“No. But it’s the only dream I could remember this week.”
“I see…”
“Do you not want to buy it?”
“Why would I not want to buy it?”
“You complain about Totoy’s dreams always being the same.”
“That’s a little different. Actually, I’m interested that you’ve had this dream more than once.”
“Oh, well, I’ve dreamed it a lot more than once.”
“Regularly? Every week, month…”
“Sometimes I have it every week. Sometimes I might not have it for a while.”
“And for how long has this been going on?”
“I’m not sure. About a year.”
“About a year…Really…”
“Why?”
“Well, we’ve been seeing each other for about a year. And while you were talking about the dream, you mentioned that it was based on a real incident. But you also said that the incident happened two years ago…so I’m wondering why the incident has suddenly become important to you.”
“Hmm…”
“Tell me why you think it might be important.”
“You tell me.”
“I’d like you to try first.”
“Fredo, we’ve been talking for ages today. I’m tired. And I want to find Totoy before it—”
“Gets dark. Okay. So…it struck me that the man lacks a kind of street knowledge, and for that reason you are sure he will be caught by the street gang. And in a way, you feel good that if you were in his shoes, you would be able to escape.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You also emphasize that this man is quite well dressed and that he’s carrying a bag with him.”
“Yes.”
“So…doesn’t that make you think of something? Or someone?”
“No.”
“Come on, Cente! It must make you think of someone.”
“It makes me think about the guy I saw being chased.”
“Fine. But someone else too. Look, we’ve been seeing each other about a year. Then, in the last year, you start having this dream about a guy who lacks street knowledge, is well dressed, carries a bag…Why are you laughing?”
“You. You think the guy is you.”
“Is that such a funny idea?”
“Well dressed?”
“I’m expensively dressed.”
“You are?”
“I…What about the bag?”
“It was a briefcase. Not a sack.”
“This isn’t a sack!”
“It certainly isn’t a briefca—”
“Shit,” said Alfredo, hitting the pause button on the tape deck. He counted the rings of the phone, feeling irritated with himself that he’d turned the answering machine off.
After twenty rings, it became clear that Romario wasn’t going to give up.
3.
In general terms, they shared nothing but a school, and that had been long ago. They liked wildly different music, films, and books. Romario talked in clipped, blunt sentences, while Alfredo tended to discover what he was saying as he was saying it. Alfredo had been born into money, and Romario had made it. When Romario had been sowing his wild oats, Alfredo had been married. When Romario had found the love of his life, Alfredo had stumbled out to his apartment balcony to find himself loveless.
For these reasons and more besides, the friendship, whenever it was analyzed, left both men in a state of mild surprise. This was reflected in the amount of time, over the years, they’d spent discussing how they had met, and why—after having met—they hadn’t immediately turned around and walked off in opposite directions.
For a few seconds, Romario seemed too disgusted to speak. Then he said, “Paré, what’s the point of pretending you’re out when you know I can see your apartment lights from my office?”
Alfredo stalled with a cough. “I forget that, paré.”
“Bullshit,” Romario barked. “You don’t forget at all. You want to know whether I’ll keep ringing or not.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s like the way you never phone. You never phone! Who phones who? Always it’s me who phones you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You want my opinion? You’re testing me. If I didn’t phone, I’d fail the test, and you’d probably leave it six months before you got in contact.”
“No, paré,” said Alfredo firmly, settling himself down on the sofa and tucking the receiver under his chin. “I wouldn’t leave it six months. But that’s good about the test. You’re probably right.”
“Of course I’m right.”
“Maybe you should’ve been the shrink and not me.”
“Maybe.”
“You pass the test. I’m glad you keep calling.”
“You should be.”
Alfredo smiled. “I am.”
“Good. Now wait while I put you on hold.”
“We’re going to be right hack with a track from two guys who are currently rewriting the Pinoy Techno rule book, taking on the Makati venues with style. You know who I’m talking about, straight out of Cardona Rizal, turn it up and flip to this…right after a short message from Burger Machine, that’s the twenty-four-hour burger, the burger that never sleeps…”
Other people’s offices played Casio-keyboard Bach and Dr. Hook covers, but in Romario’s office, callers on hold were tuned into Flip FM, Manila’s only round-the-clock nonstop dance-music station. That was because Romario owned and ran Flip FM.
“Did you know,” Alfredo had once asked Romario, “that the radio waves from Flip FM will travel deep into outer space? A few million centuries from now, you could be reaching a whole new target audience of alien life-forms.”
Romario had been nonplussed. “That’s great, Fredo,” he had replied. “I like long-term strategies. But at the moment I’m more worried about reaching life-forms in Illocos Norte. When I can transmit a half-decent signal to Northern Luzon, I’ll get back to you.”
“Right,” said Romario’s voice, breaking into the rewritten Pinoy Techno rule book, whatever on earth it was. “I’m considering Japanese. I got drunk last night. I’m feeling ill. I’d like to eat some Japanese.”
“Food?”
“Yes, you are a funny guy. So what about it? We could all get some Japanese.”
Alfredo paused. “All?”
“All. Me, you, all.”
“All is more than two people. All implies others.”
“Mmm…” Alfredo heard Romario rearranging some papers. “So, paré, how about it? Japanese!”
“Just me and you?”
The papers were rearranged again. “Mmm…”
“Romario?”
“What?”
“Me, you, and who else?”
“Uh…Well, it’ll be me and Silvie.”
Alfredo closed his eyes. “And Silvie is bringing…”
“I don’t know. Why does it matter?”
“A girl.”
“No, a box of fucking Dunkin’ Donuts. Yes, a girl! I think she works for the Inquirer. So pretty, you can’t believe she isn’t snapped up. Face like an angel, and bright too. Reads books.”
“Romario,” Alfredo said.
“Oops,” said Romario. “I’ve got to go. Last meeting of the day just turned up. Now Fredo, here’s what you have to remember. I’m going to be in the office for the next forty minutes, and then I’m going to leave for the restaurant. If you’re going to come, call me and I’ll pick you up in the car. If not, you’re a prick, and I’m going to be failing your stupid test pretty soon.”
Alfredo said, “Okay,” to the dead line.
4.
“This isn’t a sack!”
“It certainly isn’t a briefcase.”
“Fine.”
“Not that it’s a bad bag.”
“But it’s not a briefcase.”
Sorry.”
“Nothing to apologize about.”
“You look a little offended.”
“Offen
ded? No, not at all.”
“And the running man…he wasn’t you. I mean, I understand what you’re saying, about how he could have been you. Like a few weeks ago when I had the dream about a cat, and you said the cat might be Totoy. I could see that. There was something about the cat that did kind of remind me of Totoy.”
“But the running man didn’t remind you of me.”
“Right.”
“So perhaps he reminded you of somebody else.”
“Well, that’s what I was just about to say. It seems to me that, if anyone, the guy was like my father.”
“Uh-huh. Can you tell me why?”
“They both died the same way.”
“If your father died, Cente.”
“He died, and he died like that. I think he must have been in a stick-up. He got chased, and same as the running man, he didn’t know what to do. So he got caught. That’s how I see him dying.”
“Hmm.”
“Do you think he died that way too?”
“That’s a tough question. I think that, from what I know about your life, it is possible that your father is dead. And I suppose that if he did die, it’s possible he died like that.”
“Good. I thought you were going to try to talk me out of it.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I do want to say that it’s impossible to know what happened to your father…but to be realistic, it might have happened the way you describe.”
“Yes.”
“It’s extremely sad.”
“Sad.”
“Don’t you think?”
“Depends who for. It’s sad for him, because he must have been scared before he died. But…”
“But?”
“I don’t know. Totoy gets to see his mother once or twice a week, and she’s a mess. Have you ever seen Totoy’s mother?”
“No.”
“She’s never clean. She’s thin, there’s about ten white scars on her face, and people tell her she’s got AIDS. And when she dies, she’s probably going to go to hell because when she was begging, she drugged Totoy’s little sister to make her look sick. But she over-drugged her, and she died. So with me and Totoy, who has it better? When I look at his mother, I think at least I don’t have to see my father like that. He isn’t in a gutter, covered in shit. And in my memory of him, he was a good father, so he isn’t in hell. He’s in paradise, which means I guess I’ll be seeing him again someday, as long as I don’t…What?”
“Sorry?”
“That look you just gave me. What was it?”
“Did I give you a look?”
“You looked at me in a strange way.”
“I did?”
“Yes. When I said about paradise, and seeing my father again.”
“Can you tell me what was strange about the look?”
“It was like you thought I was wrong.”
“What about?”
“About seeing him again.”
“Oh.”
“You do think I’m wrong. I can see it in your face right now.”
“No.”
“No? So look me in the eye, and tell me I’m going to be seeing my father again in paradise.”
“Uh…”
“Why can’t you do it?”
“It isn’t my place to say such things.”
“You agreed with me about how he might have died.”
“This is a little different.”
“You don’t have to say a word now! It’s obvious what you’re thinking. I don’t get it, Fredo. Do you know something I don’t?”
“What do you think I might know?”
“Cut it out. I don’t want to play these question games at the moment.”
“I’m not playing a game, Cente. I want you to try to answer the question yourself. What do you think I might know?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Take your time.”
“You…You think I’m not going to see my father in paradise, which either means I’m not going to be there, or it means that…”
“Cente?”
“It’s gotten dark. I said I wanted to stop talking before it got dark. Now it’s gotten dark.”
“You have to find Totoy.”
“I have to find Totoy. We’re going to the soup kitchen tonight. I’ve got to go right now.”
“Okay…”
“Can you give me the money, please?”
5.
Alfredo took the tape out of the deck, put it back in its case, and lay down on the floor. The carpet felt soft under his head, a plastic folder felt hard under his left leg, scattered papers rustled and slid when he stretched out his arms.
He thought: Sorry, Cente.
Sorry. Your talk of hell threw me. I could have given you better answers.
This is the way it is. Galaxies drift away from each other like painted dots on an expanding balloon, and hydrogen atoms have a single proton. There are hundreds of millions of hydrogen atoms in a single drop of water. Galaxies contain hundreds of millions of stars.
Nine planets orbit our star. We are not at the center of our solar system, and our solar system is not at the center of our galaxy, and our galaxy is not at the center of the expanding balloon.
Totoy’s mother isn’t going to hell; she’s in it. Your father isn’t in hell, because nobody is. And he isn’t in paradise, because nobody’s there either. When a street gang chases you down unfamiliar streets, when you hit the pavement outside Legaspi Towers at two hundred miles an hour, nothing happens.
QED
1.
The slum on the far side of the wasteground was a haphazardly constructed maze of reclaimed wood, plastic sheeting, and corrugated iron. Once they had run inside, orientation was impossible. The only constant was the sky, wheeling above as they swung left and right down walkways that were sometimes barely wide enough for even their narrow shoulders.
They tried various directions and strategies, taking turns leading the way. If Totoy’s route was taking them closer to the action, a tapped arm gave immediate and unargued deferral. If Vincente was so confused that they had circled the same few alleys three times in four minutes, a tugged sleeve passed control.
But no matter what they tried, the hunt was all around. It panted behind them, growled ahead, and to their sides they heard it smashing its heavy flanks against the sides of the squatter shacks. All around, and always near. Just as escape seemed reachable, a short burst of shooting would crackle from within a seventy-or eighty-foot radius. So they would double back, aiming away from where they thought the shooting must have been, and find themselves breathing gunsmoke.
Vincente grabbed the sleeve of Totoy’s T-shirt and held fast. Totoy slowed.
“I don’t want to keep doing this,” Vincente hissed. “If we keep doing this, we’re going to run into them. If we’re running, they might shoot us.”
Totoy’s head flicked toward the points of the compass. “Okay,” he whispered.
“I think they’ll shoot anything that moves.”
“I’d like to climb a wall. We’d be safe up a wall.”
“There isn’t a wall to climb. We should just stand still. We aren’t the ones they want. We should stand still, let them by.”
“You want us to stand still…”
Vincente nodded.
“So…” North, South, East, West. “We’ll do that. Stand still, let them by…”
It didn’t take long. A man arrived like a three A.M. timber truck, crashing out of the dark, filling the world. And he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. But not forward, speeding past in a rush of violence and fear—he disappeared, in a clattering and splintering of gangplanks, downward.
There were quiet seconds following his fall into the open sewer trench, before he erupted back up again in a spray of thick liquid, his howl inaudible to the boys through the blood pounding in their ears. Then he was out of the sewer and gone.
The two men in suits tore past a few moments later.
2.
The ‘cano who had fallen into the sewer was finished. His large physical size and his automatic pistol weren’t going to do him any good. He was going to be caught by the two men in suits and they were going to shoot him dead—this was his destiny, however you cut it. There was only one other thing worth bearing in mind. Anybody in the path of his destiny could wind up dead too.
And Cente knew that. After all, it had been Cente who suggested that they stop, stand still, and let the chase go by. So Totoy didn’t understand what was going on: When the two suits had run past, he hadn’t even had time to say phew before Cente lit up like a Chinese firework and set off in pursuit.
Totoy wanted to wrestle him to the ground and ask him what his fucking game was, joining the chase just as they’d been given the opportunity to get away from it. But it was hard enough to keep Cente in sight, let alone leap on his back. In fact, Cente was moving so fast it seemed that rather than trying to follow the suits, he was trying to overtake them.
Plenty of questions, but no time to give them consideration. Between keeping Cente’s T-shirt in view, straining his eyes in the darkness, and concentrating on where his feet were landing, Totoy’s attention was fully occupied.
Or—almost fully occupied. There was one small part of his head that had decided to go on a wander. It was surprising and a little irritating, but he didn’t feel there was much he could do about it. In a strange way, he felt as if his head was too occupied to bring itself to heel.
The wander had begun with the rhythm kept by his feet, to the extent that his feet were keeping a rhythm. One-two, one-two-three, one-two-three-four…Then the numbers had become words, and the words had become a chant, and the chant had progressed to a memory.
“You can’t keep the fucking rhythm! What the fuck is the matter with you?”
“Well, I’m not a girl, am I?” Totoy shouted, picking himself up and pulling the tangled length of rope from around his legs. “Do I look like a girl? Am I wearing a skirt?”
“You think only girls skip?”
“You ever seen any boys skip?”
“Boxers skip! Prize-winning boxers in the Olympic fucking games!”