The Skirmish of Dark and Light

For those who might be wondering why this blog seems "dead," I've created something else, and since March 2006, it's the new place where I unload all my crap.

The blog's name is The Skirmish of Dark and Light.

Usually, I won't say something to frighten the kids, but I'll say it anyway. The Skirmisher's blog is nothing you'd wanna show to your mother. It's not exactly evil, but it's jaded at best, and at its worst, it's downright nasty; it's not for everybody.

It features a number of common threads or categories, like "Bullshit Meister" [where I make potshots at conventional wisdom], or that simply evil thing I call "Sacred Cows 2.0" [it includes, among other unspeakable things, a revision-in-progress of the Bible. Hah! I told you it's not for kids].

So, just in case you happen to surf by and find this blog as dead as a doorstop, do visit me in my new hang out. I hope you'll enjoy all the creepy, crawly things you'd find there.

JB

Thoughts To Provoke Your Thoughts

Thoughts To Provoke Your Thoughts

Toilet Humor

My sister’s been bugging me to help her out with her project in humanities. They’re being asked to produce a clay sculpture of some kind.

I tell her do a Rodin’s Thinker.

She rejects it, saying it’s too “common.”

Do it differently, then. Make the thinker sit in the john, instead of stone.

She still doesn’t buy it.

You know what, I say, exasperated, Do something irreverent. Debase something sacred.

Her face lights up. “You mean, Jesus Christ?”

I shake my head. “Too risky. Try something local and safe. Somebody like Lapu-lapu.”

Sitting in the toilet? Doesn’t make sense to me.

Then try somebody a bit more modern. Somebody like… Rizal.

Aw come on, are you serious?

I sigh, like I have never sighed before.

I tell her that in my life, I’ve only done two kinds of figures: dinosaurs and a naked woman sitting on stone. In my “really lazy” moments, I’d usually opt to do the female figure; it doesn’t take much inspiration to make one, anyway. I can do a nude with my eyes closed and while wiping my drool. In highschool, I did a papier-mache by shredding old issues of Manila Bulletin, mashing it up with starch paste. I did it twice because the first time I completed one, I woke up in the morning and found a swarm of red ants feasting on my masterpiece; the little fuckers were eating the starch in my obra. The second time, I crammed the whole piece (it was a prehistoric valley where dinosaurs—three triceratops and a tyrannosaurus rex—roamed beside a “volcano” that was only as tall as the animals. I tried positioning the two triceratops in the act of copulation, but thank God I received last-minute wisdom and didn’t go with it) in the freezer to protect it. When I submitted it to the teacher that afternoon, she was so strangely “excited” that she asked me if she could keep it. Too eager to please, I said yes, sure, absolutely; I didn’t tell her that by tomorrow, those goddamn ants would reduce the dinosaurs into shapeless carcass.

I tell my sister, Make Jose Rizal sit in the toilet, then tell your professor it’s Rizal’s final night and that’s supposed to be his last time to take a dump. That’s why Rizal is thinking too hard.

I tell her, “Rizal probably thought of writing “Mi Ultimo Adios” while he’s shitting. I usually get most of my ideas that way. So maybe he took the same road.”

My sister still isn’t buying it. “But didn’t they use latrine?”

It doesn’t matter, I say. It’s actually brilliant.

How do I make it look like Rizal?

Do the hair, baby. People recognize Rizal by his hairstyle. Part it in the middle, make it a little wavy. And don’t forget the jawline.

And I add, “Maybe you should give it a dramatic name.”

I think for a moment, then offer the name before she can say anything. I tell her, Call it Mi Ultimo Echas.

She grimaces. She says, Corny, corny, corny.

I shrug. I tell her that in other countries, people oust a government with this kind of subversion.

This kind of idea, I tell her, wins a Clio Award in other countries.

But we’re not “in other countries,” she says. And it’s corny.

I say nothing; I just grin. I’m thinking of more evil things, but sometimes you should know when to stop. But when she does decide to use it, should I stop her? When her resistance crumbles and she begins molding it in her hands, should I admit, finally, that it’s cruel, that it’s probably in bad taste?

Nah. Maybe I’ll think about it.

League of Monsters

“I don’t buy drugs, but if you really want it, I know people,” I tell him.

I’m not really into paying women for sex, but if you really want it, I know people, too. I can show you the way. I can even hook you up with my ever-bugaw cousin.

Point the way; that’s what I usually do, even if somebody’s asking me the path to Hell. Point, point, point, point the way to directions I myself wouldn’t take.

“But you have to realize you step into this world,” I tell him, “coming back unstained would be very difficult. That is, if you can ever go back at all.”

I’m cool as I say this shit. I feel cool. I feel cool to treat these nontopics as if they were dining-table stuff.

He says nothing, but I read his mind.

His mind says: You. Are. Such. A. Monster.

When I saw Sin City, I realized these are the characters that live in my head. For the longest time. Maybe Frank Miller has seen me in a nightmare. In a burning mirage in the desert. Maybe I’m one of the demons that jump up and down on his chest as he lies staring at the ceiling, waiting for the Dark Muse.

Anyway, the truth is, I’m really a clean-living fellow. I don’t even smoke. I get dizzy with my third bottle of San Mig Lite. My only issues are my very minor character flaws, like my furious arrogance, jadedness, my quick impulse to mock other people who somehow hold beliefs that differ from my self-proclaimed weltanschauung, my megalomania, my heartfelt empathy for fellow perceived monsters like Adolph, Pantagruel*, Napoleon, and Benito.

And, of course, my incurable impulse to ogle at women’s white and smooth armpits. Ah, skin, the death of me. Show me a hint of cleavage and I drop on the floor and die. Show me flawless legs or thighs and I just become rabid. And I haven’t even mentioned anything about boobs, yet.

His mind says: You. Are. Such. A. Monster.

I say nothing; I pretend I don’t actually read minds.

Because I usually sit on the fence and let evil take its course, in the calculations of some people, I also have blood on my hands.

Because I’m usually the only fellow left on the crossroads when Vladimir and Estragon arrive asking for directions to find Godot and wait endlessly for the fucker to arrive, because I’m the fellow who points the way, even to one that leads to their deaths, in the reckoning of some people, I’m accomplice to murder.

But what I want to tell this fellow is this: God stands there silently in the corner as somebody is raped. God walks on the roads of Iraq as mothers and their kids get blown up. And in the face of it all, God does nothing; God and I are not really different. God and I are two kids sitting on a fence, blowing the dandelions in our hands as carrion litter the ground around us.

But of course, I don’t dare say that. It’s an invitation to tragedy; religion is one of the three unspeakable things people like customer service representatives shall never discuss with clients. And I’m a good businessman, so I also know that

And besides, trying to find the truth is such a big headache. That people like Poncius Pilate, in Mel Gibson’s much-hyped film, could only say in utter defeat: “Veritas? Quid es fucking veritas?”

Not wanting to choose is already a choice; people like myself become monsters out of sheer apathy. Or indecision.

The myth of “making a difference” faded in me so early in my life. These days, I just spend time killing small animals, spit my blood on the pavement, howl during full moon.

I ask him, You want to know a bigger monster?

I tell him about this girl, sixteen years old. She’s pretty, she looks like one of those Korean stars you see every night on primetime TV. She uses casual sex as a weapon. She knows how to wield it as if she were born with precocious awareness of the power of her sexuality. She’s like the vagina version of Joan of Arc. Place her in a world of men, men who are so stupid they would give all their money just to see a woman take her clothes off, and you’ll see how she becomes God.

God, all powerful, all bursting with energy to make horny men suffer.

A world of men. Our world. This stupid planet.

To give proof of her existence, I open my laptop and show him her face.

I can give you her exact address if you want, I tell him.

That’s what I do these days; point, point, point, point directions, to paths I would never, ever take.

I close my laptop and stop reading his mind.

Somewhere in that small head, a seed has been planted. He will leave now, but he will come back, resolved on his inner issues, asking for directions. And I will dwell in the fleeting power of one who holds information. I will enjoy it. I will up my rate. Tomorrow, this power will jump to somebody else, and this fellow will cease needing my help. But I don’t mind.

There is always a need to be filled in the future. The crappy, same ol’ future. The world is crawling with fools asking for directions. And I’ll always be standing there, waiting for more Vladimirs and Estragons**, pointing to them the way to their absurd, horrible ends.

*Pantagruel’s one of the lead characters in Francois Rabelais’s 16^th-century series of novels.

**In Samuel Beckett’s play, Vladimir and Estragon don’t actually die; I just want them to. Besides, on some level, I think waiting endlessly is also a form of terrible death.

Aqua Vaticanus (Part 4)

Back at the hostel, I share my room with three people: an African American who looks like Mike Tyson, an Arab kid, and a South Korean who is my age and who keeps on telling me his house back in Korea is probably worth two million in Philippine money and that he’s so rich, oh God, and I’m so poor.

I am so tired I just drop on the first bed I see and immediately doze off. Unfortunately, it is Mike Tyson’s bed. When he arrives and finds me sprawled on his bed like there’s no life left in me and rivulets of my drool running down his pink pillows, his fuse snaps and he begins jumping around the room like a gorilla that just lost his bananas. The Arab kid is so frightened he leaves and drags his belongings and goes to the hostel’s administration to transfer to a more peaceful and loving room. The Korean, who probably knows a thing or two about Teakwondo, has the guts to stay and wake me up.

I open my eyes and the first thing I see is the blur of this huge beast kicking the walls and yammering about the mess I made. I don’t say a thing (I’m still too sleepy to understand the magnitude of my situation); I just groggily crawl to my own bed. He could have easily squished me like a fly, yet he doesn’t even touch me; he really is Mike Tyson, all sound and fury, yet, nothing. I come to my senses in the morning and I tell him, Sorry, dude. He nods and bellows Don’t do it, again, don’t do it again. I offer my hand and he gives me a firm handshake—so firm there’s actually a tear that popped in the corner of my eye—he’s crushing my goddamn hand. But I don’t let him notice that. I just grin. Sure, dude, I say. I walk back to my bed and realize my crushed fingers now look funny.

By the end of the week, the hostel begins to stink, thanks to the folks from the African continent and some Europeans who, we suspect, have not taken a bath since we all got here. Only the Asians—us Filipinos, the Thais, and Shoko and her Japanese retinue—come to the mess hall each morning fresh from their morning baths. For example, on the first day, I spotted this cute doe-eyed French girl. Four days later, I lose all admiration because she begins smelling like a common agwador at the Zapote market.

In my room, it takes me three days to realize I’m the only one who takes a bath twice a day, especially loving the warm showers. The Korean guy doesn’t even flush the frigging toilet; there were two instances in the week when I entered the restroom after him only to be greeted by the thick stench of his heaping, kimchi-flavored crap.

One of the Thais develops a huge crush on Neth from Baguio, but Neth has a boyfriend back home who waits under the pines on a mountainside, strums his guitar, and sings Ilocano kundiman songs every sunset. The memory of him makes Neth feeling guilty each time she gets cozy with this Thai. I tell her everything you do here does not count, so go ahead and give that lovestruck Thai a kiss he’ll never forget in his life and a great story he’ll tell friends as long as he lives. Neth playfully slaps me on the cheek and says Actually, I’m interested in somebody else here, but he’s so busy with some Japanese who can’t even pronounce the word “gobbledygook.” She gives me a wink and struts out the mess hall. I look around and wonder and wonder if she thinks the same evil thing I’m thinking.

In the mornings during breakfast in the great glass-domed mess hall, we usually have a great time chatting. We exchange war stories and pet peeves and it is crazy hearing all of us speak in a multitude of tongues. After the breakfast, I tell Jocelyn take all they can. We all stuff oranges, apples, and bananas in our jackets, and the mess hall manager stares at us on our way out, probably wondering why we look so suddenly bloated. Outside, we run and laugh like there’s no tomorrow. You’re all jologs, Kent The Rich Kid tells us. I just laugh and say don’t take this seriously, man. Anything we do here does not count. You’re still jologs, Kent insists with that snotty air. I glare at him, shake down his jacket, and when bananas and a muffin tumble down from his pockets, we all laugh. Yeah, right, I say. We then run to our shuttle buses.

On the bus, I tell Daniella, our pretty scoutmaster, about my mission in Rome: to get a vial of holy water from St. Peter’s Basilica. She shakes her head vigorously: we only have a day left, and our itinerary is full, she says. We are supposed to visit a vineyard, and the foggy remains of an old Roman village in the outskirts of the city.

Disappointed, I stand up and go to Kent The Rich Kid. I have to get holy water, I tell him. This trip to the vineyard is boring, it will kill you and bore you out of your skull. I tell him if he wants some hell of an adventure, he must come with me. He asks, To where? Back to Rome, I say. Let’s buy more porn… So are you in or are you out?

Kent The Rich Kid makes a wide grin.

-JB

Aqua Vaticanus (Part 3)

It’s raining, but Shoko is smiling as if the sky were blue. Everywhere there’s this bluish glow that one only probably finds in Europe; back home, the dusk looks different, smells different, feels different.

In the middle of the drizzle, we are walking and I’m very thirsty. We carry empty bottles with us and we refill it everywhere. We drink water from fountains or public spigots. Now, that’s my regular peeve. Almost all fountains are abstract spouts, and when in human form, they come as some little naked boy peeing, like cupid or something. Always naked boys. What evil, sick conspiracy is this? Why haven’t anybody here made a fountain using the naked female form, like a girl peeing? Or a fully-grown woman, with nice nubile curves, standing on a fountain and, well, spouting water from her orifices. Why not?

Now, I ask Shoko about the fountain: why male kids? Can’t anybody fashion something else more exciting, some lovely goddess like Venus squatting and peeing with crystal-clear water spurting out from her divine gash (thanks to Larry Flynt for the word “gash”). Well, they do it all the time using cupid or little boys, it’s time for men to take up arms and sculpture women on fountains. Now, I bet most men will line up to get a sip.

The Mexican brunette who suddenly materializes beside us says to me That’s why I don’t trust you—you’re a raving mariachi maniac. I say the “raving maniac” part I understand, but I don’t even know what the hell mariachi is (and if I had known Rex Navarrette in 1996, I would have told her, “And are you a brunette because you’re from Brunei?”).

Later, too, just around the edges of St. Peter’s Square, I go to the stalls that sell playing cards that when you heat them or hold a card over the little flame of a cigarette lighter, the supposed playing cards turn out to have pictures of naked women. (In Quiapo, street vendors also sell cards like these.)

The old Italians who man these stalls have that glimmer in the eyes when you ask for “naughty pictures,” as if they recognize you that amid such holiness, we are still part of a secret brotherhood of virile voyeurs that have survived the systematic onslaught of tight-lipped Catholicism. All I do is stand there in front of the stall and look about the various versions of plastic and steel crucifixes, and when the old stall owner sees my disapproving gaze, he nods and offers me to come inside. He then shows me stacks of Italian porn magazines gathering dust and must have been waiting for the raving mariachi maniac in shining armor to save them all. I snicker and nod. The old Italian also snickers and nods; he reminds me of that hapless old man in that Hollywood film Dennis the Menace.

Happily toting my magazines, which I have deftly concealed inside a paper bag (on which is printed the somber face of the image of the Virgin Mary), I walk back to Shoko, who, as always, is smiling. What is that? She asks. Tourist guide, I say, because we’ll look for a fountain that features the peeing female form. Shoko smiles again. I realize now if I tell her it’s actually good old Italian smut I’m hiding in my paper bag, Shoko will still smile, come hell or high water.

-JB

Aqua Vaticanus (Part 2)

Much later, I’m in a sunlit room in Universita Lateranense with a bunch of other young people. Daniella, one of the Italian scoutmasters who have been shepherding us around Rome, tells me that there are around 600 kids from 133 countries who are now in Rome for this global conference on world hunger, thanks to the machinations of the United Nations. She says their responsibility over the safety of all the delegates is giving them a big thrill and also freaking them out because most of the young delegates are what Ethel Booba might call “pasaway,” and it’s a maddening thing guiding us kids around a city notorious for its pickpockets, softcore porn, swindling, and other petty Catholic crimes.

I tell her I’m not “pasaway”; although I grew up godless in a very Catholic country like the Philippines, my parents are a stickler for mindless obedience. You see, my father, an eccentric duke of a duchy called Bacoor (that’s in uranium-rich province of Cavite) is a fanatic of the Isaac Asimov novel I, Robot, and he has always seen to it that his kids always behaved exactly as he would command. And by the way, I say, Do you have a boyfriend? Daniella is surprised by the question and she laughs and hugs me and tells me Don’t give me crazy questions like that because I’m light-years older than you and will you please go in that room now, the discussion is about to start.

So like a dutiful kid, I enter the sunlit room and sit between the Quiet Rwandan (more about him later) and that ravishing Mexican brunette who has been letting all the others score with her except me.

The thing is, I’m with three other Filipinos: Kent The Rich Kid, Neth from Baguio, and a high-school senior named Jocelyn who has been regarding me as her big brother since I unwittingly rescued her from the predators at NAIA. Only Kent The Rich Kid is with me in this group; both Neth and Jocelyn are in a separate room with another group discussing the dynamics of rice and hay.

It turns out that the talk is so boring I decide to play the Devil’s advocate by trying to bash some other kid’s idealistic argument. For example, a Nigerian girl tells the group that in her country, farming is being neglected (and thus contributes to world food shortage, says the girl) because the youth in her country these days would rather go to cities and get employed in urban jobs. Nobody wants to stay in rural areas, anymore. I raise my hand and Daniella the Italian scout who already knows what evil I represent points at me with sinister glimmer in her eyes. I then tell the group that the choice is probably more economic than personal; the educated youth’s decision to flee the countryside is probably a symptom of a dynamic that’s much more complex than just simply saying “the world is hungry because nobody wants to be a farmer, anymore.” That’s not as simple as that. After all, we live in societies that are invariably tugged by invisible strings that limit our actions to certain ends. And that while I offer no solutions, I can only offer my own insight that maybe our old agricultural answers are no longer entirely applicable in a world that gets more and more dependent on ideas rather than on tangible commodities—ideas like Yahoo.com and, years later, Google.

Then Kent The Rich Kid stands and quotes something from Hobbes that’s so irrelevant, and the exact line I don’t really remember except that I recall thinking, That’s baloney, man. Enough with the bullshit already. Of course, I don’t actually utter that; Kent and I are the only Filipinos and the only Asians in that room, and it wouldn’t look good if I play the Devil’s advocate against him. So instead of sneering, I clap my hands and tell him, “You’re brilliant man. Ming Ramos should hire you.”

After the boring talk is through, we all go out in the sun. I skip the usual path because I want to walk around the periphery of St John in Lateran church, and on a side street, what do I see? A topless Italian woman on the church’s steps breastfeeding her baby. Those huge white Italian breasts full of milk stun me so much that I stand there for long minutes gaping in awe. You don’t find these things everyday. Have you seen a beggar in Baclaran church that looks almost exactly like Gina Lollobrigida in her prime?

I get so excited I drop a five-thousand lira note on her lap and run over to Kent The Rich Kid, who’s buying some toys from ambulant gypsy vendors, and tell him “I’ve seen huge white Italian breasts full of milk.” Kent snickers and runs with me. I warn him that it’s going to cost him at least five thousand lira. He says Okay, that’s fine. We run to the steps and when he sees the woman, Kent’s jaws drop in fascination. Why does she beg, Kent asks me. A beauty like her doesn’t deserve this. And why in hell don’t we have beggars like her in Baclaran church?

I say, I have no idea how fates are handed down to people. Heck, I don’t even believe in fate.

Let’s save her, Kent suggests.

From what?

From this festering poverty, this freezing sty of homelessness.

We can’t do that, I say.

Why not?

Have you ever watched National Geographic? Ever wondered why the staff never ever interfere when a lion savagely devours some small, cute and cuddly mammal? Because it’s an ethic: you should never interfere with Nature’s course.

I don’t see your point, Kent says.

Well, this is Nature; those huge white Italian breasts full of milk is nature in its blazing glory. You can’t deny all future visitors to St. John in Lateran the sight of those; it’s one of the fringe benefits of being a Catholic with loose actual morals. It’s there from now till eternity.

Kent ponders it and nods sagaciously. He then solemnly hands me the five-thousand lira. I give her the money but she doesn’t even look at me; she just wordlessly breastfeeds the baby and hums a song I recognize as “O Sole Mio.” We hear Daniella the Italian scout screaming in the distance, in heavily accented English, “We are missing two people! O Dio, anybody seen them?” But we ignore Daniella and remain standing there, watching Nature in all its blazing, exciting glory. [To be continued...]

-JB

Aqua Vaticanus (Part 1)

Shoko (left) at St. Peter's, with another friend whose name I don't remember.


(This series of stories happened in November 1996 in Rome, Italy. I’m telling this anyway because anything “Vatican” seems in vogue these days.)

I stand in the middle of St. Peter’s Basilica, and the sheer magnitude of its interior dimensions humbles me. Some Japanese tourist by the entrance said, in halting English, that this is the largest Catholic church in the world. And when I got inside, I discover not only he’s right, but there are actually no words to describe the sense of human smallness you’d feel when you’re under the towering spires and the Dome. Even the crush of thousands of tourists swarming its space is not even enough to banish your sense of smallness.

My personal mission here is to get a vial of holy water—if possible, blessed by The Pope himself. Now, don’t get me wrong; I’m a hardened atheist. While I don’t believe in all the horseshit of most religions, I still believe in giving my old mother back home some good old-fashioned hope, like, say, handing her some representation of her faith and telling her it will cure all her aches and pains and make her so fabulously wealthy if she uses it correctly (user manual not supplied, unfortunately).

I stare at the ceiling and the Dome Michelangelo designed, and it makes me wish I can be God, so that I can be omniscient (all-seeing), so that I can watch all those billions of fornications that happen each day all over the planet. Now, I wonder why God stopped allowing the Pope and his priests to have sex since 972 AD (when somebody with a wonderful idea pushed celibacy in the erstwhile exciting lifestyles of the Catholic clergy)? Ah, no wonder most people think churches are boring places in which to hang out.

But this one is different; St. Peter’s Basilica is fun, accented in the corners by the bright and colorful uniform of the Swiss guards. Now, if you’re in Vatican City and there’s anybody you must never cross, it’s these Swiss guards. One of my friends back home told me that if the Swiss guards get angry enough, they’ll impale you with those halberds of theirs, draw and quarter you, and leave pieces of your festering carcass hanging on gibbets for the crows. They’re supposedly so loyal to their Pope they’re willing to come to the Pope’s aid even if they’re in the thick of their pusoy dos or tong-its matches. In 1527 during the sacking of Rome, for example, they protected Pope Clement VII to escape to the Castel Sant’Angelo, where only 42 survived of the 189 guards.

Now, why am I here “besmirching” this supposedly holy place with my evil presence? A month earlier, I had won in that national essay tilt and before I knew it, Salvador Escudero, the Department of Agriculture secretary (this is circa 1996) is handing me the trophy, some prize money, and that all-powerful go-signal to his staff that I be included in Fidel Ramos’s scheduled sortie to Italy and add more musculature to the President’s already bloated retinue—after all, what can send a more positive political signal than a “brilliant and nice” youth like me, the hope of the future, hanging out with crusty old politicians? If that’s not pogi points to wow the OFWs in Italy, I don’t know what is.

At St. Peter’s, it’s easy to lose your mind in all the excitement and the overwhelming sense of awe. It’s very tempting to just lie on the marble floor and take snapshots of the paintings on the enormous dome—which is what I actually do—I lie on the floor and snap pictures from all sorts of crazy angles. It takes two seconds before somebody is shouting at me in angry Italian and from the corner of my eye I see the blur of some uniform rushing at me. I jump and run outside St. Peter’s and hide in the crowd.

I laugh on the steps of the Basilica and I see Shoko Fukami, the Japanese girl I had befriended two days earlier, waving to me.

Outside, on the steps, is the bewildered herd, the Desperati. And most of them are Japanese tourists spending their powerful yen and enjoying the good life. I don’t really mind because some of them are pretty Japanese girls, so cute and pretty they seem like flowers on a sunny field you’d want to collect, stuff in your pocket, and bring home as pasalubong to all the horny student editors of the Adamson Chronicle.

I became friends with Shoko because I had told her I’m in Rome because of some nice, happy essay I wrote about world hunger; it turns out she’s in Rome, too, because of some nice, happy essay she wrote about world hunger for sashimi.

Now, Shoko is waving to me as she talks to other Japanese who are asking for directions. I pull her from the all-smiling and all-bowing Japanese crowd and tell her This is so fun. I’m doing my crazy antics right in the eye of Western Christendom and I can pull it off. Shoko doesn’t understand me; like most Japanese, she loses me when I speak too fast or I get beyond the “dog-cat-boy” kind of English. So often, instead of saying “My ass almost got kicked over there,” I have to make split-second verbal recalibration and instead only say “He in the uniform wanna kill me, sweet Jesus.” And also, like most Japanese, even if she’s confused or annoyed or just doesn’t care, she invariably smiles and makes those little nods that remind me of how Yoko Ono must have intrigued and seduced John Lennon one night some thirty years ago.

Sometimes I get so naughty I just say “Let’s get the fuck out of here!” because there seems to be something about the word “fuck” that it instantly sends her into fits of hysterical laughter—especially when you say it amid the solemnity of Vatican City. I felt so powerful when I first discovered it, like uncovering some amazing control button or beating Sauron to getting the One Ring. So when things get out of hand or she gets bored or sad, I just say “fuck” and she laughs and laughs and I think she even wants to marry me. We lose our way on the streets and I say “fuck Rome” and she looks at me and laughs. I drink water from a fountain and I say “fuck, it’s cold” and she laughs. We stand on the platform in the subway and some European skinhead suddenly turns to me and cusses me (apparently mistaking me for somebody else) and I say “Fuck that skinhead” and Shoko laughs and laughs and tells me You’re so faack-king funny, Joe. I snicker and wonder why she keeps on forgetting the other half of my ever-corny name and wonder if I can take this to another romantic level. [to be continued…]
-JB

Fleeing the light fantastic.

BeKnighted

I call him Jooney Gamboa. In the real world, he is an eye doctor, one of those folks you go to when there’s something terribly wrong with your vision like, say, you see naked women all the time. In the real world, too, Jooney Gamboa dons a white robe and tells me he also has a branch in Laguna that’s so state-of-the-art he can actually perform laser eye surgery and give those snotty Americans a good run for their money.

But here in his clinic in the heart of Makati, amid the corny muzak of the Carpenters and Kenny Rogers (good grief!), he is Jooney Gamboa with his long white hair and piercing eyes and I can even swear he’s hiding his evil staff somewhere (like in one of his roles in a forgettable fantasy Tagalog flick).

Jooney promises me the good life. He mumbles his diagnosis as if in prayer, like a crusty old Druid, and tells me to brace myself because, after he’s done miracles with my shortsightedness, I will finally be tapping the motherlode of the universe’s pleasure navel. He says You’ll have more sex, more booze, and all those finer things in life only those born into position, wealth, and privilege usually enjoy; people like Jinggoy Estrada and his pet poodle, for example.

I tell him I come not for miracles, but simply for a pair of eye contact lenses. I had been wearing eyeglasses for the past five years when somebody told me that we’re actually living in the 21st century so why in hell am I living in the Middle Ages? I arrive at the fabled clinic and I see other patients strutting out of the door with that dazed, sated look as if they just had the best sex of their lives and the sight of them intrigues and mortifies me.

After I realized I was getting myopic, I suddenly found myself telling the oft-repeated tale of self-remorse soaring to the heights of archetype: 1996, Ermita, a student writer crossing Taft Avenue, a trailer truck nearly misses him, the student writer ducks to the sidewalk, he questions the existence of God (like “if God exists, why does He allow a ‘bad’ person like him to survive this happy, happy planet?”), enters the cinema and realizes he couldn’t clearly see the steamy bed scenes from the rear of the balcony.

I suddenly missed the good things in life that I previously were taking for granted, like watching car chases, gunfire, beatings, pornography, and other visually compelling things on TV. I suddenly realized that not only I live and speak like a writer should, but I’ve also begun looking like one with my requisite corrective eyeglasses and the newly-acquired habit of muttering the word “futile” every three seconds—which was very bad for a kid who had always dreamt of playing the knight in shining armor saving a damsel in distress from the clutches of a horny, smelly dragon.

Now, I find salvation in Jooney Gamboa’s clinic. He drops anesthesia on each of my eyes, inserts the contact lenses, and tells me that before I open my eyes, we should say a little prayer.

A bit dazed from the strong lights, I mumble something like, Sure, yes, anything.

Okay, he says. He breathes heavily and assumes a solemn countenance and says, Repeat after me:

O God of ultra-thin contact lenses and overpriced multiple rinse solutions,
We, who are about to see better and wink better,
Salute you.
O grant us the power, the opportunity, the ability
To watch Katok Mga Misis and Eat Bulaga again with perfect, 20/20 vision
And while you’re at it, oh God,
Give us more sex, more booze, and more of those finer things in life that
Only those born into position, wealth, and privilege usually enjoy,
Like Jinggoy Estrada and his pet poodle with the shiny bling-bling.
Today and in the coming days,
Amen.

By the door, he exhorts me to emerge into the world and relish its new brightness. Smell the roses and the napes of teenage Scolasticans, sip overpriced iced lattes, kiss cute babies. And so I sallied forth like a newly-knighted Uruk Hai.

When I emerge from the Primo Building, I discover he’s right: I have regained my peripheral vision; there is no more of the old tunneled sight. So I run on Ayala Avenue like a newly-unleashed kid on the first day of summer, board a bus to Leveriza, and, with a voice quaking in overwhelming sense of power, order the wide-eyed bus driver to take me to the nearest, fairest, most helpless damsel in distress. I am going to kick ass, I tell him, “like an individual beam of light rising from our collective darkness.”

The bus driver yawns and tells me to sit in the back, as far away from him as possible. Shocked at his total lack of romantic sense, I mutter This is futile, futile, futile. Then I sit in the back, as far away from the sore dude as possible.

-JB