The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (54 page)

“Next time,” I said, “it will be my turn to invite you.”

We hurried to the
kumbento
, Toto behind me, and when we got there, I rushed to our room. I never drank gin, and now I was drunk.

Then the rains stopped, but mud puddles scarred the alleys; nothing changed in Tondo except at night, when darkness brought a little quiet. But the darkness did not eclipse the life—the radios, the babble of children. Then the morning would drift in, heightening the putrefaction, the smell of feces that was thrown in the pathways at night, in the knee-deep waters between the houses, along the canals. The voices of children all around, the laughter of mothers who had no milk in their breasts, no rice in their kitchens. The day came brilliant and harsh, bouncing off the rooftops like silver.

Toward Christmas the sky was often cloudless and blue. At times the winds were rough. They churned the sea and brought to us the rancid smell of the bay. The clouds would boil, then darken, and waves would batter the sea wall. The fishermen could not sail out of the channel and they sat in the
tiendas
instead, drinking gin and wishing for the sea to calm. But even on days when they had a good catch of crabs and fish, it was never enough and they would always return to this island as poor as before.

It was better at night not only because there were dreams. I had read once that there was this man in a concentration camp having a nightmare, but his fellow inmates did not wake him because they knew no nightmare could be more horrible than the reality to which he would wake up.

Now I went to school in the afternoons and on toward evening. I was in the church the whole morning, and Father Jess had more time to go around, looking for jobs for the young people in the Barrio who had finished college. He was also trying to set up a vocational school. In the afternoons, he was at the archbishopric, where he assisted in the work of Catholic Charities. Sometimes he would return with a sack of powdered milk, which we then transferred into
smaller plastic packets and distributed to nursing mothers. I always slipped a few to Lily across the alley; she needed them for her mother and brothers and sisters, and it pleased me to give her whatever I could.

Father Jess permitted me to work with the youth group and the first thing I did was to call a meeting. I asked them individually and they all agreed we could do a lot. But Roger’s gang stood in the way. His boys called me and Toto homosexuals. Still, we had to be together. I asked Roger and his boys if they wanted to affiliate with the Brotherhood, which was rapidly growing in the city and all over the country. They said they did not oppose it, but there was no hearty approval, either. In the end, I simply assumed that they would not object to our first project—to cement the basketball court so that we could play there even during the rainy season or use it for dances. I also planned for us to raise money for paint so we could beautify the multipurpose building and grade school, and transform the rusty brown sidings into something colorful.

There was plenty of skepticism at first; even Toto thought I was starting out wrong, with more imagination than was practical.

Yet something was missing; all through my first days in the Barrio, I kept thinking of Cabugawan, how very much the people in my village and in Tondo were alike, how they had come to this place, too, with nothing. The government had reclaimed this land from the sea and it was not meant to be a warren of squatter homes. But no one could turn away the hordes of jobless who had taken over the railroad flanks of Antipolo, the vacant lots in Quezon City, and this huge scab of idle land that was meant for commerce.

Ennui hounded me no matter how hard I worked on the school paper, in church. I swept the tile floors and scrubbed them where the mud of many rainy seasons had caked.

I swept the ceiling, too, of cobwebs and helped in the kitchen, although Tia Nena did not want me there. She was often quiet when the three of us ate at the small table in the kitchen. It came bit by bit that she was once in Mandaluyong—the mental hospital.

I tried not to worry about Mother and Auntie Bettina, and I did write to them, saying that I had moved to Tondo, that I had a job, and Mother had answered—it took so long, almost a month—saying how glad she was. She was proud of me, she hoped for me to be somebody, when all I wanted really was to see movies and eat Tia
Nena’s wonderful cooking, something she learned when she worked for a Spanish family in her younger days.

I had reveries of Lucy and our first encounter, how we had wrestled and done it on the floor. Memory burned bright; I could not blot her from my mind or diminish my sense of loyalty even when I recalled her affair with my uncle. As she had explained, it was business. Auntie Betty and he were no longer sleeping together—she was in her menopause and sex repelled her. At first Lucy felt that she should leave, but Uncle Bert had not made any physical demands at home, for there Lucy was always a servant. Lucy was helping a sister in college who was “brighter” and could make a future for the farming family in Dumaguete. At first, Tio Bert’s offer was just fifty pesos, but Lucy told him she was a virgin, so he increased it to a hundred—the most he could afford. They would meet during lunchtime, maybe three times a month, near his Binondo office, then they’d trot over to a small hotel with a side entrance in an alley off Juan Luna, and they would spend an hour or two together. It was fifty pesos each visit, fifty pesos that went a long way in helping out the father in Dumaguete and the sister in Manila, who was their only hope.

I did not see her for two months, but toward January I had a terrible longing for her. I went to Antipolo; I had done her wrong and I wanted to tell her so, that someday, if things turned out all right, I would help her.

I boarded the jeepney, what I would say formed clearly in my mind—words of entreaty, of endearment. I was hungry and hoped to have lunch in Antipolo. Even the vegetable stew seemed appetizing. But when I got to the house, the lock was on. Mila came and said they had all gone out. She invited me into her apartment, said she could send her maid on an errand, but I refused. I waited for maybe half an hour at the door talking with her. I returned the following day, around lunchtime, to find the house locked again.

After mass that Sunday I went to Antipolo with one whole fried chicken, which I bought in Avenida. Tia Betty and Tio Bert were very happy to see me, but Lucy was not around; they had a new maid, a middle-aged Ilocana from Tayug who smoked hand-rolled cigars. I had difficulty bringing the subject up, but finally, when we were having lunch, I asked where Lucy was.

Tia Betty explained; Lucy was summoned home by her ailing father. It was a very pleasant parting, there were no recriminations. My
aunt talked about her in glowing terms—maybe to impress her new maid—how industrious Lucy was, how clean the house had been, how polite, how little she ate, almost like a mouse, and how wonderful her vegetable stew was. To all of these, my uncle nodded, grunting approval.

At the university where her sister was supposed to be studying, I pored over the student roster, but her sister’s name was not there. I wrote to Dumaguete. Two months later my letter was returned unopened. I decided that if and when I could afford it, I would be a pilgrim to Dumaguete. I should have understood, I know that now. Lucy would always be in my mind, tormenting me, for I had judged her unfairly when I was not any better.

I
t was not difficult setting up the Brotherhood in the Barrio, but it was a paper organization and would not be able to do much, not until the cooperation of Roger was assured. I did not think he was all that tough; what he wanted from me, I surmised, was recognition. Spending years in Muntinlupa prison was a stigma he could not wash away. He was an “outsider” and he knew it.

Every time I passed his house I always greeted him. I also inquired about his likes and studied his movements. Thus, one afternoon, I followed him to Divisoria where he went to collect protection money. He was alone, and when he got off at Juan Luna, I overtook him before he could cross Recto.

“Roger,” I called.

He turned and, as I suspected, he was no bully when alone. Out of the Barrio, he had no swagger.

“Pepe, where are you going?” He even sounded pleasant.

“I was going to invite you for
mami
,” I said. “Let’s go to Avenida—there is plenty of time.”

He tensed with indecision and I put him at ease. “Roger, I really
want to talk to you. I’d like to be a Tayo-Tayo member even if I am not Bisaya.”

He relaxed immediately and sounded superior again: “Well, it is not easy, you know.”

“Not even after
siopao
and
mami
?” I asked with an ingratiating nudge. “Please come with me—there are many things you really don’t know about me.”

I put an arm around him in a brotherly gesture; it would also give him an opportunity to make body contact and assure him that I was not armed. The gesture was not necessary, I think; they all knew that though we were in Tondo, Father Jess did not want us to carry weapons.

We boarded the jeepney to Recto, sitting together in the front. I asked him what it was like when he was in Muntinlupa. At first he was reticent, but then I told him that he had this reputation in the Barrio as being the toughest. He nodded, pleased with himself, and slowly he described a bit of the life within prison, the hardships that sadistic guards imposed on them. It was because of these conditions that the Tayo-Tayo gang existed, grew, and spread out from the penitentiary, and because of its rigid code, some were killed in prison riots. The noise and the traffic of Manila eddied around us and his voice turned soft and quiet; now it was easy to understand why he was so aggressive, as if the whole Barrio, his domain, was a kind of prison, too.

There was such a jam at the Avenida corner, we decided to walk over to my karate school, two blocks away. We pitched up a dimly lighted stairway. On the cement floor, the caked mud of years, scraps of paper and cigarette butts; so, too, that stale smell of tobacco, dried sputum, and perspiration that had drenched these surroundings and impregnated them with that unmistakable odor of a humanity gone sour.

“My school is upstairs,” I said. “Come, I want to show you something.”

When we got to the door he asked, surprised: “
Hoy
, are you a karatista?” I nodded. He drew away, looked at me, and aimed a playful blow at my stomach. “
Siga
—” he said. “Are you going to show me tricks?”

“Yes,” I said, “if you want to watch.”

A few white and brown belts were doing the basic exercises and
our best instructor, Rading, was doing his high leap and double kick at the suspended bag. He was a black belt and had won trophies at national tournaments.

Roger watched with unfeigned wonder. “Can you do that?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said.

As I suspected, no one in his gang really knew karate; their theatrical postures were their imitations of what they saw in the movies, and a lot of it was, of course, phony.

“It’s for self-defense,” I said, “not for offense. That’s very important and that is the first discipline.”

I went to the locker room and took off my shoes. He did the same and watched me put on my robe.

Then I sweated through the exercises, the body bends, the jabs, then the side kicks.

The time had come. I got the practice knife; it was not sharp, but it was pointed and it could kill. “Roger,” I said, “take this and stab me. Any way you like.”

He demurred, his yellow buckteeth showing, his porcine, pimply face embarrassed, for now the other students were watching us.

“Take off your shirt, please,” Rading, my instructor, asked him. “It might get torn.”

“Do you really want me to?” he asked incredulously.

I nodded.

“And if I hurt you?”

“You can always rush me to the hospital,” I said.

He wiggled off his shirt, baring the heart and dagger tattoo on his right arm, and the cobra with bared fangs on his rotund chest. Both were handsomely done. He held the knife firmly and in a half-crouch started circling me. As I suspected, with all his fat, he was clumsy and slow.

He made a wild lunge that was easy to foresee and parry. I stepped aside, grabbed his arm, then threw him down in a heap without letting go of his arm. The padded canvas mat was thick and he was not hurt. I applied just a little pressure on the arm. He was helpless under me, his other arm pinned by my leg.

“Roger,” I said, “you know I could break your arm any time I want.” Then I let him go. He was flustered, embarrassed, and angry at himself.

“Try again,” I urged him, knowing that now, in his embarrassment and anger, he would not only try harder, but would be more reckless. This time, as I had expected, he held the knife differently. He feinted, then struck with a straight thrust. I parried the blow, tripped him in his momentum and, as he fell, twisted his hand so that the knife pointed directly at his chest. He was on his back, pinned to the floor. He gasped in surprise knowing the full impact of what could have happened.

I released him and he rose, white-faced and shaken.

“Pepe,” he said in a gasp, “you are very good.”

“That’s really nothing,” I said. “You should see what I can do if someone attacks me with a bolo.”

We dressed slowly, then went down, hardly speaking, and walked over to the noodle restaurant below the karate school and ordered
mami
and
siopao.
He had no appetite and toyed with his food.

“Please, Roger, do me a favor.”

He looked at me, his face expressionless.

“Don’t ever tell anyone what we did just now,” I said.

He was surprised.

“Not even Toto knows that I take karate,” I continued, which was true. “And if Father Jess knows, I would lose my job. And I won’t be able to go to school anymore. He does not like violence.”