WHAT HE DID IN HIS TIME

"The first draft is just you telling yourself the story" Terry Pratchett

The Last Time I Saw Him

We reached that part of the unfinished road, just outside the city, where it began to narrow down to two lanes from four. My brother turned carefully to an unnamed eskinita and parked his owner-type jeep less than a hundred meters from the highway. A makeshift kubo roofed with patched, rusty GI sheets, protruded behind a tall cogon and was my brother's landmark for this spot. The hut, a pathetic caricature of a dwelling, clung precariously to the edge of the clearing, a testament to the harsh realities of those living on the city's fringes. Built out of old scraps of plywood and discarded cardboard, it shoots up like a sheet of ignominious trash in the clearing. We walked a few paces down a man-made path and the space seemed to close in on us. Fallen, red-brown aratiles fruits dotted the firm, sturdy ground, but the area lacked grace. The cold January wind failed to blow even a whiff of fresh air.

Two men sat listlessly, seemingly oblivious to the passage of time, until they noticed our arrival. It was about past ten that morning, the day after New Year. A bottle of Ginebra and a lone glass stood on the bench between a young man and an old man. The young man drank the remaining liquid in a gulp. And then he prodded his companion.

The old man labored from his seat and swayed as he closed the remaining steps between us. He grinned like a child who realized that a gift was coming to him and he was eager to receive it. His narrow eyes widened in surprise, and as he smiled, all the deep lines on his face betrayed all his longings.

"I see that you'd rather live like a rat than sober up," my brother said in greeting.

I got my wallet and drew out a two-hundred peso bill on impulse. I immediately gave the money to the old man. His hands trembled as he accepted the bill, and he gazed at it intently, murmuring, “You found me."

"So how are you," I asked expecting no answer. I withdrew from him as soon as I had given him the cash. He smelled of dirt, dust, alcohol, sweat, and bad breath. His face was burnt red and tired, his hair had all completely turned gray and he stooped a little. What ill will had brought him to this near-forgotten space?

My brother scanned the place, hardly seeing things, barely noticing the aratiles trees and the verdure around the area.

"Come," the old man said, "I'll show you where I sleep."

He led us to the back of the hut, to an old, hole-strewn bed, shaded by sacks sewn together and knotted on four corners to wooden poles. "This is temporary. As soon as I can acquire wood scraps from the nearby construction site, I will build my house here," he said.

My brother answered, "We came by because somebody called me to say you're squatting here. This is private property Tatay and you can't stay here. Why did you leave Poy's place? Poy said that you took the parts of the ref he was fixing. Did you sell them? He allowed you to stay there for free because he is my friend, and you robbed his place in turn!"

"His place was too far from the mall. I could not always walk the distance," he answered. "I needed the parts to sell to have some pocket money. I will pay him back. "

"I'm sure you will. You surely don't let people down," my brother sneered.

The old man said, "I can sell cigarettes outside the mall, to the tricycle drivers. I can call out for jeepney passengers. I can do this."

"You should stop drinking," I said.

"I took just one shot to wake me up," he answered, not looking at me.

My brother looked at his watch. "Let's go Ate." And to him, "Tatay, look for another place. People are calling me. It's embarrassing."

Then we were off as fast as we came. Tatay called after us as we turned our backs on him, "I have coffee...come visit me again, sometime."

Where was He

I told Mother, "He sleeps on a dilapidated bamboo bed under an aratiles tree; his roof is an old sack tied to some poles. The tree protects him from the sun but I'm sure mosquitoes, ants, bees, and caterpillars are having a heyday. He has deep scratches on his face and his arms."

Usually, Mother would have scoffed and declared he deserved his fate. However, today she suggested, “You and your brothers should buy him one of those ready-made nipa huts from Lipa. Even though they're typically used in gardens, it's certainly better than sleeping under a sack. Put him in that lot bunso bought. It's far from the city but at least nobody will demolish a hut there, unless, of course, it's bunso himself who gets pissed off by your father's antics. All your father could steal from there are fallen mangoes. God help him to those fruits ahead of the usual pickers. If he continues to squat, he will be your constant problem. So you two better put him in some permanent place."

"Why don't you just let him live in this house again?" my brother asked, but Mother took offense.

"When he forced me to mortgage this house, he showed us that he did not care about what would happen to us. Only the devil knows how he spent the money. We had all been working so hard to redeem this house back. It has been more than fifteen years so what's the point? He is not welcome here. This is my house now, mine alone. And I am too old to clean his vomit on the floor."

I turned to my brother, "Why don't you let him live in your house, instead? Put him in a room in one corner. You have space."

"Put yourself in my shoes," he said, "Will you risk the safety of my family? He throws things and curses a lot when he's drunk. Remember how he walked naked in the neighborhood of the first boarding house we put him in? That was too much for the landlady. You would have thought that he would have the decency to lock himself inside his room whenever he got drunk, but instead, he marched naked on the street! I certainly would not allow my daughters to see him drunk and naked.”

Poy's was a good place for him. At least that junk house was not inside a village but along the highway. The wide street would have kept him inside, and if he crossed the highway naked, he would have been run over by fast-approaching vehicles. Only trash vendors go there and they would merely snort at his exhibitionism. My brother’s litany was about to end. “Think about it, this was his choice. I've done what I can. So let him live on the street if he preferred it that way. Right now can we afford to rent another place for him? I cannot even pay the amortization of my own house on time. We have been five months in arrears!"

I gave my brother a glass of water. He used to joke a lot. He used to be the family clown. Tonight, he forgot the usual bantering and turned red, all the veins in his neck protruding as he spoke in an unusually high tone. After a while, he kissed my mother's hands and left.

Instantly, the subject was dropped. Any conversation about Tatay was always unresolved and didn't even wait to be resolved. That night, I slept very little.

He was Not

Before all this, right after Christmas, I went to the wake of my friend's father. During the eulogy, she tried hard not to break down and cry. She said: "I brought my kids to the hospital to visit Papa, a week ago. My three-year-old asked him, 'Lolo, how do you pee?' Papa was amused and said almost in a whisper, 'Through a tube, child.' Before he died, he said he was sorry because he couldn't be there for me anymore. Papa showed me his will; he left me with some property in the subdivision. We will bury him in the tomb of my mother because that was his request."

On the fourth day of her father's wake, my friend showed me their family album. It was full of happy pictures taken at reunions, at beach outings, in Luneta, in Baguio, at the airport, in restaurants. In many stolen shots, her father was playing with them, eating with them, making funny faces, carrying them on his shoulders, sitting them on his lap, cradling them in his arms, kissing them, hugging them, shaking their hands, giving them gifts, pressing his cheek on to their cheeks.

I looked at the pictures as if they were abstract paintings. I don't understand abstract paintings at all. But I learned that brush strokes tell a lot about the artist and the work, and maybe the dominant colors symbolized something – an emotion – probably, peace, confusion. Pictures in their family album were all so literal, but everything seemed abstract and strange to me.

Back home, I stared at the framed faded wedding picture of Inay and Tatay. I tried to imagine cozy scenes of family bonding, thinking hard about a memory that had Tatay, or an instance of himself in the house. But ninety-nine percent of the time, we didn't know where Tatay went. A ghost would have apparitions but we had rare sightings of my father. He was busy swindling appliance dealers, smuggling truckloads of imported goods, pimping women, and winning bids with corrupt government fixers – not exactly in this order and never on a grand scale. We learned about his misadventures through my mother's routine interrogation when he would finally show up in the dead of the night. In three hours, at dawn, he would be gone again. Between the hours of his coming and his going, we heard lame explanations punctuated by curses.

Once, four bulky men knocked on our doors looking for him. They were ready to “salvage” him at the time. Something about his selling goods supposed to be delivered to a client and pocketing the money. But as usual, he wasn't at home. My mother didn't know where he was.

The men threatened my mother, that if she did not tell them where Tatay was, they would be forced to get him at all costs. My mother threatened them back, saying that her cousin was a general and that if anything happened to her children, they would all find themselves gagged and tied up under a bridge. She said, she did not care what they did to my father, and they could chop his body off for all she cared.

At another time, he came home with a fake driver's license, saying he would fly to Saudi Arabia. He applied as a driver of a ten-wheeler truck and went away. But we never confirmed whether he worked abroad or not. It was the same for us anyway, abroad or not abroad, he was simply not there.

In their wedding picture, he was a flamboyant macho man. His head was partly tilted, his shoulders out and his stomach in. His wide grin boasted victory as if he won first prize in a sweepstakes.

I would have preferred him to be an underground guy in a suit with goons and guns hidden in his belly, but who took good care of his family, and attended weddings and funerals - like in the movie The Godfather. But Tatay was merely, blandly, tastelessly, and unromantically flawed. And he was the least wise about money. Whenever he came home, if he came at all, all his earnings would have been history.

He did come to my high school graduation and gifted me with a guitar. Those were his days of plenty. He wore a Barong in my high school graduation. We had a picture of me standing together with both my parents all dressed up and smiling. Later the guitar broke hanging on our concrete wall. I lost the picture.

When our fourth sibling was dying, Tatay telegrammed to say that since he wasn't a doctor, he needn't come home because he couldn't do anything about it.

A final memory of his rare presence: My parents' booming voices spat out bitter words. Mother nagged that she sold anything to make ends meet, while he slept with other women and sired illegitimate children. And now, he had the gall to mortgage the house! "I won't sign it, you demon! You are the very son of the devil himself. You should die!"

Then he cursed her back, and said "I've forged it, you're too late, and that banker was a crook so what can you do now?" And he cursed all the neighbors, too, and we cringed under the sheets, shaking in fear. My mother threw a figurine at him and we all heard a crash. My father called her a whore, cursing her at the top of his lungs. He kicked the television set, sending it flying towards the door. My youngest brother, at the time, five, brandished a broom to my father's face, crying and pleading, "Stop!"

Tatay walked out of the house and was gone forever. We didn’t miss him at all.

Was the Last

He returned in September. I often replayed that scene in my mind, wondering what might have happened if I had greeted him. Would it have made a difference? Could I have prevented the subsequent events?

When he came knocking at our gate, Mother shooed him away as if he were a pesky fly. I pretended indifference, feigning busyness. But I could hear them talking.

I heard him ask if he could at least use the toilet. Use the toilet at Jolibee, mother shot back. I began shaking and I closed the door of my room. Give me water please, he pleaded. This is not the water district, mother nagged. I want just a glass of water; his voice was low. No, you can't have a glass of water. Leave! Mother shouted. I hugged myself and shut my eyes tight. Nothing followed. Some time passed, then he was gone.

When he left, I felt safe again. I went down and asked, "Where could he go now?"

Mother said, "Who knows? I don't care."

Lately, he was at the City Mall's open parking space, helping shoppers park their vehicles. With the tips he received, he could buy cigarettes and a bottle of gin. If many were generous, he could afford some snacks.

In time, I found the courage to walk where he loitered and sometimes gave him a hundred pesos, or fifty, or twenty. He began frequenting my brother in his office, asking for food money. Embarrassed, my brother told him to eat at the company canteen and he'd pay.

But Tatay would bring other street guys with him, and my brother ended up paying not for one, but sometimes for two or three stray souls. His salary deduction was more than he expected and he was grumpy about his take-home pay. He said finally, “Enough, Tatay, you can't eat in the canteen anymore.”

Bunso who was working abroad let Tatay stay on a lot adjacent to his house. But Tatay stayed there for only three days then he went back to the street. "It's better to live on the street than on that hill. At least here, I can talk with people and not with trees."

On impulse, my brother and I would often gather old clothes and give them to Tatay, right on the street. But the next day, we would see some of those garments on another street guy outside the mall. Occasionally I thought about where Tatay bathed, where he relieved himself, and how he protected himself from the rain. But I didn't let these thoughts pester me. We let him loiter on the street, a taong-grasa, because we couldn’t place him anywhere.

Sometimes, I simply walked another way when I went to the mall to avoid seeing him. But I also often craned my neck and looked for him, curious about where he sat, begging. At one time, I was already in a jeepney that was nearly full of passengers. Sober, Tatay would call for passengers, but that time, he was too drunk, crouching on his hunches.

I asked another “barker” to please shake him up to urge him to come near me. He was swaying when the 'barker' led him. I gave him some money and he slurred, "Salamat po, salamat po." He did not even recognize me. He was greasy and emaciated, tightly holding a plastic bag of long discarded things.

Some mornings he ended up bathing in the open faucet near my brother's office. And in some days, he slept at the gasoline station, dead drunk and obstructing traffic. In time, even the gasoline boys had gotten used to Tatay's street wanderings; they even carried his slugged body at one point, placing him on the side of the road.

His officemates ribbed my brother about Tatay's habit of lying naked on the road when drunk. My brother felt thankful that at least his friends did not judge him. Eventually, we all became immune to everybody asking, "Why won't you let him live in your house? He's your father, after all."

As it Was

The morning after my brother and I visited Tatay, I saw him on the sidewalk staring at some tabloid at a magazine stall. I hid at the street corner and watched him scanning the papers. He looked as if he was reading all the headlines. Then he slowly walked towards where I was. He was wiping his face with his shirt – his eyes, deep red and tired. But I walked away as fast as I could, fearing that if he saw me, I would be obligated to give him money again.

As I reached another street corner, I imagined his corpse in a flash: He was dead, he was lying naked, nobody saw him die, nobody talked to him before he died. No one came near where his body lay, nobody visited his wake, nobody sent him flowers, and nobody prayed over his grave.

I thought then: Should I visit him once every week, give him a regular fifty or a hundred for food? But would he not spend his money away, like he always did, on alcohol? Should I buy him a real, waterproof tent? But would he not sell it or give it away, as he did with other things given to him?

During that rush hour, the road had become crowded with pedestrians. A bent, old woman was begging the street vendor selling peanuts, "Pang-almusal lang ineng..." to which the owner replied, "Here's ten pesos Nanay, bili po kayo ng pandesal."

A child crossed the street, pushing a cart half-filled with dalandan. A jogger came by and bought three plastics of fruit from the child. As he ran away, he waved and shouted, "Keep the change kid, Happy New Year!"

As I crossed to the other side, I bumped into a badjao girl selling beads. The girl fell from the impact and every bead she carried in her skirt, every stone and every shell, instantly rolled and scattered down the road. Conscious that the lights would soon turn green, I ran on pleading my excuses.

A tricycle driver ran and quickly helped the shocked girl up. He led her to the safe side of the street. Then, he ran back and picked the beads. Even when the lights turned green and the drivers crossing the crowded intersection yelled at him, he kept picking up the scattered beads and gave them back to the girl.

I froze where I was as I followed his movements. After a while, the badjao girl was talking to the tricycle driver, probably thanking him. I went back to where they stood, mumbling my apology.

"Thank you," I told the driver.

He said, "I couldn't save all the beads."

"Please wait here," I told the girl. I went inside the store and picked some instant noodles, biscuits, and canned tuna, goods I could immediately put in the basket. I paid and rushed back out intending to give the groceries to the Badjao. But by the time I came out, both she and the driver had left.

I stood there, restless. I had seen Tatay with a bottle of gin, stopping at a newspaper stand, scanning a tabloid. I now wanted to give him the groceries instead. But he had already left.

A cigarette vendor told me, "Try the turo-turo. I saw him eating there at one time."

The sales girl at the turo-turo said, "Well, he didn't come here today. I don't know when he'll come again."

Desperate I asked, "Could you give these groceries to him? Tell him it's from his daughter."

"This could just get lost here. Why don't you bring it to him yourself? You certainly look like him. I didn't know that he had a daughter but he mentioned a son working abroad."

As I left the store, I felt angry. I was embarrassed at having to admit to a stranger that I was my father’s daughter. I took the groceries home, keeping them in the cupboard for a while until I forgot all about them. For as long as he did not show up in front of my mother's gate, Tatay was conveniently out of the way again.

Soon the cold winds of January and February were over. In March, the cogon turned brown and grew short. The clearing was overdrawn with smog. The ground cracked in the heat of the dry season. The hot winds of April and May caused the aratiles to wither and its fruits remained bitter until November.

Tatay’s sack tent had become heavily plastered with smoke and grease and wind-blown scum. The wooden posts became a highway for the ants. In August, the storms blew the sack tent away. And by December, who knows if that clearing outside the city wouldn't be quarantined with road-widening signs?

I kept fighting the thought that I was happy to see it fully cleared of squatters. WORDHOUSE