by Wayne Santos
She shrugged and rolled herself a joint. “So that’s a ‘no’?”
Teek drank the rest of his Caesar. He had demolished all the food set before him. “Well, when in Rome… I guess it’s the proper thing, nay, the honorable thing, to respect the laws of your nation.”
Maria rolled her eyes, but she smiled. “What a sacrifice.”
“Anything to expand cultural understanding.” He leaned in and took a delicate whiff, then grimaced. “That stuff smells nasty.”
“It does. But it will expand your consciousness. Or maybe it won’t, in your case.” She stared at it. “Now that I have a better idea of who and what I am, I’m not even sure if this is going to do anything for me. But what the hell, everything’s a learning experience, right?”
She lit the joint, took a drag, then exhaled and handed it over.
“Oh, wow,” she said. “Maybe we should have more pizza.”
Teek inhaled, coughed, and gave her a thumbs up.
Chapter Eight
THE FAMILY TRADITION
MARIA REALIZED ALMOST immediately that the one thing she hadn’t really considered before opening the doorways between worlds was a much more mellow, only slightly paranoid Maria and Teek. They’d managed to get the chronic giggling out of their system before arriving, which, Maria hoped, would make this a more dignified action.
They didn’t bother physically walking to the hospital. Teek allowed them to be drawn there, on the strength of Maria’s bond to Tate.
“I’d advise you to get that shit down fast,” Teek said. “It’ll come in very handy.”
What Teek did do was keep them imperceptible to the mortal world. They arrived in Tate’s room, and everything was much quieter and calmer this time. Maria sensed nothing amiss, and Teek seemed to be stretching his own senses, finding nothing, and giving her a thumbs-up.
Maria walked over to the bed. He was peaceful. Untroubled.
“He’s not bad-looking, I guess,” Teek said over her shoulder. “Turned out pretty well for you this time.”
She reached down and stroked Tate’s face. No response. “He is everything that I didn’t know I needed. And this situation is showing me how wrong everything was that I wanted.”
“What do you mean?”
“I guess most girls, growing up, think it’s super awesome to have two hot guys fighting over you. It’s nice. Nice to be wanted. That’s the fantasy, right?” She leaned down and kissed Tate’s forehead. “It just makes you forget to ask the important question: what do you want? Being wanted by someone else isn’t what you want.” Some of Tate’s hair fell across his eyes, and she brushed it away. “This is what I want.”
“You’re lucky he’s still alive.”
“Yes. Very.” She leaned back and surveyed the room. “And this is not secure at all. Not against what will come for him. I need to put him somewhere where he’ll be absolutely safe until we’re done.”
“Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah. It’s home, isn’t it? I mean, not my loft here in the Annex, but Maria Makiling’s home. The place of power.”
“Mount Makiling,” Teek said.
She nodded. “I can see it. I can smell it. I can even remember what the air feels like. And I know I should be able to go there, under my own power. But I can’t. Not right now. It’s like trying to flip a light switch and finding out the finger you’re supposed to do that with is missing.”
“You don’t have a connection,” Teek said. “Not one on the surface.”
“Could you get us there?”
“I could,” Teek said. “But timewise, it wouldn’t be much better than taking a plane. I’d have to run through one mind after another, closing the distance. We might even need to idle in the dreams of someone on a plane before I can make it to the next person. It’ll take time.”
“Time we can’t afford,” she said. “And any people I might have been drawn to from my memories are probably dead.”
“You could try second-hand.”
Maria frowned and turned to Teek. “What?”
He shrugged. “If you don’t know anyone with connections to the Philippines, try to find someone who does. Someone thinking about the Philippines, thinking about people over in the Philippines. If you can do that, you take the short-cut. Then once you’re there, you can re-bind yourself to the mountain, and return whenever you want.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Well… I don’t know if you’re going to like it. It’s not exactly getting with the times, but it’s definitely not the old ways.”
“Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“I’ll do you one better and show you. Make some room.”
Maria stepped aside, and Teek moved in and sized up Tate. “This is definitely going to raise some questions.”
“What are you doing?”
“He’ll be hidden under my influence. Unseen and unknown by the forces that would do him harm. Maybe not safe, but invisible, for now. I’ll hold onto him until you’re ready to take him home.”
“And how am I supposed to do that?”
He did the freakish horse smile again. “I’ll show you.”
Teek was good to his word. With a gentleness that surprised Maria, he knelt down and picked up her unconscious boyfriend. Tate made only the faintest of noises in response and looked like he actually snuggled up to the muscular warmth of the demon horse now holding him like a sleeping princess.
“I… I almost want to take a picture of this,” Maria said.
“Maybe later. The stiffs will be coming down here to check on your boy now that he’s flatlined on their machines.”
That was a point. “So now what?”
“You know this neighborhood, right?”
“I’ve lived here long enough. Why?”
“Do you know a place called Bloor?”
“That’s a big street.”
“Just get us to Bloor, I think I can take it from there.” Teek headed for the door, and she followed. They walked right past a pair of nurses. Maria recognized one as the Filipina she’d talked to before. They didn’t notice her, Teek, or the comatose Tate as they marched in calm, collected manner towards the elevator.
The walk to Bloor was pleasant, if absurd.
It was nice outside. Of course it was nice: it was summer in Toronto, and the late days were always full of warmth. The walk from Toronto General to Bloor took them through the University of Toronto campus, and memories of festivals in Queen’s Park, reading books, eating falafels, then down Harbord Street with its lines of ancient shops. Her guilty pleasure, Bakka-Phoenix books, where she’d finally admitted to herself that she didn’t really enjoy reading critically acclaimed, literary novels and just wanted to see dragons flying around and starships engaging in big fleet battles.
And then Bloor, with its myriad restaurants, the repertory theater, and one of the most diabolically evil used bookstores in the universe. Bloor was both a street and a vacuum for her wallet.
They walked west, down the street, past all-too-familiar sushi joints and bars where she’d overtipped, and she saw her favorite billboard, still neglected after all this time. Someone had taken a spray can to a banking ad that showed a smiling, utterly fulfilled South Asian woman, the picture of well-adjustment and urban perfection, and had spray-painted, directly under her, the words, NO ONE IS HAPPY.
“So wisdom, much smart,” Maria muttered.
“What was that?” Teek asked.
“Just wondering if I’m going to ever see this street again,” Maria said.
“Either way, the odds don’t really favor it. The only way you might get your old life back is if I drop this kid right on the street, and you turn around and pick one of those clowns to be your boyfriend.”
“Which is totally not happening,” Maria said.
When they finally stopped, at Teek’s urging, Maria found herself standing outside a building that, in retrospect, really should not have surprised he
r at all.
It was a small, Filipino grocery store. She was continually surprised by the fact that they managed to pay the rent in an area that was gentrifying as rapidly as the Bloor-Bathurst area, but then maybe whoever owned the building had a big heart. They served all kinds of things here with familiar names: Mama Sita’s Adobo mix, 555 Sardines in tomato sauce, Saba squid in brine. And of course, they served food too, like adobo, fried fish, freshly baked pandesal, pancit noodles, all the staples.
“So, why are we here?” Maria asked.
Teek pointed to a sign on the door.
“So they’ve got a Western Union outlet here. So?”
“We’re gonna wire ourselves over as money back home.”
Maria waited five seconds.
Ten seconds.
“What?” She finally asked. “Fucking what?”
“This is our shortcut,” Teek said. “If you wire money to the Philippines, there’s going to be a person thinking about it here. There may be another person handling the transaction over there. That gives us a connection. I can hop us direct from one mind to another this way. Wiring money back home is a strong bond. You’ll need to drop out and be visible again to do the deal, but this is our best shot.” He looked down at Tate, then back at Maria. “You want this guy safe or not? You go to home ground. This is how you do it fast. Take it or leave it, what’s it gonna be?”
Maria paced. She looked alternately at the counter where the wire transfers took place, deep in the bowels of the store, and at Tate, who was still in a hospital gown, but otherwise didn’t look like he was in immediate danger. She needed to keep him this way, and safely out of the way.
“Fine. Let’s just get this over with. I’ve never wired money to the Philippines before, how do I do this?”
“I should not be surprised and yet… I am,” Teek said. “Man, for a Filipino, you’re not very Filipino, are you?”
“Just walk me through this, okay?”
“Don’t you have any relatives or something?”
“Not any that I actually remember.”
“Damn, you really did a number on yourself with this life, didn’t you?”
“Are we here to fight evil boyfriends, or point out what a lousy Pinay I’m supposed to be?”
“Okay, okay, not judging. Totally not doing that. Just come up with a name, and I’ll see if I can help along. You ready?”
“No.”
“Perfect, let’s go. Do you know how to become visible again?”
She nodded, although she wasn’t entirely sure, and she didn’t know the body language for I’ll get back to you on that. Maybe the Germans had something. They had a super-specific word for everything.
Still. She reached down into her available pool of memories, the divine ones that still shimmered and streaked through the plunging depths of her true identity like agile marine life. She saw what she was looking for and pulled the memory to her body, reliving it.
She took a step, and felt a faint tingling against her skin as if she’d walked through a curtain made of bubbles. She felt the same. She looked to where Teek stood, still holding Tate in his arms.
“You got this,” Teek said.
She probably didn’t, but he’d made an effort to say something supportive, and she appreciated the gesture. She opened the door and walked in, holding it open as Teek ducked his head and lumbered through.
The store smelled like childhood. The adobo was sitting in trays, kept warm. The smell of fried fish was everywhere, and it was clear that no one here cared about putting money into modern floor tiling or light fixtures. Someone could have waltzed in here with a pimp feathered hat from the 1970s, complete with butterfly collars, and wouldn’t have been out of place in this décor.
Some Tagalog soap opera was being piped through a TV, with screeching, tear-stricken women. The walls were filled with posters advertising condo spaces in Manila that were available for investment or for the family. Maria walked past the shelves of boxed, canned goods, recognized three different brands of pork rinds, and finally stopped at a counter on the opposite end of the store, isolated and caged, like someone had cut out a slice of a pawnshop and dropped it in the corner.
The guy at the counter looked younger than Maria. Well, technically, probably everybody was younger than Maria, but this guy looked like he might still be in college. He was alert, greeting her immediately as she stepped up, and said, “Kamusta ka.” How are you?
“Mabuti naman,” she said, and she quietly thrilled at not having to dig through newly resurrected memories to give this reply. This much, at least, she’d actually retained from her current childhood. Then immediately had to default to that ancient awareness anyway, because that was about the extent of her fluency in this lifetime. “I want to send some money. Back home. To the Philippines. My home, that is, or the old home, which is the Philippines. But today, not like, the seventeenth century or anything, which would be crazy, right?” She uttered a high-pitched tittering laugh that completely failed to sound reassuring and came off as creepily deranged. The toothy, panicked smile that followed it didn’t help.
He nodded in acknowledgment in that slow, calming way that made it clear that if he were an attendant in an asylum, he’d be prepping the medication right about now. “Well, that’s good, I can help with you that.”
“So I need to send it to someone there. In the Philippines. Another person. Who needs the money.”
He nodded.
Maria turned and looked behind her. Teek held his hand out, palm down, and tipped it left and right like a ship at sea. Thanks a lot, asshole… She turned back to the guy at the counter. “I would like to do this now, please.”
“Sure.” He moved his fingers over to a keyboard and adjusted a monitor in front of him. “I’ll need the name and location as well as the amount, of course.”
Maria gritted her teeth. “Uh… Marcos… Duterte?”
She turned back, and Teek was doing the grinning thing, giving two big thumbs up as he held onto Tate.
The guy stopped, paused, arched his brows, shrugged to himself, then continued to fill out the form like a champ. “If you’re sure.”
“Pretty sure?”
“Location?”
She turned around again and mouthed the word help.
“Batangas, the city,” Teek said.
“Batangas province,” Maria repeated. “Batangas… city? It’s a city now, right?”
He nodded, not looking at her, and filling out the form.
“Santo Tomas,” Teek said.
“In the Santo Tomas area, will that work?”
The clacking of keys as the guy checked on his computer. “You’re in luck, we have a branch there.”
Behind her, something hummed. When she looked, Teek was glowing, a bluish green that reminded Maria a little bit of her own light. His eyes were closed, and he looked like he was either summoning great and mighty forces to come to their aid, or that pizza had done a bigger number on his stomach than anyone had expected. “Ask him to confirm that.”
“Can I get a confirmation on that?”
The guy’s look of perplexity was complete and sincere. “Confirmation on what?”
“That the other branch… exists?”
“It does.”
“I mean, that there’s a guy there? That it’s… open?”
He frowned, but it looked as diplomatic as possible. “Okay, first, you know it’s morning over there right now? They’re thirteen hours ahead of us. And second, you know this isn’t instant, right? This is going to take three to five days.”
“It is?”
“First rodeo, huh?” he said in English.
“I just need you to make sure that there’s someone on the other end,” she said, also in English.
“That’s not standard procedure.”
Okay. Bullshit tolerance had been reached. “I’m not making a standard request,” she said. She looked down at her hand, saw the green tinge there as the skin changed color and
radiated faint light. The distance between her eyes and her hand increased, and she knew she’d just shot up in height, a suspicion confirmed by the open mouth on the guy at the counter. “But I am asking nicely. I don’t want to be insistent. You wouldn’t like me when I’m insistent. Would you?”
That got a breathy squeak in response. That would do.
“Now. Call.”
The guy nodded frantically, and Maria reached into her wallet and pulled out some bills. If she was going to see this through, she might as well go all the way. And hell, to be fair, one way or the other, she probably wasn’t going to be needing money anymore anyway.
“Send that over to my… uncle… Marcos Duterte… and… uh…” She separated a smaller pile of bills from the rest. “You keep that. For your trouble. Pay off your student loan or something.”
The guy’s eyes bugged out at the bills there, which Maria hadn’t even bothered to count. It added new zest to his efforts though, and Maria wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have just opened with giving him a bunch of money in the first place.
When she turned to look back at Teek, he had lowered himself, almost to a kneel, eyes shut in calm concentration, but he was nodding. “This is going to work,” he said.
“Not the way we’d planned it.”
“Yeah, but you can adapt. That’s a bonus. I like this a fuck-ton more than just carrying you on my back, getting whipped raw.”
“Man, you’re just not going to let that go, are you?”
“Who are you talking to?” the guy asked, holding the phone to his ear.
“My horse spirit friend.”
“Oh, I’ve got one of those,” he said. He held up his smartphone. “Where’d you find yours? I got a Ponyta over at Christie Pits park the other day.”
“Hey, I still need one of those,” Teek said, his eyes opening. “Can you ask him exactly where in the park he—”
“We are not doing this right now,” Maria said, not sure if she was addressing Teek or the guy at the counter.
The guy at the counter perked up and said “Hello” in Tagalog to someone on the other end of the line. He put his hand on the phone’s mouthpiece and looked expectantly at Maria.
