The Color of My Fears [COMPLETE]

Chapter 6 - The Rite [#20]

The day I dreaded most came. It was a fine sunny morning. The boys came swarming to Tio Berto's place by the side of the creek, even those who had already undergone the rite last year. They were there to assist us in the rite of passage. They would munch fresh guava leaves to extract the juice and apply this, mixed with one's saliva, to the freshly cut wound. The juice would serve as an antibiotic against possible infection. They were there also to watch, to see how our faces squirmed in pain. Later, they would taunt and make fun of us if we showed as much a sign of cowardice as Nestor who, last year, went running away from the cutting block when he saw the labaha being sharpened in front of him. After that humiliating experience, he had been called a coward (bata tilawit) since then.

Tio Berto came out of the house holding a black wooden box, followed by Ismael, who brought two small benches. Their faces were solemn. There was something odd in their countenance that day I just couldn't figure out.

We all proceeded in a file down to the creek, to the promontory which jutted out into the water. Sitting on the benches, the cirujano and son began to prepare the paraphernalia. The big boys assigned us numbers which told us when to go to the cutting block fashioned from a piece of wood that came from a branch of that guava tree by the creek.

The rite began with Bobot the first in the list. The big boys prodded him to proceed. Bobot gave a wink, boldly went to the cutting block and, without fanfare, dropped his faded short pants.

Tio Berto's lips moved. He's mumbling something, an oracion, no doubt. Ismael opened the black box and gave his father the labaha and a piece of wood that served as a light mallet. Bobot stood still, his head at an angle gazing upwards, pretending to be oblivious to what was being done in front of him. After inspecting that everything was ready, Tio Berto raised the mallet with his right hand. He struck the labaha lightly, thus cutting the foreskin with one quick blow. For an instant, everybody held their breath. Then Bobot gave a loud cry. Blood came out. Somebody spat out munched guava leaves. Murmuring another oracion, Tio Berto finished the task by wrapping Bobot's wound with a piece of torn, clean cotton cloth. Somebody pushed Bobot toward the creek and he jumped into it. Lining up by the bank, we strained our necks to see Bobot swimming to the other side.

Unexpectedly, a small pool of water in the creek displayed the color of blood. Flowing downstream from the promontory down to Tio Berto's house past the guava tree, the red-blood pool of water turned left into a narrow gap where a cluster of banana plants throve on both sides of the creek, wound its way down to a three-trunk bamboo bridge which straddled the creek across the road to the village school, continued to flow under the concrete bridge on the highway, crisscrossed the endless stretches of fishponds beyond, and disappeared into the sea.

Then my turn came...

-ooo-