I stopped flying RC planes sometime in 2004. I wasn't exactly sure why-- considering that flying RC planes is one weekend activity I truly enjoy more than anything else. The Tiger Moth had since been a wall adornment.
For six years the Tiger Moth hanged on my wall. In February 2010, I took it down and noticed a crack on the Tiger Moth's cowl. Somehow I felt compelled to repair it though I was not sure what I'd do after fixing it. Stripping the Tiger Moth of its landing gear and wings brought back good memories. I gutted the fuselage of its electronic innards; filled in the crack with epoxy; and touched up the yellow paint.
The Tiger Moth's lower wing had been broken three times in three crashes and had been glued together from what was left of the original and later from a discarded half of a wing I've salvaged from the garage of a fellow RC flier; the upper wing, on the other hand, had been broken two times. The nose had survived two major surgeries: one involving the replacement of the motor mount and the other from a crack brought about by a hard landing. The Tiger Moth is now a Frankenstein monster with lots of character.
After the nose job, I oiled up the motor and fired it up. Interestingly, it whirred to life. Smelling the hot oil and hearing the little geared motor gave me a thrill. Can it fly still? Something stirred within me.
I could feel the thrill of the build and the joy of flight sucking me in again-- now I felt even more compelled to see the Tiger Moth fly again. That's the thing with this hobby. You could scratch build anything that resembles a plane, balance it, trim it and make it fly. The fun to fly your plane a thousand feet away then make it come back and land it on your feet is as fun as the challenge of building (or re-building) a monstrosity from scraps that defy the forces of gravity. Or, building and flying an accurate scaled replica of your dream plane.
Early the next morning I went to a vacant lot; plugged in the Li-Poly battery pack onto the Tiger Moth and fired up my old trusty TX (-- a Hitec Flash 5 System X at FM 72.250/channel 23). I gave the motor a full throttle. Nothing. I checked. Fired it up again. Still nothing. I checked it one last time. Nothing. The motor had died*. It was a noble death for the Tiger Moth-- it died on a flying field.
I hanged the Tiger Moth on my wall again and looked at it as I sip on a cup of coffee. It really looked good on the wall.
Later in the evening, I felt an itch coming on...
* The kit motor for the Tiger Moth is no longer available; upgrading to a "brush-less" motor equivalent would entail nose "foam surgery" to replace the motor mount and an upgrade of the ESC as well.
I look back to it as a defining moment-- a demarcation line, a sort of scorched wasteland, between childhood innocence and street smarts.
I was probably ten-- a year older than most of my classmates in the 3rd Grade. I was a year late going to the 3rd Grade because I was made to stop going to school-- barely a month into the school year, and had spent the rest of the year, because there was nothing better to do, hunting dragonflies on an open sewer canal that ran in front of our apartment complex. I went back to school in the year that followed, but had to carry the label of a “drop-out” and consequently must “repeat” 2nd Grade. My return to the educational system, however, was marked by a recognition for academic excellence-- a Gold Medal. And because of this I was upgraded to the "Honor Class" for the 3rd Grade and transferred to the “Morning session” where the pupils, I was made to understand, were supposedly "smarter" than the “Afternoon session”.
And so there I was: the “Afternoon session” upstart diving into the big pond to swim with the big fishes. But, it was more like swimming with fish fries and shrimps for all my classmates were smaller-- not only in height, but in overall body mass; maybe waking up early in the morning had stunted their growth. To make matters worse I was tall for my age; and so I stood out even more-- all for the wrong reasons. They referred to me as the “Transferee” but they make it sound like it was some kind of a contagious disease. But, after the “second grading period” I was no longer seen as a threat. I did poorly in Arithmetic; worse in Music; even worst in P.E. Though I was good enough in anything that involved the American English language, I was no longer in the running for the Honor Roll. By sheer lack of aptitude for numbers (as well as lack of musical and athletic ability) I was condemned rather than helped; but, being in the shadows was liberating. Nobody was watching me anymore.
It was a time when teachers could still whack a pupil’s butt for being a “bad” boy (or girl); it was also okay to torture a child by making him stand or kneel for hours. Aside from emotionally scarring a child for life, it was also a deterrent for bad behavior; and it was certainly at the back of everybody’s mind whenever mischief is contemplated. It worked, too; well, most of the time. But it also worked, I think, the other way around-- it encouraged innocent little boys and girls to do whatever should be done to save their butts.
It was certainly on my mind one night as I sat on our dining table staring at a copy of Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary. It was huge. It was hard bound with what appeared as rough cloth and it was so thick I couldn’t grasp it with one hand. I stared at it for a long time. Our English teacher required the class to bring a dictionary in school the next day; and so I sat there while I consider bringing the behemoth to school if only it could fit in my bag-- it didn’t; it was actually bigger than my bag and I doubt I could carry it for more than ten paces.
And so, the next day I went to school sans a dictionary. Our class was buzzing that day. Everybody is into some kind of gag, scuffle, joke, or shoving match on top the excitement over the assignment for that day. Everyone around me were flashing their spanking new pocket dictionaries though English class would still be after recess. Noticeably, most the dictionaries looked the same; obviously published by the same printer and even bought from the same store. A germ of an idea flitted through my mind. And, without really meaning to, I took a mental note of where my seat mates were stashing their dictionaries.
The three morning classes breezed by then the bell for recess sounded shortly; class was dismissed and the usual rush for the door followed. I lingered; and as soon as I was alone, I fished out five similar pocket dictionaries from my classmates’ bags; made sure that indeed they were copies from the same publisher; and that they did not bear any name or mark; shuffled them; threw two copies over unto the top of the cabinet-cum-blackboard; switched the other two with two more dictionaries randomly picked from two other bags; the last one I tucked under my waist band. That done, I ran down to join my classmates for recess. Made sure I was seen then went straight for the restrooms and locked myself inside a cubicle. Alone once again, I pulled out the dictionary.
The bell rang once again signaling the end of recess. I ran up the stairs and managed to be the first inside the classroom. I pulled out the dictionary from my waist band and dropped it unto yet another classmate’s bag. Even before our English teacher came, there was already a bit of a commotion around me.
The teacher eventually restored order and to sort the matter out, asked that all the dictionaries on our row:-- two pupils seated together, eight deep, sixteen pupils in all-- be passed and stacked on her table. Only the boys were involved and while there are girls in the class, there is a wide aisle in the middle to separate the boys and the girls. She examined them and looked for identifying marks; then, she held up the dictionaries one at a time and asked the owner to come up and claim them.
Finally, she held up the last three unclaimed dictionaries and asked those who were still missing theirs to examine them. Five stood up. As they walked up to the front of the class, I raised my hand and the teacher motioned me to come up as well. We were asked to examine the three copies left. One was claimed by a classmate who explained that his had a tear on a page just like the tear on one of the two copies left; the ownership of the other was settled by a bookmark. One copy was left-- with four claimants. I stared at the lone unclaimed dictionary and contemplated my options. Then something like a sneer or a smirk uncontrollably quivered on my lips. I covered my mouth with a hand fearing I would break out with an uncontrollable laughter. At this point, all is good. It would not be right to "punish" all four of us; after all, we were victims. And the culprit is yet to be caught. So, no harm done. I've saved my butt and after a few days everything will be sorted out. It could have stopped right there.
Then a classmate grabbed the dictionary on the table and declared that it was his. I heard screams inside my head: Liar! Opportunistic thief!
There was silence for a second or two. A second more would have cemented his claim.
And so I spoke, rather sheepishly, requesting that if they would be kind enough to check page 57 of the dictionary, they should find certain letters had been encircled with pencil-- the letters should spell out my name.
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him."
--Jonathan Swift, Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral & Diverting
When I was younger, I would ride buses that ran the length of EDSA whenever I get hit by life’s curved balls. Buses back then were reconditioned and refurbished army trucks and re-fitted with Lawanit body panels; the floor were wood planks; seats were wooden park benches; and most were red in color. I prefer to sit up front beside the engine mound. While it’s hot due to the escaping heat from the engine, it had a window all its own that could be opened or closed as the passenger pleases. I keep it wide open to feel the blasts of wind on my face; I'd keep my face on the window until my eyes tear up then I would half close my eyes and everything would be a blur. It was also a good way of covering up my tears when I cry. I'm not exactly certain why I rode buses back then; maybe it was not unlike a mustang’s wild run to a comfort zone.
Now I drive. It is, I should say, I step up but it is still a medium for flight. I'm still running away, but today I actually have a purpose and a destination. I’m heading for a clinic down south. The drive on the SLEX was easy and in a matter of minutes I have eased out of the highway and the concrete is slowly giving way to provincial vistas. I was making good time.
The clinic wasn’t hard to find and I arrived much earlier than expected. It’s not hard to miss. Curiously rendered in orange and green; it stuck out like an afterthought on the front lawn of a bungalow along the highway. It was still early and it's bolted shut. In a while, people congregated on the two bamboo benches out front. An overhang offers shade but it also funneled the heat— much like a chimney, unto the waiting area.
The heat was getting to me so I walked to a nearby sari-sari store and bought a bottle of water; I drank most of it then offered what’s left to a man who was nervously smoking beside me; I saw him earlier sitting on the waiting area with a girl. I casually asked him what’s up. He said, still with a nervous twitch, that he just accompanied the woman with the girl. I inquired further and learned that the girl— barely in her teens; in scruffy cheap bootleg jeans and a still scruffier bootleg shirt, was raped by a fifty year old man. The girl looks a bit emaciated, had an ordinary looking face bordering on ugly and looks like she terribly needs a good scrub. These say much of the kind of predator her attacker was— not that the animal completely robbed her of her future for clearly she had none. The girl looked oblivious of what had happened or what was happening on that particular afternoon, but the people with her seemed more lost than she was.
In a while, two women walked in with a teenage boy in wrinkly high school uniform. He had a tattered backpack for a school bag and shoes with uneven wear on the heel and sole echoing the boy’s clumsy and hobbling gait. The trio sat on a bench across from where I sat. I would catch the boy, who held on to the woman beside him, repeatedly sneaking a glance at me with increasing uneasiness. The boy would whisper to the woman’s ear and the woman would nod with assurance and sometimes a sheepish smile would break up her tired face. The other woman is a generation older than the other and had a stolid countenance. Both women are modestly dressed that would have been more appropriate in a funeral. The boy looked sad and seemed to know that something was definitely wrong with him.
Hovering at the periphery of the assemblage’s guarded social interaction is a ghost of a young man— in a gray walking shorts and white cotton T-shirt. He had a decent wristwatch, an item missing from the other people there. He kept on looking at his watch as if he would rather be anywhere but there. Obviously a regular for he had that blank intense look of a young man seemingly balanced on a tightrope strung between cockiness and despair. In his hand he held a crumpled piece of paper— he was there to re-fill his prescription.
It was a circus of the walking wounded— a boy with a bleak future of pain, ridicule and shame; a half-wit rag doll whose only respite from deprivation is sexual abuse; and a young man looking forward to a lifetime of steady doses of controlled substances. I could feel a headache coming on...
She had an unruly Felicity Porter wiry hair. And doe eyes that gave her a look of sadness and longing that was quite infectious. She didn’t hang around with the other girls; somehow she wasn’t accepted into any of the groupings that high school girls usually fall into. Largely due to the cinema scam I've grown an appendage of two hangers-on gopher boys and an entourage of girls that provide a crowd or a tool of misdirection for the little scams we ran.
A favorite with the girls was the green mango swipe: three or four girls would walk side by side; the "designated thief" (usually one of the boys, but the girls are equal to the task, too) would follow the girls two steps behind and two more would follow behind the designated thief to provide cover at the rear. The girls up front would converge on a sidewalk vender selling green mangoes in a parked kariton; they'd check out the mangoes as if choosing one they'd buy. The designated thief, in one smooth motion, would scoop up the mango on top of one of the tumpok and would slip it into the pocket of the girl on the middle. Then the girls would walk over to the next mango vender and use their charms to convince the vender to peel the mango. The girls usually walked away with some bagoong, too. It worked equally well for swiping packs of cigarettes, too.
At school, we targeted the siopao and candies in a campus store while the girls provide misdirection. In those days, cigarettes were sold inside the campus and we usually steal a few sticks as well. Everybody’s favorite was the pan-de-sal lean: we would crowd the counter of the employee's cooperative store on campus and place our orders of pan-de-sal one after the other; while the venders were frantically filling out our orders, the "designated thief" would lean in and reach out underneath the counter to get a handful of loose change, which we use to pay for our orders. Leftover change would be used to buy Coke.
Noragail tried to break into our group of juvenile misfits and thieves via my two gopher boys. But, somehow the girls didn’t warm up to her. She ended up hanging around with my two hangers-on. Somehow she made it clear that she wasn’t so keen on joining us in our movie house scams so she usually pay for our tickets when she was with us. Not that I mind, but somehow without the scam everything seemed so ordinary. And so we usually go without her. Besides when she was with us, she always sat beside me and that means we should make out. It was fun for a while but I preferred smooching with and groping the other girls; they tasted better; smelt better, too. She got other things on her mind. She made me and the other girls feel that she did not like the idea of me making out with the other girls. I, on the other hand, preferred the other girls who were not so touchy on the issue. We, the girls and I, were simply having some fun. And so that was the end of it. I distanced myself from her and after a while she stayed away. Later I would see her hanging out with a scion of a famous show business clan. We won't be seeing her the following school year; they said she eventually lived in with or married macho guy, some say she got pregnant.
Macho guy, together with a Jerry Lewis look-alike comedian and the son of a famous comedian, would later be involved in an arson-murder case when they would set ablaze-- while in a drug crazed and drunken stupor, the condominium unit of the wife of a music and movie producer. They would all be jailed for it.
Noragail, along with five other people, died in that senseless conflagration. Curiously, she was referred to as a "housemaid" in newspaper reports.
I like movies. I liked it then and I still like it now. The main difference then and now is that there was only one way to watch movies back then-- you have to go to the movie houses; and you have to pay to get in. And that was the problem; I never had enough money to get in. But it did not stop me. I like solving puzzles; and how to get in was one puzzle that had huge returns: I get to watch a movie. I remember going to Makati for the first time. A classmate heard about a shop there that sold stink bombs and itching powder (-- two interesting novelties I would put to good use later on); I and two other classmates accompanied him. When we got there, however, we couldn't find the shop so we explored the Makati Commercial Center (-- there was yet no Glorietta). And then I saw the Quad. A cluster of four cinemas within meters of each other. I was in cinema heaven. I sat down enthralled on the floor, had Chiz Curls and observed the goings on. I must have sat there for an hour. When my classmates finally found me I told them that if they’ll pay for my fare and my movie ticket, I could get them to watch all four movies at the Quad for a little more than the price of a ticket. However, I told them that if we were going to do it we have to play hooky and come early so we wouldn’t be late going home; and, that we have to be in school uniform; and finally, that they would have to bring along three Band-Aid strips each. Without asking questions they agreed.
Unlike the Cubao movie houses, the Quad had johns inside each of their cinemas so there would be no excuse to go out during a movie for a piss and each movie house had a small snack bar at the foyer. But, I have observed that the ushers and guards would let patrons out to get snacks at the main lobby. The guards would mark patrons who had ask to go out with a stamp pad. And when the patrons come back with their snacks they would be let in again when they flash the stamp marks on their arms. I noted that the marks were all the same. And that was the flaw.
A week later we were back, we got our tickets; drenched our hair with tap water and combed it back; then I placed a Band-Aid strip on different places on each of our faces: one had a Band-Aid strip just above his right eyebrow; one had a Band-Aid strip across his nose; one had a Band-Aid strip on his left cheek; while I placed a Band-Aid strip across my chin. We practically looked alike if not for the Band-Aid strips on our faces. We went in and on an agreed time we would ask leave to go out to get a snack; then we’d switch the position of the Band-Aid strips on our faces and switch cinemas.
Along Aurora Boulevard in Cubao there are three movie houses-- the Diamond, the Remar and the Coronet, they are a bit rundown now and only show double features of second run movies. But in the early 70s, they were relatively new (-- they were built in the late 60s) and offered stiff competition to the New Frontier movie house-- which had the longest escalator and with a seating capacity of maybe a thousand people; it was the premiere cinema then and it was huge. But, we preferred going to the Diamond, Remar and Coronet because it was nearer to the jeepney and bus lines. These movie houses had box offices on the ground floor so you had to take an escalator to go into the movie house. Nowadays seats are priced the same, but back then you have to pay extra to watch the movie on the upper levels. But, we only go to the orchestra; it was the cheapest.
Because of the way these movie houses were configured, they ordinarily let in their patrons this way: after buying a ticket at the box office, the patron would then step up to the escalator, there the patron was met by an usher who took his ticket, tore it up; and, depending on the kind of ticket a patron had, would either drop the torn ticket in a box, if he was an orchestra patron; or give back half of it, if he was an upper levels patron. The upper levels patrons would then show his half of the ticket to another usher at the second floor; a balcony patron’s ticket would be taken and dropped in yet another box while the loge patron would be let in where he would have to find an usher inside the cinema, hand over his half of the ticket and be led to his seat. I observed that one of the three cinemas did it a little differently, instead of an usher a security guard was stationed at the foot of the escalator who merely check the tickets; patrons would then go up the escalator and walk up to an usher stationed at the only entrance to the orchestra or to another usher stationed at a pathway that led to the upper levels. It is only then that upper levels patrons handed over their ticket. At the second level, a snack store was on one side and at the corner were adjoining powder rooms for men and ladies.
In my young mind, this offered an interesting opportunity that could be exploited. Inside my head were the beginnings of a systematic mental codification of cartoons, comic books, the funny pages on Sunday papers, stories I’ve read, things I’ve pick up here and there and other trivial things I see everyday that are re-processed in the context of new things giving me a particularly organized way of cognitively perceiving what’s going on and to respond to complex situations or set of stimuli. I was fascinated with the predictability of how people get things done given a set of tasks to do; there was always an oversight; a loophole; a flaw. There was always a scheme cooking up in my head.
The next time we went to see a movie, I decided to test ran a scheme. I bought the usual Orchestra tickets for my brothers but I got a Balcony ticket for myself; we went up the escalator as usual, but upon reaching the second level, I told my brothers to go ahead and wait for me just beyond the doors. I went to the men’s room and after a minute, I walked out and slammed the door so the usher would see me coming out. I walked out to him and without stopping I pushed open the door to the movie house. I was betting that he would take it that I was already in and only walked out to take a piss break. I got nothing to loose, if he didn't let me in I would show him the Balcony ticket and I could still see the movie. But, it worked.
Later I would invite four of my classmates to see a movie in the same cinema, I bragged that I could get them in for half the price of the tickets, but they would have to follow what I say. They were a bit skeptical but they agreed. I got all their money and bought one balcony ticket. I got in first and went straight to the john. I got into the corner cubicle and opened a window; clipped the balcony ticket unto a Bic ball pen (-- the one with a yellow ocher body and a blue cap with an overhang, remember?) and threw it out of the window unto a classmate standing on the street at the side of the movie house. We all got in without incident.
After the movie, I sold the balcony ticket at a discount to a man on a queue to the box office. The man was more than happy to oblige. I walked off with enough money for two more movies!
I stopped flying RC planes sometime in 2004. I wasn't exactly sure why-- considering that flying RC planes is one weekend activity I truly enjoy more than anything else. The Tiger Moth had since been a wall adornment.