Scenes from SparkNA

"A Break in the Chain" from Night Runs, Hot Flashes by Brigitte Bautista

From the author: All her life, Sam always followed in the footsteps of an authority figure, divine or otherwise. She followed the rules and allowed herself to be led along, even when she didn't understand them. She sought for approval, especially from her parents. When Clara whisks her away to a spur-of-the-moment trip, Sam breaks from the patterns that had defined her life. She's done being told what to do. Sam takes control and finally embraces who she really is.

I was 6 years old when we moved to the suburbs. I remember the broad strokes of why we moved. The fighting, the shouting, that one time Mama's sinigang tasted of salty tears. Leave it to Tita Gina, dear no-holds-barred, shameless, no-shutting-up-this-mouth Tita Gina, to supply the details and complete the painting.

Mama and Dada were your basic, middle-class twenty-something couple. They afforded a small one-bedroom house, a small car and a small kid (at that time). We were fine, Tita Gina said, until Dada started screwing the neighbor's husband. Yes, the neighbor's husband. It's the new millennium. Get your ass out of the 70s and sit your judgmental eyebrows down. If the future generation asked my 80-year-old self when World War III happened, I would say it was waged in little houses like ours. Husband and wife, screaming out bombs and bullets they could never take back. Children scurry from one parent to the next, the collateral damage to this war. Same story of infidelity unfolding all over town, all over the nation, all over the world.

Dada was set on leaving. He ached to be with this man. They set a rendezvous in Cebu, where they would live far, far away from the wives who spit-shone their dress shoes, fixed them dinner and reared their misbehaving children. It was all set, trolley and ticket and all, until a passing salesman in a white button-down and a black tie sold them Jesus. Now, my parents were polite to a fault. Always last to leave a lame-ass dinner party. Always tiptoeing questions "How do I look?" like somebody asked them if they had committed first-degree murder. How could they say no to a clean-shaven gentleman with a Bible?

Dada stayed. And, because Dada stayed, he missed the flight. And, because he missed the flight, Mama stayed, too. It was for the better because the man, the neighbor's husband, never showed. Just disappeared like a first-degree murder. They took it as a sign. What are the odds that a passing stranger would preach to them? The plane to Cebu went without Dada. By the tail end of the door-to-door preaching, my parents were all up for a big move to the suburbs.

The whole shebang about higher purpose appealed to them. It tickled their egos that such lowly and broken folks could be destined to preach God's word if they repent and confess and all that shit. Nest in the suburbs, Jesus told them by way of traveling salesman, and become holier versions of your selves. Here is a good location, just outside the city but not too far to qualify as not-suburbs. The commute is easy enough. Good church community. Attractive mortgage like you wouldn't believe.

Did I mention the stranger was a real estate agent?

From the backseat of our grey Sentra, I watched the landscape turn from city smog and skyscrapers to blue sky and red roofs. Frame by frame, the city passed me by. I was nothing but a living, breathing baggage, squeezed and secured with a seat belt between a box of toys and kitchenware. I was too young to know and consent to the gazillion rules of engagement that constituted living in a smallish, 2-story house with a pocket-garden-slash-garage on the side. Ooooooh, a tire swing, I remembered exclaiming. That was all that mattered.

The passenger seat of Clara's Mercedes is unlike the beat-up Sentra Dada lugged around when I was a kid. The same feeling stays with me, though, like I'm being dragged along. I'm still the 6-year-old stuck between Balikbayan boxes, at the mercy of an external force. The windows are down, and the wind is forcing me to feed on my own hair. I don't know where we're going. But, we're going there pretty fast. Mama and Dada had only been gone two hours when my phone rang. After two weeks of shutting me out, Clara called. Pack an overnight bag and wait for me on the street corner, she said.