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  I pocket Markus’s baggie. I can hear Dr. Goldman, my therapist in New York, speaking from her armchair: This is the first step to failure. But such an expensive gift would be rude not to accept. I don’t have to do any of it. Anyway, it’s been so long. I’ll just have a bump. Or two. Maybe a line. Or a couple of small ones. Maybe just half the baggie, and share the rest with my friends. If I consume it all myself, nobody will care. I’m home and safe and filled with the comfort of being somewhere I’ve already been. The ruckus of homecoming is brutally enjoyable and everyone makes me feel like I’m a champion. And all I had to do was stay away long enough.

  *

  Poor Cousin Bobby is a casualty of the slumping economy. He loses his hospital job and falls in with a gang of Pinoys with pimped Subarus. One day, Bobby is arrested and brought to court, accused of raping his date after they watched Eyes Wide Shut. Erning, of course, sits right behind him, to lend moral support. With his new cell phone, Erning takes surreptitious photos of his cousin, to send to family back home, but he can only capture the back of Bobby’s head. The bailiff comes by and threatens to confiscate it.

  When the trial gets under way, the rape victim is asked by the prosecuting attorney: “Jhanelle, would you please describe here for the court the person who assaulted you sexually.”

  The rape victim, on the verge of tears, says: “Very dark-skinned. Short. Wiry black hair. Narrow eyes. Thick ears. With a broad nose with a flat bridge.”

  Erning jumps to his feet, shouting angrily: “Stop making fun of my cousin!”

  *

  “Don’t use that tone with me,” Madison had said.

  “What tone?”

  “That tone.”

  “Madison, I’m just talking.”

  “But why that way?”

  “Sweetheart. Liebling. Madison. What way?”

  “Is it the new toothpaste?”

  Madison and I had been needing quality time and I’d brought her out for lunch. We had steak-of-the-forest burgers at her favorite vegan place, in Chelsea. Run by a couple of forgetful hippies, it wasn’t very good, but Madison had a soft spot for failing restaurants. She said she couldn’t stand to let people lose hold of their dreams. For dessert, we shared a carob brownie and held hands while walking to the museum. When we went into a bank’s ATM enclosure to get cash, Madison looked up at the wall of curling flyers about people still missing. She gathered off the floor the sheets that had fallen like leaves and she blue-tacked them up again. Madison went and waited outside. She was really moody when we got to MoMA.

  I told her: “It wasn’t the toothpaste.”

  “If not, why throw a hissy fit when I didn’t change the channel?”

  “Liebling, please don’t raise your voice here.”

  “Was it because of that show on princes William and Harry?”

  “Why would it be?”

  “I shouldn’t have told you.”

  “Told me what?”

  “That I used to have a crush on them.”

  “Please. What do I care? I used to have a crush on Phoebe Cates. I don’t know what you see in them anyway. They’re just princes.”

  “Who lost their mother tragically.”

  “So did I.”

  “You only talk about your parents when you need the advantage. I knew that this was about William and Harry. Or is it also the toothpaste? What’s with your hate for organic? I thought you cared about Mother Earth.”

  “I do. I just don’t know why she’s so self-important. Come on, give me a smile. That argument was so this morning. I asked why you bought that toothpaste. And you said—”

  “No. First, I was like, Surprise! Look at this. And then, you said . . . What did you say?”

  “No. That’s not true. I said, Sugarbabe, if you’re making tea, could you make me a cup of rooibos. And you said—”

  “No, you’ve got it all wrong. First you were like—”

  “Madison. I know what I said.”

  “So what’s wrong with the toothpaste?”

  “You know we have huge credit card debt.”

  “And you blame me? If you had quit scoring to party every weekend, we’d have savings for our future.”

  “I thought you supported my writing.”

  “I do.”

  “I’ve got to make this dream work. You keep talking about feeding kids in Tasmania.”

  “That’s Tanzania. See? You’re in your own little world. I just want us to do something good. Besides, I don’t get your Crispin obsession.”

  “Look, this fight’s about the toothpaste. This morning, I was just saying . . . Aw, forget it.”

  “Fine. It’s easy to forget. A joy, even, to forget you. All that time you spend in the library. With the memory of your dead friend.”

  “It’s work. Finding TBA will jump-start my career. Don’t you get it? It’s art. Art is important.”

  “Art with a capital F.”

  “Dead Crispin’s better than a living you.”

  “Quit with the drama,” Madison said. She inhaled slowly, digging deep for patience. “Miguel, I love you. Why do you always seem to feel so incomplete? I’m trying my best to be . . .” Her voice cracked and she shook her head in disgust. “You’re not even listening. Screw this sucky shit.” She left me and went to look at the huge Pollock. She always hated Pollock. I loved him, particularly this one. It was like someone had set off all the fireworks at the same time. Madison looked like a little girl gazing at the sky on the Fourth of July. I considered going to her and taking her hand. Maybe I should have. But I didn’t know what to believe. You can’t trust a whiner. You can hear in their voices their hidden motives.

  Everyone else in the room was walking the way people do in the presence of inexorable art. Like zombies. I should have gone to Madison. Instead, I stood before Yves Klein’s blue painting, hoping its oceanic electricity would embalm what was expanding in me.

  Nearby, a tourist, her thickened ankles almost trembling with the load of years and bags of I NY souvenirs, spoke Russian to her younger companion. They zombied closer, to stand beside me. The old lady studied the painting, seemingly entranced by its intense beauty. Turning to her companion, she pointed at the canvas and declared in her thick accent: “Blue Man Group.”

  They went and joined Madison in front of the Pollock.

  *

  From Marcel Avellaneda’s blog, “The Burley Raconteur,” December 4, 2002:

  Today’s bruit around watercoolers: the Administration reports that Israeli, American, and Australian explosives and ballistics experts agree that the November 19 bombings at the McKinley Plaza Mall were not accidents. This is the latest in the battle between the Administration, which wants to retain the status quo (“The economy is falling! Bombs are exploding!” they shout. “Don’t change horses in midstream!”), and the Lupas Landcorp (“Faulty LPG canisters from PhilFirst Gas Corp were the culprits,” Arturo Lupas said in a statement. “Our security is fine, and we’re not bombing ourselves. We don’t need to claim insurance—we’re Lupases, not Changcos. We won’t be part of Estregan’s smoke screen”).

  True Believers, what could it all really be about? Is the Estregan Administration covering up real problems, to maintain its hold on power? Or is the Administration merely pretending to cover up real problems, to seem in control and justify ramping up its hold on power? Or is the Honorable Fat Cat himself pretending to cover up problems that ARE NOT there? Or, perhaps most sinisterly, are Estregan and his litter of Chubby Kitties actively manufacturing problems, to allow them to justify an increase in their power? Hors d’oeuvres before martial law, anyone? Hmm. Isn’t that too much a trick out of Marcos’s playbook? Or is its obviousness its very smoke screen? My friends, with the election less than two years away, of all the lies, half lies, half truths, and hidden truths, perhaps what is real is merely all of the above.

  Nevertheless, hot on the case is our network of tireless bloggers, working to wrest reality from the jaws of misinformation. Monkey See
pokes holes in the Theory of the Faulty Propane Gas Canister, which the government denies is the cause of the Lupas McKinley Plaza Mall blasts. The inimitable Ricardo Roxas IV’s My Daily Vitamins questions why the aforementioned Western experts weren’t allowed to be interviewed by local media. And Wasak asks the impertinent but very pertinent question of whether any of this is relevant to anyone: “No matter who is in power,” he writes, “our lives go on with their usual troubles.”

  In this kaleidoscope of shifting vested interests—and assuming the blasts in the south were put together by Islamist militants—one incident remains unaddressed: What about the one at the Shell station near Forbes Park? Hmmm. No shit, Sherlock. Dig deeper, Watson.

  Last but not least in today’s edition, we look at the transcripts of speeches for and against former security guard Wigberto Lakandula’s defiant stand: against, by Senator Nuredin Bansamoro, can be found here; and for, by the elder but still eloquent solon Congressman Respeto Reyes, is available here.

  Nuff said! Until next time, True Believers.

  Some posts from the message boards below:

  —This rivalry between the Lupases and Changcos is going overboard and we’re all getting stuck in between. ([email protected])

  —No honour amongst thieves! ([email protected])

  —Wow, u rly br0ke it down 4 us, Marcel. All-Of-The-Above is my gess. BTW, Estregan dsnt kno wat he s doing, bt he s certnly doing sumthn. IMHO, he s tryng 2 cnvince us he s in control. Der4, dat shows he isnt. ([email protected])

  —Why do they have to import experts from abroad, when our experts here are as good, if not better? ([email protected])

  —Could it be that Bansamoro is trying to get power by playing both sides? I’m just saying! ([email protected])

  —Bayani, I think the foreign experts were brought in to lend the report objectivity and credibility. ([email protected])

  —Doesnt it make sense that if Estregans gone, all his programs that are working will stop? Hes just as bad as the rest, so why not just stick with him? We need a benevolent dictator if this country is to succeed. Look at Singapore! ([email protected])

  —I know the bomb at the Shell station was done by the Islamists. Who can be sure if the Muslim senator didn’t have a hand in it? Innocent until proven guilty, but isn’t it better to be safe than sorry? May the Holy Spirit protect us! ([email protected])

  *

  During the Japanese-sponsored Second Philippine Republic, Junior’s career thrived, though the ubiquity of random acts of violence made him nervous. He insisted that Leonora and the children travel with him whenever he went from Bacolod to the capital. “He felt we were safer with him,” Salvador wrote in his memoir. “Perhaps he was wrong and put us at risk, but he preferred to err with us in his presence than have something transpire in his absence. This is the perfect flaw of all fathers.”

  As the occupation set like cement drying, a new social order fell into place, though in many ways it looked very much like the old one. In those years, young Salvador witnessed the benefits that his father’s position in the collaborationist government provided their family, and he experienced and swallowed, for the first time in his life, the alluring palatability of necessary hypocrisies.

  The Salvador residence near Malate Church seemed to the three children to be a safe haven from what was happening just outside their gate. It was in that home, sometime in 1943, where the young Salvador met a man whose life would confuse his conception of patriotism. The aged Artemio Ricarte visited Junior on several occasions. On the third of these, when the two men withdrew to speak in the study, Narcisito ran upstairs to whisper in his little brother’s ear: “He’s here again, the serpent is here!” The pair tiptoed downstairs to wait outside the study door to catch a glimpse of the old warrior.

  Ricarte, whose revolutionary name was “El Vibora,” Spanish for “The Viper,” was famous for being the general who fought against the Spanish, against the Americans, and was the only one among the defeated revolucionarios to refuse to swear an oath of fidelity to the United States. His dissent had him banned from his country forever, and he was forced to smuggle himself home from Hong Kong in 1903, intent on continuing the war. Ricarte was later betrayed by his comrade General Pio del Pilar—known as “The Boy General”—and imprisoned, though his legendary stature earned him visits from high-ranking U.S. officials, including President Theodore Roosevelt’s vice president, Charles Fairbanks. In 1910, Ricarte was released. Refusing a second time to pledge himself to the United States, he was again deported to Hong Kong. He ended up in Yokohama, Japan, with his wife. There he lived in exile until the Second World War, when the Japanese government brought him back to the Philippines. The old general returned in triumph, though he was surprised to discover the extent to which his countrymen had become allied with the Americans. Ricarte’s task was to convince the Filipinos that their fellow-Asian occupiers were preferable to Western imperialists. After the president of the occupied Philippines, José P. Laurel, refused to allow the Japanese to conscript Filipinos into the army, Ricarte colluded with Junior Salvador to create a pro-Japan, antiguerrilla movement called the Makapili.

  Junior and Ricarte’s conferences would last long into the night. Narcisito and Crispin sat outside the study door until they fell asleep. In Autoplagiarist, Salvador remembers: “I was startled awake by The Viper himself! The kindly man of seventy-seven years was bent stiffly toward me and my brother, a hand on each of our heads, tousling our hair. ‘As lookouts, you two would be court-martialed,’ he said. With a sigh, he nodded and shuffled to the sofa in the sala, where we clambered up beside him to listen to stories of the wars he had fought alongside heroes we had grown up idolizing. What I remember most vividly, however, was my father seated in his armchair facing the sofa, looking at us, his two sons, with naked pride.”

  —from the biography in progress, Crispin Salvador:

  Eight Lives Lived, by Miguel Syjuco

  *

  “Dude, you should have seen it,” Mitch says. He’s tweaked, pacing back and forth in front of a group of us guys outside the club’s bathroom. It’s Markus, E.V., Edward, Mitch, and me. Bubbles of saliva froth at the edges of Mitch’s mouth. “Like my house, right, it’s like at the end of Forbes, as in, right over the wall of our backyard is the Shell station. Yes, yes, exactly! I know! That Shell station. I wasn’t home, but the maids said it made my mom and dad’s fucking antique celadons slide off their stands in the cabinets. But dude, dude, get this. Dude, me and my bro, we get home early the next morning, after partying. We could still feel the flavors of the E and K and shit in us. We’re smoking one of Melvin’s joints in the yard. So we can sleep, right? ’Cause like our mom can always smell it when we smoke in the house. Yeah, right? Proof she’s partaken in her youth. So, Melvin and I are like sitting on the bench near my mom’s fountain—that’s right, that plaster boy pissing. We’re looking up, enjoying, you know, those last fucking fingers of darkness finally disappearing in the sky . . .”

  “You’re a fricking poet,” E.V. says.

  “Yeah, fuck you very much,” Mitch says. “So, Mel, he gets it in his head that he wants to swim. But our houseboy told us when he opened the gate that they’d put in chemicals and the pool was off-limits for the day. And I’m like, Mel, you think he’s lying to us? And Mel looks at me and is like, You think? And I’m like, Why would he be lying to us? Mel’s like, I don’t know, but maybe he might be. So we look at the houseboy, off at the far corner of the yard, pruning the hedges with his big-ass shears. And he does look like he’s lying to us. Like he’s pretending he doesn’t see us suspecting him of lying. And I’m like, Yeah, I definitely think he’s lying. And Mel’s like, But why would he do that? And I’m like, Dude, just look at him. And Mel looks at him, then is like, So you think we should just say fuck it and swim? And I’m like, Yeah. And Mel’s already taking his shirt off and is down to his boxers. Then he goes to me, What about you? And I’m
like: Nah, I don’t feel like swimming just yet. And Mel’s halfway from the fountain to the pool, which probably had all these nasty fucking chemicals, running in his boxers with pictures of condoms on them, when he trips on something on the lawn. He tumbles and rolls like Flash fucking Gordon. And we’re both like shitting ourselves laughing. But when I go to help him up, I see what he slipped on. Dude, it’s a fucking head. It’s an actual head. Yeah, of one of the cops. A cop’s fucking head. Get this, the strange thing is, because we’re all fucked on E and acid and shit, we’re of course hella surprised, but not grossed out. Mel and I just look at it. It’s like sort of beautiful. The bloody neck part’s covered by the grass, so it looked like that’s what our lawn would’ve looked like if our lawn had a face and was sleeping. We knew it was weird. But it wasn’t gross. It was just, you know, the circle of life.”

  We’re all listening so intently we don’t notice that the bathroom is free. Some guy behind us says something. The group of us go in, like teenage boys slipping into the adult section of a video rental shop. As I close the door, the guy behind us looks at us funny. For a second, I’m a bit uncomfortable. For a second. Then I remember. This is Manila. It’s nice being home.

  In the bathroom, a couple of baggies are passed around, and we do bumps off the ends of our keys. I hide my own baggie in my pocket. A bag reaches me, I bump, then pass it to Mitch. He uses the nail of his pinky finger, which he’s grown for this purpose.