Ben's Gift, Genoveva's Curse

the many hearts that ben broke

I hated my life. When you’re born with a birthmark the shape of the map of China splattered all over your face, there’s no reason to love your life. Not to mention having crossed eyes and teeth that badly needs multiple braces. Plus a very flat nose and some scar in your forehead courtesy of that bully in elementary school who hit you because you’re not pleasing in the eyes.

To complete your misery, you were given the name Restituto Benito in memory of your long dead grandfathers.

It was easy when I was a kid. I didn’t mind looking at the monster in the mirror. But when I became a teenager, fuck, I knew the true meaning of horror. You start liking girls and you can’t even make a move because you don’t look like those boys of Westlife, Backstreet Boys, and N’Sync. I felt like Quasimodo. And I hate it when those girls hang out with me because either they find me funny or they plain pity my miserable existence.

And maybe what they said is true, that ugly people tend to compensate in academics. In the States, you can be a loser all your life. But here in the Phils, genius is cool. So I tried to be on top of the class. And everyone respected me. I knew they were all talking behind my back but I didn’t care. As long as I would never hear any of those shit. I combatted looks with my wit. And wit was my weapon for girls.

Trust me. I tried courting.

Restituto Benito: Are you positively charged?
Katrina: Why?
Retsituto Benito: Because I’m attracted to you.

Katrina was one of my crushes in high school. She looked so pretty with her bangs. She liked watching anime and I didn’t. But I tried watching some just so we could have topics to discuss. Gee, I couldn’t believe I failed in Biology class once because I watched Fushigi Yuugi. But efforts failed still. When I finally asked Katrina to go out with me, she said I’m like a brother to her and it would be incest if we end up together.

Restituto Benito: I know every detail of the Peloponnesian War, the Persian War, the Carthaginian Wars.
Lucille: Really Resti? So...can you like make my essay?
Restituto: Do you want to include Alexander the Great’s conquests?

Lucille was our high school beauty queen. She won Miss United Nations and all the boys in the campus fantasized about her whenever they masturbated in the restrooms. Big boobs, Coca-Cola body, pouting lips ala Angelina Jolie...what more could you ask for? I was proud that she had her attention with me those days. I carried her books, I answered her assignments, I made her projects. When we were practicing for our graduation, she said ‘Thank you’ and that’s it. She never talked to me after that.

Restituto Benito: You’re sad because...you don’t like Nursing, right?
Abigail: Yes.
Restituto Benito: Same here. I don’t like blood and pus and shit. But I was thinking, maybe I didn’t choose Nursing. Nursing chose me.

Abigail liked me. I could tell. She’s like my best friend in college. We went to the library together, ate at the canteen together, went home together. For a change, I didn’t make a move because learned my lessons from Katrina and Lucille. So our friendship lasted three years. In my mind, though, Abigail was my girlfriend. When we were on our third year, Abigail wasn’t able to attend the capping and candlelighting ceremony. She got pregnant.

So there. I graduated college NGSB (no girlfriend since birth). I didn’t care. I had enough. Fuck those girls. FUCK THOSE PRETTY GIRLS! You see, it’s okay if they told me they couldn’t love me because I’m not good looking. At least there could be a closure. But couldn’t be together because it’s incest? Couldn’t be together because I was no longer needed? Couldn’t be together because you let somebody fuck you? LAME! Thank you girls for not slapping me with the letters U-G-L-Y. Appreciated, really. But the effect on me was something worse. Every night the thought bothered me; whether the reason for not liking me was because of this and that...or simply, really, because I AM UGLY.

I only wanted one thing after college: revenge. But I had to work hard for it. Got to earn money to make those girls cry. Not just Katrina, Lucille, and Abigail. All of them! Them pretty girls who like breaking ugly boys’ hearts. I wanted to be handsome. I would seduce them, make them fall in love with me, and then crush their hearts and hopes and dreams.

I despise this fluctuating pattern of the need of nurses abroad. I used to think that after graduating Nursing and sacrificing a year of volunteering, I could go abroad and earn much. But fuck! When I graduated, the demand abroad seemed to lower down and most of us graduates found ourselves working in the call centers. And I’m in Telemarket Inc for like five years now. It was depressing thinking that I couldn’t have my revenge soon. What I earned in the call center was only enough for my rent and bills and food. Not enough for plastic surgery, laser corrections, and glutathione therapies. I knew I couldn’t rely on my job forever so I prayed for some miracles. I wished on every falling star, every rainbow, every wishing well. I researched for some magical spells.

A month before I applied at Telemarket Inc (that was five years ago), I got my miracle. It was November 1 and I went home in our hometown to pay respects to my dead loved ones. I remembered the huge mound of earth at the back of our house. My late grandfather Restituto used to warn me not to play around that mound. He said that dwendes (little elves) live inside the mound and they got powers. I never saw those little creatures but it didn’t mean I stopped believing. So when I went back in my hometown in desperate need to be handsome as soon as possible, I visited the mound and offered a plate of muasi. Then I hid behind a big palosanto tree waiting for some dwende to appear. 

It took me three hours of waiting but it was fruitful somehow. Yes! Believe it or not, a little elf appeared before me and tried to get some mouth-watering muasi on the plate. Too bad for him I got my camera with me. Gotcha! Captured in the photo was a magical being that only existed in folk tales. Now it’s real. I got evidence. What I got in my camera was something that could shock people and the whole world.

The little elf cried, as expected. He was mad at me for taking a picture of him without consent. If his picture would spread, that would endanger their entire world. So yeah, he cried, he begged, he tried to destroy the camera with his superpowers but nice try...the accessories I attached in my gadget were all talismans. He had no choice. In the end, he offered me a wish in exchange for the photo’s deletion.

“I wish to be handsome,” I told him.

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“Just grant my wish, okay?! And don’t you dare make a fool of me...I’m ready to post this in Friendster anytime.”

My family were surprised of my transformation. I was surprised they didn’t ask me how it happened. I went back to the city no longer a Quasimodo. I became Phoebus himself, ready to seduce Esmeralda and destroy her in the end. A month after, I was hired at Telemarket Inc. I met some old college classmates. It’s good none of them recognized me. The name Ben appeared in my ID.

In a matter of five years, I broke a total of 70 hearts. Two attempted to commit suicide, one now confined in a mental hospital in Iloilo. Not to mention five transvestites. Mission accomplished. I finally gave justice to myself. I punished beauty with beauty. To add up the misery of those hungry idiotic girls, I mocked them with courting an ugly girl. I wanted to show them that just because they’re beautiful don’t mean they could get everything. Particularly, ME. The handsome, adorable, smexy me.

When I proposed to marry Genoveva Javier, I broke 30 more hearts. So I broke a total of 100 at the age of 27.