Sweat Dreams

??: Still awake?
JT: Shucks. Wide awake! Why don’t you leave me alone.
??: ... can't sleep, huh?
JT: ... and you figured that out all by yourself, huh?
??: Are you upset?
JT: Hell, I am.
??: You’re not scared of me, are you?
JT: You give me the creeps. Are you happy now? Go away, I want to sleep.
??: So, what scares you?
JT: You’re not going away, are you?
??: I got nowhere to go. You got nowhere to go. We’re here in the middle of nowhere. I got nothing to do. You got nothing to do. You can't sleep. I got all the time in the world. Let’s talk.
JT: (holds pillow over his face)
??: Come on, let’s talk...
JT: (holds pillow even tighter on his face)
??: So, what scares you?
JT: Shit man, you just won't quit...
??: Come on... what really scares you?
JT: ...
??: Come on, dude.
JT: ... hmmm... I guess betrayal... deep water... stray dogs…
??: Yeah. I was betrayed once. But, who cares?
JT: Only the betrayed…
??: Yup, only the betrayed. In Dante’s “Divine Comedy”, the 9th circle of hell is reserved for betrayers. A glacial wasteland shared with traitors.
JT: I wonder if there is a place for the betrayed in the afterlife, too.
??: Isn’t being betrayed hell enough? The problem with the betrayed, I think, is that they just feel bad about it but do nothing.
JT: What do you want them to do, kill their betrayers?
??: Well, it’s totally up to them. It’s just that they should do something about it. For not doing anything about it, they truly deserve the anteroom.
JT: The what?
??: The anteroom! In Dante’s vision of hell, these plateau drifters-- the do nothing guys who doesn’t move and just wallow in and out of misery, are condemned to be vagrants outside the gates of hell. They have done no evil to be condemned to hell but have done no good either to deserve heaven. They don’t go to Purgatory because this half-way station is for those who have actually committed sin-- indeed, have done something about it, though in a forgivable way; and after serving time progressed up to heaven. The “sin” of not doing anything is apparently not a forgivable one; I say sin because if it’s not a sin then I figured they would have gone somewhere nearer heaven; perhaps outside the pearly gates-- where, presumably, the conditions would have been a tad better. It is a sin of being neither good nor bad. And, deservingly, their punishment is to be relentlessly bedeviled by wasps and flies. A punishment, in my opinion, that is neither hellish nor benign; I guess just in keeping with their “sin”. It is said that the cries and lamentations of these lost souls-- yup, the same lost souls your priest talk about, could be heard in the stillness of the darkest nights. But I digress, my point:-- the betrayed should do something…
JT: But, what freezes the betrayed, most of the time, is that the betrayer is someone they love. They can’t kill them because they love them and so they do nothing or worse they kill themselves instead.
??: Ever considered killing yourself?
JT: I think so… when I was younger and didn’t know better.
??: Was it because of this love you speak about?
JT: In my immature mind, maybe. The thought crossed my mind, but I figured life is a lot more dangerous than death. Dying is a cop-out. Death is what happens when you fail in life. It’s inevitable so why rush it. Besides, there are still a lot of things I want to try and other reasons to live for.
??: But, aren’t you scared to die?
JT: What’s scary about it? After you’re dead, it’s done. And in a week’s time, you’re completely forgotten.
??: Oh…
JS: Do you mind moving away from me a bit?
??: Ummmph… So, what’s your beef about dogs?
JT: When I was a boy, an uncle’s dog attacked me. It was a colorless muscular dog they kept in a cage too small for it to move around. It got loose and dashed out for a romp around the family compound-- until it decided it was more fun to eat me instead. It charged me. It was big (or was I small?) It leapt and with snarling jaws went for my throat. Instinctively, I grabbed its throat as I stumbled over on my back. It was on me; sharp teeth millimeters from my face; drool dribbling on my neck; I could smell its breath. Its two paws were digging on my chest. We struggled a bit then a household help came and pulled Cujo off me. I’ve kept a distance from dogs since then.
?? : Was it one of those Pit Bulls?
JT: In those days dogs are what could be called “natives”-- a mongrel or a mix of no particular breed. Pit Bulls, any purebred for the matter, are unheard of. Well, at least, in our part of the woods.
?? : What’s the pride in that? Why keep a mongrel as a pet anyway?
JT: It’s a bit different then; they start out as puppies-- constantly cuddled, fed and cared for by children after having been given up by a neighbor who had a bitch that had more puppies that could be cared for. Then these puppies get bigger. They’re not fun anymore so they’re thrown out of the house: chained, caged if space won’t allow otherwise; unwashed except when it rains and fed with table scraps. These dogs have no place to go so they camp out in the periphery of human tolerance. Most live independently on the streets-- “self-supporting” dogs we used to call them; supplementing their meager diet by scavenging; staying within a radius of their camp where there is, at least, an assurance that they’ll be cursed, kicked and beaten less than in any other place. It’s more like a co-existence with humans rather than being kept as a pet.
??: Ummphh…
JT: There used to be a phenomenon that a newly built house comes with dogs, too.
??: How’s that?
JT: Well, if you’re having a house built or renovated, the construction workers come and establish a community within the construction site-- they build makeshift rooms to sleep in, on their free time they stake out the housemaids around the area, they shack up eventually; with the housemaid minding a carinderia-cum-store while waiting for the baby to pop out. Dogs-- and a sprinkling of cats, turn up much the same way. When the construction is done, the puppies and “left-over” dogs-- those not eaten, are left behind just like the ex-maids and their babies. When you move in the house, there’s a bunch of dogs hanging out on your doorstep and if you’re really lucky a housemaid could be waiting, too.
??: Well, I guess you could say that native dogs have no breeding… (laughs)
JT: On the contrary, I think native dogs are more intelligent and better adapted to the unique Filipino psyche than purebreds. A native dog is a demonstration of Darwin’s theory of the survival of the fittest. On the other hand, a purebred lineage could be traced to a Petri dish. There is a lot of in-breeding in purebreds to obtain a particular characteristic making them look good but genetically inferior; which is probably the reason keeping them as pets cost a lot of money for immunization vaccines and commercial dog food. Anyway, I think the askal could pass for a breed in itself.
??: I’m more of a cat person myself. Stray cats fare better than dogs, I think. They start out much like your askal but they keep a greater distance from humans and they’re less deprived than dogs because they’ve added stealing in their survival skills repertoire. They have gone beyond survival and actually live exciting lives.
JT: You just referred to yourself as person.
??: Oh, it’s more like a figure of speech. Convenient for our purposes, that’s all.
JT: Really? I think you’re not at all sure what or who you are…
??: Let’s not go into that… So why are you scared of water? Did you get washed away in a flashflood? Were you in the Titanic or something?
JT: Nah, it’s just that being in chest deep water makes me panic. I can’t swim... at most I guess I could paddle around a pool like a dog, but that's it. So instinct dictates that waist deep is just about right. Anything deeper would be pushing my luck.
??: Do you think deep water dredged up the terror of the dog attack?
JT: I don’t think so. My fear of water came much later in life. I almost drowned more times than I care to remember but I don’t think those episodes increased or decreased my fear. I’m not sure how or when it started, but just to be on the safe side, I now limit my interaction with liquids to drinking and showers.
??: Do you think there’s a connection; the mean dog standing on you and water crushing your chest? A man’s fear is built on another and the sum total is paranoia.
JT: Maybe you are the sum total of my fears. I sense that you’ve become bigger and bulkier through the years. What have you been doing, feeding on my fears?
??: Freddy Kruger!
JT: You’re Freddy Kruger?
??: Shit no! Freddy is a deadhead character in a B-movie. I’m for real. But that’s what the Freddy character said: He feeds on fear. People are scared of him because he is the personification of fear. And as people get more and more scared, he gets stronger and stronger.
JT: Is that what you are trying to do, scare me?
??: Hey, it’s just a movie we watched.
JT: You were with me when I saw the movie?
??: How else could I have seen that crappy movie...
JT: You been hanging around since that time? Since when?
??: Well, let’s just say that I’ve been with you for some time...
JT: Were you with me in November 1999, in Bambang? Or, that night I spent in a Legaspi City motel in 2003? How about that night in 1977 when I slept alone in a seedy hotel in the corner of Avenida Rizal and Aranque? Or, maybe that night I spent alone in Camiguin Island? How about that night I spent in a pension house in Infanta, Quezon? How about that night in an abandoned building in Bukidnon?
??: Wow, you’ve been around the whole block, haven’t you? Well, I could spin a tale like that corny Footprints on the Sand song but I don’t think you’re going to go for it…
JT: Were you with me in 1977 when I went for days without food and water?
??: Whoaa. No food? No water?
JT: It was after my fourth day as stok-wa; I made a promise to go back home; when I did, I went straight to my room and stayed there in the days that followed; lying on my bed, not eating nor drinking. I’d come out in the dead of night, move in the shadows, slip out of the door and sit in the moonlight. I’d sit there motionless for hours; thinking about nothing, pursuing random thoughts, holding it in my mind for a while and letting go. Maybe, I was hallucinating; lightheadedness induced by lack of nutrition-- mesmerized by a phantasmagoria of two-dimensional grayscale images moving in and out of focus in my mind’s eye. Maybe I was in the brink of insanity. Then before daybreak, I'll sneak back in and sleep. There was no way out of it. It’s one of those things that began with no clear ending; until one night my mother can’t take it anymore and she broke down. She screamed. I ran up the stairs, jumped over the banister and embraced her. She asked me to stop. And, that was the end of it. The next day, I begged leave to go out. I went out for a walk; then it hit me; I have a plan; for the first time in my life everything was clear: I now know what I have to do. And, in a cool December night in 1979, a few days before Christmas, I walked out for the last time.
??: That’s it? You just walked out?
JT: Yeah, with just the clothes on my back and a change of clothes in two small plastic shopping bags.
??: You never came back?
JT: Nope, that was the plan.
??: Just like an askal, huh?
JT: ...
??: .... a pusakal?
JT: z…
??: ?
JT: zzz
??: ??
JT: zzzzzzzzzzzz
??: ???
JT: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
??: zzz
JT: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
??: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
JT: How long has it been?
??: zzz… What?
JT: How long did we doze off?
??: I think it was around 2:00 a.m.
JT: Shit, just an hour of sleep.
??: Let’s go back to sleep…
JT: ?
??: ?
JT: So, what is it that scares you?
??: ?
??: ??
??: What???
JT: Do I scare you?