An LRT story

    The LRT crawls southward along its elevated track; it judders past warehouses and gleaming stainless steel water tanks precariously perched on run-down rooftops, past bridges and half-finished structures, past derelict tenement buildings, their windows plastered with yellowed newspapers ostensibly to keep the sun out, more likely to prevent prying eyes from looking in or maybe to prevent the occupants from looking out.

    Hanging by my wrist on a handrail as the coach rock from side to side and back and forth, I watch the buildings roll past me like a tracking shot in a movie. My mind wanders to the days when I had to take the trains to go to work; twice a day I am offered a passing glimpse into other people's lives. I always take the middle coach of the three-car train. Getting in thru the last or the next-to-last door depending on which had less people pushing in. From there I make my way to the middle of the coach and take my place on the pivot section of the train. At that time, there was no air-conditioning yet. It could become quite stuffy inside the coaches and sometimes it smelt like you got a sock-- drenched in sweat, stuffed in your nose. It wasn't always that bad though. Sometimes the weather was pleasant enough. The opened upper window helped. It let in a steady stream of air. Not fresh but it would do.

    Out of habit, I got in the next-to-last door. These days I seldom take the train, but when I have to go to Manila, particularly in the Sta. Cruz area I'd rather take the train than take my car. Parking the car and leaving it on the side of the street makes me anxious. The LRT trains are different now. The coaches are bigger and they're air-conditioned. They are still packed most of the time but somehow it is generally a more pleasant ride than before.

    It was already early evening when I took the train back to Makati. The weather was agreeable and there was a cool breeze. It was still rush hour and so the trains are packed. It would be uncomfortable I know but it would still be faster than taking a taxi. Traffic was horrendous at this hour.

    Two-thirds into my commute the train made an unscheduled stop; pushing away the cobwebs of stupor that commuters sank into as a shield against the drudgery of public transport I realized that the train was stranded between two stations. It wasn't unusual. The train is old and poorly maintained. Lately, there were more and more of these stops. It's all over the news. Settling back into stupor my eyes were lured into the window of a crumbling two-story house. The house looked pre-WWII. It is mostly in ruins. Darkness envelops the structure. I welcomed the distraction. My eyes scanned the ornate cornices and moldings, picking out more and more details as errant streaks of light danced through the facade. Gazing onto the blackness of the window directly in my line of sight I could faintly discern the shape of what looks like a portrait hanging on the drywall opposite the window. Soon enough a stray stream of light cut through the darkness. It was a portrait of a woman-- I think.

    The train stirred and jerked an inch forward. After a few seconds more the train purred back to life. Somehow my attention was drawn to a finger on my left hand. I caught a splinter in it a few days ago and the Band-Aid I wound up around it now looks like a dirty sock. I pull the soggy Band-Aid off the end of my pinky and look at the pale, wrinkled, pulpy flesh beneath, blood caked between the finger nail and the dead-looking bloated flesh-- a zombie finger. When I looked again the train had pulled up to the next station. I looked at the white metal plate that flashed before me. I took a mental note of the station indicated. My mind floated back to the image of the woman. The woman on the painting-- or was it a photograph, was holding up two fingers in what looks like a peace sign. Her eye close to the forefinger is captured in what looked like wink. A corner of her lips curled up in some kind of a naughty half-smile. Or so I think. It was like a mirage. And maybe as the image melts away from memory I imagine more than what I actually saw.

    I took the train again the following week and as the train was passing through the area where I remember the intriguing structure was, I looked for it but somehow missed it. It was mid-afternoon still. Maybe the harsh light somehow affected the way I perceived things. I let it pass.

    It was early evening when I passed the area again. I wasn't actually looking out for the building but there it was. And as the train passed by it I looked through the window and there was that painting again. This time I took note of the surrounding landmarks and without further thought got down at the next station. This is crazy. I do know what seized me but as my foot hit the pavement I stopped. For a moment I stood there-- and then reason drained out from my body. Before I knew it I was walking towards the house.

    And there it was. I actually couldn't see the house from where I am even if I stand on my toes.  A line of galvanized iron roofing sheets surrounded the house. The overgrown plants on the yard conspiring to cover it up even more. I was about to turn away when I noticed that a section of the galvanized fortification was hanging slightly askew on a hinge. Probably a workmen's ingress. Metal scraped concrete as I pushed on the makeshift door. Stray cats scampered away. "Tao po…" No answer. I walked up the driveway.

    I walked through the main door-- or what's left of it. The roof is gone too. Moonlight gave the place an eerie glow. I walked up to the main staircase. It was banged up but the concrete structure held. I walked up and stood at the landing to get my bearings. I made my way to the room. It was a bit tricky but I made it to the door. I pushed. Surprisingly it opened with nary a squeak. There was a gaping hole on the floor and so I carefully inched my way inside just enough to see "The Woman".  I blinked and waited a second or two for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. It wasn't a painting. Neither was it a portrait. It was a mirror. I began to turn around to see… and then it hit me. It was sharp. There was a moment of pain. I was dead even before I hit the floor.

    Days had passed when they discovered the twisted body. It was a murder-- stabbed in the heart, probably as he was turning around. Curiously, the dead man seems to be reaching for something. Indeed, just out of his reach is a portrait-- or was it a painting... of a woman. She was holding up three of her fingers-- like a boy scout.

   

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?

The Girl by the Duhat Tree

She sat atop the low concrete barrier that ran across the front of Dada’s house. She always wore the same simple black dress, which seemed a bit frayed. She sat with hands on her knees— one in a tight fist, knuckles white, the other palm down. Her head tilted in an angle that made her black hair stream down her face; shoulders hunched; back arched. She was fragilely thin and looked aged in her late teens, her leprous arms and legs sallow and rough as a lizard’s belly. She kept the toes on her naked feet tucked in as if discomfited for not wearing slippers, which overall made her look like a crow from afar. Never did I catch her move and never did I inquire about her presence, a household help or perhaps a cousin’s yaya? I never had a reason to go near her either and I never did; she just sat there.

One summer, an aunt took my sister and me for a weekend in Baguio City. We took a train to La Union and a big black limousine the rest of the way. We went to the usual tourist traps during the day, but at night we stayed in an inn-- in a room rendered in kitschy mint green, along Session Road with nothing to do other than doodle on the misted windows. We only went out for Nido soup at the Star Café. A nightly jaunt the announcement of which instantly propelled me to quickly put on a jacket and ran ahead to the door. And in one of those nights, as I peered through the crack of the half opened door, I saw her— the girl by the Duhat tree. She was sitting on the edge of a sofa in the common area, exactly the way she did back at Dada’s garden. Was she on the train with us? No, she wasn’t. I was quite sure about that. No, she didn’t ride with us on the car either. But, there she sat. As I looked at her, mesmerized; she slowly extended her hand towards me— the one in a tight fist; as if she was about to give me whatever it was she held in it; she then began to open her hand. No, I wasn’t afraid. I was a stupid five-year old who did not know any better, but I was sure I wasn’t afraid. What popped in my head at that singular moment was, of all things, the thermos I left on the table. I almost forgot! Where will we put the bird’s nest soup? I ducked back to the room to grab it; and, just as quick ran back to the door. She wasn’t there. I never saw her again after that, not even by the Duhat tree.