were carrying something wrapped in white sheets, like a dead man. It was the Santo Entierro! Oblivious of my presence, they struggled with its weight. Slowly I took several steps back. I turned around and cautiously walked back to the house. Then I saw that the windows of the other houses were shut. Tight. I remembered what Lola Conching said about the witches. I ran towards the house, racing against the pounding in my chest. Then I swiftly ascended the stairs. When I got to my room, I threw myself on the bed. At a surprising rate, I tucked the mosquito net in and closed my eyes. The Santo Entierro was stolen, the Santo Entierro was stolen! This I kept repeating to myself. I wanted to get up and tell Doray. But I was feeling too heady. I felt I was going to throw up. I closed my eyes and cascaded down into a labyrinth of darkness. Then I heard a flapping on wings. Wak, wak, wak. It flapped in the breeze blowing through my window. Wak, wak, wak. There it was again. I bolted up, charged with a current of electricity running through my veins. The mosquito net plunged down. I struggled against the mesh of its gauze. Then I saw the Santo Entierro! It stood inside the glass cabinet in front of my bed. I screamed. The shrillness shot through the stillness of San Jose Street.
"Burt," Doray rushed in. I screamed again. She peeled the mosquito net away. Then I felt her hands, her arms holding me close. I was drenched with sweat.
Someone knocked on the door.
I looked at the glass cabinet in front of my bed. It was empty.
"The Santo Entierro was stolen." I breathlessly whispered to Doray.
"The what?" She barely heard me.
"The Santo Entierro." I punctuated each word.
Doray stood up and opened the door. Lola Conching entered the room.
The Santo Entierro was stolen!" I cried. "It was stolen."
Lola Conching covered her face, fingers digging into her skin. Her breathing came in spasms. The rest of her kin stood behind her. I got out of bed.
"Where are you going?" Doray asked.
"To the church."
I grabbed Lola Conching and carried her in my arms as if she were a child. She weakly struggled against my strength.
"Leave her alone!" Doray cried. The rest of the family encircled us like the crowd that earlier surged towards the Santo Entierro.
"No!" I stared at them.
And we all marched down into the darkness of the street, all the way to the church. Lola Conching buried her face my chest. Her resistance was drowned in her sobbing.
The door of the church was open when we got there. Some people had left it open. We made our way through the carriages inside the shadow of the church's belly. Images loomed. Near the altar stood the black carriage with leaves of silver lining. I Set Lola Conching down on the floor She grappled with my feet, whimpering.
"Here." Tiya Patring offered me a candle. I took it.
"Light all the candles, Burt," Doray's voice quivered.
I numbly walked around the church and lit all the candles I could find. My hands shook. Lola Conching wailed Then I saw it. It was there. The Santo Entierro glistened inside the glass casing of its carriage.
"It's here, Lola Conching." My lips trembled. "The Santo Entierro is back!"
We all looked at Lola Conching, still slumped on the floor. She had stopped crying.
"Put out the candles," Lola Conching commanded.
Nobody moved. For a while everybody had stoned expressions on their faces.
"Put out the candles." This time her voice came undaunted.
One at a time her kin blew out the flames. Their somber faces were ghosts extinguished with the past. The Santo Entierro faded into darkness.
I sank to my knees with the last candle in my hands. Lola Conching rose. Layers of tormented skin peeled off her face that came to the light. I saw her real beauty. Immaculate, a flower whose petals would wither with a careless brush of fingers. I saw a girl of eighteen whose face was as fine and gentle as the hair of the wind. Then the features slowly changed with the diminishing flame. And between light and darkness was Rona's face completely devoid of pain.
The light of the candle in my hands flickered and died as Lola Conching's blind eyes gave way to tears that had welled through the years. In the darkness of the church I bowed my head as I convulsed with my own truths. Lola Conching held on to my arms as I held on to the candle. I could smell the pregnant whips of smoke rising from the faint orange glow of its wick.
Black Saturday. And now, Easter Sunday.
FIVE MATH POEMS
by Eileen Tupaz
i'm tired of being a zero vector
i'm tired of being a zero vector
with no direction
no dimension
and no magnitude;
what i need is another element
- but that would be
a contradiction
of my definition
soulmates
we are all of us
nonsingular creatures
whose identities
must be affirmed
before our inverses
can be found
conformity
why must life
be a diagonal matrix?
where every other path
that deviates from the main
is an unacceptable
- zero
[ ]
we are born
as identity matrices
[nonzero]
[nonempty]
a subset
of the complexity
that is the universe
until fate hands us a scalar
from the twin ends of infinity
and we grow in magnitude
to become universes
- ourselves
breaking point
a vector
is a scalar
that has been pushed
- too far
SOLEDAD
by Angela Manalang Gloria
It was a sacrilege, the neighbors cried,
The way she shattered every mullioned pane
To let a firebrand in. They tried in vain
To understand how one so carved from pride
And glassed in dream could have so flung aside
Her graven days, or why she dared profane
The bread and wine of life for some insane
Moment with him. The scandal never died.
But no one guessed that loveliness would claim
Her soul's cathedral burned by his desires
Or that he left her aureoled in flame…
And seeing nothing but her blackened spires,
The town condemned this girl who loved too well
and found her heaven in the depths of hell.
THE STEEL BRASSIERE
by Iris Sheila G. CrisostomoAT first I thought I was hearing the wind whistling through the termite-infested wall of Tiya Anding's house. Wind on a hot summer afternoon? Dismissing the noise as coming from rats slipping through hidden holes and crevices in the old house, I rummaged through the remaining boxes for things worth keeping.My visit to Tiya Anding's house on J.P. Rizal Street was prompted by a public notice from the city engineer's office that the property was scheduled for demolition to give way to the construction of an annex building for the town's health clinic.Tiya Anding was a friend who had no living relatives. When she died, her house and the 300-square-meter lot reverted to the government. With the impending demolition, I had hastily driven to that humble abode hoping to save a few memories of a past life.One of the queerest things I recovered from the pile of old clothes was an old bra. It wasn't fit for any young lady's breasts because it was made not of soft cotton or lace but of cold and hard metal. A steel bra. What was it doing in Tiya Anding's box? I thought to myself.For several nights, my thoughts were on the brassiere. Two cones of stainless steel with straps made of hammered wire. I tried it in front of the elongated mirror in the bedroom after I made sure the door was locked and the children had retired to their beds. I knew Lindoln wouldn't be home until midnight.I laughed when I saw myself with the bra covering my breasts. I looked like a character from a Mad Max movie. The bra looked like pointed armor ready to deflect an ax or a lance from the enemy--a sure protection for the delicate female flesh underneath. I remembered Madonna in her skimpy get-ups, net stockings and all, her tits in similar, pointed cones.After a while, the cold of the metal against my skin produced a strange eerie feeling. The bra properly belonged to an ancient warrior-princess yet I felt I was too weak to fight my own battles."YOU'VE been to the old house again," my husband's voice boomed from the bathroom. He had just finished shaving. I said nothing as I handed him the towel like I always do each morning. "I called the house at 3 o'clock and the maids said you went out," he continued while wiping his chin dry."I was at the house all afternoon," I replied, seeing no reason to withhold the truth. "The house will go down next week. I just took home some things."I thought I saw a smirk on his face when he remarked, "It's about time they do something about that house. It's rotting, anyway." I wanted to walk out of the room in protest but didn't. I was too kind--too foolishly kind.Sunlight was streaming in through the open window. The curtains lifted in the breeze. It would have been a beautiful day if not for the conversation.AFTER breakfast, I asked him for money because I would be taking little Gina and Jonathan to the park that afternoon. He took out P500 then changed his mind and gave me P300 instead. I whispered "Thank you" loud enough for him to hear but my hand was crushing the bills inside my pocket.I had been married to Lindoln for eight years but it felt like I'd been living with a stranger. He was the champion debater in my class and he won me over an argument why two people needed each other to live: "A man needs a woman to take care of his needs and the woman needs a man to support her." Later I wondered about the role of love which was supposed to be the reason why two people share their lives.Lindoln was a good provider, the sales manager of a pharmaceutical company that paid well. He gave me a big house with a lush garden, a dutiful maid and an excellent cook. There was nothing more to ask but I felt I really had nothing."Stay home. It's best for you and our children," he told me after I gave birth to Jonathan. He thought he was relieving me of the trouble of working outside the home but he was really closing a door and locking me in.I took the children to the park to see the great fountain that squirted water 50 meters high. With each squirt came sounds of innocent wonder as little heads looked up the sky, following the burst of crystal liquid that disappeared for a moment then fell back with a great splashing sound. There were shrieks of glee and the patter of little feet running to get nearer for a closer look each time the fountain squirted water once more."Mama, the fountain!" cried eight-year-old Jonathan. He was holding his sister Gina by the hand and leading her to the edge of the fountain."Take care not to get wet," I called out. He nodded. I could see him smiling in the distance. He had his father's winsome smile. I finished my ice cream, my second helping.Later in the afternoon, we wandered through the playground and spent time pushing one another on the swing. Twin metal chains fastened the swing to a horizontal steel bar and once again the feel of the cold steel between my fingers made me think of Tiya Anding's breast armor.As the swing swayed back and forth, I closed my eyes and my hand went over my chest, remembering how the hard metal felt against my flesh. The wind was brushing against my face with every swing and I felt like a warrior riding with the wind, charging towards the enemy. Then I felt a drop of liquid on my cheek. Was it a tear? Was I crying?As I felt more drops, I realized a drizzle was starting. I called out to the children and we ran to the parking lot but it was a long way getting there. I stepped on mud and slipped on the pavement made slippery by the rain. Jonathan came back to help me but I was already up and laughing at my own clumsiness.The rain was now falling harder and I was dripping wet. Trotting to the car with the children, I found myself in a playful mood, enjoining them to guess which key will open the car door. There were about twenty keys in the chain and it took me several minutes before I finally opened the door.By that time, we were soaked to our skins. Jonathan made faces as he pulled at his baggy pants heavy with rain. Gina was laughing as she changed into an old T-shirt she found in the car. It turned out to be a clean rag but she didn't mind. She was just glad to be out of her wet clothes. I knew it was foolish to play in the rain but I felt no remorse.As expected, the children came down with a cold and Lindoln kept me up all night with his how-to-be-a-good-mother lectures."Haven't you any sense at all?" he asked, slamming the closet door with a loud thud. "No mother in her right mind would permit her children to play in the rain. And what's worse, they did not even ask to do it. You actually invited them to play. So what do you call that?""I'm sorry," I replied flatly. "'Something just got into me. It will never happen again.""Unbelievable. The kids get into more trouble when they're with you," he barked then crept into bed with his back turned to me. I lay awake for what seemed like an hour before I heard a faint snore. Then I went to the balcony for some air. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted to laugh if it would help. For the first time, I felt nothing. Lindoln's words which used to bother me into sleepless nights didn't mean anything anymore. I looked up the sky but saw no stars. I felt no fear. I felt I could do anything and still remain unfeeling.Then I remembered Tiya Anding. We used to walk together along stretches of empty streets with nothing but towering lamp posts above us craning their necks as if eager to listen. She would tell me about her husband, Tata Fernan, who used to berate her about her smoking. Tata Fernan hated her smoking. But Tiya Anding brushed aside all his words aside calling him a coward because he feared for her life."That old man just cannot live without me;" she said with a smirk on her face."And you?" I asked."You can say the feeling is mutual. We go a long way back. Had lots of fun together. He was never a bore. So how is Lindoln?" Tiya Anding always had a way of shifting our conversation to my husband. She remembered Lindoln whenever she spoke about Tata Fernan."Always too busy," I answered."If that man could just slow down a bit, he wouldn't be missing out on things." Tiya Anding said, making a round billow of smoke in the air.I WATCHED as the demolition team tore the house down, clouds of dust and dirt went flying everywhere. I thought of Tiya Anding's similar emissions as a heavy smoker. I watched as wooden planks were pried from the walls and the old, rusty roofing pulled down. Doorposts fell like giant toothpicks against the heavy arm of moving machines. Besides myself, children from nearby shanties were standing by, watching the men operate their giant toys with ease.When the entire structure finally torn down, I felt like I had lost a part of myself--an arm maimed or broken off in an injury. With a heavy heart, I headed back to the house thinking about Tiya Anding and her words: "That old man just can't live without me." Can I say the same about Lindoln? And can I live without him?After lunch, I helped the maid get the laundry from the clothesline. After a few minutes under the hot midday sun, I went back inside to the kitchen for a cold glass of water. The feel of the cold pitcher in my hand made me think of the cold metal I once wore against my breast. The feel of the steel brassiere was as comforting and reassuring as the ice water running down my throat.The sound of the ringing phone brought me back to my senses. It was Lindoln."Hey, Pareng Jimmy will be coming over for dinner tonight. Can you prepare his favorite rellenong bangus?""What?" I asked, still holding the cold glass in hand."I said Pareng Jimmy will come for dinner tonight...""Call again. The line is bad. I can't quite hear you." I put the phone down and leisurely walked to the bedroom.And the phone rang again and again and again.Sunlight was streaming in through the open window. The curtains lifted in the breeze. It would have been a beautiful day if not for the incessant ringing of the phone.
TETHER
by May M. Tobias
IT didn’t feel like another day, for it was only six hours earlier that he had logged out. There he was, back at his post again. Efren’s oldest son was graduating from high school that day, and Mang Arthur took over the remaining twelve-to-six shift so his friend could attend the afternoon ceremonies. It wasn’t as if he minded. Mang Arthur barely had sleep that morning, anyway. Nor the morning before. Lately, Mang Arthur’s days have been like that—like little, floating, shapeless clouds that blended seamlessly into each other because of his lack of sleep.
“Whoa! You look so handsome today, Pards,” Mang Arthur said, pretending to be taken aback at seeing his young friend emerge from the men’s room. Efren had changed into a barong, and his security guard’s uniform had disappeared into his black nylon backpack that didn’t quite go with the barong. His naturally curly hair glistened as if wet, tamed and slicked back undoubtedly with hair gel. “So, what time’s the vista, attorney?” he teased, as Efren self-consciously smoothed down his hair.
“Mang Art…” Efren objected to the older man’s ribbing. He looked to see if any of the crew members heard; knowing them, he was so sure they wouldn’t let him hear the end of it.
“You’re a lucky man, Efren,” Mang Arthur said. “Only thirty-two but with a son about to graduate from high school already. You and Celina must be so proud.” Something pricked the back of his eyes.
It didn’t seem too long ago when Maring had the miscarriage. A boy. All of a sudden it dawned on Mang Arthur that had the baby lived, he would have been in college now. How time flies.
“Jun-jun’s very bright.” A little smile played at the corners of Efren’s mouth at the thought of his oldest son. “He’s hoping to go to U.P. on scholarship. He wants to be a lawyer someday.”
Mang Arthur tried to fight the sadness that was threatening to invade his thoughts. “Maring and I, we still haven’t given up trying,” he lied. It surprised him how effortlessly the words came out of his mouth. “We’re hoping to have at least one before all my teeth fall off,” he laughed heartily, “and I would really like to at least live to see him graduate from Grade Six.” Mang Arthur laughed so hard at his own joke that a tear came from the corner of an eye.
They must not have made love for—how long has it been?—probably a couple of years now. Since he started drinking, they had not so much as even kissed. But he had since kicked the habit; he gave it up almost as soon as he started it. Still, it hadn’t escaped him how Maring always seemed repulsed whenever he reached out to touch her, or even just when his arm brushed against her accidentally. Something had not felt right in their marriage lately. And it hung thickly in the air in the precious few minutes of daylight they saw each other, as he came home from his graveyard shift and she prepared to leave for the houses of the people whose laundry she washed. But there still was enough time, he thought, wasn’t there? He was so sure things would be all right again and they could try having a child once more. After all, his wife was too young for menopause, she would only be thirty-six in two weeks.
And it was all a pity, really. Lately Mang Arthur noticed how Maring had suddenly seemed to have a renewed interest in her looks. She had started to fix herself up again, and she had begun to look a lot younger than her years. Although she was not really beautiful, she had a face made childlike by a round nose and plump, pouty lips. The years had rounded her boyishly thin figure into soft, womanly curves; the days she had spent on her haunches washing kilos of laundry under the sun had rendered her limbs brown, muscular and lean. Mang Arthur could not tell when he first noticed it, but lately his wife had even started wearing baby cologne, too. And it lingered long after she had left mornings, mingling with the fresh, wet smell of her soap and shampoo, and always, as he tried to shut his eyes to sleep by burying his face in his pillow, never failed to leave him with a painful sense of longing.
“Mang Art, thanks for covering for me,” Efren said, playfully jabbing Mang Arthur on the shoulder. “I owe you one.”
“Don’t mention it, Attorney,” Mang Arthur gave his friend a mock salute. Efren good-naturedly pretended to grab for the gun in Mang Arthur’s holster. Both men laughed.
“Excuse me,” Rissa called out sternly from the counter and gave them a sharp look. There was a queue of six customers in front of her, all patiently waiting for their turn to be served. It always amazed Mang Arthur how Rissa always found the time to find fault with everybody else’s movements in the restaurant while minding the cash register.
“Gotta go now,” Efren said, adjusting his backpack straps. He looked so ill at ease in his borrowed barong. “I wouldn’t want to get caught in traffic and be late, or else Jun‑jun’s never going to forgive me.” It was obvious that he was nervous; sweat marks had already started to form in the armpits of the barong.
“Go, go, go,” Mang Arthur waved the younger man off and followed him with his eyes to the corner. Efren walked self-consciously down the block, his hands inside his trouser pockets. And then, as if remembering something, the young man suddenly took his hands out of his pockets and walked with them hanging stiffly down his sides. He turned to glance back at Mang Arthur to wave and mouth Thanks! before he flagged down a jeepney bound for Quiapo.
Had they only more time and not alternated shifts, he was so sure that he and Efren would hit it off as very good friends despite their age difference. Mang Arthur sighed. Friendships were an unaffordable luxury in his job.
AS Mang Arthur stood at his post by the store entrance, weariness spread over him and weighed him down like a heavy leaden blanket. Lately, he had become painfully conscious of the monotony of his job: he would open the door and greet every customer, and in spite of all the attention they paid him he might as well be invisible. He thought that the very least they could do was look him in the eye.
He hadn’t always felt like that. When he first got the job, Mang Arthur thought he was lucky, the job seemed to have just been there, waiting for him. He had applied for the job of security guard as a last resort—he really had no choice. He must have seen the sign every day the past week every time he got down from the jeepney at the corner of Sta Monica and Adriatico streets and walked to the overseas placement agency where he had been applying for a job for three weeks before it made sense to him. “Security Guard Wanted Immediately,” it said in big letters on the whiteboard outside Lawin Security Agency. One day, in all clarity it came to him, the realization that he should apply for it instead.
At forty-four, and after weeks of futilely queuing up at the overseas placement office, it dawned on him that they preferred healthier, younger men—men like Efren—for the construction sites. That day, as he got off the jeepney, he went straight to Lawin Security instead of the overseas placement office and inquired about the job. An hour later, he emerged from Lawin Security Agency a changed man. Mang Arthur, the ex-overseas contract worker, presently ampalaya/talong/pechay grower, was to report for training the very next morning as a Lawin security guard.
It wasn’t that he was a weakling for his age. He had a sturdy build—the squat, brawny build of a farmer, having descended from a long line of them. The day their family carabao gored his father to death—the same carabao he took to pasture early every morning as a little boy—the young Arturo Libiran Rosales decided that working the fields was not for him. He had a premonition, he knew that the goring was an accident waiting to happen. He never failed to be conscious of the tautness of the rope in his hands as the animal tugged from the other end. He thought he saw it in the beast’s eyes, too: as if it asked, what right do you humans have to curtail my movement and use me as your beast of burden? The boy Arturo never told anybody, but he had a secret fear of the carabao one day turning wild and chasing someone with its horns, as it one day eventually did, killing his father. As soon as he turned fourteen, he slipped on a cargo ship bound for Manila, hiding in a cramped position amid sacks of sugar for two days with just a bag of pan de sal and a bottle of water for provisions.
DAY after day, for almost three weeks before he got the job at the security agency, he had gone to Bernardo’s Overseas Placement, and noticed his papers were taking an impossibly long time to process. Every day under the hot sun, with his bio-data, ID pictures and all other requirements in order, neatly filed in a plastic envelope, he patiently took his place in the queue with a new set of people mainly because those who lined up with him got assignments ahead of him, leaving the queue to him and newer applicants.
He hadn’t really wanted to start working in another country again, especially now that he had been home these past five years. Slaving away in a foreign land was the most cruel thing a man could ever voluntarily do to himself, he thought. And to make things worse, in the end he had nothing to show at all for the fifteen years he had worked abroad—first in Dubai, and then Jeddah. In return for his backbreaking work at his very first construction site (they built a road through the desert), he was paid a pittance—just enough to afford him little luxuries like cigarettes and the fortnightly cinema to help stave off homesickness. But although he got better-paying contracts after that, his earnings the years thereafter he had to divide between his wife Maring and his widowed mother who took care his nine younger siblings who were still in school back then in Iloilo.
When his last overseas contract expired, he thought of trying his luck in Manila. But construction work was hard to come by if you didn’t know any contractors. And five years of growing vegetables in vacant lots—in between jobs in construction sites that came few and far between—hardly gave him the face to show his wife who earned most of their livelihood from washing clothes. Several times, seeing Maring hunched over her mountainloads of laundry, he had been tempted to tell her to stop. But he was helpless to do anything about it. Poor Maring had not uttered a word of complaint to him during the nearly twenty years they had been married although he knew she seethed inside. He could tell, just from the looks she gave him sometimes.
He couldn’t tell what was going on in his wife’s mind, what she really thought of him—they had been like strangers ever since he came back from Jeddah five years ago. Looking back, he realized that maybe he’d never known his wife after all. She was practically a child when he they first met—she used to sell cigarettes by the entrance of the paper factory where he used to work, and she was hardly a woman yet when he left for Dubai. He imagined it would be an uphill climb to really get to know her, and so he sought to gain her respect by trying to go overseas again.
Instead, he landed the job at Lawin Security Agency. At least, he thought, a low-paying stable job was better than nothing.
Even the security agency had hesitated in hiring him. For somebody without previous security work experience, they found him too old. He had not even finished the second year of high school the agency required. But it seemed that they were in dire need of a guard when he applied—a rush requirement from one of their old, valued clients—and they had to hire him the day he applied even if it meant they had to tweak his bio-data a bit (it wasn’t as if they had not done it before), speed up his training, and fake his license (they assured him they would get him a real one in no time), or lose a client. He couldn’t believe his luck; everything happened so fast. It had seemed to good to be true, like puzzle pieces all fitting neatly into place. Mang Arthur knew that luck was further on his side when he found out that the old client of the agency’s he was going to be assigned was an outlet of the popular fastfood chain, Porky’s. What had been his greatest fear was to be assigned to a bank or pawnshop, which were vulnerable to holdups, and had made him view the job initially with trepidation.
At the end of his training, when he was issued the service revolver by the agency, he was awed by the fact that what they were giving him was a real gun, designed to kill. Only then did he realize that it did not make too much sense for it to be otherwise. Before he became one of them, he must have dismissed security guards’ guns as mere props, like the fancy ones actors used in action movies. For the first few weeks at his new job, he was morbidly conscious of its heavy weight against his thigh, but more than that, he was conscious of its potential to kill. Tracing the cold, unyielding grooves on the barrel and fingering the trigger was enough to make the hair on his neck stand on end. As he held the grip, he thought he felt a sense of a pre-ordained fate: he was awed at how it fit snugly in the palm of his hand.
AT Porky’s, which stays open till 11:00 PM, he was assigned the night shift—he didn’t mind, although it needed getting used to working at night and sleeping in the day. Every afternoon before he left for work, Maring made him three cups of strong, black barako coffee in his thermos flask which effectively kept him awake all night.
The hamburger joint was sandwiched between a department store and a long row of shoe stores that stretched half the length of the block. After nine, when all the stores had closed, nothing much really happened in that part of Cubao. Mang Arthur’s shift started at 6:00 PM, and ended at 6:00 AM the following day. His salary, which had been delayed for almost a month now, wasn’t much, but thankfully, his meals were free—he had a choice of any item on the fastfood’s menu provided he didn’t go over his weekly meal allowance: Porky’s Chorizoburger, Porky’s Cheeseburger, Porky’s Coleslaw Burger, Porky’s Hawaiian Burger, Porky’s Teriyaki Burger, Porky’s Double with Cheese, and Porky’s Hamburger Steak (his favorite, the most expensive item on the menu, which his allowance allowed him to have thrice a week) and two heaping cups of rice.
And he had a smart uniform—crisp white short-sleeved polo with a dark blue tie, matching dark blue pants, and a dark blue cap. He had joked with Maring that his folks back in Iloilo surely won’t recognize him, dapper as he was in his uniform—insignia, name patch, shiny belt buckle (which he polished religiously with Glo) and all—like the navy man he had dreamed to be as a child. He also liked to brag good-humoredly to his wife that he’d eaten so much Porky’s that it’s already coming out of his ears—now, how many of their relatives can claim that, he asked, much less know how to knot a tie smartly.
“Good evening, ma’am. Good evening, sir.” “Thank you, ma’am. Thank you, sir.” Coming or going, he made sure he greeted each and every one of the customers who walked past the outlet’s entrance, no matter how many they were. He had developed a style, (he had practiced this, as well as his smile, countless times in front of the mirror on Maring’s aparador) and he made sure he didn’t stammer. He prided himself on his pronunciation which he personally thought was not bad for a poor, under-educated Visayan boy like him who had only finished one year of high school. He never scrimped on enunciating clearly. “Good eve-ning”, he said—taking time with each syllable whenever he can—although no matter how he tried, it frustrated him because it always came out as “Gudevneng”.
Another thing he took personal pride in was the amazing speed with which he could greet each and every customer who walked past him. He even varied his tempo, depending on his mood. “Good evening, sir. Good evening, ma’am… Goodeveningma’amgoodeveningsirgood eveningma’am!” He even thought that the customers secretly appreciated this music in his delivery, never mind that sometimes they appeared indifferent as they stared blankly ahead as they passed him.
Once, an androgynous group with uniformly cut hair walked past, and there was an instant he almost faltered but quickly recovered. That night, he surprised even himself with the ease and efficiency with which he greeted every one in the group: “Good evening sir-Good evening ma’am-Good evening ma’am-Good evening m-sir… Good evening ma’am!” At the end of it, he was confident that he had greeted everybody in the group properly. Several minutes later, as they stepped out into the street, thanking them was a breeze for him.
BUT today, Mang Arthur was feeling a little out of sorts. Yesterday, when he went to the security agency to collect his pay, he was told that it was going to be delayed again—the third time in his fifth month as a security guard. The secretary told him that Porky’s still hadn’t paid them that fortnight, and that he might just want to make another loan instead. In two weeks Maring was celebrating her thirty-sixth birthday. He had wanted to surprise her with a washing machine.
“That’s what you always tell me,” he told the secretary. “How do I know whether you’re telling the truth and not merely holding on to my pay, just to convince me to get a loan?” Blood pounded in his ears as he struggled to stop himself from hitting the secretary with the black lipstick who simply raised an eyebrow at his outburst.
“Well, I can’t do anything about it, can I? I’m just a secretary here,” she said, rolling her eyes as she spoke. Without waiting for him to make up his mind about the loan, she pushed towards him a promissory note for him to sign. She knew he was going to sign it anyway.
“I’ll wait for Colonel Lawin, “ he said, taking out his folded Balitafrom his back pocket and sitting on the bench in front of the secretary. The woman let out an audible, exasperated sigh.
THE Colonel did not come to work. In the end, after waiting six hours without even leaving for lunch, Mang Arthur got a loan, knowing too well that the agency was going to deduct the 40% interest again from his next salary. But he had no choice; he couldn’t go home to Maring without money when she knew that he had a job. He never told her that the money he had been taking home had been loans for the most part. She would only think he was lying; she would even probably think he had started drinking again. Besides, he couldn’t afford to, especially now that he felt he was well on his way to regaining his wife’s respect. And he had wanted so much to impress her with the washing machine.
On the jeepney on his way to Porky’s for his night shift, the patronizing tone in the secretary’s voice kept ringing in his ears and it made him feel small. The late afternoon heat from the streets of Manila rose and traced patterns in his face with light, tiny fingers but he couldn’t tell for certain whether it was the heat or his being flustered that warmed his cheeks. It was as if he had gone begging, when in fact he had only come to collect what he rightly deserved for a full month’s worth of work. He had to forego sleep just to be able to collect his pay during their office hours only to be told after six hours of waiting for Ret. Col. Manuel J. Lawin for an explanation that all they could offer him was another loan.
When he got his lunch at the counter, he was about to protest about the way the boy Louie had dumped his rice just so, his Hamburger Steak (for it was his Hamburger Steak day) slapped on top of the rice, the gravy poured carelessly in runny rivulets all over his tray lined with the wax paper they use to wrap Porky’s hamburgers with. But he decided against it and kept silent as he watched the mascot Porky’s multiple images on the wrapper grin and slowly soak up the gravy. Mang Arthur was sure Louie had done it deliberately—there was a wide-eyed innocuous look about him that looked suspicious; somehow the way the boy’s childish lips curved upwards at the corners hinted of something wicked. He believed that there was a conspiracy between Louie and the other boy, Mark—the one who worked evening shifts and who usually prepared his food. I’m going to tell Ma’am Lorna about this, he said to himself, putting his complete faith in the manager who was out that afternoon on a Porky’s TQM seminar. Ma’am Lorna’s going to tell these boys to do better than treat a person like a pig.
And so he kept his thoughts to himself and quietly ate his lunch by the window.
“Mang Arthur,” Rissa called from the counter. “After you’re done eating, will you wipe those tables over there? They’re so dirty,” she said with a grimace. “And you’re supposed to take the trays from the tables and empty them into the trash bin—Efren does that without being told, you know.”
Mang Arthur knew better than argue with Rissa. He was lucky he didn’t have to deal with her much because her shift ended at 7:00 PM, an hour after he started his regular shift. He wondered how the boy Efren found Rissa. It was effortless for her to reduce anyone to humiliation; she seemed to have a gift for it. With the confident manner she asserted herself—the others said that she was studying to be a lawyer—it was always difficult to get into an argument with her because she always insisted that she was right. She was a girl as haughty as she was big, perhaps because she was a scholar in a big-time private university, although Mang Arthur knew she was as poor as the other students who worked the shifts at Porky’s.
“Mang Arthur,” she hollered again from the counter. Porky’s at 2:00 PM was a sleepy place. It was when most of the crew members took their late lunch and naps.
“Did you hear me? Will you at least nod if you heard me?” Rissa’s features scrunched in the middle of her face.
Mang Arthur frowned as he chewed his food slowly, as if pondering a problem. A nerve twitched in his right temple. The harsh mid-afternoon sun washed the small, square interior of Porky’s with a glaring light. Porky’s owners had thought of unifying all their stores with a design scheme reminiscent of grilled, Spanish-type adobe houses; now the fancy grills threw long vertical shadows on the white tables, fiberglass seats and vinyl flooring, and it reminded Mang Arthur forlornly of a cage.
“I am waiting, Mang Arthur.” Rissa drummed her thick, stubby fingers on the counter top. Outside, the noise of the jeepneys had receded to a distant, hypnotic din; inside Porky’s, the coffeemaker and the juice dispensers droned steadily.
Mang Arthur finished the remainder of his food without saying a word and got up to the trash bin to empty his tray. After that, he gathered the trays as well from the other tables and ditched the contents into the trash bin.
“Thank you,” Rissa said, the sarcasm in her tone heavily emphasized. “Now if you will kindly wipe the tables, too,” she said, throwing a damp rag at him, almost hitting him in the face. The other crew members resting at the unoccupied tables suppressed their giggles, and hid their faces in their arms, pretending to sleep. “Shut up,” Rissa said crossly, addressing her lazy co-workers. “I’ll tell Ma’am Lorna about you guys when she comes, you’ll see.”
“Sipsip!” the one named Tere shouted at Rissa, and tossed her long curly tresses from her face. She was very pretty and also seemed well aware of it. She had very good skin which she emphasized with the very red lipsticks she wore to work. When he first saw her, Mang Arthur found it incredible that somebody like her would work in a place like Porky’s and not be a movie star. She had movie star looks, and Mang Arthur thought she could easily get into the movies if she wanted.
As he quietly wiped the tables with broad, swift strokes, Mang Arthur threw his oppressor a furtive glance. He observed how Rissa’s small, pig-like eyes narrowed into even tinier slits as she talked, and how her mouth moved obliviously of the heavy cheeks that fell on either side of it, the nostrils that flared amply over the meager nose above it, the thick jowl that trembled beneath it that almost totally hid a neck. Mang Arthur realized how he felt sorry for her, really; he thought it pathetic that such discordant elements could find themselves in one face.
Tere’s features, on the other hand were different. She was as blessed with looks as Rissa was cursed. “Miss Beautiful,” he called her. He thought it would flatter her. Good afternoon, Miss Beautiful. Good night, Miss Beautiful, he always bid her, which Tere always returned pointedly with a raised eyebrow and a full-lipped pout as she passed him. She probably thought that a dirty old man was in love with her.
IT was about four-thirty in the afternoon when Ma’am Lorna’s brown box-type Lancer pulled up into the reserved parking slot of Porky’s. Mang Arthur ran to hold open the door for her; Ma’am Lorna stiffly smiled her thanks. Mang Arthur planned to tell her just then—about the delay in his salary and the lousy way the crew members served his meals— but Ma’am Lorna looked a bit cross. He thought that maybe it would be better to wait a little.
“HOY,” a burly teen-aged boy with short, spiky hair called Mang Arthur. He was in a group of seven, all similarly attired in black. “Hoy, you there,” he indicated with his puckered lips. He cocked his head to motion Mang Arthur over to their table. They had walked in almost half an hour ago and still had not ordered anything. Their books and bags were strewn over three tables. Mang Arthur had been meaning to tell them that they were taking up too much space.
“What’s the problem?” Mang Arthur asked. He meant to sound authoritative, meant for his voice to indicate that he was in charge.
“You’re the problem, boss,” the boy had a nose-ring. His face was dense with acne. “You remember my friend here?” Mang Arthur remembered the tall, lanky boy from three nights ago; he had come to Porky’s alone, obviously intoxicated. He had reeked of alcohol which he was sipping from a large plastic cup of Coke. Mang Arthur did not let him in. The boy did not insist and quietly swaggered drunkenly away; Mang Arthur thought it was the end of that.
“He was drunk…” Mang Arthur said. Outside, the late December afternoon sun quickly gave way to dusk; the traffic had slowed as jeepneys crowded the narrow street with impatient office workers and tired shoppers rushing home.
“Were you?” the fat boy asked his gangly friend. The thin wide-eyed boy shook his head. Although the other boy was a head taller than the fat boy, the fat boy was obviously the leader of the group. He looked at Mang Arthur again. He was about an inch taller than the security guard. “He says he wasn’t,” he snarled. “So why’d you throw him out?”
“He’s lying,” Mang Arthur simply said.
“Hey-hey-hey, easy! Why’re you calling my friend a liar? Who d’ya think you are—hey, old man?” the fat boy let out his words in slurred bursts, poking a finger at Mang Arthur’s chest. His lower jaw angrily jutted out, his eyebrows were knitted tightly as if to help him keep his focus; he breathed heavily. He was obviously high on drugs. Then he burped loudly. His friends laughed. The other diners at Porky’s started to notice the commotion. On the sidewalk, through the glass wall, Mang Arthur and the fat boy drew curious stares from the passersby as well.
“Super lolo.” The fat boy let out a loud snort. His friends guffawed uncontrollably. “How’re the knees, ’lo?” Obviously, the fat boy was showing off to his friends.
Mang Arthur wanted to swing a fist and hit the boy in the face; he couldn’t take any more of his taunts. It was surprising how he didn’t feel sleepy at all despite his sleeplessness. Every nerve in his body seemed taut, alert, awake. He breathed deeply and deliberately, and concentrated on controlling his temper. The fat boy couldn’t be more than fifteen, he thought; if Maring’s baby had survived the miscarriage, the child would even have been older than him.
Ma’am Lorna broke the small crowd that had gathered around Mang Arthur and the fat boy. “What’s the matter here?” she asked. The fat boy’s friends grew nervous and uneasy; some had already begun to gather their things from their table.
“Your security guard here, he threw out my friend three nights ago,” the fat boy drew himself to his full height before the petite store manager.
“He was drunk,” Mang Arthur explained.
But Ma’am Lorna didn’t seem to hear him. She didn’t even look at him for an explanation. She asked the fat boy, “So what do you want?”
“An apology from him,” the fat boy said.
“Please apologize, Mang Arthur…” Ma’am Lorna said in a carefully measured tone. “You will apologize to this young man here and his friend.”
Mang Arthur couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Of all people, he had expected her to understand. “But…”
“Well?…” Ma’am Lorna let out a deep breath; she was impatient to settle the problem and go back to the paperwork at her office. “Please, Mang Arthur,” her girlish voice—cracking—was slowly losing the controlled, authoritative effect she had intended. “Please don’t make us all wait unnecessarily —I’ve got so much to do. Will you just do what this boy wants?”
There was triumph in the fat boy’s eyes; his friends snickered behind their backpacks.
“Mang Arthur, please.” Ma’am Lorna was firm. Mang Arthur felt all eyes inside and outside Porky’s fastened on him.
Mang Arthur frowned; for a long time he had difficulty finding the right way to open his mouth to utter the words—it was as though he were just learning to speak for the first time: “I-I’m sorry.”
“Yeah!” The fat boy said; his friends hooted and made wolf whistles and they gave each other high fives. The fat boy smiled smugly at Mang Arthur.
“Now that you’ve got your apology,” Ma’am Lorna said sharply, “will you now all please step out and promise to keep out of this place? I don’t ever want to see your faces here again, understand?”
Mang Arthur stared dumbly at Ma’am Lorna. At the fat boy and his friends. He turned to look at Rissa, Tere and the other crew members at the counter. All eyes were on him. Mang Arthur moved his eyes repeatedly back and forth among them till all their faces melded into a blurred, shapeless mass. Beads of perspiration formed on his brow despite the air conditioning. The piped-in music, the loudness of which had always bothered him, suddenly seemed to come from so far away, hovering lightly on the outer fringes of his hearing.
Just then, he remembered the weight that rested heavily on his right thigh. He became conscious of his hands that had been hanging stiffly down his sides for what had seemed an eternity, the fingertips had gone numb; for a moment he had a fleeting feel of coarse rope tugging in his palms—itching, rasping, persistent. In his heart, he felt the gnawing, familiar fear he thought he had left in the past—in his long-ago childhood—having travelled miles and years to distance himself from it. He gagged; there was a funny metallic taste in his mouth that made him want to throw up. All over his body he felt hot, yet his hands curiously felt cold. A dull pain throbbed in his temples, blocking out the sights and sounds of that early evening in the half-filled restaurant. Then, his troubled heart realizing it was nearing home was filled with a great calm. All of a sudden Mang Arthur’s hand jerked to life; his palm sought the immutable coldness of steel.
