If only I saw God, beside me right that moment, I would be sure to ask Him, why he gave me such kind of life, the kind that lives without a clear vision of tomorrow. The kind that sent me to an everyday battle with an enemy I cannot see. A haunting that I kept running away from.
It would seem to me that I have long immortalized my death. In everyday that I die, I would wake up the following morning to be among the company of the living. They all have so much to live for. Then I would see that they still have their souls intact in their bodies, while I, remained floating in the rivers of oblivion.
But then again, God does not have a face of His own, yet His spirit comes among the courage of the living. His wisdom comes from among those, whose presence has caused my death. For they have killed me, unintentionally or not, but in the course of my execution, they breathe life out of my misery.
That night, I heard the house sing. The music that, to the ordinary man of the time, sounded like that of quivering bodies on burning streets. The music that sounded like sirens and crackling guns to my ears, a lullaby of death.
I caught up with all the three when I arrived home that night after a marathon with the pouring rain. I knocked on the door, wet, and chilling with the cold. Amidst the roaring sound of the rain, I could hear the faint sound of the guitar, accompanying a passionate, yet sad and solitary voice of a young lady. Then the smell of cigarette. When nobody seemed to have noticed at first, I knocked even harder. The guitar stopped from playing, and the voice faded fast into the rain. The door partly opened, and a face with thick lens eyeglasses appeared, peering through the opening. The door quickly opened wide and I saw Boyet, looking like he has just leaped towards the door in surprise. His one hand holding the door handle, balancing on one foot, the other with raised heel with its toes barely touching the floor behind the other foot. His other hand hanged on the side holding a book. From the looks of it, he was reading that book, and had to close it, inserting a finger on the page where he left, when he was interrupted by the knockings on the door. He sighed as if he has just been relieved of something.
"Leon!"
"I’m sorry. Did I disturb you?"
"Oh no, not at all. Get inside, you’re wet."
I walked past him in a hurry. He gave me a gentle push in the back. Past the chair that has its back facing the door. I presume it was where Boyet sat, reading his book. At the center table was an ashtray with five cigarettes, all consumed, swimming in the pond of ashes, two docked on the side, one worth a puff more, and the other, half consumed. The smoke zigzagged above it. On the side was a matchbox with two used match sticks flanking, a pack of Marlboro exposing two sticks on the open side. Julian was on the chair next to the center table, facing the door. He was hugging the guitar the way Albert always did, and had just tossed a newspaper on the long chair when I saw him. It landed on the books that scattered on the chair, along with some stacks of stapled papers. There was a pile of newsprints on the chair. He had to pass a strange look at Boyet before he was able to smile at me and mentioned my name. I walked past him. I headed for the bathroom, the all-purpose room. Mira sprung from the darkness of the kitchen when I saw her on my way. She was composing herself.
"I’ll take care of your clothes, Leon. I know where to get it."
"Thank you, Mira."
She smiled, perhaps wondering why I didn’t call her Ate. From the start, I have always felt it awkward to be calling her, Ate. I am taller than she is, and since my earlier encounter with Victor, I realized that there wasn’t so much of a gap to start behaving like we were of the same age. She was sixteen, going seventeen, and I was fourteen, behaving like twelve, believing I’m fourteen, yet thinking like twenty-one. I thought, if I would balance it all together, I would be at the right age to marry her. I was already starting to fall for her.
The rain slowed down but the clattering sound of raindrops on the roof was still as loud that I almost forgot that there were three other people in the house, outside the four dark walls of the all-purpose toilet. After my bath, I wrapped myself with a towel exposing only my bare upper body. When I opened the door on my way out, my heart leaped at the sight of Mira, blocking the doorway. She had been waiting outside with my clean clothes clipped by folded arms on her stomach. But what caught my attention was the shape of her upper body and how her way of tucking my clothes in her arms had defined the curves of her breasts. I could tell she was no longer a young girl. I tried to keep my eyes on her face but it kept dropping. She handed me my clothes without a word and turned away.
I closed the door and fell to contemplation in the darkness of the room. It took me a while before I finally went out. I was wondering if she was really the one who picked my clothes, because the shirt and the pair of shorts she gave me included an underwear. I have kept my underwear on a separate drawer in the cabinet. It’s strange how she seems to know her way through my things. The thought of it embarrassed me.
After my bath I had supper. I ate the food that Aling Taleng brought for lunch. There was not enough left but they saved just enough for me. It was still warm when I ate it. Mira said she heated it for me. I thanked her and she smiled.
Julian had been playing the guitar with his head bending over and almost kissing the strings. It was Mira I heard singing when I arrived. And she was singing again while I was busy stuffing my mouth with food. I know the songs she was singing. I hear it all the time. These are the songs I usually hear from the rallies on the streets and in those places where they put up a small platform and somebody would lead the singing while accompanied by a guitar, with his trembling voice coming through squeaking amplifiers standing on opposite ends of the small stage. These songs come after a man shouting with angry voice delivers a speech before a scattered crowd of eager listeners. Mira would stop the singing for a moment everytime she would say something to Julian or to me, and then went on. She was sitting on the chair’s arm where Julian was seated, their backs facing me. Boyet remained concentrated on the opposite chair, reading a small red book, and the only time he would move was when he flipped through the pages of the book he was reading.
They rarely spoke, and would always manage to smile when our eyes met. But even their smiles are rather hesitant. They didn’t ask me where I had been, or why I arrived late and did not have to mind the rain. I thought, they might not want me to think that they are prying too much into my own personal affairs. I was a little quiet myself. I could only accommodate them with a coy smile when their eyes strayed on my direction. It was only Mira who spoke words to me, with the two being good only for secondary remarks and body languages. I would then react in a way that I would sound a little amusing, and they would laugh and nod their heads and smile even if sometimes I felt like they are a little over reacting. After I ate, I fixed the table, went to the sink and did the dishes. After it was all done, Julian halted from strumming, called on to me, asking me to join them. I did not know he was waiting till I was done. By then, I was already doing nothing and was just watching them from the kitchen, alone, and feeling like I don’t belong. All heads turned to me upon Julian’s eager interjection. They looked at me with disarming eyes, as if closely studying the response on my face.
"Do you play the guitar, Leon?" Julian bravely asked, trying to gather some ease with his words.
"Ah-uhmn… A little."
"Good! Then perhaps you can play some song you know for us."
"Come here, Leon. Join us. I want to hear you play." Mira added.
I had no way of refusing. By then, they have already found a way of getting through me. I have lost my untouchable demeanor. They have perfectly plotted a conspiracy to break through my walls and invade me. All eyes were on me. Boyet looked at me with anticipation. I longed to sink through the kitchen floor and bury myself deep down into the earth. Mira headed for me and quietly pulled my arms going to the living room without taking her eyes off me. She came to me like a metro police going for my arrest. I was without escape. She came to me like a graceful assault. Every step I took I felt like walking on the cracks of the wooden floor that would fall anytime. I was without all my force. I prayed that the rain would stop totally so that they would all go up to their rooms and forget about the idea of letting me play the guitar if they don’t want to bother the entire neighborhood and have the police knocking on our front door.
But it did not. The drizzle still clattered on the roof and we could still hear the clasping raindrops on the street. Julian rose from the chair and gathered all the stuff that scattered on the long chair. He cleared a portion where he positioned himself. Mira then led me to the chair Julian vacated, both hands cupping my shoulder, gently pushed me down on the chair. She then returned to her position on the chair’s arm when I was finally forced to sit down. Her hips touched my one arm and my shoulder fell into the slopes of her body. She allowed one hand to hang on top of my shoulder.
I felt a shock of electricity run through me. Julian handed me the guitar. I kept telling myself to relax. These people are my age and I’m a grown-up. But I cannot run away from the thought that they are different. They have education in their bloodstream and I do not. They are wise, while I cannot even define the meaning of wisdom.
"What songs do you play, Leon?" Julian eagerly asked, pretending to ignore my obvious indifference.
I did not say a word. I looked at my fingers running through the strings. Boyet remained still on the opposite chair. His book he dropped on his lap. He was closely observing me, intently looking at me, conniving with his thoughts. I could not concentrate. My attention was swept by the softness of Mira’s body leaning against mine, and the warmth of her hand on my shoulder. I could not think of any music to play, except that which Albert always played but never bothered singing.
Everytime I drop by their house, when the old man was out, I would always catch him with his guitar, and eyes closed in full concentration. He would be so carried away with that particular tune that he played, that he would raise his head, his face smiling like he was lifted to heaven, his spirit floating in mid air. He would be so captivated that it would seem like it was the only sound his ears chose to hear. And the noise around him, however distracting, would disappear. He would be so seized into the music that it would take a while for me to grab his attention before he would realize that I was already standing before him and poking him. It would seem like he has just woke up from a long and dreamless sleep, that he would be surprised to see me in front of him.
He was the one who taught me how to play the guitar and that particular song that was only meant for humming. At times when we were out in the streets and we ran out of things to talk about, he would hum the very same song. He rarely does that but when he did, there was always a look of nostalgia painted all over his face, something that was quite contagious.
I began plucking the strings. I started imagining myself to be in Albert’s place when he played the guitar. I clearly remembered what strings to pick at the exact timing. I have always mastered the way the music played. I closed my eyes. I did not know what happened next. In my mind I was humming.
When it was over, I opened my eyes and saw how everything went still. They were all frozen like the mannequins at Super. They all seemed to have lost their tongues. The atmosphere echoed the music of silence. Then I realized that the rain has stopped and all that there was to be heard was the little ticking drops of rainwater outside. I did not realize how hypnotizing the sound of the guitar was, because I myself fell into it. My eyes searched through them. Julian looked at me with awe, while Boyet looked rather bewildered. When I turned to Mira, she squeezed my shoulder with both hands, her lower lip pushing her upper lip up, nodding like she has discovered a thought of something.
"That was very good, Leon." Mira broke the silence at last.
"Wow! What song was that?" Julian asked.
"I don’t know."
"I think I already heard that song. It was very good."
"Where did you learn it? Who taught you that?"
"A friend of mine taught me how to play it with the guitar, but I never heard him sing the lyrics. I think it doesn’t have any."
"Whatever it is, it’s very good, and you played it just perfe - "
"Shh!"
Boyet gestured us to be quiet. On his sudden interruption we were all brought to silence. We watched him as he jerked his head, keenly paying attention to something he must have heard then. He then leaped for the light switch next to the door and turned off the lights instantly.
"Sirens!" he exclaimed.
It was dark when he put out the light, but the little amount of brightness coming from the capiz shells of the window that was reflecting from the light post on the street next to the gate was enough for me to see the snappily moving shadows, enough to justify the sound of papers flapping, the scratching on the furniture and the thumping sound of footsteps running up the stairs. From upstairs I heard whispers of goodnight and doors closing.
I was left alone with the guitar. Slowly, I laid it on the table and got up to get my pillow and blanket from the cabinet where it was kept for the day. My feet were heavy after the sudden turn of the situation, but I tried so hard not to make a single sound with every step that I took. As I tucked my blanket and my only pillow under one arm going to the long chair, the sound of sirens grew more evident. I was groping, holding on to everything that my hands could reach on my way back. The sirens grew louder as I sat on the chair, dropping the pillow and blanket on my side. I waited for it to pass by the house but when it reached the place, the vehicle engine choked to a halt. I quickly laid myself of the chair, covered myself with the blanket and closed my eyes. Still the sound dominated the stillness of the cold night. After about a minute, I heard the vehicle started and the screeching sound of the wheels sent me the signal that the patrol was on its way. Soon, the sound of the engine disappeared and thereafter, the sirens slowly faded.
I heard my heart beating in fear. The stories of house raids are never new to me, and I could not help imagining it to be well within the possibilities. Every single house in Zaragoza had all the better chances of suffering from the raid. The house on the opposite side of the street was once raided. They arrested Ricky, a good man no doubt. A very quiet person in his late twenties, he was never heard of to have caused any trouble in our place. He wore thick-lens eyeglasses like that of Boyet. He was so calm and accommodating that he would even care to talk to little children, unlike the usual adults. He worked as a columnist to The Tribune, Zaragoza’s daily newspaper. They said it was against the government what he wrote. These are the reasons that I do not always understand. They said it was more than that. They associate his name with some revolutionist groups.
Then, my concept of revolution was that of conflicts involving arms upheavals, where there are guns and bloodshed, shootings and flying bullets, so that everytime I hear the sound of gunshots or saw a man shot to his death in the middle of the street, I believe a revolution is taking place. And Ricky, he could never do such thing. He was arrested at a wee morning hour. I was deep in my sleep when they seized him. I only learned about it in the morning when people started talking about the incident at the sari-sari store, the one fronting our house.
Though I have never learned of the whole story, because I was just among the little children, who were then my age, listening on the side. But the way they talked about him, they seemed to have dreaded what he did. Whatever it was that I do not know. To me he was an innocent man. Yet then again, maybe, I thought, there are a lot of things that were beyond my grasp, or maybe I was yet to learn the meaning of innocence.
But even then, I have already learned to ask. How could a person whom everyone has always regarded to be so incapable of causing harm to another, be cast upon the stone of suspicion? How could a plain and simple life be dragged into the dilemma of a losing ordeal? I know only of a few good man with a comforting disposition of tranquility when faced with the horrors of the turbulent times, and he is one I know, or at least in my mind I perceived him to be. He was most careful that his words cannot even find its way through his mouth and he had to write it. I thought, if a man like him was made the subject of arrest, then so are our lives become vulnerable to the risk of an arrest of freedom. I have never heard a thing about him since then. They said he was put to prison after he was brutally battered during the interrogation. That was the last thing I know.
I raised the pillow up to the chair’s arm and shoved the blanket down to my knees. I slid myself up leaning against the pillow. I locked my arms behind my head. I looked up to the darkness of the ceiling. The room smelled of cigarette, and the more the smell lingered with the cold air that I inhaled, the stranger the feeling I get, and the more vivid my recollections have become of the things that happened in the past. The scent smelled of danger, and it has blended well with the rush of fear that I felt. And the stories came back in a different light, more sullen and disturbing.
I was beginning to see myself in it. I fought hard with my thoughts, but the realizations keep flashing like strokes of lightning. I am not safe from where I am, even in the unfamiliar corners of my house. There was no rest in my sleep. Fate comes like a thief in the night. Even the mind is not a safe dwelling for refuge. I was thinking about what has just happened. It happened so quickly. One moment I heard the guitar played calm redemption, the next thing I know I was looking at the dark face of panic.
I turned to my side on the table and saw the packs of cigarettes on the ashtray, and the match, falling into the shadow of the guitar handle on the far end of the table. I do not know if they left it lying there intentionally or they forgot to pick it up on their way up. I turned back and got up. I reached for the window and peeped through the hole in the capiz. I do not know exactly what I was expecting to see, but when I looked through it, I saw no signs of a single soul, except for a stray dog, lying in the middle of the street, under the light post, scratching the part behind his ear with one foot. There was nothing more to see, all the houses have fallen to sleep, and the rain, gone. I pulled myself down and decided to stay sitting for a while. I did not feel a bit sleepy where my mind was still racing with my heartbeat. My eyes fell on the cigarette on the table. I hesitated for a moment looking at the darkness in the direction of the rooms. I imagined, they were already fast into their sleep, so I picked a stick from the pack and reached for the match. I stuck a cigarette between my lips and lighted it. I lit the cigarette, cupping the burning matchstick with both hands, carefully taking it to the tip of the cigarette. I was like drawing water for a drink from a streaming river, but this time, I was like drawing fire for a quenching drink. I was drinking fire.
I was coughing with my first few puffs. I have tried smoking but only once during the routine with the rest of the boys, just to puff away the hunger brought about by the endless search for scraps around Zaragoza, though it brought no good for a rumbling stomach. I realized that the habit of smoking should fall into the right place at the right time, because after some puffing and coughing, I have learned to enjoy looking at my chimney of a mouth, my attention diverted to it, easing away my tension. I puffed and blew smoke like I was a long time smoker. I played with the smoke, making distorted circles. I watched the cigarette as I rolled it back and forth between my fingers. I watched it burn to my last puff.
A while passed and I can no longer hear the sound of my fast beating heart. I began to take notice the creaking sound of crickets outside and the rat claws scratching on the ceiling. Still I could not find my wanting for a sleep. My eyes were wide open and I had long maintained a sitting position, leaning forward with my elbows resting on my knees. I confined my thoughts to the dimness of the room and I could wait for morning until the bones in my elbows burrow through my skin and would be attached to the bones in my knees. My mind entertained many a varied thoughts that sprung one after another.
I was yet to know that all those mental twitching was a precedent to something that would eventually lead to an awakening that could turn flickers into flame, a gathering up of pieces that forebodes an even shattering predicament. I heard the door swung open from upstairs. A pale light falling on the inner wall of the room and on the door to what was then my room, revealed a lean shadow of a man coming out. I listened to the direction of the tiptoes and followed him looking blankly at the dark, on his way down. His approach came in whispers, his visage a cautious informant.
"Leon, you’re still awake!"
"I could not sleep."
I could hardly see his face, his eyeglasses shone, reflecting the pale light that illuminated the room and I could tell that he was not paying full attention to what I said. He walked toward the window, standing before the long chair, on my side. He stretched himself as he peeped through the hole on the broken capiz where a little ray of light, the size of the hole, came through from outside.
"It’s gone." He whispered.
He pulled himself back and groped like a blind man towards the chair where he sat a while back. He sat down, taking a deep silent breath and composed himself. He eased himself, taking a quick slouch, then leaned forward imitating my position. I remained motionless with only my eyes following his direction. Then he gave me a stare that looked perceiving, and smiled. I resented it. I looked down.
"Leon, you’re still awake."
"Yes. I told you, I couldn’t sleep."
"Oh."
"I consumed a stick."
"Hah?” He sounded like he was out of his mind.
"I smoked a stick, of cigarette. You left your cigarette." I explained in a low voice.
"Oh yes, no problem." He snapped, reaching for the pack and pulled out a stick, inserting it between his lips. He was searching for the match, but I was quick to find it first. I handed it to him. He pulled out another stick and handed it to me after he has lit his. I accepted it and lighted it myself. He paused for a moment after taking a puff and took the time to scratch his forehead. He made a short blow and spoke. The smoke came out of his mouth and from his nose, rising to his face.
"I caught up with two of your friends this afternoon. They dropped by around five o’clock. They stayed for a while, they waited for you."
"Albert and Tony Boy."
I figured, that was the reason he came down. He forgot to tell me that Albert and Tony Boy dropped by. We kept our voices low. As I was speaking, he reached for the pocket in his pantaloons and draw out a hand full of coins. He handed it to me. I was a little reluctant to take the money, but I know where it was from and he was looking at it without a hint of curiosity.
"Yes, and Tony Boy. It’s them, yes. Tony Boy even borrowed one book I have."
I was not paying full attention at him. He watched me count the money. It counted nine pesos, a little more than the usual share I get from the trade. I imagined, he must have added some extra amount in it. Then I realized what he had just told me.
"A book? You allowed Tony Boy to borrow one of your books?"
"It’s a novel. It’s called, The Stranger. It’s a good book, and the author was a winner of the Nobel." He proudly declared.
He began to speak casually, though rather mumbling to keep a low voice. Right then, I began to feel like he was turning the table. I have no interests in books and I do not know what a Nobel is. I pretended knowledgeable, and though I could not stress a point, my action implied understanding. I was beginning to feel a little uneasy. I puffed my cigarette and blow my heart away. He waited for me to speak but my body language sent him a lot of excuses. He thought for a while before he spoke.
"We even talked."
It sounded to him like good news, though he was not looking at me anymore. He raised his head, as if questioning himself about something. I just let him be. I couldn’t think of anything much to contribute. I was beginning to sense that he was going to share a story, and I had no plans of interrupting him. I stacked the coins on the table and leaned back against the chair. He remained in his position. He bent his head down as if searching for something on the floor. I thought he was going to tell me about his conversations with Albert and Tony Boy, but he did not.
"How’s work, Leon?"
All of a sudden, his voice turned deep and sober. I was a little surprised when he asked me about my work. I did not even know that he was considering our scrap collection to be a serious work. I was humiliated by the thought that I was earning my living from people’s waste, yet he spoke of the word, work, with so much regard. He turned to me and the way he looked at me, there was so much behind the shadow falling on his face, something that is all but pity. There was a certain amount of sincerity in him that casts a tender wall of melancholy in front of me.
"It’s hard." I replied.
"Tell me about your dreams, Leon."
I thought for a while, but nothing runs in my head. His words are like storms that I cannot weather. I shook my head.
"Come on! For sure you dream about something that you want yourself to be in the future."
I wondered why he insisted on this particular thing, but whatever his purpose was, it made me stare into the dark undefined future of my life. My mind got tangled with the things that have ceased to exist in my thoughts. I remembered myself dreaming as a child, but I can no longer recall things in particular. I was lost in the vast unexplored frontiers of my own being, where I saw no concrete beginnings and unforeseeable endings. All that I saw with clear memory were the faces of people around me, and I saw myself living a life of uncertainty. I realized somehow that I had been living my life in a matchbox, where my world was getting smaller and I was running on empty. For the second time, I shook my head in spiteful disgust.
"You have no idea what you can do, Leon." He chuckled.
Looking at the way he reacted, I was forced to define my misery. I was irked by the thought that he was treating me like the privileged person that he is, and the more I see the many promises of his being, the more restrictions I get with the limits of the things that I can do. The more I compared myself to him, the slimmer the thread I see that holds my chances of surviving the life that by then, have become more discriminating to the cause of my existence.
"This is the only life I know."
"There’s so much in it."
"Misery."
"Even as you are talking to me now, Leon."
"Hopeless."
"Ideals."
"Why do you speak to me like I am one of you? I know little of education. I am just an ordinary man. I see no clear direction into my future."
"I do not speak of education, Leon."
"It’s all that matters. Your future is going to reach you. I do not see mine coming. It will never come."
"Why do you speak of the future then?"
"Because I think about it."
"You’re thinking about it."
"And I see nothing in mine."
"You can see things."
I was silenced. In an instant, I realized that I had been talking too much of things that I have never allowed myself to speak so much of. I sensed my flaring with the cold rush of blood rushing through my spine. It seemed as if the souls of my past have awakened in the deep tunnels of my throat. I had wanted to end the conversation, and the heedless struggle of defending my life, but every word he spoke sends a rattle in my tongue, like I was a drum and he can draw an echoing rumble out of me with his beating. I had no escape. I remained withdrawn from myself. I looked at him, startled in confusion. But he was with his own self, and every word that came out of him, every bit of move that he made was his own language, well within his composure, well within his watch. His smiles are calm yet piercing and his eyes discerning beyond words.
"Why are you telling me all these?" I asked in meek surrender.
"My words are simple." He bluntly answered.
"It says a lot."
"You are reading through my words."
"I do not understand!" I replied, irritated. But he was as calm as the night after the rain is over.
"You do me, Leon. But you refuse your wisdom."
Again I was caught in silence. Wisdom for me is a luxury that belonged to the minds of the free. I am dragged into chains. Freedom is farfetched. Nobody spoke to me of wisdom, and for him to tell me that I was denying myself of it, was strangely ironic.
"You are a quiet man, Leon. Even your friends spoke to me about you. They said they could never get your full attention. You are always thinking of something. Even I, I noticed that about you."
"What is there to speak?" I asked him, staring blankly at the length of the ashes at the tip of the cigarette I was holding, that was threatening to fall off, my mind void of all defenses.
"I know. I am not taking it against you that you are like that. Even I, at some point, would rather hold myself and maintain my silence. I would rather watch things as they unfold right before my very eyes."
I turned to him in surprise. Something occurred to me that he was no different from the person that I am. He smiled, and he smiled like he was able to read my mind, reaffirming my thoughts. I quickly took my eyes off him at the hint of this intrusion.
"Yes, Leon. I would rather take the view from the distance. These are troubled times, and trusting is hard that if we are not certain of the things that we feel the need to say, we would rather not say it. We would rather keep our mouth shut because we fear for our life. We fear for our life, Leon, because we do not want things to end so soon. We expect to see something in the future. We all have hopes. Is there something that you hope for?"
I remembered hoping to see my father and my brother in San Martin. I was close to telling him about it but I only allowed myself a nod in refrain. I found myself at a loss with words.
"Of course. As much as there is fear, there is hope. Hope springs from fear. But we cannot forever afford the slow burning of our lives, stroking it with fear. These are hard times, yes, but I am thinking of you, and me, and the rest of our people including the people you love. If we keep on living while maintaining our distance, we become deaf to the cries of the people around us. Looking at this life from a distance, we watch the world pass us by. We cannot afford that kind of life, Leon. It’s as good as death itself."
"Why are you telling me all these? For the second time, I asked in confusion. But he was quick to assert himself, with no more regard to my own judgment. He has sized me up with the weight of his words.
"I do not know. Maybe because we longed for the same things. Maybe because I see myself in you. Or maybe not. Maybe because I see so much passion in you, Leon. I do not know. Tomorrow, when you go out in the streets with your friends, take a closer look at the things that you always see. At night, when you look through your window and you do not see a single light in any one of those houses in this city, do you think that all the people in their houses have gone to sleep? You have no idea how many eyes are watching in the night through the little holes of those walls and windows, doing the very same thing that you are doing."
"Have you been watching me since you went up to your room? Is there something that you want to tell me?"
"No. I was not watching you. It’s not what you think it is. Only time will reveal to you everything that you need to know. Yes, there are some things that I wanted to tell you, but I know sooner or later you will discover that for yourself, anyway. For now I will only tell you one thing. Sometimes, things are not what they always appear, and people are not what they always seem, or what they ought to be, not even how you perceive them to be."
I looked at him with weary eyes. I had so much of the mysteries to cradle in my mind. The cigarette has burned to the tip, almost reaching my fingers. I dropped it on the ashtray. My eyes gave me a blur vision when I looked at him. He gave me a tap on the shoulder and bid me goodnight. I have not noticed him entering the door to his room, while he was on his way up, I laid myself down and passed out.
In the morning, I woke up to the sound of the guitar traveling through my ears. The sun was high and my eyes squinted to the brightness of the room, struck by its renewed strength in the morning as I looked through the wide-open window. Overlooking the street, I saw the usual group of children, yelling and running around barefooted. They were playing tumbampreso, using their slippers to hit a small tin can, placed in the middle of the street. Slippers fly to different directions, thrown to hit the can. The sardines’ can looked all beaten up and deformed.
The sari-sari store across the street looked old and gloomy without the usual group of neighbors convening at the bench outside. The lady tending the store was sweeping away all the wet leaves from the mango tree next to the store that was blown by the rain on the area in front of the store, from the night before. I stuck with the view for a while.
Butterflies fly from the garden on the front lawn and on the sampaguita outside the gate. The children cleared the street when a jeepney passed by. Then I heard the honking horn and the puto vendor passed by with his bicycle. A man called out at a lady watching the store. The lady went inside, and when the man left, he was already smoking. Looking at the man, I smelled my hands and it still smelled of cigarette.
I turned away from the window, away from the heat of the glaring sun when I felt it starting to prick my skin. I sensed a pain in my head, an aching sensation that I presume, was because of the two sticks that I consumed the night before. I took a while to massage my temples, sitting on my bed of a chair. The sound of the guitar once again caught my attention. I raised my head and followed the direction of the sound, and I saw Albert. He was playing the guitar, sitting on the chair at the dining table in the kitchen. Our dining room and kitchen is one and the same.
He did not mind that I had awakened. Guitars always had a way of shuttling him to other dimensions. I could tell, he was not with himself. He took the morning ride to limbo.
I headed to his direction and hit him in the head. I must have hit him pretty hard because he interrupted himself from playing and without a word, punched me on the side. He noticed me! He must be alive, I thought. I headed straight to the kitchen. I thought of heating water for coffee, but when I touched the pot, it was hot. My boarders must have had coffee while I was asleep. I thought, they must have left already. When I poured the hot water into a cup, I found out it was already mixed with coffee. I searched for the sugar in the cabinet to add to the coffee, and when I had it all done, I took it to the dining table, pulled a chair for myself, behind the guitar man, and concentrated with it.
When he heard me sipping, he turned to me and got up, headed for the pot. Carrying the guitar on one hand, as if I was going to steal it from him or it was going to run away, he grabbed the pot and filled one for himself. When he came back, he carefully placed it on the table and started back with the guitar. He did not mind looking or talking to me at all. I must have turned invisible or something. I thought of grabbing the guitar away from him and smash it on his head.
I did not mind him so much. I took the time to ponder of Boyet’s words. It was just like waking up from a dream. He was quick as the way he moved, indeed. I have just known him in the morning the day before, and the following day, he has completely swept my mind and I had to reconstruct myself. Once again I had to resurrect. I remembered what my mother told me before she left. I am old enough to take care of myself. Right then, I decided to forget about the thought that I was just a growing little boy. I am already a grown up.
I thought about my mother. I wondered where she was. She could still be at the barracks. I wondered where she lives. I thought of sneaking at the barracks and inquire of her whereabouts. She may not be working there anymore. Marrying a man in high office is as extravagant as marrying his riches. But I thought, what would I do if she were no longer there, much more if she’s still there. If our paths crossed, we might just be staring at each other like I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me as well. Maybe I might just ran away before she could look my way, or walk past me in case she saw me first. I would just hate her for that, so I decided to drop the idea before I could bear more grudges.
I thought about the last night’s conversation with Boyet. I know it made a lot of sense, but I cannot clearly see his point. He was a little difficult to comprehend. I have learned from what he said though. Fear begets hope. I laugh at the thought of it. It was a little enlightening but what there was to do was something that I could not cipher. Perhaps he failed to see the frightening premonitions that I see. He spoke of the little things like I had taken it for granted. Perhaps he was looking at it in a different way. Whatever it was that I needed to know, the watchful eyes of the night. The more I dwell on his words, the more I get the feeling that it was more than just a reassuring conversation. I figured it to be a confronting dialogue. A confrontation with the mirror that I had long refused to look into. Maybe it was the wisdom that he was telling me about. He was forcing me to dwell into the wisdom that, as he said, I had been denying myself of. Still I found it a little too perplexing for my own understanding.
Sipping halfway through my coffee, I turned to the guitarist. I watched him, gently strumming the strings of the instrument, his head bending sideways to draw an ear to the strings so he could hear the soft sound of the tunes he played repeatedly. He had been tuning the whole thing and had not finished an entire song yet. I thought, if only he would strum the whole thing a little harder, he would not be having a hard time pushing his head down.
There was no use talking to him. He doesn’t seem to have any plans of working for money that day. I thought, his mother must have sent him dollars again. I left him and my coffee, heading for the front door. They ray of light coming through it seemed to me very inviting that I wanted to catch a breeze of the morning air outside. I thought there was nobody hanging around at the sari-sari store so I might as well stay there, buy a stick of cigarette and watch the frolicking little children in their play. I seemed to have acquired an overnight addiction with cigarettes. I get the feeling that I am an adult when I smoke. Eating fire seemed to have elevated my mind into a higher level of maturity, so I thought.
On my way, I took one peso from the stack of coins that I placed on the center table of the living room the night before. When I reached the doorway, I saw Tony Boy sitting at the steps, reading a book. I thought, it must be the book that Boyet was talking to me about. He was reading the book word for word, speaking out the words like he has just learned to read. The book was written in English and I could tell that he does not fully understand everything that he read, because there are word that he kept on repeating, and some he found difficulty with the pronunciation. He even had to act out some of the words with his hands like he was doing some sort of a sign language that looked like he was sending away some flies. Tony Boy is very good in school, but I know the book is still beyond his level. I called on to him but he quickly lifted a hand, the palm facing me like he was a traffic police giving me a stop sign. He looked determined to finish the book in one sitting, rain or shine, even if it would take him eternity to get it over with.
Perhaps, I thought, I left my body sleeping on the long chair, and I only had my soul with me. When I saw Tony Boy, I felt like looking at the wrong person. I was never aware of his interest in these books. The only thing I know was that, he used to browse through the pages of his brother’s Law books, hoping to find some pictures and illustrations in it. There was never any, but still he kept on going through all those books that were properly arranged in a shelf in their house over and over again. I thought, he must have been reading those books too. On my way going out of the gate, I looked down at my feet to check if I was floating, but they were still on the ground. And my body was with me.
The sun is especially hot after a rainy night. Some heat that perfectly blended with the fresh morning landscape. No traces of dust of the plants, and the leaves, the branches of the trees, the flowers, glistened, freely dancing even to the softest stroke of wind. The gleaming rays of sunshine kissed the damp and cold asphalt streets and it felt like walking on a soft cushion of a cotton field.
As I was crossing, I noticed that I have not seen the cart outside the gate where they usually park it before entering the house or while waiting for me to come out. I thought, maybe it was damaged again. The kariton was a little old, and had undergone a lot of repairs since we built it, back when we were still in elementary. Maybe the handle was broken, or maybe one of the wheels turned loose and fell off. It happened all the time. Sometimes I thought, maybe it kept on breaking because it was too big for the three small wheels. It doesn’t even look like the usual kariton. It looked like a huge wooden crate that could contain two persons, made out of uneven sizes and thickness of solid wood and plywood that we stole from the dumps of a construction site. It has three small rubber padded wheels that we trimmed from used bicycle tires. One on the front and two on the rear. However crooked, it has served its purpose for the scraps we collected through time. We saw friends come and go, vanished and died. Some, we helped built a better-looking one for themselves. Others found a group of their own, and a number of karitons wheeling on the streets in the suburbs of Zaragoza grew even more. The four that had remained stuck together, thus, the Bakal Boys were conceived. Victor originated the idea, I was the promoter, Tony Boy the need, and Albert, joined for the sake of the company. With Victor, gone to higher grounds, I wondered who would follow next. It would only be either us, or the kariton.
I approached the lady sitting behind the screen, draped with plastic bags containing junk foods, crackers and chips, at the sari-sari store. The lady smiled at me as if there was something that she wanted to know other than what I wanted to buy. Other than a sari-sari store, the place also served as a melting pot of all rumors spreading around the place. All the people who buy at the store goes home with an extra intriguing story about the lives of any person living across the street, or at the far end, or even the latest news about their favorite movie stars.
The lady was running the whole business, but I doubt if she’s aware of her husband seeing another woman. She would be the last to know. She was rumored to be an impotent woman, because they never had a child. Aling Taleng would never come near her store, especially since the time Aling Taleng found out about the rumor spreading around that her daughter is a prostitute in Japan. Somebody told her that the lady at the sari-sari was the one responsible for all these bad releases. They hated each other because they’re no different. They both grew heads in their mouths.
When I asked for a cigarette, her eyes grew bigger. It was already big the way it was. She looked at me as if it was a crime to buy cigarette. She asked me when I started smoking. I waded through her and quickly replied, ‘Just today.’ She handed me a stick of Bowling Green, smiling like she had just hit jackpot on a new scoop. I handed her my one peso and she gave me back five ten-centavo coins. I turned away without dropping an eye on her and headed for the bench. I rested there, watching the band of noisy kids, sweating out all their energies. The poor can go clanking at the blow of their slippers.
It was a different feeling when I woke up and found myself in the middle of an unfamiliar situation, doing something I do not usually do, and have not even done before. Sitting on the bench in front of the sari-sari with cigarette for breakfast, I found myself watching the view of the house at the opposite side of the street, the house that has shaped me. I found myself in the place of our nothing-to-do neighbors who spent the morning hours making up stories of the poor orphan boy at the house across. It was not a comforting sight to catch a view of my grandmother’s bedroom window and recalling to mind standing before it that morning after my mother abandoned me.
I puffed and blew. I had lost interest in watching the rugged children play. In my mind, I have gone past the kind of life when playing and being able to play was the only way to breathe and the only thing there was to prove oneself alive. I was no longer able to find myself in them.
I puffed and blew. Those two women, Aling Taleng and the lady at the sari-sari. They have caused enough trouble to every living soul in the place. How, in the way that they have conducted their lives, were they able to escape arrests? They have dictated our lives, judging our every actions like we never did anything right. They should have been included in the list of people being hunted by the metro police. They are obvious suspects, clear threats to tranquility.
And there she was, the other half. She came out of their gate with all her regal graces, head stretching to the direction of my house. I wondered if she was looking for me, she was heading for our gate. A kid unintentionally bumped into her and she almost lost her balance. ‘Dios mio! These kids!’, she yelled at the little boy. But he did not seem to mind her. He was too busy minding his game. It flared her up even more. She could run after the boy and beat him with her sandals, but she only followed him with an angry stare. The running boy passed by me. That was when she saw me. She looked surprised. I thought, because she saw me at the sari-sari. She couldn’t come near. She has long drawn the border between her house and the dreaded territory of her mortal foe. I found out later that she was eyeing at the cigarette on my hand.
"Susmariosep! Leon, you’re smoking!"
I did not mind her. I forced myself to smile. When she saw me smiling, she held herself back. She must have realized that she could not do anything if I chose to smoke. She could not take a step more or she would be crossing the border. The lady at the store was in close watch, like a lioness in her den.
"Come over here. Have you had your breakfast?"
"I’m not hungry." I replied, effortless, though I was and I could hear my stomach rumbling. I do not know if she heard me, but I shook my head, and I thought, that was enough for an answer.
She shrugged. Thought for a moment. Her feet were glued on the spot where she was standing and she was obviously in a very uncomfortable situation. The lady at the store was looking through the screen and could see all of her, including her soul.
"Ah! Pobreng bata! You poor boy, have you gone to church? It’s Sunday today. You should be frequenting your visit to the church so that God will show mercy on you and bless your desperate soul."
"No."
"Ah! Terible!"
I should have known. It was Sunday, the reason why I did not see the kariton, and why my supposed friends didn’t even bother any haste. I thought, maybe my boarders are still sleeping in their rooms. I knew I should have lied and told her that I have already gone to church. The thought of Sundays always made my body feeling heavy. I knew I should have allowed her to feel the humiliation, standing before the view of her other half. But it was too late, and she had successfully delivered her retaliation tactics on me. Worst of all, she sounded exactly like my never grand grandmother.
"You get inside the house now and take a bath. Alas dies y medya. Ten thirty I will fetch you up. I will go with you for the eleven o’clock mass to make sure you get there."
She pointed at her wrist, though she doesn’t have a watch. She glanced at the store and snob, turning away, going back inside the gate. I could see Aling Maring from where I was, doing her knits by the big open window of their living room. They are exact opposites. Aling Taleng must have stolen her voice away from her.
I threw the cigarette on the ground. I was not able to finish it. I realized that my grandmother had reincarnated in her. I should have known. I went back inside the house.
