Michael, Connie, Betty, and Manny had just completed a whole "leong" and were
changing seats. The foursome was at their Thursday night mahjong session.
Connie was smiling smugly, she had just won four of the last five "jai alais"
and was winning a bundle.
"I think it's time for a break. It's almost eight and besides, the soup is
getting cold."
"Yep, let's take a break. My back is aching." They had been playing since four
and Betty was not wearing her corset, back brace really, although she did not
want to admit she wore one. Connie wanted to disagree. She was on a winning
streak and she did not want the trend to change.
Manny pushed his chair back and stood up, "Okay, I need to go to the CR
anyway." Manny enjoyed these mahjong games for the company and for the Filipino
cooking. He wished he could convince Michael and his sister to loan him one of
their cooks for a month or so. Dinner consisted of "pigok" soup, "pako" salad,
eggplant omelet, small crunchy fried shrimps that could be eaten whole, head,
tail, and all, and "turbo"-cooked chicken that could put Max's to shame.
Dessert was an enormous slice of a sweet, red, native papaya. Manny was in
seventh heaven as he devoured everything. Since his arrival, three months
earlier, he had already gained another ten pounds. He stood up and excused
himself for some outside fresh air. He wanted to burp but did not want to in
the presence of the two ladies.
Betty followed him out two minutes later. She did not say anything for a while,
just enjoying the cool breeze. "Would you like to be a sponsor for our little
cultural group?"
Manny thought "Oh no, not another one!" Since his arrival he had been hounded
by all kinds of charity groups, government offices, and religious orders for
donations. He did not mind it at first. "I don't think so." He looked at Betty
square in the face.
"Aw, all right. But I thought you'd be interested. I thought you might want to
pay for the costumes of a couple of dancers. The dancers are really dedicated
and are involved in a Save Our Native Dances Movement. They call themselves
SONADAM. They don.t get paid when they perform and they spend at least three
hours a week practicing. The poor kids buy their own refreshments, usually just
a bottle of Coke or something. I have been helping some for a year now."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Remember that girl I told you about? Jennifer and her friend, Neri June
, are members of the group. These two are thinking about dropping out. They
don't think they can afford to pay for the costumes."
"Can't the City help them out?"
"The City? Oh, puh-leese! The city doesn't have enough to clean the streets and
the public markets. Justifiably or not, people here try their best to avoid
paying taxes, believing that whatever they pay will end up in some crooked
politician's pockets. Art and culture are at the bottom of the government's
list of priorities."
"Okay, let me think about it." He had already contributed to several charities
and scholarships. But his most important contribution was his volunteer service
as a plastic surgeon to the city and provincial hospitals' indigent population.
He ended up being called in consultation to either hospital almost every other
day to perform surgery. He bought his own instruments because these hospitals
could not afford to buy the special ones that were needed for his kind of
surgical procedures. He always had the scalpels and fine forceps in a black bag
in his vehicle just in case he got called to an emergency.
Michael stuck his head out of the screened door, "Hey, you two, come back here
already. Time's a-wastin.."
The four resumed playing and Connie continued to rake it in. Manny could no
longer concentrate. His mind was elsewhere. At exactly eleven thirty the alarm
clock sounded off which alerted the four that they had only three more games to
play. Manny had been quiet and Betty was beginning to get worried that he was
falling into one of his sullen moods again. She started thinking, "Did I say
something wrong?"
Manny was the big loser. He got up and paid Connie
four thousand pesos. Betty lost less than a thousand, while Michael won
something like two hundred pesos. Michael interpreted Manny's silence as a
reaction to losing. So did Connie. But Betty thought something else was
bothering her otherwise talkative nephew.
Suddenly Manny did a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and started smiling and kidding
around again.
"Auntie Bets?"
"Huh?"
"Let me drive you home."
"You sure?"
"Sure, I'm sure."
"Okay, but are your eyes okay? You may have problems with our street lights.
This is not Florida you know. And don't pay attention to the traffic lights.
Nobody does around here."
"Aw, jeez, Auntie Bets, I have driven in worse places. This is still my
hometown, too, remember?"
Betty had her seat belt on and was holding on to dear life, her knuckles
getting white from holding on to the dashboard too tightly as Manny zigzagged
around innumerable potholes that dotted the city streets, not unlike pernicious
acne scars on a hypertestosteroned teenager's face. He expertly avoided hitting
the roaming packs of scraggly stray dogs that ruled the Butuan side-roads after
sundown . There were only a few tricycles this late and they knew enough to
stay away from the path of the maniac in a white Fortuner driving sixty
kilometers per hour on a thirty kilometer per hour zone in the middle of the
night.
"Aaay! Stop, stop! That's an electric pole!" Betty shouted at the top of her
lungs, her hair flying whichever way, as she pointed to a rapidly enlarging
vertical elongated object in front of them. "Susmaria! I'm going to die! I'm
going to die!" They missed the pole by a good twelve inches.
"I don't like your driving." Betty, fixing her tussled hair, swearing she would
never ride with him again. "And I don't like your SUV either. It's hard to get
in or out of. And it's too high for me. Get rid of it and buy a good old
Mercedes sedan." She was only half-joking. She was still disheveled by the time
they got to her house, her appearance eliciting suspicious stares from her
sleepy guard who opened the metal gates for them.
Manny gave her his crooked little boy smile and slung his right arm over her
shoulder. "Come on, I was just teasing you."
"No, never again. Not on your sweet cotton pickin' life. I don't want to have
an accident, and surely I don't want to die this young." She emphasized the
"young" as she pushed his arm away.
"I swear, I promise. Next time I'll drive like we were on a funeral procession.
Oh, and besides I wanted to see if you are any prettier when you're scared. You
are, you know." Manny made the trademark smile.
"Haay! Manolito de la Verdad, ayaw ako pag karinyuha. Uwata ang utot mo, you
can't fool me. I've known you forever. I know your style." But Betty was now
smiling back at him in spite of herself.
"So, when and where's their next practice?"
"Who? What practice?" It was her turn to make him grovel.
"You know, Jennifer and what's-her-name, Neri Jane."
"Oh, you mean Jennifer and Neri June?"
"Yeah, them. Well?"
"Do you really want to know? Say please."
"Yeah, please. Please?"
"Will you give me a free facelift?"
"Why mess with perfection?" Compliments can melt the coldest heart.
Betty was truly smiling now. "Well. okay. Next week. Wednesday at seven. They
get off work early on Wednesdays. The hold their rehearsals at the Inland
Resort Hotel, you know, that space above the registration area. Now, Manny, be
nice. She's a good girl." She wagged her index finger at his face.
"I will be nice." But he was thinking, "It depends on what you mean by nice."
"Who's their instructor?"
"Wenwen ."
"Wenwen who? Oh, you mean that flaming fa---."
"Sssh. Yeah, that one."
"I heard his uncle wears girlie things in Cebu. What's his real name, anyway?"
" Franklin Winston Joseph Santos Ginete."
"You must be kidding! You're not kidding? Jeez, what a name! Isn't he a bit too
young to have been born during the Second World War?"
"Yeah, dummy, but his grandfather claimed to have been General Fertig's
delivery boy. And you should know, he's your Uncle Colas' distant relative or
something."
"Ok, I'll not mention anything about it. But is it really true that he's a
graduate of the Sta. Scholastica College?"
"Manny!"
"Aw, shoots, I was just kidding! People of their kind are real artistic and
driven. I really do admire them for their excellence. How about if I discuss
the matter with Wenwen Douglas Mac Arthur directly? And how about if I take a
look at these two girls first before I make a decision?"
"All right. And for your information she works over at the mall. Salesgirl,
phones and accessories. And Manny, please behave." She was not joking.
"I promise I'll try to be a gentleman," raising his right hand as if taking an
oath in court.
Manny drove back to his hotel in a pensive mode. Alone in his SUV, listening
somewhat to a compact disc of compiled mixture of golden oldies, light
classical, and Spanish songs he could not understand, he was in deep thought as
he tried to form a composite picture of Jennifer in his mind based on Betty's
description of her. He was back in his room not realizing he was already there.
Manny's house was still under construction. It was almost completed though. In
the meantime, he was still staying over at the Almont Hotel near the park in
front of the cathedral. He had an especially reserved parking space in front of
the hotel. The PU drivers took turns watching his vehicle. He gave them a
couple of hundred pesos every now and then. Besides, he always gave them good
medical advice which saved them trips to the public hospitals which were both
quite a distance from the center of the city.
Manny could not sleep well that night. He tossed around a bit. The alarm clock
glowed two o'clock. He longed for something, someone. Unknown even to himself,
he had been pining for a real relationship, not just a wham-bam
ring-a-ding-ding kind of temporary arrangement. Sure, Karen, Monique, and
Nicole and several others provided him with some ding-ding but he always felt
like just literally kicking them out of his bed once the transaction had been
consummated. He did not have a name for it but it was there.
Loneliness.
It followed him everywhere, dark and unshakable, like his own shadow.
He was half asleep, semi-conscious, dreaming. Manny saw the face, suspended in
the air in front of him. He tried to touch her. He half-sat up from his bed,
trying to reach her face that seemed to be floating and away from him. He
strained to stretch his hand out but she was beyond reach, always beyond reach.
So young.
So beautiful.
But why the black dress?
Manny was awakened by the sound of the city outside. It was already morning and
the sun was up. He realized he had a dream. But he could not remember what the
dream was all about. It seemed so vivid, so real and yet he could not remember
what it was. Must be old age, he thought. When he was younger he used to write
down his dreams as soon as he woke up just to see if there was any co-relation
with future events. He could not find any. He had often wondered. Would he
still have dreams after death? He tried to wipe the cobwebs from his eyes and
wondered why his cheeks were wet.
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