Ilustrado Part 7

"... all wonderful! ... time that the f.u.c.king U.S. got their heads kicked in ..." He has an aging Brooklyn accent. "... time to finish off the U.S. once and for all ..."

Then I feel it again. That sensation of being watched. Like when you sit through a horror film then come home to an empty apartment. I gaze through the dark tint of the taxi and into the cars beside us. In one, a woman is at the wheel, singing her heart out, her hairbrush as a microphone. In another, a driver is gazing ahead as if willing the traffic forward with his mind; his employer in the backseat picks his nose then examines what he's found.

The radio blares laser sounds, then the breakneck reporting in Tagalog: "My compatriots, this just in. It is reported that Wigberto Lakandula has taken the Changco family hostage in their Binondo home. My compatriots, it is believed that upon entering the domicile, Lakandula shot and slew two men in the employ of the family, a bodyguard and a driver. He immediately took the couple, their six-year-old son, and two maids captive. A police cordon has been established around the area and SWAT team members have been deployed to the scene. Already a crowd of girls has gathered at the site, screaming for a glimpse of their hero. Police psychologists say Lakandula is acting out his lifelong frustrations against society, and will therefore be violent and unpredictable. Authorities ask all members of the public to stay away to avoid getting hurt."

Eventually, the American dream comes true for Erning Isip. He returns victoriously to his hometown for his first vacation, proudly wielding the greenbacks he earned from his new job working tech support at Lehman Brothers. Upon arriving, however, he contracts a stomach virus from drinking Philippine water, which he is no longer used to. He goes to see a doctor at the Makati Medical Center. The doctor examines him. "I have bad news," the doctor says, "and good news." Erning asks for the bad news first. "The bad news," the doctor says, "is you require a small procedure." Erning asks for the good news. "The good news is it only requires a local anesthetic."

Alarmed, Erning replies: "Local?! Can't I have imported instead?"

When they reach Makati, the taxi driver asks, "Hotel Happy International Inn, is that right, sir?" He's asked it four times now. "Yes," our exasperated protagonist says, before turning to the window. He can't wait to get out of the car.

Familiar sites grind by as pedestrians blur past, faster than his stranded cab. The gleaming, splendiferous malls. The guarded gates of Forbes Park, where our prodigal protagonist grew up. The Manila Polo Club, where he and Jerald learned to play tennis, always swinging for over the back fence to see the ball boys climb like monkeys after the b.a.l.l.s. The large home of the U.S. Amba.s.sador, with its cameras and high walls. The larger home of the Sultan of Brunei's brother's Filipina mistress. Santuario de San Antonio Church, where all his relatives and friends are, and always will be, baptized, communioned, wedded, waked, interred. The brawny ten-lane Edsa Boulevard, host to four peaceful revolutions. All who return to Manila love to say nothing changes, but that's not true. More soaring overpa.s.ses are stacked atop each other. More rows of billboards stand like upright dominoes, sporting pretty Brobdingnagian mestizas in low-cut jeans or lingerie. There is now a Starbucks across from Santuario (you can wash down the host with a grande Mocha Frappuccino). From where he sits, he counts six towering cranes, pirouetting, and four new skysc.r.a.pers, each striving higher than the other and those that were there before. The pace of Asian progress is ostentatious. Here in Makati, this is not a poor country. other. More rows of billboards stand like upright dominoes, sporting pretty Brobdingnagian mestizas in low-cut jeans or lingerie. There is now a Starbucks across from Santuario (you can wash down the host with a grande Mocha Frappuccino). From where he sits, he counts six towering cranes, pirouetting, and four new skysc.r.a.pers, each striving higher than the other and those that were there before. The pace of Asian progress is ostentatious. Here in Makati, this is not a poor country.

The Sh.e.l.l station outside Forbes Park, where he used to get gas, the flas.h.i.+ng lights of police cars and fire trucks-blue, then red, then black, then blue, then red-urge spectators beyond a cordon. Commuters at a safe distance stare at something beside the gas pumps. A duffel bag. Two policemen approach it sheepishly. They edge sideways like adolescent boys along the wall at a school dance. Their brown uniforms and caps make them look cruelly vulnerable. One cop crouches beside the bag, unzips it tentatively, holding himself at arm's length, face turned away. "Oh my G.o.d!" says the taxi driver, "Don't do it, don't do it!" The other cop cranes his neck and peeks in. The taxi driver makes the sign of the cross. Both cops jump back. Everyone stares at the bag. Nothing happens. The two cops approach again slowly. Drag it carefully away from the pumps. They are near the wall of Forbes Park. A sudden flash of light, smoke, the rattling of the taxi windows, a thunderclap, and the two men are no more. Car alarms scream. n.o.body moves. Suddenly everyone is moving. The cabbie leans on his horn, cursing at the cars in front, who do the same to those in front of them. Now that it's done, n.o.body wants to be involved. The boy bends over, breathing gingerly, trying not to vomit into the taxi's Power Rangers tissue-box holder.

I look out the window from the sixth floor of the Hotel Happy International Inn, reveling in the anonymity of my room hidden safely among the others. This is a s.p.a.ce for faceless businessmen and other itinerants with credit cards. The thin white sheets, the bouquet of Tetley teas, the plastic electric kettle with calcified coil make me feel, strangely, at home.

Outside, the night is neon. Signs flash like a row of pantyless chorus girls: p.u.s.s.ycat's Karaoke and Grill, 7-Eleven, Bacchus Hydro-Ma.s.sage, 8-Twelve, Tapa King, Ichiban Singalong Bar. The sostenuto whine of 150cc pa.s.senger trikes is accompanied by the ostinato ba.s.s from discotheques. Already, the loping Americans and Europeans go up and down the street, in and out of bars. They ogle and hold the teeny-tiny bodies of the GROs-an easy acronym for a clever euphemism: "Guest Relations Officer." One looks like a little girl who got into her mother's makeup. I wonder what her parents could have done differently.

The laminated room-service menu offers "happy international delicacies inn inn the comfort of your the comfort of your hotel hotel room." I call for a bacon cheeseburger. A bellboy brings it up and lingers, bowing to me as if I were j.a.panese. I tip him in pesos, he frowns at the money, turns on his heel, and almost runs down the hall. room." I call for a bacon cheeseburger. A bellboy brings it up and lingers, bowing to me as if I were j.a.panese. I tip him in pesos, he frowns at the money, turns on his heel, and almost runs down the hall.

Mechanically, thinking about the news I've discovered about Crispin's child, I raise to my lips the bacon cheeseburger. No sooner does the gooey cheese and medium-rare beef touch my palate than a shudder runs through me and I stop midchew.

Crispin and I shared a pa.s.sion for hamburgers. His apartment was above the famous Corner Bistro, and he said it was like living upstairs from your favorite brothel. More than a few times, while working together in his study, the eroticism of grilling meat would waft through his open window, and we would grab our coats to go cross off yet another from our list of the great purveyors in New York City-Soup Burg, Peter Luger, JG Melon. It was as if we thought they could offer us some explanation of what we were looking for in America.

One warm autumn day, we left our work to fetch takeout from the Burger Joint on West Fifty-seventh and walked to Central Park to continue our game. The last time we played, we'd adjourned with my rook and knight hara.s.sing his king, while my p.a.w.n was making a final sprint to queenhood. Crispin was almost as delighted as I was at the prospect of my beating him for the first time. "You're quite the Bobby Fischer," he'd teased. "We all need idols," I'd countered.

It started to rain, and he and I ran, like lovers in a romantic comedy, to the Chess and Checkers House. The place was empty, except for three children huddled in a doorway, impatiently looking at the sky. As soon as we set up our board, the rain stopped. The kids began jumping over the puddles, the eldest, about eleven, laughing like a seagull.

We unwrapped our burgers. I moved my knight to queen-eight and waited for Crispin. I remember he took a long time, and I looked up from the board. He was watching the children play. He noticed me and smiled. "From time to time," he said, "I wonder at the value of things such as those. Maybe I should have mustered the courage to raise one."

I studied the board. "I think you made the right choice," I finally said. "The world's overpopulated. Don't you think we all have our roles? Your books will have a greater effect." I bit into my burger.

Crispin gestured with his thumb at the children. "If I'm not writing TBA TBA for our offspring, then who for?" He watched them for a moment. "One day, you'll understand." for our offspring, then who for?" He watched them for a moment. "One day, you'll understand."

"I get it now. It doesn't mean I agree."

"I think you'll find even literature has limitations. That will be a good thing, if you discover that."

"Limitations keep us striving."

"After the Tractatus Tractatus, Wittgenstein became"-Crispin picked up his king, then put it back. I let it pa.s.s-"a primary school teacher. Rimbaud grew bored with poetry and left for Africa. Du champ gave up art for this very game we're playing." Crispin moved his king next to my knight. "With every year come new regrets, Miguel. You'll have your collection of them."

"That's condescending," I said, surprised by the acid in my voice. "I have my own."

"I'm sorry that you didn't know your parents. But there's more to life than that."

"You wouldn't understand." I couldn't look at him. I wish I had. Maybe I would have seen. But I went on. "That's why with literature, at least I can control what happens. We can create, revise. Try better next time. If we fail, we only screw ourselves ..."

"That last part's not necessarily precise."

"But if we succeed, we can change the world." I moved my knight. "Check." I looked up at him.

Crispin's face was like how I imagine my father's to have been, magnanimous and amused. "Changing the world," he said, "is good work if you can get it. But isn't having a child a gesture of optimism in that world?"

"Ugh. That's a little twee for my taste."

"Seriously, intellectually speaking. Consider it a moment."

"Sometimes we just aren't given a choice in the matter." I heard myself. I'm ashamed of how I sounded.

"We always are." Crispin moved his king. "Checkmate," he said. Sure enough, there was nowhere I could go. Crispin got up and looked at me with either naked disappointment or brutal pity. He put his hands in his pockets and went and watched the children splas.h.i.+ng. I still remember the tune he started to whistle.

On one of the last few days before the city fell to the j.a.ps, we lined Dewey Boulevard, scores of us along the broad avenue, the breeze off the bay just cool enough for goose b.u.mps. I was perched on t.i.to Jason's shoulders and I remember watching birds dueling recklessly in the blue sky above the long curve of water. They fled into the endless expanse when a bugle called. The sky then was still trying to retain its innocence.

Then I saw the men on their mounts, arriving for their dramatic departure. Dividing the crowd, splendid, tall, like centaurs pa.s.sing through wheat, they came, the Twenty-sixth Cavalry Regiment of the Philippine Scouts-Americans and Filipinos side by side in formation in two long columns. I still hear their equipment jangle, the slow clop of hooves, still see the sun reflecting on their horses' polished martingales, on their own breast buckles and the insignia with the charging horse head and the saber raised above it. The metal on their bodies glowed like our hearts. The j.a.panese were to land at Lingayen and the cavalry began their journey to be among the first of the USAFFE to meet them. We, the people, were silent, then we cheered, women reaching hands to caress the soldiers' boots and legs, to stroke the horses' manes and flanks-the way hopeful believers hold their hands out to rub the feet of cathedral saints.

I remember, and regret, I covered my ears from the cheers. I've never heard its equal since. t.i.to Jason handed me to one of the riders, his brother, my uncle, t.i.to Odyseo, who let me ride in front of him for some way. To this day the scent of leather and horse and male perspiration reminds me of that singular moment when I rode as one of them.

When I was finally pa.s.sed back from uncle to uncle, I struggled, not wanting to be left behind. I cried. The lines of cavalry took an eternal instant to pa.s.s among us. When the spectators closed the gap behind them, those around us shook their heads and made the sign of the cross. Many wept. I could feel t.i.to Jason shudder convulsively as he lost sight of his brother. All the nights t.i.to Jason had spent painfully rolling his ridiculously flat feet on Coca-Cola bottles had proved for naught when my father begged him to stay to help protect our family. I held on to my uncle as we all listened to the sound of hooves fading.

My young boy's memory may have inflated these details, but this is how I remember that day.

Outside the town of Morong, on January 16, 1942, that group of brave men and strong steeds later made the final horseback cavalry charge in the history of the U.S. military. These were the last of an ancient tradition, many felled by the cowardly hail of anonymous lead and mortars from j.a.panese positions. Those of the Twenty-sixth who survived the charge fought on as infantry. Eventually, attrition forced General Wainwright, a cavalry man himself, to give the order to butcher the horses for food. How cruel that meat must have tasted. Since then, the U.S. and Philippine cavalry have been tanks and helicopters, machines that know not the sacrifices of courage and duty.

-from Autoplagiarist Autoplagiarist (page 865), by Crispin Salvador (page 865), by Crispin Salvador *

His Nokia tring-trings. Our forlorn protagonist sits up in bed and fumbles in the darkness. He looks at the bright screen of the cell phone. It's a text message from his old pal Markus: Welcm bak, bro! Old skool tunes all week @ Club Coup d'Etat. Our crew will be there, with Charlie. My treat. DJ Supermodeldiva spinning phat beats Welcm bak, bro! Old skool tunes all week @ Club Coup d'Etat. Our crew will be there, with Charlie. My treat. DJ Supermodeldiva spinning phat beats . When the screen dims, the hotel room seems to get smaller. . When the screen dims, the hotel room seems to get smaller.

It would be f.u.c.king awesome-he says to himself-to go out, to see the old crew. I'll just play it cool, be grateful but firm, gracious but not dorky, when they press the baggie into my hand. He knows he can't use the self-righteous pose, that artificial form of fort.i.tude, of the recovering user. They know him too well. Anyway, he says, I can have fun on just alcohol. I'll buy a few rounds. Thank G.o.d for the mighty dollar. I should continue my nap before going out so I can keep up with everyone. Anyway, I don't want it to be a late night.

The pain makes him dizzy. He fights to stay conscious. "That son of a gun," Antonio growls. "He's dead meat." He leans against a tree and looks at the switchblade in his thigh. He starts to pull it out but it's stuck. He fights not to cry aloud and give away his location. He's lucky the blade didn't hit his bone and he knows it. From atop the hill, two of Dominador's lackeys appear. Uh-oh! They spot Antonio, point at him, and come running down the hill. One brandishes nunchuks, the other has drawn a jungle bolo. Antonio checks his gun to see how many bullets he has left. "Santa Banana," he says, "only one." The two men are getting closer, screaming all the way. Antonio's reflection gets larger in their aviator sungla.s.ses. The nunchuks blur around one goon. The razor-sharp jungle machete is held aloft by the other. Antonio takes Dominador's knife, grits his teeth, and pulls it out of his leg. Pain sears up the right side of his body. Gasping to stay awake, Antonio holds the blade in front of the barrel of his gun. He pulls the trigger. The two attackers clutch their chests, cry out in pain, then tumble head over heels down the hill. Their lifeless bodies roll up to Antonio's feet. "Not today, boys," he says. "I've got a headache." He retracts the knife then limps quickly away before more goons arrive. At the treeline, he searches for a place to bandage himself. He knows he can't take too long, or he'll never save his beloved Mutya from the slimy clutches of Dominador.

-from Manila Noir Manila Noir (page 102), by Crispin Salvador (page 102), by Crispin Salvador *

From Marcel Avellaneda's blog, "The Burley Raconteur," December 3, 2002: I don't know what the media's smoking, but let's not get carried away by the kickback scandal from the proceeds of the popular Mr. s.e.xy s.e.xy Dance ringtones, and the alleged guilt of Vita Nova and her uber-agent Boy Balagtas. Let's not even posit President Estregan's hand in preempting her culpability before Nova could release the rumored s.e.x tape linking el commandante-in-chief to the bombings. I, for one, cannot believe he'd be so stupid as to let the tape run while he takes a call from the Minister of the Interior.

Let's instead look at the certainty of things divine. Today we examine the impact of Reverend Martin's allegiance in two reports: In Pearls Before Swine Pearls Before Swine, Felix Resureccion describes the ill effects of the El Ohim's meddling-as a kingmaker, Reverend Martin may well be the most powerful man in the country. Resureccion goes as far as calling him "Our father, who art in a lucrative position." In My Daily Vitamins My Daily Vitamins Ricardo Roxas IV examines the church leader's moral accountability-Reverend Martin has a present-world responsibility to all those hopes and aspirations he foments in his followers. Ricardo Roxas IV examines the church leader's moral accountability-Reverend Martin has a present-world responsibility to all those hopes and aspirations he foments in his followers.

Some posts from the message boards below: -I wanna lick Vita's a.s.s-crack. ([email protected]) -What's that got to do with the price of rice, anyway? ([email protected]) -reverend martin is a saint! let him have his mansion. he's inspired the nation and brought together people who are all too often alienated. problem with our country is we can't stand to see people succeed. there's perpetually some fault to find in others. it's quite sad. it's not just jealousy either. it's more like a way of explaining to ourselves why we're having such difficulty whilst others are attaining success. how petty is that rubbish? ([email protected]) -Defence mechanisms may be justified, Ning. But we can't just leave it at that. Symptoms indicate a disease beneath it all. Reverend Mart is preying-Ha! No pun intended-on the needs of the most vulnerable. There's no justification for that. () *

Cristo keeps silent as Maria Clara bids the guests farewell. When he and Aniceto shake hands, the latter looks at him meaningfully, clasps his hand in both of his. Juan tilts his hat and strides down the steps with such pride Cristo can't help but smile. Only Martin is also pensive and doesn't say a word or offer a gesture as he steps into his carriage. His wife reaches over him to wave a final farewell, but Martin is oblivious.

Maria Clara touches Cristo's shoulder, then goes inside. He stands in front of the house until the clatter of the horses and the hiss of the carriages on the gravel fade completely. Then he goes to his room to consider his decision.

Only a few days later, on November 6, does Cristo find out what transpired without him. While merienda is being served, a man from the Claparol estate comes running breathlessly to Swanee, asking the servants to summon their master. "Don Cristo," he says, "Don Martin has tasked me with this message. The Spaniards have signed an Act of Capitulation. There was no blood lost."

Cristo presses the man, who tells him the details of the story, complete with embellishments. Yesterday, fortified by the successes in nearby towns, Aniceto and Juan joined the others to lead their men on Bacolod. Poorly armed against the enemy, the men prepared whatever weapons they could-bolos, knives, a few guns. Their a.r.s.enal had been smaller than they'd hoped, and they'd taken black paint to carved nipa sticks and rolled bamboo mats. These they piled conspicuously on open carts. From a distance, they did look like rifles and canons. The two groups of revolucionarios took positions on the Lupit and Mandalagan rivers, in a pincerlike maneuver on the city. The Spanish commandant, Coronel de Castro y Cisneros, whose scouts reported the Filipinos comprised a large, well-armed force, surrendered with little delay.

Stuttering, Cristo thanks the messenger. When the visitor closes the door behind him, Cristo sways, then stumbles into his chair. Spanish rule is ended! The revolution is a success! Three hundred seventy-seven years of occupation are finished. Cristo locks the door and pours himself a brandy. He dispatches this quickly, then pours one more. He takes the bottle with him to his seat.

That evening, when Maria Clara has the door forced open, she finds her husband drunk, s.h.i.+rtless, weeping. "I am not a man," he says to her. "How could I have done nothing?"

"Cristo," she says, holding his face to look him square in the eye. Her voice is urgent and strong. "Cristo. Listen. Cristo. Let me dress you. You and I must go to the Claparol estate. Martin has tried to take his own life."

-from The Enlightened The Enlightened (page 198), by Crispin Salvador (page 198), by Crispin Salvador *

Our nostalgic protagonist sits on the bed and leafs one more time through the photo alb.u.m of his dead mentor. His spirits fall with every page he turns.

Where did my own life go? he thinks. What became of all the friends I had, the jobs I was offered, the little family I was starting? What happened to the promising young phenom to whom words came so willingly? My plans to be the youngest, the best, snorted away in some Lower East Side bathroom cubicle with a sticky floor. My confidence flowing and ebbing with the high and the comedown. What about my grandparents' stacks of millions of pesos converted, at great loss, into a piddling wad of greenbacks, for my foreign, sentimental, "superior" education? What did those dollars buy? So many unfinished story collections. Epic novels that reached chapter two. And those d.a.m.n confusing experiments with style. The thing is to write a straight narrative. That's the trick: no trickery. Go back to basics. Emulate story collections. Epic novels that reached chapter two. And those d.a.m.n confusing experiments with style. The thing is to write a straight narrative. That's the trick: no trickery. Go back to basics. Emulate A Pa.s.sage to India. A Pa.s.sage to India. Write Crispin's biography. Spin the yarn, follow it home. You'll never be the youngest, but we'll see about the rest. He closes the alb.u.m. Write Crispin's biography. Spin the yarn, follow it home. You'll never be the youngest, but we'll see about the rest. He closes the alb.u.m.

Maybe maturity-he thinks-is merely accepting the tally of all the disappearing options of life.

But who says he's accepted anything?

INTERVIEWER:.

And how do you feel about it now, after the fall of the Soviet Union?

CS:.

The Soviet Union sold out the working cla.s.s. Tyrants hide behind the n.o.blest ideals. "Je ne suis pas marxiste," said Marx. That's exactly how I feel. If anything, je suis un Groucho Marxist. But listen, just because an ideology dies doesn't mean the value of its ideas is nullified. I felt at the time that communism was the way because it was the only viable means to real progress in my country. I no longer believe it can work. We're simply not that n.o.ble. I still believe revolutionary change is the only remedy, but it will be through something far more primitive. A populist coup d'etat, perhaps. A military strongman with his roots in the dirt and the decency of knowing how much is enough. The ideology of communism was an enticing potentiality in a society whose continuous attempts at renewal merely overlaid the old structure with fresh inequalities. Call communism my youthful reaction to the garish conservatism of an entrenched elite. What repressed young man, absolutely priapic with patriotism, wouldn't follow a bare-breasted Liberty leading the people? I was a fool. All revolutionaries are. Thank goodness for that.

-from a 1991 interview in The Paris Review The Paris Review *

The most difficult moment of the war for us was neither the occupation nor the liberation, though the nightmare of the latter, with its destruction of Manila, was in many ways harder to take than the heartbreak of the former. The most difficult moment for our family was the conquest.

After waiting hours in the hot crowded plaza where we queued to register, like common criminals, my father lost his infamous temper and marched my mother and us three children to the front. He wanted us to watch him berate the little j.a.panese clerk recording names at a desk, typing slowly with two fingers and peering over his thick spectacles, like some caricature in a postwar Hollywood film. One of the guards, swollen with the arrogance characteristic of the invaders during the first year, put his hand on his samurai sword and came forward with the intention of slicing my father in half. I knew we would be next. As he drew the blade-what a sound it made, like metal being torn-a shout rang out. The soldier froze, his weapon held high above his shoulder. Through the crowd pushed a j.a.panese officer, sinewy and straight. It was Yataro, our ingenious gardener. It turns out he was, and had been all along, a Kempeitai intelligence officer. In this way, he came to repay my family for the kindnesses we had showed him. His friends.h.i.+p would prove invaluable.

-from Autoplagiarist Autoplagiarist (page 992), by Crispin Salvador (page 992), by Crispin Salvador *

Erning returns from his vacation in the Philippines and meets a pretty girl at a friend's pool party in San Jose. Her name is Rocky Bastos and she hails from the same province he's from back home. Unlike the other Filipina girls at the party, she wears a two-piece swimsuit. The men gather at the barbecue and talk about her flat stomach. To get her attention, Erning continuously does the "cannonball" dive into the pool. She looks over at him each time he does it. He takes that as promising. Rubbing a towel suggestively over his chest, he sidles up to her and asks her out. To his joy, she accepts.

They go to dinner at Red Lobster, because Erning has been saving coupons for such an occasion. Afterward, she asks him up to her place for some Red Pa.s.sion Alize. It's become a red-themed evening, and they blush simultaneously when they eye each other in the elevator. Erning is sure he could be with her forever. Upstairs, they sit shyly on the couch, as if waiting for the same bus. The cognacpa.s.sion fruit c.o.c.ktail clouds their heads. Rocky, however, has lived in America for some time, and has already taken to American values.

Rocky: "Let's play hide-and-seek. If you find me, I'll let you have s.e.x with me."

Erning: "Eh, and what if I don't find you?"

Rocky: "I'll only be upstairs, behind the bathroom door!"

In the last months of the relations.h.i.+p, Madison kept asking me what I was still hiding. What was I doing when I locked the door of the room where I wrote? She didn't believe I was working. "You sound like you're crying in there," she said. "Why can't you let me get close to you?" So I told her.

I told her that I was watching p.o.r.nography. But I made it sound fun. I tried to show her, tried to share, what I found stimulating. Madison had, after all, come to like the other predilections I'd shared with her earlier in the relations.h.i.+p. She took easily to sneaking tokes with me beside the reflecting pool at Lincoln Center, then slipping in at intermission to find vacant seats as the Philharmonic played Schumann's Kreisleriana Kreisleriana or Vinteuil's Septet; though at first she cringed at the possibility of getting caught. She grew to love discovering, despite having initially mocked me as "nerdly," the crown-crested and color-breasted birds in the Ramble in Central Park; though she refused to be seen carrying the folding chairs and binoculars on the street. p.o.r.nography, I'd hoped, would be one more of these quirky delectations. or Vinteuil's Septet; though at first she cringed at the possibility of getting caught. She grew to love discovering, despite having initially mocked me as "nerdly," the crown-crested and color-breasted birds in the Ramble in Central Park; though she refused to be seen carrying the folding chairs and binoculars on the street. p.o.r.nography, I'd hoped, would be one more of these quirky delectations.

Madison smiled an unsure smile. She was trying to be game. Like a connoisseur pointing out the levers, gears, and jewels that fascinate within clockworks, I showed her the top-shelf videos on my hard drive. I introduced her to my favorite strumpets: Jenna Haze, Belladonna, and the Filipina-American Charmane Star. I told her my dream of writing about them in a book that would get published by a major literary house. She nodded from time to time, conceding, grudgingly, Yeah, Jenna's hot. Yeah, Bella's got skills. Then Madison turned to me and asked why she wasn't enough.

In fairness, in the following weeks, she tried, with her feather ticklers, her riding crop, her latex French maid's uniform. In the end, though, she grew disgusted, accusatory. Then came her paranoia: whenever I locked the door (even if I'd actually been working), whenever she went to bed before me and I didn't follow right away (even if I often suffer from insomnia).

The few times after that when we tried to make love, she looked at me strangely. Like I was somebody she loved less.

It's foolish to believe that we should be entirely honest.

"Ready?" Dulce whispered.

Jacob whispered back: "Uh, yeah. Hours ago."

The dwendes' eyes came closer and closer. Their teeth were so sharp they glinted even in the half-darkness.

"Now!" shouted Dulce, pulling the rope, slamming the door of the shed shut so that the interior was as black as black could be. The red eyes gazed around, looked up maniacally. Six little voices gave off strange, strangulated cries, and the eyes went from red to orange to yellow until they finally faded and disappeared.

"What did you do?" Jacob asked, obviously relieved. He flicked on the light. Except for its hum and the tapping of moths on the fluorescent bulb, the kids were completely alone. On the ground were six tiny hats, which disappeared into thin air right before the pair's eyes.

"When I was a kid," Dulce said, "my stepdad told me all about dwendes. Remember, he researches folklore at the university."

"Yeah, I remember."

"A long time ago, when I was really young, he told me that dwendes are so dumb that if they find themselves in complete darkness, without even the light of the stars, they'll just fade away. They'll stop existing. They mistake darkness for death."

"Your stepdad told you that? Then why didn't he believe us earlier when we told him about the magic tree?"

"I don't know," Dulce said, looking visibly perplexed. "I really don't know."

-from QC Nights QC Nights, Book Two of Crispin Salvador's Kaputol Kaputol trilogy trilogy *

I put Crispin's photo alb.u.m aside and get up to flop into the vinyl couch. It squeals with my weight. Opening a can of San Miguel beer from the minibar, I switch on the television. They have cable! I channel surf.

A basketball game is on, between the San Miguel Beermen and the Lupas Land Mallers. Two African-American imports post up against each other beneath the ring, the clock in final digits. The diminutive Filipino point guard tries for three points. I change the channel.