Sirens woke me up. The sun was in my eyes. People waiting for the bus were talking, saying things like “broke into the church” and “black smoke” and “dead people” and “shootout”. I got on the bus with the rest of them. I'm not sure, but I think I put in a twenty.
The first thing I did after that ride was go to the police station – I just walked right in and spilled the beans. What was I gonna do? Get a job and pay the bills? Where was I gonna go? I had no relatives, no nottin'. So I told them coppers everything – the Filipino vampires, the trailer home, the kids – everything. I also did it as a sort of therapy. I didn't wanna bottle all that crap inside of me. I might end up with mental constipation. They sent me to stay overnight at the hospital, and that was pretty darn great. I mean, all the free food I could eat. The police were in and out of my room, asking all these questions about my mum. I kept saying I knew nothing, that she just up and left one day. As for the money in my clothes, I said my mum wanted me to hold it all for her, that I was a confused little girl, that I didn't know what was happening.
They bought it. But they didn't let me keep the money. I didn't argue. I didn't have a lawyer.
The story was all over the news. Reporters visited me. I felt oh so special. When a doctor told me that my mum was missing, I cried. Well, I mean I put my hands over my face and went “Boo hoo hoo”. Days later, a police officer walked into my room. He said that after much paperwork and after a lot of phone calls, it was decided. I'd be sent to stay with my mum's folks.
In the Philippines.
Great.
A few days later, I'm greeted by an aunty I've never seen before. She cried and hugged me. I tried to cry back so she didn't feel like an idiot, but nothing came out. I was all cried out (isn't that a song?). She seemed nice enough. Aunty Sharon helped me out of the hospital, drove me home, made a quick meal, and packed my bags. I remember asking:
“Do you have SPAM in the Philippines?”
She said yes, and I was relieved.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, this moving to a different country thing. My senses hungered to experience different sights, new sounds, exotic tastes. And wasn't that what Life was all about? Expanding the senses?
I made sure to pack my favorite book, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and my favorite movie, Forrest Gump.
I was scared the whole plane ride over. I always expected Mum to pop up by my window and try to get me. It was even a problem using the bathroom. I was doing the business one time and the whole place dipped. My heart went with it. All this blue water splashed up all in me. I remember being afraid that Mum had attacked the plane and her hand was seconds away from reaching up from the toilet. On a night like that when I couldn't sleep, especially way up in the sky, I just read.
It was always a sure way to calm my nerves.
So then I'm in Cebu. I'm in the PI. In the Philippines. And it really ain't so bad. It's as modern as any place, really.
The house I stayed in was nicer than my place in Hawaii. I don't know why, but Filipinos love their Bruce Lee and Van Damm DVDs. My new home had every one of them. And the movie Speed. There was a whole month where we watched Speed. I didn't mind. It was always a game of Who-Can-Say-Every-Line, and everyone got involved. People brought beer, food, it was a gosh-darn Keanu Reeves party.
Some nights Sharon would be gone on business. She said she fixed computers. Her dream was to be an actress, but until the right audition came, doing “computer stuff” brought in the money just fine. Sure, it killed her soul, and she felt like dying each morning, but...you know...gotta keep hope alive, and all that jazz.
I don't remember what the name of the town I stayed in was, but when night came, the whole place shut up. It was like in those old horror movies when the clock struck 10 and all the windows in town closed at the same time. Same thing happened.
10 PM hit, and there went the windows. Sharon told me what was happening, but I already knew.
Aswang.
People were freaking out.
It was an old woman giving them problems. Well, old in the day time. At night, she transformed into a hot babe. All the guys were advised to stay indoors and, if they see her flying around, topless and jiggling, to look away.
So a lot of guys were being found dead.
Some girls, too. But mainly dudes.
The other problem was that our bathroom was outside. That meant that Sharon had to follow me all the time at night.
Correction: she didn't have to. She was scared for my life. Not only did I have to deal with squatting over a pipe sticking out from the ground, I had to deal with Sharon always asking “Are you all right in there?”
Sharon stayed by my side as much as possible. She was my guide around town, around the city. She taught me a lot about what I shouldn't say, what I should do, how serious people took their Catholic upbringing, how to pray, what to eat, what NOT to eat, things like that. Here;s a tip. Never buy food from a vendor on the streets. Because that's not really a “hotdog”. Just an FYI.
Sharon and my mum were never close. In fact, Sharon hated my mum as much as I did.
“She was a little too crazy for me,” Sharon said. “Sometimes she'd walk around the house just screaming about how much she hated some boy that broke hear heart – how she was gonna kill him. And we all knew she meant to do it. That was the scary part – the crazy part. So many times she was arrested for attacking boyfriends. Doctors told us she had some kind of brain disease, I don't remember what. Her reasoning was that the Philippines was possessing her soul and making her do all these crazy things. It didn't make any sense. As she got older, she got quieter and quieter. And that was too weird for all of us. Because what was she thinking? No one knew what she was going to do next. We all expected her to one day blow up and, as you're fond of saying, get nuts. Imagine my relief when she hooked up with your dad and ran off to Hawaii.”
She asked how my dad was, and I told her that I knew nothing of my dad. That he just ran off one day and never looked back.
Sharon had a few things to say about him. She said that he was a tall white dancer that cheated on girl after girl.
“I knew he was bad news,” Sharon said. “But she wanted to run away with him. That was all I needed to hear, so I said nothing. I didn't warn her about him. And life was much better with her gone. Everyone let out this huge sigh. It was like a big stink that was hovering over the town had finally disappeared.”
I was waiting for her to say something like “I'm sorry for saying such an awful thing about your mother”. But it didn't happen.
I think she just knew that I also didn't care for Mum. Maybe it was a matter of “come on, who ever did?” You'd be a weird-o if you liked her.