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.

            “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…