To Catch a Gust of Wind [COMPLETE]

Chapter 5 - S.I. is in the Heart [#22]

"What?" Rafael almost choked on the piece of meat of the pork barbecue he was eating. The mention of Rica's name was like a trigger of things just around the periphery of his memory about the years he spent in Silay Institute. Memories better left tucked in the part of his brain reserved for "happy thoughts." After he left the school, Rafael had no more contact with Rica Suarez, much less any information about her whereabouts. It was a time in the lives of young people when they go on to do other things and forget some, stacking experiences on top of each other, memories after memories. But there are memories that cannot be pinned down by the weight of experience. And they just hover in your memory bank you call the brain, waiting for a trigger to come up on top, especially if associated with pain or excitement borne out of love unrequited or mission accomplished.

"This is the first time I heard her name mentioned since we graduated," Rafael said to John. They had finished eating and went out of the room to sit on plastic chairs arranged on the corridor. You know Rafael's batch was in its happiest moment when they laughed at their jokes, when they could speak anything in front of their former classmates who would soon burst with laughter at their antics and mischiefs they had done during high school. One classmate particularly stood out, Mark Lopez, Lucy Ann's husband. When he was telling jokes, everybody listened.

Jack and Michelle, the debonair couple who made it to the altar, approached Rafael and John. "How are you, Raf?" Jack asked and extended his hand. Rafael stood and shook the couple's hands. They exchanged pleasantries. Rafael came to know the couple were accountants.

"You must put up your own business venture. Who knows, with the both of you being business-minded, you'll make it big," Rafael said.

"Time will tell," Jack said. "We'll plan one small thing at a time."

"It's nice to see you, Raffy," Michelle said.

"Nice to see you both. You're really meant for each other," Rafael replied.

From John, Rafael knew some personal information about their batchmates, particularly their employment or means of livelihood. There were accountants, seamen, teachers, architects, engineers like himself. Some were in real estate, and others had put up their own private businesses, especially buy and sell in dry goods and clothing. Still others pursued careers in the government and military, and one, Joshua, was even a graduate of the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio. He would become a general someday, Rafael thought. One was in the art of Zumba dancing. Rafael discerned there were names John did not mention as they sat on plastic chairs placed in front outside the classroom. He kept on asking John to help him recall the names of their batchmates as they looked at them having conversation around a big table nearby. Rafael could only guess but his guess bordered on reality that there were batchmates who did not finish or even make it to college.

"Well," he said to John, "that's life. Let those that made it through college and got employed be thankful and let us help those batchmates of ours who were not lucky enough."

"The officers of our batch are soliciting funds to finance our batch's activities for next year's homecoming," John informed Rafael. "Perhaps you could help." Rafael nodded.

Rafael and John joined the group sitting around the large, white plastic table. The conversation became lively and revolved mostly on reminiscing the past, particularly the funny escapades his batchmates did just for the heck of it. Mark led the marathon of anecdotes upon anecdotes about their batchmates sparing no one if he/she was within the target of Mark's stories, making him/her the unwitting topic of Mark's humorous narration. Only then would one react or butt in a story of his/her own.

Rafael listened to all the stories told perhaps a hundred times over. But most of the stories were new to him. It was the first time he heard about them, told in anecdotes filled with humor and sometimes acted with unintentional vulgarism. No one was spared, the teachers even. He realized there were more to stories than what he had heard of them. He did not know the events had taken place. Until now. How many such happenings occurred during his high school days that he didn't know about? It was perhaps that he knew so little of the city and what little he knew was centered on his close circle of friends and the nameless persons he encountered in the streets when he walked towards the bus stop heading for home. Had he not attended the alumni homecoming, he wouldn't have known that the affair was one way of looking back at the past, reliving the past through the eyes of his former classmates.

There they were, sitting around the table, conversing, talking, laughing, cracking jokes, making high fives, feeling happiness in every corner, suffusing the ambience with camaraderie and infectious laughter, finding friends long gone, expressing surprise at the new images their countenance exuded, and above all, knowing once again their names which had been long forgotten, or so Rafael thought. Teddy, Florentino, Manny, Juvy, Levy, Vicente, Joel, Arthur, Renato, Libby, Felix, Alan, Harold, Mateo, Restituto; and the girls, Elenita, Anabel, Rosalie, Suzanne, Feby, Rowena, Helen, Lina, Romelia, Rosel, Mary Jane, Maritess, Victoria, Marilou, May Belen, Euphemia, Chona, Lira, Sally.

Who sat in front of him in the classroom and who liked to sit at the back? Who would always look down when Miss Chiong asked questions? Who was the most talkative in class? Who were the silent types whom you would not hear speak in class the whole day? Who had a crush on whom who had a crush on another? Who felt childish admiration on one of your teachers? Who cried in front of you and leaned on your shoulders when the going got rough? And who was your first kiss in high school?

Who would always raise his/her hand? Who liked poetry? Who failed in English but excelled in Physics? Who hated Pilipino subject the most but found Spanish interesting? Who liked to doodle in his notebooks?

Rafael was happy seeing them all after a long time. The faces had become mature, creases had began to form, gone were the energy and restlessness of a youth but the acts of being friends and classmates still remained.

Time passes quickly when you least keep watch of it. And Rafael found himself saying goodbye. Lucy Ann and Mark bid farewell and John was the last of his classmates to say goodbye to him. They shook hands and started to leave. Rafael walked alone and looked for Thea Marie. He had sent her a text message asking her if she's ready to leave. There's no reply. He kept on looking at his cellphone, and when he decided to call her as he turned a corner towards the gate, Rafael suddenly turned around. He had almost forgotten to take a look at the sprawling parade ground at the back of the school buildings.

He took hurried steps towards the back. There the parade ground lay before him. He recalled the times they marched and shouted commands and ran during CAT (Citizen's Army Training) practice. He's a cadet officer and so were his closest friends. Being a cadet officer was perhaps the closest thing he ever had experienced of military training, not to mention being a cadet private in the ROTC (Reserve Officers' Training Corps) during his college days. He still could hear the command his best friend, John, the cadet corps commander, shouted to all the cadets in the whole CAT battalion, the deep voice booming and abruptly came to a stop. He could see Cesar, the cadet adjutant, came running in half-steps across the field. And he, the cadet battalion EX-O, gave the order to commence marching.

But there's one thing Rafael would want to remember if he wanted to reminisce about the parade ground: peanuts, particularly sugar-coated peanuts. Fried peanuts he and his classmates ate after lunch which they bought from the woman vendor whose stall was beside the parade area. They would sit on the bench, enjoying the sweet taste of peanuts, staring at the sky, talking about ambition and future plans and nonsense things about just everything. It was said that peanuts is food for the brain. He believed it then. He thought now there's a kernel of truth in it.

Rafael took a long moment staring at the parade ground, grasses green and neatly trimmed. He took a long breath and sighed. What memories he had of Silay Institute were forever etched in his mind and carved in his heart. S.I., as they fondly called the school, is in the heart.

"Raffy?" Rafael heard a woman's voice behind him. She called his name. It's not a voice of one of the girls of his batch. Nor was it Thea Marie's. The way his name was called was a trigger. He had heard it somewhere, he couldn't quite figure out whose voice was it. From the back of his mind, he had it recalled; it sounded familiar even in a long time. It came rushing to the surface like a gust of wind, and he had to catch it and bring back all the patterns associated with it, including images and feelings he thought had been long forgotten. Damn it, why wouldn't you just turn around and look who it is, his self whispered in his ears. He wouldn't, not because he wouldn't want to but because he just couldn't believe it.

It's the voice of Rica Suarez...