One with the Boys

Of course I should have announced to everyone I was gay the minute I entered that stuffed room reeking of smoke, alcohol and half-digested belches, just to save me from the piercing stares from the half nude men-apes. Almost everyone had the evil eye. Was it my gait? The way I shook their hands? Or perhaps my name smelled too-gay? Kyle. Kyle. At least I looked straight enough, my cohort-friend would assure. “We’ll just mingle with the boys and socialize.” Was that the same tone I heard him use when we were that close to being mauled by a mob of homophobes at that cheap joint?

Nah, we’ll just mingle and socialize. I repeated to my self - with some remorseful indignation. Socializing with nude apes had never been any of my passions nor was it a real hobby to me.

But there I was, looking blankly at the brandy (MATADOR!!) they were drinking as if I’ve just laid eyes on a map of the lost city of Zinj. And being the alcoholic I’ve deemed my self to be, I pronounced a sigh of surrender: O.K. S o c i a l i z e.

“Pare, Mark,” said the ape on my right extending its greasy hand trying to act civilized by mimicking the human hand-shake.

“Kyle,” no tone of disproof there, just a hint of spite. But I was confident the apes didn’t notice (or didn’t mind). Ed, my friend, tugged at my shirt and glared like as if he’d swallowed a whole soap bar at Mark. I know that look.

“Can you hear that,” he whispered, now hinting at our code - Can you hear my boxers falling on the floor - which meant that he liked Mark and he’d be flirting all night and trying to get him stone-drunk just to have the advantage (even if it meant he’ll be buying 3 more Matador plus pulutan and cigarette).

Mark was now enumerating the other apes. “That’s Raul, we call him kuting for god-knows-what-reason. The one in the red shorts is Anton, that’s Cookie, short for Crisologo Castaña, and he’s Arthur you can call him Art. This is his place, his mom’s gone to Singapore so we have this place all to ourselves.”

For an uncivilized ape, he can be warm and hospitable. I thought to my self.

“Hi,” was all I said. Fuck that was so gay. I should have just nodded absently.

This wasn’t the first time Ed invited me to a beastly session. If God permitted it, he shouldn’t have been my best friend at all. Of course we were young then and back in high school ‘till now, Ed was such a charmer with girls (his pogi-points were beyond normal) that I can’t help myself being drawn to him just to breathe some of those invisible particles that makes one pogi. He was tall (if six feet isn’t tall I don’t know what is), broad shoulders and perfectly formed pecs that could just about wear any shirt you put on it, he has unruly and ruffled hair that just makes even our teachers go gaga about it, and he has something in his eyes that makes you look at them to check if they were brown or black or grey, something that captivates for lack of a better term.

I on the other hand was below normal - I was actually, er, unnoticeable, had only one girl X (we broke off 2 weeks later after I noticed she was a dumb-ass incapable of dividing polynomials) and was a geek student leader, president of the Science and Math Club. If I were drawn by those invisible particles surrounding him, he was drawn by my intelligence and compassionate heart: I let him cheat off my own test papers. So now you see, we were best friends because I need to learn from him how to attract and handle girls, and he on the other hand needs an easy 90 on the G.W.A.

But what the ox-crap happened? Believe it or not he was the first to fall victim to the sins of Sodom.

“Ed, Kyle... shhssrrh before you came we were actually arguing about ahh... certain situation. Art’s girl, you know Lisa shhhrrhh, is a nagger, always telling him what to do and what not to do... She’s even forbidding him to drink tonight! I told him to beat the brain out of her and tell her who’s the man here. You’re the boyfriend pare! If I were in your position... I’ll drop her.” That was Raul obviously tipsy from the sound of that un-earthly shhhrrr-ing. I grew uneasy in my chair as the tagay was passed in front me. I doubled my shot just to numb my self from these babbling baboons.

“Art pare, just tell her. If she can’t adjust then drop her. Easy as that,” Mark said with an obvious tone of boredom.

“It’s not that easy. We’ve not even reached our 4^th month. I mean, we have no problems aside from that. She’s nice, too nice even, and nice boobs too.”

Laughter erupted from the men-apes. I feigned a laugh – Men, boobs, men, boobs, I don’t get it. I looked around and saw they’ve already drank 2 bottles. Haay, crap I’ve got to double-up just to catch up with them. I can’t stand their yowling if I’m sober.

“That settles it then. What about another topic? How about corruption in the Philippines? You heard the news. We’re second most corrupt next to Bangladesh and I don’t even consider Bangladesh a country, so we’re first” Cookie said.

“I say we kill all those bastards stealing our funds the old fashioned way – off with their heads. He-he. Or I think it’s more humane if we just chop their hands off and feed it to the crocodiles.”

“Shhhh, Anton’s dad is Mayor of Lupi. You might break his heart. Hahahahaha,” Raul said. “Hey why don’t we ask Ed here. What do you say Ed? Do you have any idea how to stop this corruption?”

I felt Ed’s hand on my thigh and knew that was another signal. I pretended I didn’t notice. Let him think.

“Ahhhmm, the thing with corruption is... The government is... hey, is it my turn for the tagay now?” and he gulped two shots straight without even blinking or drinking the iced-tea chaser. Putang ina Ed, that was obviously stupid.

“I believe that we need a revolution. We need a revolution of the self. Corruption can be averted if the citizens accept it as an abomination first, a stigma on our being Filipinos. If we just change starting with ourselves then the government will also change. Vigilance is also important and we have to tighten the law on corrupt officials.” That was me of course, babbling just to forget Ed’s blunder.

“Wow.”

And that was Mark.

“I have a joke! How many feet does a centipede have when crossing the street? He-he” Thank you Anton for the diversion. ­­

I guess it wasn’t on the menu that Ed would fall for me. It started actually when we entered college. Now college, hmmm, the next gate, the next rung in the educational ladder and the next stop: post-grad studies! Wooohooo! And where was Ed, you ask? Just right off my back ready to cheat his way through cum laude – the Arse! I took up biology, ready to be a doctor; he copied my every move!! So there we were, stuck like, like --- lost for similes.

Anyway, the thing about college is that you can choose your subjects’ schedule right? (cue evil laugh: he-he-he) So I managed to shake him off my heel and enroll secretly. He was a BIT furious I tell you, actually erasing my number on his cell phone, telling my mom (he calls her tita) that I enrolled only four subjects, acting insanely snobbish for ahmm.. 5 hours and what was actually worse, he managed to grab a copy of my matriculation form and enroll the same subjects. FUTILE I tell you, F.U.T.I.L.E. efforts.

We began to have a more mature classmate-to-classmate relationship: I let in a f e w errors on my exam, I begun my absenteeism spree, feigned sleep in my classes, injected alcoholism in my boring, dull life and started smoking; serious, real smoky, Smoking. (I will drag you down!!! Ha-ha-ha)

And that was the pivotal moment. I don’t know, but I think it was kind’a sweet when he just stepped right down on my low-liest point and swept me right off that life-cliff with that muscular, well-sculpted, beefy, thickset, burly, hard-as-rock arms. XD

He told mom I was drinking at ThePub and smoking some real smoky smoke! Mom (with Ed!!! The sidekick!) stormed at ThePub, wonders of wonders, grabbed me and my life by my ear, threw me in the car, and days later I heard ThePub was a total goner. Kaput! I guess it was because I was only 17 at that time and that it was a local ordinance not to sell alcoholic drinks to minors. Whatever happened, I was branded in my own little city: D.N.S.A., Do Not Sell Alcohol. Ed was guffawing during all the commotion, snorting even. But really, I should be holding his hand and saying thank you...

I went mellow after that. I re-enrolled all my 1^st semester subjects and added four minor subjects more. And of course Ed was still there, doing what he does best: flirting and cheating. Nothing out of the ordinary really.

Until he asked me out.

Shit! My turn on the tagay again! This Matador is really going to my head now. Art a.k.a Mr. Puke Head has just finished his 3^rd round blowing his dinner at the bromeliads. Poor, poor plants, all those digestive acids corrupting your leaves. Raul and Cookie have just passed- out in the sofa. Is this the 5^th bottle of brandy Anton is carrying? I’ve drunk 2, they’re done with 2 more when Ed and I joined them. Shit! Of course that’s 5 moron. I’m tipsy, and just one more tug from Ed, I’ll say hi to my dinner again.

Mark is surely silent. Was it the arguments a while ago? When I made a SPEECH (!) about, about, my god this is embarrassing - about love?

Ed is now talking to Anton, Art a.k.a. Mr. Puke Head went off to his room literally crawling on fours. I can barely hear Ed and Anton. Ugh! Drunk talking to a Drunk. Just don’t tell me Ed’s flirting with this baboon! I’m left with silent Mark then. And being the codger-drunkard that I am, I know better than to be deathly silent when drinking. You talk more, your brain’s manageable, you talk less, the brain’s melted.

And then a sound... “Dude, (deathly silence again) I need to go to to to, ahhhd the CR.” Mark can still speak!!! Hurray!

“Sure, no problem...”

“KKaN you help me pare? CAnt really, ghhh walk.”

“Ah sure,” just to get out of this stinking place. Thank you Mr. Puke Head –

We half walked, half staggered to the restroom, which by the way is bigger than my goddamn room. I have to really support Mark right there in front of the toilet, afraid he’ll slip or worse, drown himself in the vortex of death a.k.a. toilet bowl.

“Just tell me if you’re through, ok?”

“Ungggh,” ok I’ll take that for a yes.

I entertained my self by looking at the fine tiles that line the whole restroom. Mosaic-like but not really, more like swirling blue and green chips dancing in your head. It makes me want to dive in and savor the Mediterranean Sea. I was really about to do that when I heard Mark move. Salamat, tapos na. I turned around and quipped.

“Are you done?” and then something hit my neck.

A kiss – - -

I guess, I’ve always been cynical about love. I guess even Wislawa Szymborska was right when she wrote “Let the people who never find true love keep saying there is no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.” Ahhhhh... LOVE was never really on my life-plan. It just upsets everything – post-grad studies, my internship, private practice, solutions to global warming and the like. The sheer idea of having to spend your entire life with this person makes me cringe, not to mention the idea of exclusivity: you’re not allowed to love another, you’re supposed to give that person your time, and energy and effort, and, and...

So that was my mindset when Ed surprised me with a date. Actually, a belated birthday date. My birthday. Nothing special really, just a barbecue-date at the plaza after our 7:30pm class. We sat at the park bench and talking about the usual things: his ex’s, his present flavor of the week, the most recent sex position he invented. It was a bit weird though when I’ve noticed I was the only one talking and he kept staring over my shoulder or at the thousands of passers-by. Weirder still when he began to talk.

“Kyle, I know this is... weird. I think I’m really in love now.”

“What, you’ve changed your side on the love argument? You’re now ready to commit? Good for you Ed. At last! He-He, what made you?”

“Just don’t act stupid ok?” and without waiting for my answer (so rude of him, now that I’m thinking about it) he added: “It’s you Kyle.””

“(...)”

“You! I, I just know it’s you. Don’t speak a word ok? (rude) I know, because I feel... complete. Yes, complete whenever I’m with you. I can even think clearly when I’m with you, spell MITOCHONDRION and ECHIDNA right, when I’m with you. I’m the best ... the best me, when I’m with you. I know this isn’t right for both of us, I’m just so confused right now, but I’m really sure I’m loving you Kyle.” OK that was a surprise – Yay! Happy birthday! I was expecting a sudden chortle, a bout of laughter that was supposed to be the hint of a joke.

“(...)”

“Did you hear me? Do you even understand?”

“I... Ed.”

“Just forget it Kyle, I acted stupid tonight. I’m going now.”

And that was that. After that barbecue-date-cum belated-birthday-date event, we were the same Kyle and Ed. Sidekicks of the other. Like nothing happened or no words were even spoken to the night. And to be completely honest, I forgot what I said to him that night. Maybe it was a ‘yes’, maybe a simple ‘I don’t know Ed’ or a resounding ‘fuck off.’

But for whatever reason I felt, weirdly, curiously comfortable when he held my hand, lingering for a brief second, and watched his back slowly dissolving with the thousand passers-by when he left. Like this was all part of a grand plan. Something I’ve always felt was my prize, my birthday gift. But will it upset everything – post-grad studies, my internship, private practice, solutions to global warming and the like? And I’m not really sure now if Wislawa Szymborska was being ironic and cynical herself when she said, “Let the people who never find true love keep saying there is no such thing. (HA-HA) Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die. (HA-HA)”

“Are you done?” and then something hit my neck.

A kiss – - -

“Whoa, what was that Mark?”

“You waNt this rhgt?”

“Want what??”

“You’re gay Ri ght? BeeN eyeingG on you at school Kyle. Give me a bLOw job right h ere , I know you wanto hehe... youR hungry? taste markie here, he’s waiting for youuehehe. Then Ill do your ass later.”

I was all of a sudden become confused of his words. I was deciphering his cryptic words for a second when he unzipped his pants and pulled his erect penis out. He pushed me so hard on the wall I thought I broke my neck. Then he grabbed me by my hair and shoved me down to his groin. I tried to protest but he was stronger than me. I managed to say “Your sick Mark!” and nothing else.

I couldn’t think clearly. I was fogged by both fear and alcohol. The friendly blue and green tiles that line the room were now his accomplice pinning me on the monstrous wall. Now I know, they’re not mosaic, they’re faux arts! Faux arts, faux arts, faux arts I kept repeating to myself just to stay focused.

“Ed! Help! Arghh, Ed!”

Feeling my obvious hostility he brought me up and pinned me facing the wall, pulling my pants down with his one hand and restraining me with the other. “Stop it! Your sick, sick Mark! Ed! Ed! ” and he pushed my head on the wall, now barely able to talk or breathe, I visualized Ed hearing through the thick walls. That’s what best friends do right? Talk to each other in their heads. So I cried so hard in my head I thought my veins would pop, “ED! HELP ME I’M IN THE CR!!!”

A searing stabbing pain in my ass surprised me and a sudden heat went up my spine like an electric shock both fearful and alien. I can hear Mark saying in my ear “Your tight, I like it. STIll a a vir gin! Hahaha.” The Devil! It was the longest micro-second, it seemed I was inhaling and exhaling for an eternal breath. A wicked god has punished me with an eternal second!

Then suddenly the door opened and a cold, foreign air kissed my brow like a benediction.

“Ed! Help me!”

“Hey! What’s this Mark?”

“join the PArty kuting! ill keep this onE a secret hehe JuSt between us!”

Mark used his left hand to restrain my head on the wall and his right to grab both my arms. My heart was throbbing so hard, I couldn’t hear a word. It’s true then; all those thriller movies were not exaggerating at all. You do hear your every heart beat!

Another stabbing pain hit me, and another, and another, and another. Another stabbing pain hit me, and another, and another, and another. Another stabbing pain hit me, and another, and another, and another. Another stabbing pain hit me, and another, and another, and another! I wish could just dive in those blue and green tiles and find my self swimming in a turquoise sea away from this room and this continent! “ED! HELP ME I’M IN THE CR!!!” my head was screaming.

After this, will they kill me? Please let them kill me! I wouldn’t mind a slow but certain death. Just get me out of this room! Get me out of these cold hands!

Then another cold air - Surely, that is Ed. That is Ed’s voice!

ED HELP ME!

I could imagine the two devils flying to the walls, their heads cracking and their blood staining the acerbic room. Ed would surely do that!

-But why aren’t they stopping? Why is the stabbing, searing pain not ebbing? Another stabbing pain hit me, and another, and another, and another. I heard a voice close to my ear. I recognize the familiar voice, the same raspy tone, but a seemingly different touch.

“I’m... I’m still loving you, Kyle. I still...”

The words were drowned by my own throbbing heart. For that eternal second, my head swimming in the blue-and-green tiles, I remembered a line I read to Ed once.

I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held

Keys in my hand: to a future of joy –

A wretched muddled fate-

My love has two lives, in order to love:

That’s why I love you when I do not love you,

And also why I love you when I do.*

*Pablo Neruda, Cien Sonetos de Amor, Sonnet XLIV, stanzas 2 and 3.

La Anitera

The moon hangs low over the virgin blackness of the September night and grazes over the heads of trees lining the street of Elias Angeles. Its sharp blade plays strange images at the woman’s fertile mind; a sharp-edged sickle for a pagan rite of sacrifice. Closing her eyes to extinguish the thought, the drone of prayers from the nearby cathedral floods her. It is the feast of the Lady of Peñafrancia, the ninth and last day of the novena and already she is full of wicked auguries!

Tomorrow, hundreds of men, intoxicated by days of wine and beer will try to touch the virgin’s golden image; a trophy of masculinity, worthy to be retold for a generation. The little black virgin, helpless in a sea of raucous men

“The city will not sleep tonight,” she thinks to herself. “They are either in prayer or in sin, but in any way, questions will be raised by the drunkenness of prayer and wine.” She glances at the sickle-moon with contempt and a half-second veneration, before sliding the large window checkered with square capiz shells, closing it with one, final reverential bow.

“Must we do this Rodel?” turning now to a thin, handsome man, who has already slumped at her father’s favorite couch looking comfortable.

“Hnh?”

“Must we do this still?”

“You have to speak louder Mara, I’m watching TV,” says him and casually flicked the remote control to change the channel.

Impatiently, she grabs the remote control from his hand and turns the television off. For the third time she asks tersely, “must we do this?”

“Do what Mara?” he asks back sounding more brusque at the most recent harassment of his space and will. “Don’t tell me we’re having those irksome dialogues again about your, how did you describe it again, ah, ‘disdain’ and ‘scorn’ of these festivities? I told you, traditions are, we must not reason for or against it. So, can I have back the remote now?”

Still in front of the dead TV and with hands on her hips, she looks at Rodel with outstretched arms begging for the remote controller. If only you can beg for other things. She thought secretly.

As though the night, mixed with a thousand hail mary’s, commanded it, she gracefully, like one fluid act, seats at the floor and leans her head at Rodel’s right thigh. Not knowing the battle within her, he takes delight at the sudden mood shift and strokes her hair.

He smiles mischievously and quickly erases it off his face and looks at the closed capiz window as if he can see right through the shells and trees, and see the sharp sickle-moon hanging at the night sky.

“You know,” he begins. “My Bisayan mother hated this festival. Not that she hates the virgin, she hates the way the Bikolanos revere her. Oh, she was a devotee! I can say she worships the virgin mother as equal to Jesus! But she hated how these people would hold processions trying to get anything from her – flowers, thread, and cloth, from the image. Ai! She told me she did not eat the fiesta meal after seeing the procession for the first time.” He laughs at his own story while still holding Mara’s hair.

“But –“

“I don’t know why,” he cuts Mara whose mouth was still hanging in mid-thought, “my Inay never prayed with the women of the church. I guess she was afraid they’d learn she left her lover in Bohol and brought a fatherless child to Naga to live with her sister. Nevertheless, she prayed to the same virgin of Peñafrancia in her little altar at our room and prayed the same novena at the week-long festival. But never did she watch again the traslacion and fluvial procession. So I guess I understand you Mara.”

Yes she heard the story, but not from him, this was the first time he said that. Her tita told her about the gossips among the old women of the church. How Rodel’s mother was ostracized in Bohol because she was a witch and that she mothered the Archbishop's son. Tales that left her laughing at the sheer impossibility of those gossips, reminding her of Rizal’s Maria Clara or some cheesy soap opera.

“You haven’t told me that story.”

“But I have to tell you this. The wedding is in three days! You don’t want to marry a man with a skeleton on his closet!” and he laughs his full drunkard’s laugh. Mara thought the table has turned; she was the one confessing tonight not Rodel! Let him talk first.

“My mother is a witch.”

“Haha! Really funny. Did she leave you her broom on her will? Haha!” So he heard the gossips then. Poor Rodel.

“Seriously Mara,” he points at his face which caught the right light from the other room, making him more princely and mystical, “this is the serious face.”

“Okaayyy… go on.”

“The people call her ANITERA in Bohol. I was ten years old so I remember quite well when my Uncle stormed in our house one night and told us to pack our clothes and that we are going to Bikol, to her sister’s house, the one who married the local lawyer. I could not understand the haste to pack our things and the look of fear on my Uncle’s and mother’s faces we a puzzle. I caught words like ‘Kristong Hari Kulto’ and ‘salakay’ and only now I understand that the local fundamentalist sect was trying to kill my mother or at least exile her. A witch! She is an Anitera, Mara – a priestess of the Anitos.”

There was a lacuna of silence. A searing gap that seems to echo his last word. And then a voice:

“How sure are you about that?” Mara asks with an audible trace of doubt.

“Once, when were still in Bohol, I woke up to the sound of screaming. I went out of my room and followed the screeching and wailing of women until I found myself in our yard where the kubo is. There was my mother and a woman shrilling and bellowing animal noises, clawing at the two men, who restrain her. My mother was not there, she was another being entirely. The being did not see me creep among the mango trees. She was radiant or something, or maybe it was just my eyes fresh from the dark of sleep. She was speaking in another language –like bubbling water or something. She raised a handful of leaves dripping with water or oil and then rubs them on the woman. I don’t know what happened next because my uncle caught me and gave me a spanking inside the house. The next time was when I was fifteen, here in Naga. I saw her naked kneeling in front the biggest full moon I’ve ever seen, and drawing a circle with salt around her. By that time, I barely knew her. I was afraid of her.”

Mara notices the trembling hands of Rodel still stroking her hair and holds them. Soothing them the best way she knows how: she kisses them. And there was a long, pregnant and miraculously comfortable silence as if they are still talking in their heads.

I am even afraid of your own womanhood Mara. Every woman is an Anitera, guardians of the earth that is also their body. But I love you truthfully and must tell you my deepest secret and fear. I must open my heart to let you in but I must veil the fear I have of your own connectedness with your mother moon. I must place the ring on your finger, that remnant of a chain, and quell your womanhood with marriage.

I AM an Anitera Rodel, can’t you see? Every woman is. Must we still go on with the marriage? The ring is a remnant of a chain. But I love you fully, if only you know; Woman will not hurt you twice, love. The Anitera will be wed.

And there in the drunkenness of prayer and wine, the sharp sickle-moon which grazes over the heads of trees lining the street of Elias Angeles, has done the ancient rite of sacrifice and left with her consort clouds.