SHOES OF THE TRAVELER
By Mauro Gia Samonte
BOOK FOUR
WRITING THE WRONG
CHAPTER 1
LIGHTNING bolts
flashed as though to etch in the sky the unfailing glory of God’s Temple even
in times of one man’s adversity. How so magnificent, indeed, did the spires of
the INC Templo appear in that
phenomenon of heavenly light and sound.
“Let’s all
rise and pray,” Ka Roy enjoined the people in attendance at the prayer meeting
in a room of the INC Central Office.
Everybody
stood up.
The door
abruptly opened, distracting everyone.
Ka Mao
entered in a discreet rush. Ka Roy eyed him admonishingly as he proceeded to
his usual seat at the table where the prayer meeting was being held.
“Sorry, I’m
late. The rain,” said Ka Mao.
Ka Mao’s
right footsteps left blood marks on the floor as he walked to his seat.
“All of us
here could say that. But we made sure to be safe in the temple of God before
the rain could fall,” chided Ka Roy.
A girl in
the group noticed the blood marks made by Ka Mao’s footsteps.
“Ka Roy, Ka
Mao is wounded,” the girl informed worriedly, pointing to Ka Mao’s foot.
Ka Mao
forced a smile to the girl and then to Ka Roy by way of saying, “It’s okay.”
Ka Roy
glanced at the foot, which Ka Mao rested on a slight tiptoe to keep its sole
from being pressed hard.
“Stepped on
a sharp steel,” said Ka Mao.
Ka Roy
resumed his posture for praying.
“Small
wound. Christ had one whole nail piercing through,” said Ka Roy.
Ka Mao
nodded, pressing a pain-laden smile.
Ka Roy
asked, “Got your left foot wounded, too?”
“No,” said
Ka Mao, faintly shaking his head.
“Christ got
the nail pierced through both his feet.”
Ka Mao let
out a pure, exquisite smile, as though saying, “I wish me, too.”
“Let us
pray,” enjoined Ka Roy.
Everybody
bowed their heads.
“Father,
God in heaven…”
“Opo,” chorused the group. That was how
it was in doing prayer in the Iglesia Ni Cristo. Those praying responded with
the Filipino for “Yes” at every pause of the Minister’s words and Amen at each
reference to salvation, God’s glory and the work of the church.
IN THE DAYS of the indoctrination, the travel back home
after the panata would not have been
as torturous as it was now for Ka Mao.
Ka Loren had grown the habit of providing him the transportation money
back home, and if he were around after the panata
was over, he could have done so as well and Ka Mao could even have taken a
taxi in going home to make the travel faster.
He needed
to get home as quickly as possible so he could have his foot wound treated.
But illness
had prevented Ka Loren from undergoing the pagsubok,
thus making him lag behind in the process. Ka Mao went through it all by
himself, onto this period of final trial.
“Ah, Pareng
Loren…,” Ka Mao ached to himself as he trudged the way back through the Tumana
Bridge. “Just as when I needed you most.”
He limped
his way under a very slight drizzle, heading for the jeepney stop. That had
been his itinerary. He would take a jeepney for a 7-peso senior citizen fare to
Masinag where to hitch a ride on an Antipolo-bound jeepney.
He tried to
walk as fast as he could. His foot was swelling and some kind of a flaming
numbness was creeping all over it. It hurt increasingly with every step.
In his
lonesome and in the rain, he couldn’t
help growing a tear of sheer
self-pity. But as always in similar straits, he would cling to a favorite line
by INC ministers during homilies: “When everyone else has abandoned you, when
you can no longer count for help from friends and even from your own brothers,
try God.”
Ka Mao
seemed to swell with a sudden-found joy.
Indeed, in
many a difficult time he tried God. It always worked.
Ka Mao
stared ahead, gritting his jaws.
His steps
quickened.
THE SHOE got pulled off Ka Mao’s foot.
Ogie, his
youngest son, grimaced.
What a
nasty, deep wound it was he uncovered on the sole as he removed the sock which
Ka Mao had lumped over it to cushion the wound and also to stem the flow of blood. The sole had grown
whitish, which is the case when the skin is soaked in water for long. But the
wound was wet not with water but with fresh blood.
Ka Mao was
reclined on the couch in his bedroom as Ogie treated his injury. He visibly
shivered but tried hard to control it as Ogie appeared to notice it.
. "You're shaking, Tatay?"
"No... Of course not."
"Best to bring you to the hospital."
"Aw, Ogie. Get it on," Ka Mao snapped.
“How did you ever get that wound?” asked Ogie as he hurried to get the medicine kit.
. "You're shaking, Tatay?"
"No... Of course not."
"Best to bring you to the hospital."
"Aw, Ogie. Get it on," Ka Mao snapped.
“How did you ever get that wound?” asked Ogie as he hurried to get the medicine kit.
“No big
deal,” said Ka Mao. “Put a little betadine and it’ll be okay.”
Ogie began
treating Ka Mao’s wound. He took time examining it, checking how deep it was.
“Ogie, be
done with it quick, will you?” Ka Mao said.
Ogie began
cleaning the wound with oxidized water.
“Sometimes
you mystify me, Tatay.”
“Hmm?”
“You insist
in hiking to the Templo.”
“What’s so
mystifying about hiking.”
“I have my
motorcycle. I could take you there back and forth. Yet you’d rather walk.”
“Two
things,” said Ka Mao. “First, I have a phobia for taking the back ride on a
motorbike. Especially if handled by a hell driver, which you are. Second, it’s
costly. What we’d spend for gas, we’d rather buy rice with. Like Maoie, you’ve
been out of job for long. And the remittance from your Ate Maripaz takes too
much time coming. Ah… If only I could reach Saudi by walking.”
“Don’t fret,
Tatay. I’ll find a new job soon,” said Ogie as he began wrapping gauze cloth
around the wound.
“What I’m
saying is we cut down on unnecessary expenses. The one hundred pesos I save by
not commuting on jeepneys in my trips to the Iglesia buys us rice for three
days…”
“But look
what you got for walking,” cut in Ogie.
Ka Mao
stirred. Ka Roy’s voice rang out and he recalled the stern manner in which he
spoke: “Small wound. Christ got one whole nail pierced through his foot.”
“Small
wound,” Ka Mao told Ogie, tilting his chin. “Christ got one whole nail pierced
through his foot.”
“Good thing you didn’t get the iron on your
left foot, too.”
“Even so.
Christ got the nail through both his feet,” Ka Mao smarted.
“Tatay,
you’re not Christ.”
“Son, I
wish I were!”
Ogie was
tongue-tied.
He replaced
the medicine kit on a drawer.
“You’d be
going to the Iglesia again tomorrow?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’d take
you there.”
“Got no
money for gas.”
“I still
have a hundred fifty in my wallet.”
“Save that
for Gia’s allowance tomorrow. We don’t know when Maripaz can send her next remittance.”
Ogie
realized there was no use arguing with Ka Mao. He walked out of the room.
“Good
night.”
“Good
night,” said Ka Mao, finding no more reason to hide his shivers. He limped to
the drawer where Ogie had replaced the medicine kit. He got a pill which he
took with purified water from a half-empty bottle.
Gia was soundly
asleep.He changed into a night wear and then moved to join her in bed, but as he was about to share her blanket, he
realized she could contact his fever. He made the girl snug under the blanket, kissed her good night, then took
another blanket for himself with which
he covered himself as he lay on the couch.
He shivered
on, and he closed his eyes, wanting to sleep off his fever. But his thoughts kept awake.
CHAPTER II
THE PRESSURE of having to fend for his folks back home
together with that of having to sustain his studies was heaping upon Maurito more
and more heavily. He cut down on snacks and turned to walking from the Binondo
office to the MIT Doroteo Jose main campus or to the Intramuros branch; he
walked longest if he needed to transfer subjects from the main campus to the
Intramuros branch.
The money
he saved would substantially add up to what he had originally budgeted for
Calolbon. And taking cue from the way Mamay Oliva was sending money to the
family before, Maurito sent it through the mail in a coffee pack bundled with
same-size pack of sugar which he bought from Divisoria.
At the end
of the next semester of his self-support studies, Maurito had to choose between
his engineering course and the family’s survival. In the movie “A Man and A
Woman” Jean Louis Trintignant spoke to Anouk Aimee: “A man once said that if
caught in a fire and he was made to choose between a Rembrandt and a cat, he
would choose the cat.” That was the dilemma Maurito found himself facing. He chose life. That semester was the last in
his schooling.
For want of
bigger income, he joined an insurance company as a sales agent, but after some
three months on the job, he scored not a single sale.
Maurito
jested to himself, Maybe that was why insurance agents are called underwriters;
they are doing the wrong kind of writing.
Maurito’s
failure at the job must stem from a deep-set supreme value he was increasingly
putting for life. It just would not inspire him to sell the eventuality of
death, on which idea, he concluded, life insurance business thrived.
Nevertheless he took great inspiration from the constant advice of his unit manager: “Never mind that you don’t close
a deal with a prospect. No matter what happens, build goodwill.”
After a
time, he decided that selling knowledge was far nobler than selling death. So
he shifted to selling encyclopedia.
Maurito did
the job by indiscriminately making the rounds of neighborhoods where from the
appearance of a house he gleaned that the people living there would care to buy
books.
That late
morning, Maurito knocked on doors along a narrow street in Cubao. Again he was
hoping to make his next sale of the books; the first he made was to the brother
of the travel angency owner Dulcesimo.
He spent a
minute studying one particular house. It did not indicate that the owner was
rich, but neither did Maurito see signs of being poor. The house was typical of
the bungalows of the fifties, a simple rectangular structure with low lying
roof painted in green; the walls were bone white. The house had a fence around
done in concrete, with iron grills at the gate.
A housemaid
answered his knocking at the gate. He gave her his card for showing to the
master of the house. When the housemaid came back from the house, she opened
the gate and let him in.
The
housemaid showed him inside the house. In the living room, a man was
pressing the
keys of a piano and
then writing the notes on a music writing sheet.
The man
didn’t look quite thirty and not quite Filipino either with his milky
complexion and very obviously western features of his face. He was handsome,
almost beautiful when he smiled that dainty smile of his. He threw a glance at Maurito, letting out that
smile, even as he continued with his work, whatever it was, on the piano.
Told by the
maid to wait, Maurito sat on a bench. He noticed the place had framed photographs
of movie stars hanging on the wall: Gloria Romero, Ric Rodrigo, Amalia Fuentes,
Romeo Vasquez, Susan Roces, Juancho Gutierrez, a lot of them.
What could
the place be? he wondered to himself.
At any
rate, the amenities in the house betrayed that the owner had means to afford a
set of encyclopedia. And that was fine for Maurito.
Done with a
page of the music writing sheet, the man at the piano stood and faced Maurito,
who offered his hand for a handshake. The man took his hand. How tender the man’s
touch was, Maurito said to himself. How soft were his hands. He felt that if he
gripped the man’s hand hard enough, the fingers would break.
“I’m Mauro Gia
Samonte,” Maurito said.
The man
acknowledged the introduction, ever with that dainty smile of his.
“May I have
a few minutes of your time,” said Maurito.
At that,
the man showed Maurito to his office, which was the room on the other end of
the living room. A typewriter was on a desk to a side; nobody was working at it.
At another desk was a boy, obviously a queer, which was how homosexuals were
called then. He was doing paste-up of cut-out letter set which he laid out on a
layout sheet. The boy, in his late teens, looked up to the man.
“A few
pages more and I will be done with the layout. We can deliver this afternoon to
the printing press,” said the boy.
“Okay,”
said the man, then addressed Maurito.
“Well…”
“Are you
into printing or something?”
“I’m the
publisher of Show Business Magazine.”
“You are…?”
“Danny
Holmsen.”
Maurito
found himself exclaiming inside, “Yes, Danny Holmsen!”
He used to
hear that name in the shows at the Araneta Coliseum when the emcee would
announce the name of the band that provided the music: Danny Holmsen and his
Orchestra.
Danny had
by then gained fame as a composer and musician with the popular ditty titled “My
Faithful Love.” Recorded by RJ and the Riots on the guitar in the sixties, it
was such a smash hit among the youth and had since then become a classic
composition.
As Maurito
would learn later, Danny had become a favorite of Don Amado Araneta, owner of
the coliseum, such that in every show which the coliseum brought to Manila with
international singing celebrities, Danny arranged and conducted the musical
accompaniment.
Maurito, a
music lover, had himself grown to admiring Danny’s music, mainly from having
been exposed to it in many coliseum shows.
But that
morning, his urgent concern was to make a sale. Ellen had already graduated
from the elementary and Maurito had brought her to Manila and enrolled her at
the MIT, which he had found to be a good school. She was now staying with him
in the house of Manay Consoling together with Nanay Puping, who did the laundry
by way of paying for their subsistence. Just the other day, he flared up at
Nanay Puping’s insisting to bring Ellen back to province, she felt they were
burdening Manay Consoling a bit too much with their dependence on her for
subsistence. Maurito had been feeling that way, too, for long already, and now
that he felt Nanay Puping was rubbing it on him at a time when he was just
helpless to do anything about it, he vented his rage on the wall which he
punctured with his fist.
Maurito
swelled with so much optimism as he readied his paraphernalia for making his
sale presentation. He could not help recalling a tragi-comic experience he
encountered early on in his his door-to-door selling. He knocked on the door of
a house in a compound of duplex townhomes. The lady who let him in was quite
pretty, not quite past her mid-twenties, very amiable, accommodating. She bore
with the touches of amateurism in Maurito’s presentation and visibly forced
herself to be polite at each clumsy move or speech he committed. Done with his
presentation, Maurito bent somewhat as he spread the sales contract for the
lady to sign. The contents of his shirt pocket slid out and littered the floor.
The lady graciously helped Maurito as he fumbled in gathering back the items
comprised of various cards, IDs and folded notes and contacts list.
Maurito
proceeded just the same to the finale of his presentation, which was to ask the
lady to sign the sales contract. She begged off, uttering a polite alibi, then
thanked him and wished him luck in his next venture.
Maurito
ached deeply inside. He forced a cover-up smile as he gathered his things back in his sales kit. Just to
have something to say, he uttered, ““Oh, by the way. I forgot to ask for your
name.”
“I’m Boots
Anson Roa,” she smiled, anticipating a surprised reaction from him.
Maurito
could not immediately place the name.
“Any
relation to Pete Roa?” he asked. Pete
was then the popular host of
“Discorama,” a music-dance show on television, together with Baby
Obrien.
The lady
smiled on and said, “I’m his wife.”
That was
when Maurito gaped in surprise.
Years
later, when Maurito had begun his career
in movie journalism, he would encounter the lady again in a press conference at
the Vera Perez Garden for a movie she was starring in. Boots noticed his stare,
which he fixed on her without bothering to greet her. Actually Maurito was
trying to find out if Boots remembered the incident she had with him. He
considered it so nice of Boots to have entertained his sales presentation. He
wished he could recall it to her and thank her again now. But Boots certainly
did not remember, for irked by Maurito’s stare, she pouted. Maurito didn’t find
reason to bother Boots anymore.
So now, in
making the presentation to Danny, Maurito resolved to himself to perfect the
methodology taught by the trainor in the encyclopedia salesmanship training.
“The
technique is, don’t let the prospect intervene in your presentation. The minute
you start talking, continue talking, not letting him speak at all, all the way to the signing
of the contract.”
“What if he
doesn’t sign?” Maurito asked then.
“He will,”
replied the trainor . “Look…”
The trainor
moved to hand Maurito a pen for signing. Maurito didn’t move to take it. At
that, the trainor let the pen drop from his hand. By reflex, Maurito picked up the pen and at that precise moment
the trainor spread before him a sales contract, which Maurito signed.
Maurito had
done the trick to more than two prospects; they signed but would not give money
for down payment. On the next visit, they reconsidered their signatures. But
with the signed contracts, he got advances on commissions which enabled him to
sustain Ellen’s day-to-day needs.
With Danny
now, Maurito saw no problem. Danny was popular and surely had money for the
required down payment. And once Danny paid the down payment, Maurito would get
his whole commission from the deal.
Thus Maurito began, “This is Collier’s
Encyclopedia, the most modern, most up to date encyclopedia in the world today.
It comes in 24 volumes…”
Maurito did it so well Danny was quite impressed. Toward the
end of the sales pitch, Danny appeared stymied, not able to intervene, not
asking any questions, just listening as though in a trance – all the way to the
dropping of the pen which he picked up as if in a spell and moved as though to
sign the sales contract which Maurito spread in what he felt was perfect timing.
But Danny’s
hand stopped.
Like Boots
perhaps, Danny did not have the heart to discourage Maurito in his sales
presentation and so let him do all the talking.
But unlike Boots, Danny did not have to fake an excuse for not buying.
Using the pen, he pointed to the set of encyclopedia neatly set
on top of the low cabinet that lined the wall on one side of the room.
Maurito
nearly gawked.
“Collier’s
Encyclopedia,” Said Danny.
CHAPTER III
FAR FROM being
another failure, however, that encounter with Danny Holmsen turned out to be a most important episode in
that stage of Ka Mao’s journey in life.
Danny was
into publication, and learning that Maurito was a writer, he tried him, got
convinced that he could do the job of an editorial assistant, and offered him
the post. And Maurito accepted. He got a salary of P150 monthly. Because he worked stay-in with
free board and lodging, that amount was actually a net pay, fat enough. Maurito could continue sending money to the
family in Calolbon while providing for Ellen’s studies at the MIT.
It was no
job of an editorial assistant which Maurito did as things turned out. He was
practically writing the whole magazine – doing the interviews and writing
feature articles on show business personalities, lifting articles from other
sources for reprint, and writing a column. The only things he did not write
were Danny’s own column, the trivia section Danny prepared as well as the
crossword puzzle which Danny also did, copying from this or that source. Every
now and then writers contributed articles, which would be burden off Maurito’s
shoulders, however slight those
contributions would amount to.
The effort
paid off shortly. After only three months on the job, Maurito was promoted to
Editor. Nothing much changed though but for the designation in the staff box.
Danny was no longer Publisher and Editor as it used to be but just Publisher.
With Maurito being Editor now, nobody was there to fill in the position of
Editorial Assistant. But for the formality of having a complete editorial
staff, Danny needed to put in someone’s
name there.
Now, at
that time a fresh graduate from Bicol
had come to Manila to begin his own writing career. One morning, he came to the
Cubao office of the magazine and submitted an article on a movie star. Maurito
had been used to receiving contributions from show business hacks which, though
they wouldn’t pass by journalistic standard, he entertained just the same and
labored hard to rewrite just so the magazine carried bylines.
The Bicol
boy’s piece stood out. Maurito showed it to Danny, praising its merits. And
Danny decided to place the boy’s name in the staff box as Editorial Assistant
along with the publication of his article. Danny had thought that being a
neophyte writer who longed to see his name in print, the boy would welcome the
idea.
True
enough, the boy was excited and profuse with thanks when he came to the office
again. But in a very polite manner, he asked that his name be taken off the
staff box.
More than a
decade from then, the boy would shine in, as the cliché goes, the firmament of
show business writing and would properly belong in the staff box of the Philippine
Daily Star – the paper’s Entertainment Editor, Ricky Lo.
Into the
90s, when Ka Mao was already directing movies for Seiko Films, he encountered
Ricky at the press conference held by Robbie Tan for the movie he was promoting
at the time. Ka Mao was glad to meet Ricky again and would Ricky handle the PR
of Maripaz, Ka Mao’s daughter, who was a budding child star?
“Look,
guys,” Ricky said to his companions. “Mauro here is asking me to be the PRO of
his daughter.” They laughed.
Ah, Ricky,
so sighed Ka Mao to himself. So polite as ever, so mild-mannered, tactful and
soft-spoken you wouldn’t feel it any even when he is irked or even really mad
for having been slighted. Just like that time when in a soft, slowly-measured
words he asked that his name be stricken off the staff box of Show Business
Magazine. And with no laughter, too.
CHAPTER IV
WITH nary a
complaint, Maurito did his job in Show Business Magazine. It never occurred to
him that, in fact, that was a high point in his prolificacy as a writer. He just wrote articles as needed, wrote on
and on such that he had to use pseudonyms or the magazine would look like a
festival of “Mauro Gia Samonte” bylines. Among the pseudonyms he used were
Margia Montesa, Leo Augusto and Sonny La Madrid. The first was a derivative
of “Mar” being his nickname during his
late high school and early college days, “gia” an abbreviation of his middle
name “Gianan,” and “Montesa” his surname spelled with the first syllable at the
end. The second was his zodiac sign, “Leo” and his birth month in Spanish
“Augusto”, The third, a mere contrivance, taking cue from Quijano de Manila.
Moreover, Danny
published another magazine. Fashion and Models, which, well, the name said it
all, was about fashion and fashion
models.
What
business had a young macho editing a girlie publication? Unless, he, too, was…Oh,
no, et tu, Maurito!
But no, a
boy who back in the elementary grades was already chasing girls, in high school
wooing the girlfriend of another when not occupied slouching on his chair in
class in order to get a vantage view of his Tagalog teacher’s thighs, which
appeared to enjoy being stared at anyway; who even as a young tot had the courage
to toy with the flower of that cross-eyed adolescent girl in Calolbon, tickling
it with the tip of the stem of a coconut leaf while she peed among the malubago trees on the beach; who even
also at that age was already joining Calolben men doing their things as they
hid among the bushes, watching women take their panties off and then roll the
hems of their dresses all the way to their breasts so that their garments didn’t get wet as they crossed the river that
outed into the sea.
FRANKLIN CABALUNA
was editing another movie magazine which was printed also in the Benipayo press in Sta. Cruz, Manila. While their
magazines were being run in the presses, it was their pastime to stay on the
rooftop of the building where on moonlit nights it was nice talking, just
talking about anything under the sun, nay, at that hour, moon, and then suddenly
they would hug the corrugation of the galvanized iron roof to make themselves
inconspicuous in watching those Mesirecordia prostitutes getting laid in their
rooms or doing pistons of their torsos while straddling atop men’s laps. In later times when booked in a hotel to
co-write a movie script, they would feel they, too, needed to do their own
laying, so they’d get a girl whom
Franklin was ever gracious to let Maurito go on top first, never mind if what
he ate afterward was Maurito’s leftover.
It was with
Franklin that Maurito realized a paradox: people get bound together real tight
by vice rather than by virtue. Until now, Ka Mao had not quite found an
explanation for this. The best he could
do was conjecture: the world being sinful, sinners do get an easy way of sticking
to one another in flocks while those who cling to their virtues necessarily
flounder in the waters of sin in their lonesome.
And yet
Franklin went on to be a dear friend to Maurito, sharing in his joys and ever
coming to his rescue whenever hard times came. When Maoie was baptized,
Franklin was one of six godfathers who included Diego Cagahastian, Pete Lacaba,
Tony Mortel, Leroy Salvador and Amado Cortez. The many wonderful things
Franklin did to Ka Mao after that Benipayo press episode certainly were no
vice.
Must it be,
then, that in a world of sins, virtue consists in people recognizing one
another’s weaknesses, and thus recognizing endeavor to help one another rise
above their common weak humanness?
In that sense,
therefore, Ka Mao would think now, sin is a collective character of humanity.
The sin of one, is the sin of the other, so that as salvation for one is
salvation for the other, so is punishment for one punishment for the other.
Either this or Christ’s single death on the cross could not have accomplished
the salvation from sin of all mankind in one fell swoop.
The last
time Ka Mao saw Franklin was at the People’s Journal office, when he submitted
to him for publication in The Insider, a magazine Franklin was editing, an
article titled “Portrait Of A Young Man As An Educator.” It was a veritable
treatise on Ramon V. Guico III, the young scion of the rich Guicos of
Binalonan, Pangasinan, who was then the Vice President for Education of the
family-owned World Citi Colleges.
That
semester, Ka Mao’s daughter Maripaz, whom he had diverted away from the movies
in favor of her education, would be graduating from nursing. But Ka Mao had
gone so down he just didn’t have anymore means to earn for the girl’s completion
of her studies.at WCC.
But he was
not dead, Ka Mao protested to himself. He still got his flesh, his brain, his
talent.
So one
afternoon, he came forward to Sir Mon, whom he didn’t know from Adam, and laid
it all out to him. He wanted his daughter to graduate but did not have the
money to enroll her anymore, and would Sir Mon please allow her to enroll, her
tuition to be paid with his services. Sir Mon took pity and agreed, even
admitting Ka Mao into the college faculty as a lecturer in Logic and History so
he would earn for Maripaz’s allowance.
How nice of
the guy. You asked him for the moon, he gave you the stars, too.
Franklin
accommodated the article, giving it a five-page
spread in Insider.
The next
time he came to Journal office was months after that. Again, for want of some
income, he did a little publicity article for an aspiring young singer.
Franklin was no longer there to accommodate the article; the guard informed him
that Franklin had died the past December.
All of a
sudden, Ka Mao swelled inside with that terrible hollow he invariably felt each time he was seized with great
grief. It had always seemed the function of that hollow to make him realize
just how huge an emptiness it was he had gone into for having lost a dear thing
you would never get back again. And the emptiness would swell, swell into a
fire that then would explode in his chest, which he would feel shattering in
its seams, and he would choke on his convulsive sobs.
Franklin,
dear Pare, Ka Mao sobbed to himself as he went away rushing from the Journal
office. He gritted his jaws and tightened the nerves around his eyes to keep
tears from falling. How cruel of Letty Celli, she always passed the word around
when colleagues in the movie press passed away, like that time she traced me
all the way to Antipolo to say Danny Villanueva had died, why had she not done so when you went, Pare? Not even Nelia
Tan had thought of calling; she knew my number.
Or had Franklin been one of a few select players in
Ka Mao’s story whom he’d rather not see in coffins and by that keep them forever
alive?
CHAPTER V
SO IT WAS FRANKLIN,
more than anybody else, who knew Maurito’s editing a fashion magazine was not for
reasons anywhere close to loss of machismo. Maurito had lots of it, which he
tried to put to good use, too, on a good number of occasions.
One was
with Betchie. She hailed from a
prominent family which owned a large manufacturing firm. She was not yet
twenty, an age at which a girl, having tasted enough of the juice of life,
wanted to taste more. In fact, Betchie had to bow out of college for bearing a
child whose father she would not talk about.
During
changes of attires in her photo sessions with Danny, Betchie did not exercise
much prudence and was very liberal in
exposing her flesh. Anyway, Danny was, well, she knew it, which Danny wouldn’t
flaunt though. If Betchie’s was a
seduction, then it could not have been meant either for another creature at
hand, which was the queer secretary/assistant of Danny. The only guy present
was Maurito, watching on the side, waiting for his turn, which was to interview
Betchie for the feature article to go with the pictorial.
Betchie was
not so prudent either when Maurito got her to a corner of the
office-turned-photo-studio for the interview. Her hand groping on his lap, she
gently blew her answers to Maurito’s questions in an efflorescence of womanly
scent which made the hair of his skin stand to its end.
Maurito
knew that scent to be common among biological species that need copulation to
procreate. The female emits that scent to announce to the male that she is
ready to copulate. And Maurito inhaled a good fill of that scent such that he
wanted to gulp the whole of Betchie down the very bowels of his manhood.
But Maurito
was a romantic. For him, carnal knowledge with a girl is not just for getting orgasm. It is for having a child, out of love with
a woman with whom to raise a family. Wouldn’t that be hypocritical for somebody
who had admitted his past flings with girls in hotel rooms and the non-admitted
ones in the dingy cubicles of Fifth Avenue cabarets in Caloocan?
No
hypocrisy there, Maurito would argue to himself. Those girls were prostitutes,
got paid for the satisfaction they gave him, and so it was even stevens between
them. Outside of this balance sheet of the flesh trade, having a girl’s
chastity for Maurito was opportunism, and he felt he was none of it.
If he must
have Betchie’s chastity, he must take her for a wife.
Maurito
wrote her letters, which after a time turned into subtle expressions of love.
She responded with expressions of friendship which Maurito took to be
encouragement of his intentions.
All that,
of course, was prior to the release of the magazine issue carrying Betchie’s
pictorial. Betchie’s real sentiment was betrayed one afternoon when she came to
the office with a copy of the blueprint of the magazine issue. Through a
friend, Betsie had gotten that advance copy, had gone over it, and now saw
Maurito to get one word corrected.
Betchie
wanted the word “effcminate” deleted from among other words Maurito used to
describe her character.
“Effeminate,”
said Betchie, “is bakla.”
Maurito
explained that he was not referring to gender but rather to a manner of
appearance on the ramp where female models move quite unlike women moving in
real life but quite much like, yes, indeed, baklas, so that the use of the word
“effeminate” made a precise description of Betchie’s comportment as a fashion
model.
Besides, wasn’t
Betchie encroaching upon his prerogatives as a writer? Not even Danny would
have the gall to dictate on him what words to use.
So on the
delete mark Betchie had placed for the encircled word “effeminate”, Maurito
superimposed the mark for “stet”.
It was
raining that evening Maurito alighted from a jeepney and rushed to Betchie’s
townhome in San Miguel Village in Makati. A maid opened the door at his
knocking, then shut the door again as she turned to inform Betchie of his
presence. Betchie came rushing from upstairs and was still wrapping her robe
around her body when she opened the door and appeared to Maurito, who was outside the iron grill at the gate.
“Hi, good
evening.” Said Maurito.
“Hi,” she
replied, putting on a smile.
It became
evident to Maurito that Betchie was not inclined to let him in.
“The
magazine is out,” said Maurito then took out the copy of the magazine which he
had tucked inside his sweater. “I brought you a copy. Here…”
She waved
the magazine away.
“It’s okay.
I already bought a copy.”
“I see.
Have you read the article?”
“I’m sorry.
I’m dressing up for an occasion. I’m in a hurry.”
“Oh, yes.
Bye.”
“Bye.
Thanks for coming.”
And Betchie
closed the door.
All the
while, Maurito stood at the grill by the gate – under the rain.
CHAPTER VI
SUITS ME FINE,
Maurito chided himself after recovering from hurt feelings in that episode. To have thought that he could
enamor a socialite even just for a fling was stupid enough, but to believe she
could take him for a lifetime partner was crazy.
On the one
hand, he didn’t belong in Betchie’s lifestyle, or in Marxist term, class. Did
he expect to indulge in affluence wholly on Betchie’s means, nay, on the means
of Betchie’s family? If he did, he deserved damnation. On the other hand,
nothing seemed to prevent Betchie from doing the turn-around instead, i. e.,
abandon her bourgeois life and embrace the hardship of the proletariat. But
then that would be fairy tale, and no fairy tale has a poor Prince pulling down a rich Cinderella from high up her social
rung. It is always the other way around, a rich Prince rescuing a poor
Cinderella from misery.
Either way,
that episode with Betchie served to dramatize one thing about Maurito: he believed people are sincere when they
spoke good to him. He took people’s words and actions at their face value and
hardly ever bothered to inquire into motives, why that word or why this action.
The
niceties showered on him by people from showbiz and alta sociedad struck him as simply what they were, nice things
which he needed to appreciate. He never thought that those nice things were
meant to facilitate these people’s accommodation into the pages of his
magazines.
“Are you
that naïve?” Psyche Mendoza of the Philippine Graphic asked Ka Mao just
recently; she was interviewing him about the recent landgrabbing on his
property and the discussion turned to Ka Mao’s attitude toward people.
For a split
moment, Ka Mao was tongue tied. He didn’t consider it naive to believe people
are good, and that you should take their words for whatever they say and take
their good actions toward one another as sincere.
Ka Mao
himself had wondered at times why he was that way with people, never
attributing any bad intentions on their part in their dealings with him. For he
had noticed one outstanding characteristic of society: the smart ones prevail
over those who are not. So if you want to survive in this life, be smart and
gather all the gains you can from the globe.
Ka Mao
recognized that he was no Simon pure. He did commit this and that wrongdoing at
one point or another in his life, like that case of the boy scout uniform or
his cheating on Mamay Oliva regarding his tuition money. But each time he did,
he repented deeply, and though done only to himself, that repentance would
subject him to some kind of a thorough cleansing inside him, making him feel
good again. – and continue being good thenceforth.
Ka Mao
doubted if Psyche, in that interview, could have taken that explanation. With the
girl, who didn’t let the interviewee’s opinion pass without putting forward her
counterpoint, it would have instead triggered a philosophical discussion, for which
Ka Mao felt the occasion was not meant. Besides, the longer the discussions took, the more coffee you drank, and what you
pay for a cup of UCC coffee in Trinoma could buy you a gram of gold in Bontoc in the
Mountain Province. For this reason, Ka Mao did not think it wise to argue any
further when to his explanation that his sex movies were meant to advance the
equality of women with men even in such matters as courtship and copulating,
she uttered, smarting: “Don’t walk in the marsh or you’ll sink deeper into the
mire with every step.”
So to her
question, “Are you that naive? ”, Ka Mao found it convenient to just say “Yes.”
CHAPTER VII
WITH SABSY, the
case was entirely different. This, owing to several factors.
` Firstly,
Sabsy was no burgis. If she qualified for some level of the Philippine bourgeoisie, it was probably no
higher than that of a petty bourgeois.
` She was a
daughter of a Bulakena who married a Chinese merchant dealing in dried fish.
They rented an apartment in Binondo, with the two upper floors as living
quarters for the family, and the entire groundfloor as stock room and display
area for all sorts of dried fish and preserved seafood including bagoong alamang, shrimps caught in their
infancy, and bagoong isda, sauce from
sap of rotting fish, both of which, after undergoing the process of
preservation, turn out to be exotic appetizers that are a delicacy even in
five-star restaurants that serve Filipino dishes.
Secondly,
Sabsy was, in the tradition of a Beatles song, just seventeen when he saw her
standing there, retaining much of the modesty of young girls not yet qualified
to be women of the world. She was in second year foreign service at the
University of Sto. Tomas and, being a serious student aspiring to join the
diplomatic corps one day, could well just be concentrating on her studies but
for the fact that Mama Isabela wanted her second youngest child to be a beauty
queen. What rewards would Sabsy get if she became a beauty queen, only Mama
Isabela knew, but those rewards must be big, for the matron was spending much for the purpose. In
other words investing, and no investor puts big money for small profits.
Thirdly,
Maurito developed a relationship with Sabsy that went beyond trite
give-and-take, which was the hallmark of harsh business. He paid her visits at
her Binondo home on weekends, mixed with her folks, even had dinner with the
family, and when he went. always got a pack of dried fish for bringing home. At
nights, he would call her on the phone and they would exchange little stories,
like how she got irked by her stocking getting snagged on her desk in school or
how it melted her heart to hear Jose Mari Chan sing; and, for Maurito’s part,
how he could not seem to get going with a story he had been wanting to write
since he met her. She would press him to tell what the story was all about and
he would tell her that it was about a poor dreamer who fell in love with a
seventeen-year-old fashion model with whom he wished to settle down for the
rest of his life. Maurito had that knack for wording his thoughts in a
run-about way. Writers call it style. With Maurito, it was a way of admitting
he lacked words with which to express his feelings exactly as he felt them and
that the circumlocution of verbiage succeeds in achieving the dramatic impact.
“Nice story,” Sabsy would say. “Start writing it and give it that fairy tale
ending, ‘And they lived happily ever after.’”
Finally,
Sabsy, at her age and with the consistent close guarding by Mama Isabel, was not
in league with those temptresses whose weapons in subduing him where their
physical assets. Sabsy made him toe the line with fine gestures, like a sulking
look in her eyes, a very subtle show of inner tantrum, and even just silence. Like that noon after a show at the Manila
Hilton, a group of thrill-seeking models were even pulling at Maurito’s hand in
trying to sit him in the restaurant for lunch. “Come on,” said the girls.
“We’ll pay.” Maurito threw a glance at Sabsy, who just kept standing there, by
the elevator, staring at him quietly. She did that to him a couple of times
before, and Maurito knew she was mad. She untangled himself from the other
models and joined Sabsy in a rush as she walked into the elevator.
Maurito
felt his machismo was greatly damaged in the eyes of the other models. But on
the other hand, it made him feel extremely nice to realize that already Sabsy
was treating him as her exclusive possession.
The first
time they met, Sabsy struck Maurito as just like that Finnish teener who upon
being called as a candidate in the Miss Universe Pageant walked up to the mike
with that innocent, tentative gait of an
adolescent, and then doing what looked like an amalgam of a half tiptoe, half
curtsy, introduced herself. The Finnish beauty, Joanna Raunio, won second
runner-up. But when Sabsy presented herself to Maurito with that half-tiptoe,
half-curtsy, she won a queen. He just loved that pleasantly awkward girlish
mannerism which would trigger imagery of
a rose that couldn\t seem to make its mind up whether to bloom or stay a bud.
Sabsy had
all the attributes of a beauty queen. She had a face which, if Homer were to
word it, could launch a thousand ships in the tradition of Rosanna Podesta as
Helen of Troy. She wore a dimple which, like a gem, accented her every smile. She stood tall and trim, with curves and bulges
of her flesh perfect in proper places. “You’ve got such beautiful legs,”
commented Lilian Laing de Leon at an afternoon tea for candidates in the Miss
Teen Princess Philippines held at the Vera-Perez Garden, to which comment
Maurito added,”Million dollar legs which she had better gotten insured like
those of Angie Dickinson.” And the movie actress Laing – whose aristocratic demeanor just wouldn’t fit
into her fat, obtrusive physique – scowled at Maurito for having said it better.
Sabsy was
modeling for Romy Lopez, a short, snub-nosed, thick-lipped fellow – the better
perhaps to spell that with just an “a” at the end for, well, femininity – who
wore an Aguinaldo hair cut as though to complete the incongruity of his looks
with the finery of fashion designing;
Romy was looked down on by couturiers in the mold of Pitoy Moreno, Ben Farrales
and Rudy Fuentes.
Romy, who
had a shop in Sampaloc, Manila,
presented Sabsy to Maurito when he entered her as candidate in the search for
Top Ten Models. That search was just one among many “top tens” in a popularity
contest being conducted by Show Business Magazine, like top ten movie
directors, top ten musical directors, and top ten couturiers. The highest
category was Mr. and Miss Show Business in which the candidates were movie
stars.
Votes for
the candidates in the contest were cast through ballots you had to cut out from
copies of Show Business Magazine and Fashion and Models. That only meant you
had to buy as many magazines as you could to get votes.
Brilliant
marketing strategy!
Readers did
excitedly form themselves into camps taking sides in the various categories of
the rivalry. And it was always an event in the Holmsen residence when fans in
their tens and hundreds flocked there to cast their ballots in the monthly
countings.
And you
could do a Garci, too. For ballots were being printed independently of the
magazines and these ballots were up for sale to candidates who were dying to
win. In the case of Sabsy – let alone the fact that Mama Isabel was going out
of her way to ensure Sabsy’s inclusion among the top ten models of the land –
Maurito made sure she made it. He tabulated the votes.
Thus during
that particular coronation night of Mr. and
Miss Show Business at the Araneta Coliseum in 1968, Sabsy joined the
rank of the country’s top ten fashion models, among them being the venerables
Chona Recto-Kasten and Jojie Felix
Velarde, the beauty queens Aurora Patricio and
Elsa Payumo, and the young set composed of Pearlie Arcache, Tetchie Ysmael and Cherrie
Pie Villongco.
From then
on, Maurito was Sabsy’s PRO strictly on a personal basis, meaning no business
relations whatsoever. He didn’t charge a centavo for his services, though she
gave him gifts every now and then like, yes, a pair of Swatch from Hongkong.
One time coming home from a trip abroad, she gifted him with a Nikon FT, a
status symbol among press photographers, and in the movie press, Maurito got
the distinction of being the only one who owned the luxury camera.
Since
getting employed by Danny, Maurito began a hands-on training in photography.
Danny was taking the pictures he used in his publications, using a 120 mm box
camera. For the black-and-white photos, he set up his own paraphernalia
for developing and printing, which he
himself did, each time converting the office into a dark room by simply
throwing drapes across the jalousies of the window, thereby isolating the
room from any source of light outside.
For the color slides, he had them processed by Kodak in its Escolta branch. In
due time, Maurito was doing this photography job as well, and now that he was
handling Sabsy’s publicity, he found it practical to take her photos as well.
Maurito
wasn’t yet aware of it, but his artistic inclinations were seeking release. He
gave vent to his literary cravings by writing short stories and, in moments he
was seized with the muses, poetry, too. He did pencil drawing. And he thought
he also wanted to play the piano, so he told Danny about it, and he recommended
him to a friend matronly piano teacher, who, the master pianist that she was,
told Maurito after only two sessions|, “Forget it.”
For
Maurito, Sabsy was increasingly turning into an artistic creation, obsessing
him with a passion no different from that which made Pygmalion go head over
heels over the painting Galatea. And so he was there, in her every journey to
fame.
In the run
up to the Miss Teen Princess of the Philippines, Sabsy needed to hold a charity
show for street children of Manila. Maurito helped Mama Isabel produce the show
by being responsible for the talents needed in the production. Maurito thought he had goodwill enough to get those talents gratis et amore. A few talents did come
to keep their promise of performing for free, but the Minstrels, a singing
group with following among the campus crowd and who Maurito intended to be
among the main performers, came surreptitiously, and seeing the confusion that
was taking place turned away pronto.
At that
moment, Maurito and Mama Isabel were confronting the biggest problem. The
orchestra contracted by Maurito had not yet arrived and there was no word that
they were coming at all. The orchestra consisted of musicians who regularly
played for Danny. Maurito did tell them that they would be playing for free but
he intended to surprise them with a sizeable allowance each after the show.
After much
waiting, Maurito shuddered at realizing that the musicians would no longer come.
So time to announce that the show would be cancelled, to be held under better
circumstances? Maurito could not bear the look in Mama Isabel’s face. She was
nearly crying.
Now,
Maurito had this amazing talent for making quick decisions. He couldn\t explain
it but in many tight situations, he would find a way of getting through. This
time around, he thought of a way out.
Sabsy had a
suitor, Margarito. Already in his thirties, the guy had been off to a promising
career in hotel management. He was the manager of the Aloha Hotel on Roxas
Boulevard. Maurito recalled that he had been to that hotel a few times before
and knew that on the fifth floor it had a club where a band played regularly.
There were breaks in the band’s performance and it could use one of those
breaks to hurry over to the San Sebastian Auditorium, the venue for the show. Band
accompaniment was needed only for the performance of Merci Molina which was the
finale number. So the show could proceed as programmed, beginning with the
antics of a comedy tandem, onto the tricks of a magician, then to the
performance of a singing group doing it acapela, and to the pre-finale, a
lengthy fashion show featuring creations of Romy Lopez as showcased by his mannequins,
with Sabsy as the signature model. What music the fashion number needed could
be provided by a record player. When it was
time for Merci’s finale songs, Margarito’s band should
be well in place.
But Mama
Isabel was sure Sabsy would not agree to asking Margarito’s help.
“Why not?”
asked Maurito.
“Sabsy
would feel compromised. Beholden to Margarito.”
Maurito
need not be told about it. He felt it, too. In fact he would be risking his own
intentions toward Sabsy should she softened up on Margarito due to his coming
to her rescue now. Still Maurito just found himself insisting, “No compromises
here. Margarito’s courtship is one thing, the show, another. It must go on.”
He told
that to Sabsy when he asked her to do the calling to Margarito on the phone.
“No way,”
said Sabsy firmly.
“But the
show…”
“Cancel
it.”
Tears
formed in Mama Isabel’s eyes. Maurito
could not take it. Besides he admitted
he was to blame for the impending fiasco. Feeling extremely guilty, he
made his mind up. He hurried to the telephone.
The phone
in the office of Margarito rang. He picked it up.
“Hello.”
The voice
on the other end of the line said, “Hello, Margarito. This is Mauro Gia
Samonte.”
“Oh, yes,
Mauro. Sabsy’s friend.”
“I need
your help.”
And so even
before the fashion number could end in the ongoing show at the San Sebastian
Auditorium, Margarito came with the hotel band aboard a van. Margarito
personally supervised the band members in hurrying to the stage with their
instruments and positioning themselves for the finale of the show.
The band
now well in place, Margarito stood aside and watched Sabsy doing the final
turns and pirouettes in the fashion number that was ending. He smiled, proud
and satisfied. It struck Maurito as the feeling of a benefactor expecting reward
from his beneficiary. But Sabsy did her number without looking at Margarito.
Instead she threw a sweeping stare at Maurito, like castigating him for some misdeed.
Finally,
the superb performer that she was, Merci Molina dished out the classic songs
that had made her a prima donna during the decade and that year’s top singer in the Mr. and Miss Show Business contest: “I
Who Have Nothing,” which at once got the audience swooning at her intro, and
“Those Were The Days” in which she was joined by the rest of the performers,
including Sabsy and the other fashion models, while the audience could not but
react with their own sing-along, up on their feet, clapping their hands and
swaying to the passion and vibrancy of the finale tune.
Really
crying now but crying tears of joy, Mama Isabela thanked Margarito profusely.
“Thank you…
Thank you… If it were not for you…”
Margarito
cut her short. “Anything for Sabsy,” he said.
Maurito ached
at the conversation but pretended not to hear it. He joined the crew at the
backstage in their sing-along. He felt giving in to a nascent grief. Mama
Isabel was right. The show would have been a disaster had not Margarito come to
the rescue. And that was no cause for relief on the part of Maurito. On the
contrary, it humbled him exceedingly: he was too little, indeed, to reach
Sabsy, too.
At that,
Maurito finally let his tears drop. But he sang on, consoling himself, “Oh,
well. That’s how the cookie crumbles.”
Shortly
after, Sabsy would go on to win the Miss Teen Princess of the Philippines
title, and to her coronation night at the Manila Hotel, she made sure she sent Maurito
an invitation. Maurito had learned from her that Margarito was invited as well,
so that though Maurito had his
coat-and-tie on when he left home that evening, intending to attend the
coronation affair, upon reaching Avenida Rizal, he tarried at Luisa and Sons
where he took a bottle of beer while waiting for a friend he had called. Bonnie
Paredes arrived in no time and agreed when Maurito asked him to pitch in for
him in the Manila Hotel affair. Maurito gave Bonnie the Nikon FT to use in
taking photos of Sabsy. Hardly had Maurito finished his second bottle when
Bonnie came back, rushing,
“Sabsy won’t
accept a proxy,” said Bonnie. “It’s you she wants,, she said. You must come.”
Maurito
gave Bonnie one hard stare in conveying what he wanted to say; served Bonnie
fine if he didn’t know what he meant. Then he ordered two bottles more for the
two of them.
It’s all
over, Maurito resolved to himself. It was not the martyr complex in him that
was at play now, his consistency at playing hero, doing people great things
with no expectation for rewards. Rather it was a questioning: If Sabsy had but
a little endearment for him, why should she have the heart to put him in that
Manila Hotel affair together with a rival who had already trashed him in that
San Sebastian Auditorium show? Maurito imagined himself in his bareness being
pitted against a gladiator in full combat regalia. How could he win? If, then,
he attended the Manila Hotel affair, he would only be indulging in masochism of
the highest order.
Maurito
gulfed what remained of the beer in the
bottle he had in his hand before drinking on the next bottle bottoms up.
Years
later, in the progress of his film career, Maurito would learn that once you’ve
made the punch you want to deliver in your story, stop; everything else after
that is anti-climactic. Sabsy’s episode in his story was one of good and beauty, so let her end
there, in the finale of the San Sebastian Auditorium show, when in the joy of a
song she vied with time for the eternity of her utmost good, her most
beautiful.
Those were
the days my friend
We’d
thought would never end
We’d sing
and dance forever in a day
We’d live
the life we chose
We’d thought
we’d never lose
Those were
the days, oh, yes those were the days
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la…
