(an excerpt. story came out in FP's may 23 issue)
There would be this glint, this tiny wavering light, in Don’s eyes every time he talked about computers. It was a bizarre and unforgettable kind of glimmer, one that made me uncomfortable, and that made him look vulnerable, and then also uncomfortable.
Don was very tall, and this was another thing that he was clearly uncomfortable with. He stood at about 6 feet in height, but he was all flab. He did not look the least bit athletic. He really did look like the proverbial geek with sallow skin, in need of some fresh air and real sunlight. His front teeth were small and sort of pointy, which sometimes made him look malicious. But he wasn’t at all malicious. He loved Coldplay, was always borrowing my CDs, and he knew, with a fragile and desperate certainty, that he was destined for greater things than monitoring machines and pleasing foreigner bosses who couldn’t speak English, violated labor standards, and knew twit about computers.
Sometimes the glimmer in Don’s eyes wavered with sadness, sometimes with great hope, especially when he talked about finally taking that special two-level licensure exam online, or about presenting his new inventions and software to Steve Jobs at the Apple Convention, some day, some day very, very soon. All of these things he was saving his money and himself up for.
Like a pregnant rat, Gerry would say, a pregnant rat scrounging for bits and pieces of food and warm fabric for her lair. Gerry liked to kid Don about his miserly ways. I never got the pregnant rat parallel, until I almost saw one, that summer. They said that a rat had bore a hole into one of the corner posts of our old apartment. The boys had found the hole without the rat in it. Gerry and my brother proceeded to break up the burrow, fishing out all sorts of unrecognizable graffiti-like bits and pieces of once-whole things. With sticks and rods, they scratched and scraped the walls of the rat hole. And then, for good measure, my brother, with a strange mix of anger and playfulness in his actions, poured muriatic acid into it. Don and I had looked on, cringing at the thought of the rat, bloated with a litter of little black fetuses, smoked up in acid.
I never really saw the rat. But that did not stop me from dreaming of it for nights on end. I knew my boyfriend was getting exasperated with me stopping all of a sudden, in the middle of sex, because I was convinced that I saw the pregnant rat as big as a cat with a tail as thick as the body of a snake, darting from one corner of our room to another, or scampering under our bed.
One day, he just left – the rat, my boyfriend. He did not return for a week. I dreamt less of the rat, I noticed. When he came back, he had a stuffed toy mouse with him, a gift and a remedy, to satisfy my fascination and to stymie my fear. Ayan, para matigil ka na, he said. It drew a lot of laughter but was no good for much else. I was still bothered by the pressure our lovemaking was creating on the spring bed. I resumed dreaming of the rat trapped under the bed, stuck in the bed frame, its bloated stomach bursting, its head flattened, its thick wet tail flapping heavily, pounding the wooden floor.
I slowly learned to participate more actively in the sex, despite the nightmares, only because I had missed my boyfriend, and he was, well, very vigorous in his attempts and thrusts to make me not think of the rat. He became more and more creative in his ways to accommodate my irrational rodent fears and fascinations. I think it was during that summer when I started to truly love him.
***
The apartment was located in the not-so-glamorous part of the Scout Area. Sometimes, there was no water in the taps. Sometimes, there was flood in the bathroom floor. But it had three big bedrooms with huge wood-framed windows, a two-car garage with not a single car, lots of stray cats, no rats – none in sight anyway – and, in front of the apartment stood an old branchy tree that bore no fruits and hardly had any leaves.
That summer, when we moved into the apartment, was one of the country’s hottest. In the countryside, the fields had cracked open, waiting for a single rainwater to drop; the unnourished crops had shriveled up in desperation; animals dropped dead or wandered like ghosts in abandoned towns. All of these according to the papers, as sensationalized and dramatized to me by my silly boyfriend.
In an old apartment in Scout Tobias, corner Scout Santiago, he continued in his reportorial voice, people have shed off all manners of clothing, have been drained of all strength by the heat, and have barely enough energy left to… procreate. This is the beginning of the end, he said. We were in our room. The curtains were drawn. We could see the gnarly branches of the old tree outside. Everything was still. There was absolutely no breeze. But our bodies were entwined, sweating profusely, very much alive in the oppressive heat.
One payday, as my brother promised, he blew all his salary on a rather big air-conditioning unit, and had the thing installed in the living room, of all places. Before that, I had just bought a small television set with my scholarship allowance, and from then on that room was where we ended up congregating, after a long day’s work. I started broaching the idea of having cables installed, the very possibility of which excited us all. We would linger in the living room talking about what shows we would watch if we had cable TV, and what shows we used to watch all the time at home where we did have cable TV.
Although the summer ended with no cables being installed, with that same TV set literally exploding into pieces, the living room became the cooling and the coolest center of sorts in that scorching hot, old apartment. Eventually, it became a communal bedroom, dining room, and study room, too.
But we would only drink out in the garage, where we could freely smoke. This was the only house rule we created and actually followed. Besides, those summer nights were quite beautiful, even if humid. The skies were always clear, the stars vivid. Don liked to come out of his room at night. He liked the night stars, but not the sun. He liked to sit out and talk to us, but he hardly drank.
Gerry was the hard drinker and liked to play the guitar, sing Dylan, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Freddie Aguilar, and then some Nirvana, too, for some strange reason. His thick muscled neck would turn red, the veins almost popping out, when he sang, always in earnest, but sometimes out of tune.
Gerry also liked to roll a joint every now and then, even at his age. Gerry was old. The oldest jologs in the world, we called him. He was old enough to be a grandfather, which he was; a fact that he was in denial of.
Gerry turned fifty that summer. I only remember this because that was the only Saturday he did not drink with us. We never really knew where he went that night, dressed in a white button-down shirt, black slacks, and shiny patent leather shoes. But he came back the next day, sober, dry-eyed. Strange. My boyfriend said that Gerry probably went to church, went to confession and did his penance; that was his secret life. My boyfriend was convinced that Gerry was just pretending to be astig, to be tough, when he was actually a saint with tattoos. Or, a secret agent of the intelligence bureau.
Once, I caught a glimpse of a photo of a young man and two boys in Gerry’s wallet. The young man in the picture looked exactly like Gerry, and that was how I knew that Gerry was certainly not, as my brother suspected, a pedophile, that those kids were not his preys. They were his son and grandsons. Well, you never really know these days, do you, my brother would often say. You could be standing right next to one in the toilet, in the bar counter, in the train, or you could be sharing a room with them, isn’t that right, Gerry? My brother joked. Don just raised his eyebrows and exaggerated a yawn. Haay, here we go again.
But it was Gerry who made the nastiest gay jokes. That’s why I first thought that Gerry might just be overcompensating, that he might be, in addition to being a saint and a secret agent, also gay. He never brought a girl home, nor went out with one; and he did share a room with Don. Gerry was also especially mean about Don’s rather soft ways, always making insinuations about Don’s being gay, which Don might have been, if he weren’t too preoccupied with his software dreams. He could have easily taken advantage of the rooming situation with Gerry.
Gerry did have a rather remarkable twenty-year old laborer’s body, I told my boyfriend once. And my boyfriend said I was the one who was being mean, this time. But it was true. Gerry had the unhealthiest habits, had no notion of exercise or diet, but had the hardest abs, the firmest forearms, and the tightest buns. I swear to God. I never really bothered to find out where he came from and all. But his body, usually clad in ridiculously tight and short denim cut-offs, spelled it out for me. This was a man who had labored long and hard, not in the gym, but in cargo ships, maybe, or in factories.
Gerry looked freakish, actually. His face was as old as a World War II veteran’s, bearing all the coarse lines and deep marks of battle. But his body seemed ageless, perfected by the forces of nature. And of poverty, my boyfriend always added.
***
Don surprised us with a visit one night, just last year. Yes, exactly a year ago this month. My boyfriend and I were already living in the subdivision close to the campus, so far away it seemed, in atmosphere though not in distance, from the Scout Area. Our little house was carefully furnished – everything in it was relatively new and bespoke our current states. We had stripped it off of any trace of its previous occupants. Each of the original concrete tiles had been plucked out and replaced with wooden floorboards. The off-white walls were repainted in ochre and tan. A floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf was installed in the area where a television set obviously used to stand.
It was a Friday night, I remember. We were entertaining guests, colleagues from the University. It was a particularly cool and windy summer night. The doorbell had rung, just once, and I ran to get it, thinking it was the pizza delivery.
From the doorframe I saw only the silhouette of a tall, fat man, standing awkwardly by the gate, shifting his heavy weight from one foot to the other. Pizza Hut? I called out. It’s Don, he replied, in a level tone, devoid of all inflection and emotion, that I almost missed it. What? Who? It’s Don, he said in an even lower voice. Oh my god. I ran to the gate to open it, to let him in. Come in, come in, Don! He didn’t want to come in. We had guests, he noted. And he couldn’t stay long anyway.
We sat out in the veranda, looking at what few stars we could see instead. He had just come straight from the airport. He was going to be in Manila for only two days and then he was flying to Taiwan.
Taiwan?! Wow. Are you going to study there? Did you get a scholarship? I asked him. Why Taiwan?
To work, not to study. In an electronics factory. Production line. The factory supplies hardware. Minor parts. To Apple Computers. He said, reciting the information in a robotic litany.
That’s good, that’s good, I said. After that you can take that exam you’ve always wanted to take.
It’s been so long, Don, what else have you been up to? I asked, attempting to break the silence.
Tried to… hang myself. In my mother’s old house. He said, looking down at his hands, resting on his lap.
What? Don! Why?
Brought the entire ceiling. Down. With me. Too heavy. Mother was so mad. He said, smiling briefly, looking away.
What? Oh, Don. I clutched at his hand. But he pulled it away, and stood up to go.
When he bent down to kiss my cheek, I caught his eyes. They were clear, and dry, and kind of dead.
Take care, Don, I somehow managed.
In bed with my boyfriend, I sometimes think of Don’s lifeless eyes, of Gerry’s dead body, my brother’s inert anger at himself, and the crazy pregnant rat that had remained a phantom that whole summer of 2002. The summer of our discontent, as my boyfriend now jokingly refers to it.
I do not know what to make of it. I was certainly happy before and during certain parts of that summer. But, what happened since? How did it end so tragically? How did it all go wrong like that? Why did we survive and they didn’t? I ask my boyfriend these, every now and then.
What the hell was I thinking? Why did I leave home, nga ba? I had become a liar. I had either become too happy or too bored. I had either been in denial or had become a prophet. I clearly knew, but pretended not to see, what was before me.
I stop again in the middle of sex. I jump from bed, catching my boyfriend by surprise. Oh fuck, oh man, he says.
I pace from one corner of the room to another, naked, while he lies there in his discomfort, in his discontent, watching me.
It was true happiness! That was what it was! We had family then, and dogs, a car, a real home, with real rats! We had mountains and fields for a bedroom view, three minutes to the beach, small coffee shops, real conversations, with real friends, drinking at night along Magsaysay, passing out in the amphitheater, diving naked into the sea! All those out of town trips, the endless laughter, the guitar music, the loud singing! And I said no to all of it?! What the hell was I thinking?!
I realize that I am shouting like a crazy woman, so I lower my voice.
Why did we leave? Why did we come back here?
He does not answer.
I stop pacing. I stand by the window. There is a rare summer breeze. It blows the curtains to one side, but from our window there is not enough view of the night sky. I see billboards instead, the pale light of a street lamp casting strange shapeless shadows on the wall.
We were not ready for paradise just yet? He offers.
And they were ready but did not deserve it? Is that what you mean?! Fuck you! And, and how could you have witnessed it all and remain like that?
Like what, love?
Like that! Whole!
He shakes his head. I know he is trying to understand, but he doesn’t. Maybe I don’t, either.
He gets up from bed. Let’s go home, let’s get married, he says.
He stands behind me, pulls me softly into the hollow of his chest. And then does his earnest to make me forget. But I know that the pregnant rat is still there, trapped under our bed.
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