Dogeaters (11 page)

Yeah, that’s right. One of those…” Neil is uncomfortable. Andres stands behind the bar, within earshot. He seems absorbed in the magazine he’s reading, another article about his rich cousin Alacran. But I know Andres—one ear’s cocked in our direction.

“You want boys, girls, or both? Maybe you want children?”

“How much?” It’s the first and only time Phil opens his mouth.

“Depends,” I say. I’ll negotiate with Uncle privately, take my cut.

“We have a car,” Neil says.

We drive down Roxas Boulevard slowly, looking for the street. It’s early, around eleven at night. I sit in the front seat with Neil, giving directions. Across the boulevard I can see Manila Bay, black and still. “Is that your ship?” I point to the ghostly carrier floating in the middle of the dark sea. The men don’t respond.

Uncle’s waiting for us with Emiliano the night watchman, hired by Congressman Abad to guard his property from vandals and thieves. Uncle deals with me directly, talking in Tagalog and ignoring the two white men. He orders Emiliano to stay outside to watch the car, after I tell Neil to give Emiliano some money.

The abandoned Lido Supper Club is a white building with fake marble columns on the outside. Statues of half-naked nymphs and satyrs hold unlit torches. Uncle ushers us in through the back door. It’s cavernous inside, and eerie. Everything’s been left as it was—dozens of little tables and chairs, all with stained white tablecloths still on them, ashtrays filled with cigarette butts, empty bottles of San Miguel beer. The enormous dance floor is tiled with blue and white mosaics. There is a thick coat of dust on everything we touch.

Uncle looks for the main switch, stumbling and pointing his flashlight at the cobwebs on the walls. Finally he turns on the dim chandelier that hangs in the room. He motions to a table in the front row, facing a large stage. Not too long ago, Johnny Buenaventura and His Amazing Orchestra used to play “The Girl from Ipanema” here. Now, a bare mattress lies dead center, a roll of toilet paper and a bottle of alcohol next to it.

I leave the two Americans at the table, take Uncle aside and tell him what they want. He is gone approximately ten minutes. A skinny young girl enters, followed by a well-built young man, close to my age. She wears a flimsy, loose-fitting dress, her eyes lowered. She is barefoot, and I notice her manicured toenails sharpened to a point, her black nail polish dotted with tiny crescent moons. The young man is also barefoot. He wears khaki pants, nothing else. There are intricate tattoos of spiders and cobwebs up and down his sinewy body. A weeping Madonna is tattooed across his back. He is beautiful. The two Americans sit up in their chairs, attentive now. I stay in the back of the cavernous room, smoking my cigarette in the shadows. This way, I can watch them all, the two Americans, the young girl with her face turned away, the young man with the magnificent tattoos. Uncle has quietly disappeared. When it is over, the young man looks up at the white men while the girl tears off some toilet paper, dabs it in alcohol, and wipes herself off. “Okay, boss?” the young man asks eagerly, grinning at the stunned Americans. “You want us to do that again?”

We are in a room at the Hilton. “You ought to sing,” Neil is saying, “you have a great voice. Good way to make some money, even here in Manila.” I grunt in response. What does he know—I’ve heard all this before. I turn on the giant color TV.

I have just taken a bath
and
a shower. If the water stayed hot, I’d be in there all day. Afterward I stuff the plastic shower cap and slippers with the Manila Hilton insignia, complimentary robe and two bars of Cashmere Bouquet soap into one of Neil’s SPORTEX shopping bags. He hates it when I do that. “You don’t need to take that cheap shit. I’ll buy you whatever you need…” He just doesn’t understand. I love the newness and cleanness of my little souvenirs, the smell and touch of the glossy plastic. I would live in a hotel room forever, if I could.

“I’m hungry,” I say to him. “Call room service.”

We are sprawled on the king-size bed. It’s two in the afternoon—
Tawag Ng Tanghalan
is on. A young girl is singing “Evergreen.” She is earnest and terrified, but her voice booms out in spite of her, from somewhere inside that frail body. Neil shakes his head in admiration. “Not bad. Wow! She’s not bad at all…”

The TV audience claps and whistles enthusiastically when she finishes the song. She blinks into the camera, startled by their response. She is last week’s winner, and an audience favorite. She stands tensely in front of the cheering crowd, fidgeting with her hands. I can’t bear to watch her, it’s too painful. Her awkwardness makes me angry. “Look at her—how stupid!”

“Poor thing,” Neil sighs, “she needs to be rescued—quick.”

Impatient, I make a face. There he goes again, upset: he identifies with everyone and everything. Probably why he likes to stay drunk. I can’t be like that. If I was on TV, I’d be the coolest guy. Mister Heartbreak,
talaga
: the one that got away. Cool, calm, collected.

Lopito appears on the TV screen, waving to the noisy audience. Before he can even thank her, the young girl rushes off the stage. Lopito throws up his arms in mock exasperation. He gestures toward her departing back. “
HOY
, GIVE HER A BIG HAND
NAMAN
, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! LET’S HEAR IT FOR CONNIE LIM, OUR REIGNING CHAMPION! THE BARBRA STREISAND OF THE PHILIPPINES!”

Before announcing the next contestant, Lopito rattles off the different prizes: a twelve-inch Motorola color television, a clock-radio, a year’s supply of Magnolia Ice Cream. The grand prize is a screen test and a chance to appear in Mabuhay Studios’ next musical, starring everyone’s favorite sweethearts, Nestor Noralez and Barbara Villanueva. Lopito reminds us, once again, that Nestor and Barbara were discovered on
his
show. “DAT WAS MANY MOONS AGO,
DI BA
?” The audience in the studio cheers.

“Why don’t you audition for this?” Neil asks me for the hundredth time. “You’d be great—”
He can’t be serious.
I give him one of my withering looks.

“Come on, Neil. Call room service—I’m starving to death!” I’m starting to get irritable.

The next contestant is a young guy named Romeo something. Nice biceps, pretty cute, but corny. I poke Neil in the ribs, playfully. “Not bad—huh Neil? Your type…Look at those thighs and those lips!” Neil ignores me. “What a hairdo!” I moan, pretending to faint.

Neil gets up from the bed. “What do you want to eat?”

Romeo whoever-he-is starts belting out “Feelings,” only he sounds like he’s saying “Peelings.” He’s trying very hard, and he’s making me sick. No
karisma
, as Andres would say. I switch the channel. There’s an old black and white movie with Leopoldo Salcedo fighting the Japs. I lean back against the pillows, my arms behind my head. My tight black curls are still wet, framing my face. Neil is looking at me, ready to dial room service. “Well?” He’s annoyed, I can tell.

I am still naked. We both pretend not to notice how hard I’m getting. “Cheeseburger deluxe,” I say, dreamily. “French fries with ketchup…Mango ice cream…and a Coke.”

When Neil got stationed back in the States, he sent me a postcard: JOEY SANDS c/o Andres Alacran “COCORICO” 4461 Balimbing Street Ermita Manila Philippines.

“JOEY: I thought you’d appreciate this. Wish you were here….”

The postcard was from Las Vegas: a color photo of the Sands Casino, with Sammy Davis Jr.’s name in lights. NOW APPEARING.

“You got mail,” Andres said, handing me the postcard. “You’re lucky I didn’t throw it away…Where’ve you been? Joey—you can’t just not show up for work without calling me!”

With that buddha-face of his, Andres watched as I held the card in my hands, pretending I could read. “Let me,” he finally said, snatching the card. When he finished reading it to me, I smiled. Put the card back in my jeans pocket. Carried it around for days after that, maybe months. I don’t remember now.

I asked Andres if he’d write a letter on my behalf, someday. I have Neil’s APO box number, whatever that means. I have to figure out what it is I want, before I dictate my letter. It’s gonna be good. I know how to get to Neil. He’ll send for me: We can live in Vegas or L.A.

“Sure—why not?” Andres said, in that easygoing way of his. He looks past me at the door. A couple of Australians have walked in. Middle-aged, okay bodies. They’ve never been here before. They hesitate—they could turn around and leave and never come back. Andres sizes up the situation. They aren’t servicemen. They look classy, yet casual. What Andres calls “old money”—his favorite kind.

It’s early. CocoRico’s empty except for me and a couple of other young guys. There won’t be a rush for another hour. “Good afternoon,” Andres greets the Australians, in his best English and most courteous tone of voice. His shrewd eyes stay fixed on them. I perk up. This is going to be interesting. I am tingling, the dope in my veins has run its course and settled peacefully.

The Australians are reassured by Andres’s politeness. They smile and sit down at the bar, not far from me. Andres stands under a poster of a matador and bull, brought to him all the way from Barcelona by one of his rich lovers. He is chatting amiably with the Australians, asking innocent little questions:
Where are you from? Really? And how do you like Manila?

The Australians loosen up. One of them, the older one, eyes me boldly. I ignore him, smiling to myself. Andres will pick just the right moment to make his introductions. I listen to Andres go on and on, prying information out of them. He can be so cordial when he wants.

That’s what I like about him. He’s so slick.

“W
AS IT AN ANGEL
who sat on my chest? Or that demonic
kapre
again?” My mother isn’t sure. “Like the night Rio was born—smoking his damn cigar, the only light in my hospital room at that time of night…He watches me from the dark corner of the room…He’s familiar, and not so terrifying now. He’s been with me since Raul was born, perched at the foot of my bed in another hospital—which one, I can’t remember…”

“San Juan De Dios, I think you said once,” Salvador reminds her.

“He is my secret guardian angel, the only thing I can hold on to in that shabby Catholic hospital.
Where is my husband
? I keep asking the nuns.
He’s on his way
, they keep telling me, the liars. I don’t believe them, and start screaming for my mother. No one hears. The nuns are chanting
Dominus Agnus Dei
in the chapel down the hall, it’s dark and hot and the baby’s coming, I know it’s a girl this time, but no one is there to help me—not my husband, not my son, not my doctor who is detained. The sirens are going—is it typhoon signal number three or an air-raid alert? Are the Japs bombing us? I’m screaming for help—where is my charming husband? The angel-gorilla soothes me, he looks familiar, he looks like Freddie’s brother Agustin, he puffs on his fat supernatural cigar and strokes my hair.
Talk to me
! I beg him.
Talk to me
!” She pauses. “It’s not exactly an ape, you understand. Not exactly a baboon with wings. More like a big hairy angel—the size of a house.”

“King Kong,” Salvador murmurs. He holds up a bottle of Revlon’s latest shade, “Frosted Dew.”

My mother makes a face. “Put that away, it looks like something Florence would wear.”

“
Kangkong
!” Uncle Panchito laughs. They all join in the nonsense: wordplay, lewd jokes,
tsismis.
I am forgotten in my mother’s dressing room, seated at the vanity table, inspecting her perfume bottles. The manicurist Salvador is filing my mother’s long, oval nails with an emery board. He sees my mother once a week, on Fridays. Usually Panchito the dressmaker comes along. He pores over my mother’s fashion magazines for new ideas while Salvador soaks my mother’s hands and feet in lukewarm water; they are massaged in scented oils, rinsed and dried carefully by the fastidious Salvador before the actual manicure and pedicure begin. It is an elaborate process which intrigues me, and I always make sure I’m around during Salvador’s visits. He fascinates me too. In spite of his effeminate gestures, Salvador is married, the hardworking father of seven. I know he has eyes for my brother Raul.

“I hate pink,” my mother says, as Salvador puts away the “Frosted Dew” and shows her bottle after bottle of different colors. “Pink is an insipid color.”

Uncle Panchito looks up from the current issue of
Vanidades
, which
Abuelita
Socorro has sent my mother from Spain. Panchito isn’t really my uncle, but I call him that out of respect, because I like him and he is twenty years older than me. I would call Salvador that too, if he would ever acknowledge my presence and act less patronizing to me. My mother calls Panchito “Chito.” He is her personal dressmaker, her
modista
, and probably her closest friend. He is always at our house, sewing away on an antique Singer my mother bought especially for him; he and Salvador come only when my father is at his office or playing golf at Monte Vista. My father loathes Salvador and Panchito, and refers to my mother and her pals as “The Three (dis)Graces.” He hates it when I call Panchito uncle, and nags my mother to hire a new dressmaker, preferably a “real” woman. My mother is stubborn and loyal; on the rare occasions when my father stays home on weekends, she visits Uncle Panchito in the small dress shop in Ermita where he lives and works. Salvador and his family live nearby, packed into a rundown but clean three-room hovel near the San Andres Market.

It is easy for my mother to pick up Salvador in our car on the way to Uncle Panchito’s, then the three of them can have
merienda
at one of those coffee shops in Mabini. Sometimes my mother takes me along. One of her favorite haunts is the
Taza de Oro
, next door to the painter Horacio’s studio. Horacio often joins Salvador and Uncle Panchito for their endless coffee breaks with my mother at the
Taza.
“Come on, Rio—we’re going to meet some artists,” my mother used to say, motioning me into the car.

Uncle Panchito likes to wear dresses and other women’s clothes from time to time. He often wins “Most Original” at those transvestite beauty contests he goes to with my mother. Like the time he wore my mother’s leopard-print shirt tied in a knot at the waist and her black capri pants, for example. He calls it his “Calypso look.” He’ll say: “I’m feeling very Caribbean today. Put on that ‘Day-O’ song, would you?” Sometimes he’ll show up to sew my mother’s dresses with his longish hair streaked blond and pulled back in a ponytail. “Is the coast clear?” he’ll say, making one of his grand entrances, his hairless face expertly made up. “My God—you make a really pretty girl!” my mother once exclaimed. Panchito was not impressed. “I am who I am,” he said, with dignity. “If Freddie could see you now,” my mother giggled, “he might fall for you.”