Months later, Baby’s fingers and toes develop an itchy rash. The rash develops into hideous, watery blisters and open sores. Isabel Alacran is sure her daughter has contracted leprosy, and won’t go near her. With her feet swollen and deformed, wrapped in bandages, Baby is forced to spend most of her time in bed or in a wheelchair. She is unable to go to school for more than a year. Dr. Katigbak sends Baby to his wife Emilia, a skin specialist. “I’m just a heart surgeon, after all,” he confesses. Severo Alacran threatens to sue him.
Diagnosed as suffering from an extreme case of nonspecific tropical fungus, Baby is bathed daily in ultraviolet solutions that leave a vaguely sulphuric, medicinal smell on her raw skin. The effect is cool, and strangely soothing. The servants paint Baby lavender twice a day, wrapping her hands and feet afterward with fresh bandages. Baby lives in her bed and wheelchair until after her tenth birthday—bathed, changed, and fed by a succession of servants and nurses who don’t seem to mind the sight and smell of pus. She reads comic books voraciously, and movie magazines. She memorizes all the lyrics to the latest Tagalog songs in the cheap little “Song Hits” booklets the nurses bring her every week. She sings earnestly, making the nurses laugh. With her or at her, it doesn’t matter; it is the first and only time Baby Alacran is indulged by anyone. Her parents sometimes make a show of checking on her progress, standing awkwardly in her doorway on their way to a nightclub. “And how do you feel today?” her father would inquire, cheerfully.
“The same,” Baby would always answer.
“What is this nonspecific fungus?” Her parents would ask Dr. Emilia Katigbak impatiently. “How much longer before it goes away?”
“It could dry up and vanish tomorrow. It could last a few more months. Think of your daughter’s body as a landscape, a tropical jungle whose moistness breeds this fungus, like moss on trees,” the doctor explains.
Six months later, the wheelchair is gone. The sores dry up, but the sweating and nervousness persist. Baby’s nail-biting habit returns.
Baby cannot help herself; her hand creeps up to her face, touching her cheek. It moves toward her mouth, rests there. She wonders if she will hear the phone ring, even here, in this room. “Why don’t we compromise?” she hears her father saying. “Why don’t you at least finish high school? You only have a few weeks left to go before you graduate, then you can think of marriage…”
Her mind goes blank. Baby starts to chew.
Exactly three days later, on her way to school, Baby Alacran elopes with Pepe Carreon. It’s been carefully planned by Pepe, down to the last detail; the chauffeur and Baby’s yaya quietly paid off. Baby disappears with her lover to an undisclosed retreat in Baguio. A note is sent to her parents, setting out terms. Baby reveals that she is pregnant.
In her absence, the scandalized nuns have expelled Baby from school. Her mother is placed under sedation by Dr. Ernesto Katigbak. Her father retreats alone to his coconut plantation. More days pass, another note is sent. A phone call is made, late at night: “Your daughter is alive and well,” says a male voice. Rumors fly around Manila. The tabloids scream:
BABY KIDNAPPED BY COMMIE INSURGENTS!!!
General Nicasio Ledesma visits the Alacran mansion to offer aid and sympathy. His wife Leonor offers to make novenas. Baby’s paternal grandmother, Doña Serafina Alacran, suffers a mild heart attack. When she recovers, she refuses to leave the hospital from shame.
A wedding is hastily arranged. It is Baby’s small triumph, her only revenge. Everyone who is anyone is invited. The bride wears a spectacular white gown of silk and Chantilly lace, designed with an empire waist to conceal her swollen belly. A tulle veil embroidered with seed pearls crowns her head. Her long black hair has been brushed away from her face, which seems unblemished and almost pretty in the soft evening light. Her gaze is steady and serene.
It is sunset. The Archbishop presides. The crowded cathedral is hot, the air thick with frankincense and the fragrance of assorted perfumes. In the front row, Baby’s grandmother Doña Serafina threatens to faint. She wears black, a disapproving frown on her powdered face. The altar is ablaze with candles, the music solemn and ethereal. A hush falls over the crowd. Someone coughs. Others crane their necks to get a better view. It’s the wedding of the decade. The women fan themselves and pray, rosaries of onyx and rosewood wound loosely around their wrists. The bride’s mother stands erect and dry-eyed, her rage plain for all to see. The groom wears an ill-fitting tuxedo. His bewildered family are lost in the row of spectators jammed against the walls of the church. General Ledesma stands next to him, stiff and impressive in his formal uniform, his chest covered with medals. He is Pepe Carreon’s best man.
Severo Alacran beams in the aisle where he waits for his daughter. He offers an elbow to Baby, who staggers under the weight of her belly, her opulent gown, the enormous bouquet of flowers she is carrying: White lilies, white roses, white orchids. “It’s bad luck,” Doña Serafina mutters to herself. No one hears her.
The bride takes her father’s arm. The ringbearer, a frightened little boy of six in velvet jacket and knickers, stumbles on the edge of the bride’s endless veil. A murmur runs through the crowd. The boy catches himself, clutching the satin pillow bearing two gold wedding bands. The slow procession begins.
Mister Heartbreak
I MAKE IT DOWN to CocoRico around four in the afternoon, before it officially opens. Andres looks surprised. “Oy, Joey. Kumusta? What brings you here so early?” He asks me, distracted. Behind the counter, he wipes his precious liquor bottles and glasses, rearranging them over and over again; Andres is never satisfied. “HURRY UP!” He suddenly yells to the unseen Pedro. “It’s almost five o’clock! What do you think I’m paying you for! The toilets are a health hazard! Do you think I’m running a cheap whorehouse?” Andres looks at me meaningfully, then frowns when I start laughing. “Baboy,” he sneers, calling me a pig. I blow him a kiss.
I’m here early because I have nowhere else to go. I slip off my sunglasses, sliding into my usual stool at the bar by the cash register. I am facing the empty dance floor, painted black—my idea and my creation. In a few hours the small black square will be packed with hundreds of gyrating men and boys. Giant speakers crowd the space, but they look good—beautiful, black, and cool. Andres balked at first—he hates to part with money—but I bought them hot from some American guy with connections at the PX. Andres was pleased with the bargain.
“What a horrible day. I’m melting,” Andres complains, fanning himself with the latest issue of Celebrity Pinoy. He speaks with a Spanish lisp, his high-pitched voice constantly wavering on the brink of hysteria. He’s a bundle of exasperation and wrecked nerves, a genuine Manila queen. He rolls his eyes and places one hand at the base of his throat. “This heat is going to kill me. Make it stop—Dios mio, I wish it would rain! Typhoons bring my blood pressure down. Puñieta! If things don’t improve, I’ll have to see a doctor—”
“You need to stop being so cheap and have the air conditioner fixed. And stop eating so much,” I add, watching him gobble roasted peanuts. His mouth never stops working; he gulps down handfuls at a time, and when the peanuts are gone he starts on some Cheez Curls.
He ignores my comments. “My blood is boiling from shouting so much at that idiot! He can’t do anything right. I never should’ve hired that savage—to think I sent him to that missionary school! I should’ve listened to my instincts. Here I am, an Alacran—always trying to be charitable—”
“Pedro’s okay. He works for nothing,” I remind him, sipping my Coke. Ice-cold, the way I like it. Andres pours me a shot of white rum, his face flushed. “He’s Igorot—what did I expect?” he asks himself, muttering in Tagalog and Spanish. “He eats dogmeat.” I’ve heard all this before, and throw one of my cassettes into the spectacular sound system. James Brown grunts “I Got the Feeling,” drowning out Andres’s litany of complaints. “I should’ve known better, Joey. You know me. I’m fussy. CocoRico isn’t just some disco, di ba? It’s my home awa
y from home—and I can’t run a place I’m ashamed of! It’s a reflection on my family name…”
There he goes again, never letting you forget he’s an Alacran. Andres Alacran the Queen of Mabini—a relation from the poor side of the family, forced to earn his living. I nod automatically to please Andres, who pours me another shot of rum. I savor its burning sensation on my tongue, feeling snug and fed like a baby. When Andres gets going with one of his tirades, it’s easy enough to shut him out. But I also know what he means. CocoRico is home for me too—a safe place, cool and dark and easy on the eyes.
It’s only ten past four. I’ll wait another hour. I’m on my own special diet these days, longer intervals between times. I’ve devised it to stay in control; it’s become a little game for me, watching the clock, keeping score. I see how well I do, if I can top myself. I do very well. It’s all filed away in my head, my scorecard. Day one, two, three…I don’t tell anyone about my new game, except Uncle. Uncle approves of my discipline. I’m careful. If Andres knew, he’d fire me for sure. He’d be sorry to see me go, but he’d fire me anyway. Andres is an old-fashioned man. Junkies make Andres really hysterical.
“PEDRO!” Andres shouts again. “When you’re finished with the toilet, I want you to mop these floors one more time! Do you think I’m blind? I can still see dirt, dirt everywhere!” Andres shouts improvised curses at the janitor: Pedrong Tamad, Pedrong Headhunter, Pedro the Pagan Dogeater with the Prick of a Monkey and the Brain of a Flea. Then he throws in the usual gago, tanga, walanghiya, ulol. stupid, stupid, shameless, stupid, and variations of stupid like dumbfoolidiot. Andres’s ranting disgusts me, his shrill voice cuts through my James Brown and pisses me off. “Calm down before you have another heart attack,” I growl at Andres, who finally shuts up.
The janitor peers at us from the other side of the dance floor. He wears an old SPORTEX T-shirt I’ve passed on to him, and Andres’s khaki pants several sizes too big for him and torn at the knees. His placid face betrays nothing. “Señorito Andres Sir,” he begins in a very polite tone of voice, “what about toilet paper?”
“What about it?”
“Toilet paper, Señorito Sir.”
Grumbling, Andres reaches under the counter where he keeps his supplies under lock and key. “Just one,” Andres says, holding out a roll of rough, brand-X toilet paper. “And it better last all night!” I declare, imitating Andres’s indignant tone of voice. He shoots me one of those poisonous looks.
The man from Abra limps across the floor, mop in hand, to take the roll of toilet paper from Andres. “Señorito Sir,” Pedro says, staring at both of us.
“What now?” Andres responds with his customary impatience.
“Señorito, yun kwan, ho.” Pedro needs something else from his boss, he refers to it without naming it, which infuriates Andres even more.
“KWAN? What kwan are you talking about?”
Pedro points in the direction of the men’s room with his chin. “Ano ba, Pedro—am I supposed to read your goddam mind?” Andres shouts. I can’t stop laughing. If Andres had his way, toilet paper would be rationed out piece by piece, or better yet, he’d charge his customers for every sheet. Andres believes Filipinos enjoy stealing toilet paper from public bathrooms, that’s why there’s never any left. “No one shits at my disco,” I actually heard him once say to Chiquiting Moreno, trying to justify his miserly ways.
“Paper towels,” I say to Andres. “Pedro wants paper towels for CocoRico’s toilet, so your customers can wash up…Don’t you, Pedro?” Pedro nods. Andres has had enough. He pulls out another packet of stiff brown paper and throws it on the floor. “There. Is everybody happy?” Andres glares at us, his hands resting imperiously on his hips. Pedro bends over and picks up the packet without saying a word. When he has disappeared back into the men’s room to finish cleaning up, I turn to Andres. “You’re really an asshole, boss.” It’s Andres’s turn to blow me a kiss. “Takes one to know one,” he answers smugly.
“Mister Heartbreak”—Andres nicknamed me, the first and only time he ever propositioned me. He didn’t seem to mind when I turned him down. Sometimes I don’t understand him. When I told him about my father, he shook his head in admiration. “You’re lucky you have Negro blood,” he said, “a little black is good for the soul.” This is the miser who treats Pedro like a slave. What a weirdo—a man of contradictions! He makes novenas to Tina Turner and Donna Summer: “Divine putas with juicy lips,” he calls them. “Immortal women, the way I like them.”
“Just like your mother,” I tease. Andres, who is notoriously thin-skinned, calls me a black bastard. But I like him just the same.
“DON’T FORGET THE LYSOL!” he yells. Andres leans forward and lights my cigarette. He pours himself some awful Spanish brandy. His puffy mestizo face with its prominent nose and broken blood vessels is tinged pink with excitement; Andres can’t wait for his bar to open so he can reign over his establishment, all that really matters to him now. He could never accept the fact that I’m CocoRico’s main attraction, the DJ and real star of the show. I’m sure Andres considers me one of his charity cases, just like Pedro.
Andres wears his long, dyed black hair swept back into a greased ponytail. “My gaucho hair, my tango hair,” he proudly calls it, adjusting his signature Basque beret. In his youth, Andres Alacran was known as the best tango dancer in Manila. He was so good, they brought him in to teach all the old movie stars at Mabuhay Studios; he even made cameo appearances in quite a few musicals. The Fred Astaire of the Philippines, “El Professor de Tango”—Andres has all the clippings in his scrapbooks from bygone days to prove it.
Andres discovered his one true love, a genuine hermaphrodite named Eugenio/Eugenia, starring in a traveling freak show—the kind I saw as a child in those sleazy carnivals that pitched their tents on the outskirts of Manila. Uncle used to take me. We’d see The Bearded Woman from Mexico, a stocky wonder with glittering eyes, thick wavy hair like Jesus, and a full-length beard. The Borneo Man, a terrifying spectacle with his forlorn eyes and python’s body curled up on the makeshift stage. Seven Little Dwarves Direct from Zamboanga, asleep in matching cribs, unfortunate infants with the wrinkled faces of old men, dressed in red jester’s caps and matching red booties with tiny bells on the tips of their curled toes. The Man from Java knew Uncle personally and proudly made his living tearing the heads off live chickens with his teeth. The gloomy, dusty carnivals thrilled me. I could never get enough.
Eugenio/Eugenia. Andres talks about him all the time. I’ve seen pictures. Faded sepia photographs inscribed: “Yours truly, E. 1937. Love, Always.” Andres and Eugenio/Eugenia dancing the tango together, Eugenio/Eugenia’s head thrown back in a graceful swoon: 1938. Corny, but that’s a Spaniard for you. 1939: Andres in a striped, boatneck French sweater, the kind he still wears from time to time. “My Apache look,” he giggles. He wasn’t bad-looking then, I’ll have to admit, except for that parrot’s beak of a nose. He wore his ridiculous beret in every picture.
Holding a long cigarette holder, Eugenio/Eugenia poses in a beaded flapper dress, his square-jawed, unsmiling face and pretty Chinese eyes heavily made up. Some of the photos are tinted, the hermaphrodite’s lips painted a bright red, his cheeks pink and rosy. Everything is slightly off, carefully posed and artificial. “Wasn’t he beautiful?” Andres moans, taking one last look before putting away his snapshots in a treasure chest of souvenirs he preserves in the mini-fridge under the counter. I don’t respond.
“He could look like Valentino, dressed to the nines as a man,” Andres would reminisce dreamily. “Those were the days! We’d go to town and have dinner with my friends. Then—off to the nightclubs! I even took him home to meet my parents. ‘Mama, Papa—meet Eugenio Villarosa, son of Dr. Epifanio Villarosa of Cebu,’ I said, making it up as I went along. My father shook his hand. ‘I’m sure I know your father,’ he said, Mama nodding her head in agreement. They never suspected a thing, invited him to stay for dinner…” Andres shakes his head slowly. “I tr
ied to get him in the movies, but failed. That’s what he wanted most of all—to be a movie star in one of those Mabuhay musicals. He got so jealous of me and my cameos. ‘I can sing and dance better than any woman!’ He would say. Poor darling. Mabuhay Studios knew his true identity, and wouldn’t give him a chance.”
They were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, winning first prize in all the dance contests. It’s all true. I’ve seen pictures of Andres grinning like a fool next to a deadpan Eugenio/Eugenia, now dressed as a woman, both of them holding up trophies and awards. Their stormy love affair lasted on and off for two years. When Andres failed to land him a movie contract, Eugenio/Eugenia left the apartment they shared without warning. It happened right after the Japs occupied Manila. Eugenio/Eugenia disappeared without a trace and was never heard from again. Andres is heartbroken to this day. “There are rumors,” he once said, “so many rumors. He was in Macao, singing in a nightclub. Consorting with a Japanese General. Working as a spy for British Intelligence, smuggling bullets in his brassiere. Captured by Chinese guerrillas and executed for alleged war crimes: Can you imagine? They must’ve died when the autopsy was performed—”
“Autopsy?” Andres likes to impress me with big English words.
“Idiot! Aren’t you always watching TV?” he roars impatiently. “Those cop shows you’re so crazy about—they’re always having autopsies performed on dead people to see why they died!” Andres takes a deep breath, then calms down. “What the hell, Joey. I believe all the tsismis about him. He was absolutely capable of anything. He had no morals. The last rumor I heard is probably closest to the truth: that he is very much alive, still living in Macao as a woman, married to some wealthy Portuguese.”
Dogeaters Page 4
