by Glenn Diaz
“He was a jerk,” she said, running her fingers through her hair, pacifying the permanent dent caused by the headset.
He sighed. “Karen—”
She caught a mirror on the wall and found her face devoid of color. She bit her lip to put some red in her lips and tucked a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear.
Brock smiled, watching her. “You know, it’s funny,” he said. “Jeremy, your caller? He actually knew an ex-girlfriend of mine from Alameda. What are the chances, right? You see there’s this gorge where we’d drive to. Great view of Angel Island, just off the bay—”
As Brock went on, Karen for some reason remembered the time when Philip thought he had pressed the Mute button during a call and, for a little over two minutes, sang half of Suzi Quatro’s “The Wild One” to his caller. In the recording, which circulated over email, the call sounded like an ordinary, if arduous, inquiry about long distance rates to Aruba, until the seven-minute mark when the agent put the customer on hold. There was a click on the line, after which the agent started to sing. The customer, bless him, didn’t interrupt, although he laughed for about thirty seconds when Philip finally realized his folly and started to apologize.
Brock saw the smile forming in Karen’s lips. “Yeah, it’s quite a crazy coincidence,” he said, returning the smile. “OK, go back to your station.” She’d been halfway out the door when he called out, “You owe me!”
Karen looked back and felt her lips thin into a smile. Hours later, coming out of the elevator in our usual haggard states post-shift, we bumped into Brock, and a few of us, mainly those who weren’t essentially sleepwalking, swore that Karen looked into the American’s rotund face with unusual alertness. Was it still part of her quasi-feminist strategy, we wondered, a special protracted campaign directed no longer at her callers but a flesh-and-blood Yankee, which put to test not just her accent and pitch and intonation but everything (she fixed her top). Or was she done for, the inevitable fall of the once proud, vanquished like tragic heroes by an innate weakness surfaced by innocent encounters.
Brock was lonely—this much she must have gleaned from his eyes that morning. He hated being here. Over lattes later, Karen told him another Philip anecdote, this one about the time QA reprimanded him for asking a customer what her Zodiac sign was because she was “being a fucking Gemini right now.” Half an hour later, Brock invited her to his condo unit.
In the ten-minute walk to the nearby high-rise, she noticed how her strides had to be longer to keep pace with the American. Going down the busy underpass on Dela Costa, they blended with the crowd, and the few inquisitive looks from strangers, Karen returned with a smile. The building doorman gave her his sweet greeting, and she realized that she would have to account for this surprising giddiness in the future. What she didn’t expect was how soon it would come. She also didn’t bet on a petite Hawaiian somehow figuring in the equation.
“I can feel your anger from here!” Karen called out as we emerged, in lugubrious succession, from the entrance to the Lung Center.
The brains behind the intrepid Save Jasmine Trias Campaign had just been slapped with a two-week suspension and four more sessions of stress management under Brock; the attempt at flippant humor to anticipate our valid, valid resentment, well—
“Dumb fuck,” Sharon mumbled, succinct as ever.
We walked past Karen, and she chased after us, a glutton for punishment. Finding a vacant spot by the installation in the middle of the courtyard, we fished our beat-up packs from our pockets and passed around someone’s lighter. Swathed in inaugural smoke, we shed the jackets and windbreakers, loosened the shawls and scarves, exorcised the accents.
“Ah, this is supposed to be EDSA,” Alvin said, pointing to the giant bronze tank surrounded by the rejoicing people.
“I really wanted to tell you guys,” Karen said. “But you thought it was Mitch, and I thought maybe she came to Brock, too—”
Philip turned to the installation. “Oh you’re right. That chubby guy is Cardinal Sin. And those are nuns and soldiers and the other people celebrating because, well, something about Imelda. What happened again?”
“If you can only tell these happy people,” Alvin said. “Just you wait—”
“I had no choice,” Karen said. “You know how it is.”
Alvin briefly turned to Karen’s general direction, a mere glance, not even a couple of seconds long. “I was three during EDSA,” he said.
“Let’s see,” Sharon said, eyes closed, muttering something. “I love math problems.”
“Guys, it’s still me,” Karen said.
Sharon’s eyes dilated. “You’re only sixteen?” she asked Alvin. “I thought you looked young but my god.”
“It’s Brenda’s check-up next week,” Macky said. Brenda was Macky’s girlfriend, now on her second trimester. He blew smoke rings upward, which Philip somberly swiped with a series of ninja flicks. Macky tried again and Philip, after deferentially watching the smoke rise for a bit, swiped again. Done with his cigarette, Macky took out his coin purse and started to stack seven one-peso coins on his palm. He turned to Karen’s direction, and for a second we were scared that he would hit her. What he did, ultimately, was worse. He looked at her and said absolutely nothing.
When Karen walked away, we channelled the discomfort to a random sight: the steady stream of agents exiting the building, the lost pigeons swooping through the open courtyard, and the spires and antennae and derricks that jutted out in the distance, here always the foreground to the sky.
28
K aren’s jeepney traversed the slowly swelling avenues of the financial district, stopping in street corners where people in jackets—our people—congregated. She put on her glasses, the onslaught of sleep like tiny claws from behind her eyes. The events of the last week, the charge of wanton betrayal chief among them, blurred into the monolith of life’s vexations, dreadful and all that but ultimately trivial when all she wanted was a goddamn nap.
At the end of the jeepney’s route, she got off and headed for the MRT station on EDSA, twelve lanes of cars and buses convulsing in futile honks and rage, a modern, impotent revolution. Her northward route was nearly deserted; in the morning most headed for the business districts in the south, to join the self-important rush to catch the next bus, the next favorable blink of the traffic light, the next elevator in the newest skyscraper. When the train came and the doors hissed open, she and the scarce few poured into the coaches and took seats so far from each other that you’d think they didn’t live in Manila, where households shared plywood walls and illegal cable TV subscriptions, where eavesdropping was as physically inescapable as catching a whiff of the garlic being whisked on a charred pan next door.
Finding a seat, she surveyed the faces of the other passengers. Morning people, like aliens—hair dripping wet from the morning bath and clothes advertising their recent foray under the flat iron. Her phone beeped; a message from Brock: “Text when home.” She had already typed “Sure.”—casual but not aloof—when she backspaced and slid her phone back into her tote bag.
We could almost see the train leave the road-level station in Buendia and gradually lift toward Guadalupe, flanked on each side by a cascade of billboards, the usual blur of energy drinks and whitening soaps, the perfect jeans and bible verses (“Cease striving and know that I am God”). From Guadalupe, it slid out of the station to a steel truss bridge that rattled under the weight of the coaches, the expansive Pasig sweeping into view. Then Boni and Shaw, sandwiched in concrete, between a flyover and an underpass. Released, the train chugged to Ortigas, Megamall like a sleeping giant. Santolan, up next, was airy and spacious, flanked by the twin camps, Aguinaldo and Crame. With a final wheeze, the train arrived harassed in Cubao, people-ful and plebeian.
All these Karen didn’t see. Awoken by the sudden surge of people who brushed her knees, she stood up and, half-awake, hurried off the train. Outside the station, she shielded her nose from the fishy waft that blew from th
e farmer’s market, right behind the mall named Farmers Plaza. She collided into bodies. If Makati had calm, nicely dressed people who came in polite spurts, here, in the bowels of Quezon City, people rushed in droves. They pushed and shoved. They were agitated, unafraid to offend.
So prone to offense, some people, she had always thought.
Hallock was far from her first complaint. Just a week earlier a retired marine had asked for a supervisor and complained about “the rude Latina girl” who didn’t care if his issues were resolved or not.
“Karen,” Eric told her after putting the customer on hold.
“Eric,” she said, invoking with her look their history with the company, back to when it was just a fledgling operation of sixty seats in a cramped floor of a four-storey on a Makati side street years ago.
“Fine,” Eric exhaled. “Just pretend I’m coaching you and I’m telling you awesome new things. Blah di blah, blah. Did you know that the newbie is dating a white guy?”
“Why is everyone gay in this industry?”
“OK, nod and look serious,” Eric said.
Karen stared at him.
“Nod. Brock is watching. I said nod.”
She rolled her eyes while nodding and watching sidelong for the manager.
“Seriously, just do it. Apologize and shit. It’s all about willingness.”
“Tell that to my father.”
Eric pursed his lips. “You’re acting like a freaking newbie. You know what to do.”
She nodded. “Take a deep breath.”
“And?”
“Curse them with the mute button toggled on.”
“There you go,” he said. “Good girl.”
Karen put her headset back on. “Here we go,” she sighed, closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and toggling the mute button. She smiled.
“Thank-you-for-waiting-Mr.-Cabot-Once-again-I-do-apologize-for-the-inconvenience-this-may-have-caused-you-Like-I-said-we-are-doing-our-best-to—”
She toggled Mute again when she was cut off. “No, you listen to me,” Mr. Cabot said, “whatever sweatshop in the boondocks you’re calling me from.”
Alvin, the apparently gay newbie who sat next to her, turned to his right, to the source of the hushed torrent of fucks and shits and delightful putanginas that sweetly poured from his seatmate’s smiling lips.
Boondocks, where did she hear it before? Funny word—it had crept up in a long-ago history lesson from high school about an incident in Samar. A lot of Americans were killed in a surprise attack by Filipinos during breakfast and the whole island, to the last banana tree in the farthest boondocks, was burned to the ground in retribution. Anyone over ten was ordered shot. The humongous church bells, which signalled the attack, were taken as bounty, now held at a camp in Wyoming.
Karen’s smile did not disappear as Mr. Cabot proceeded with the Guttural Lecture on what was wrong with America these days, how this godforsaken era of outsourcing was eroding the spirit of hard work and decency and patriotism that had built this great nation, and could he now speak to someone in the US, not you, certainly not—
The memory brought a smile to her lips. Something to tell Brock. Or not.
She now inserted her ticket to the turnstile to get to the other rail line in Cubao. Happy thoughts, she ordered herself, happy thoughts, the simple enough mantra we learned from the stress management workshop. Four overtime days would be credited to her next pay next week. Deduct the bills and the budget for the food and Terrence’s allowance—
At the platform, a rugged-looking thirty-something caught her attention. She herself was in two-inch heels and a skirt that was on the playful side of corporate wear, and she twisted her right leg to admire its illusory length. Not bad, and the stockings hid the blisters.
The first time we saw Brock was on the second or third week of training. He had been tasked to talk about the UTelCo Code of Conduct, mostly boring givens about absenteeism and tardiness and how you couldn’t bring bagoong to the pantry or call your mother in New Jersey (“No, Philip, not even collect”). What had struck us the most was Brock’s spiel on the dress code. This was Makati, he told the class, the financial epicenter. You are a pro-fes -sional, and you probably get paid more than these corporate slaves you see on the streets of E-ya -lah. Like us, Karen knew that it was standard rallying-of-the-troops speech, but it was the first time that it dawned on her that what she was doing, its terrible displeasures aside, was a real job, maybe not the cushy petroleum company post or the research career that she had envisioned for herself, but a job nonetheless, which paid the bills and of course supplied the occasional unhappiness. It was OK. For now. Brock then offered the class his profuse thanks for their choosing UTelCo and even more profuse apologies for the unbearable nippiness in the room. “I don’t like this,” he had said, “but then again I’m from Texas.”
The class had giggled, feigning knowledge of American climate. Some fawned over him, for being so nice and so endearing and for resembling a slightly plump Robin Williams.
She would tell us later that Brock had thanked her for the information on Operation Save Jasmine Trias. It was for our own good, he assured her, because anything that benefited the organization also benefited its people. It sounded logical to Karen, who asked him to promise that her friends wouldn’t be fired. “Yes, I promise,” Brock said, hand on his chest.
The train soon arrived. She noticed an old Caucasian man a few meters away from her. German? Aussie? Canadian? She couldn’t tell. The guy wore a loose Chinese-style barong and white cotton pants and carried a bulky black laptop bag on his right shoulder and a black binder brimming with paper in his arm. His free hand occasionally pushed his thin glasses up the bridge of his nose. When the doors opened, she and the white man headed for the same entrance. They found no empty seats; the line went to Manila’s university belt, and the trip coincided with the exodus of students for their first classes. The two stood near the door and held on to a cold, gleaming pole. The white guy, as they were wont to do, gave Karen, the local, a tentative smile.
The train was abuzz with cheery morning conversation as it ran above one of Manila’s busiest boulevards. She fixed her gaze outside the window. In the horizon, Makati’s skyline looked pristine under the clear light of the April morning, the faraway kingdom more impressive from a distance. Without meaning to, she spotted our skyscraper, the rotund cylinder beside the high-rise with the distinct triangular apex. It must be quiet now on the thirty-second floor, she thought, a far cry from the flurry of activity only a couple of hours earlier. Her headset, she imagined, was clipped on her spine, finally in repose.
Closer to the train, in the foreground, paraded a series of sooty structures, rooftops with makeshift basketball courts, potted plants withering in abandoned balconies, windows that framed once-busy offices. Here and there, opulence: a prewar hospice surrounded by forsaken topiary, a two-storey Mediterranean bordered by palm trees, rows of newly built Swiss chalet-style townhouses dwarfed, not by the Alps, but the silhouettes of far-off condominium buildings. All the unclaimed spaces in between were usurped by shanties and improvised hovels, perched creekside or stacked in precarious columns clinging vine-like to private firewalls. A new motel here, a duty-free grocery in hideous green there. A gleaming McDonald’s. Karen watched as the white man, watching the unfolding city with nonchalance, bowed his head in what could only be pity.
She imagined him to be among the faceless legions who called the UTelCo hotline. What would this one call be about? He seemed like the easygoing type, a little naïve and technophobic. Maybe a gently worded inquiry about a $27 increase on his March bill. The wireless options for his granddaughter. A chat about a recent visit to Yosemite.
The train kept a steady pace even as it neared Gilmore station, the grand façade of Saint Paul College blurring past. The more animated of the passengers loudly wondered why the train was not slowing down as it was supposed to. When it did at the last possible second, those who stood were thrown forward i
n a daze. Wildly unleashed were those who did not hold on to a pole or held on too weakly. Karen managed to steady herself after the initial jolt.
The white man, whose pink, wrinkly hands had gripped the same pole with less vitality, was thrown to the floor in the center aisle, where there was suddenly enough space for his big frame. The loud thud caught everyone’s attention, as did the sheets of paper that exploded in a directionless fountain. On one elbow, the Caucasian lay on the floor, while a scripted apology issued garbled via the PA system.
In a trance, Karen imagined that the ringing triggered a stampede that caught everyone off guard. Helpless, the white man was thrown around as everybody hurried to the suddenly narrow exits, to the windows that were shattered in panic. A hundred brown feet, wearing cheap rubber slippers and ten-year-old sneakers, trampled the leathery face of the man, who couldn’t even shout for help. She then went against this imaginary flow of people and readied her tired, blistered foot.
She blinked awake. A pre-recorded voice had announced the station’s name, while an electronic bell belatedly signaled the train’s arrival. With the other passengers seemingly paralyzed in their spots, she found herself hurrying to the white man’s side. Was he all right? “That driver—” she mumbled, “I’m so sorry.” She grabbed one of the man’s flabby arms and flung it over her shoulders. The other passengers soon came by to help, pulling the man to his feet as the train doors finally opened. Noticing the commotion, the security guard at the station signaled for the train to hold its position. Inside the coach, passengers frantically collected the man’s strewn belongings.
“Thank you, dear,” said the man, who still looked dazed.
Karen looked stunned herself, on her skin a bizarre residual warmth from the man’s brief touch. Outside, the belfry of a church loomed into view, its bell loudly tolling.
