Ame (rain)

On Pedro Gil...

It was raining. Drops of water collected on the blue lenses of my aviator shades. We were walking down Pedro Gil towards Paco. Walking was hard; there was no sidewalk to speak of. People kept pushing and shoving, arms guarded, ready to protect themselves from pickpockets, would-be assassins, vengeful exes. Cars and jeeps rode so fast they left gusts in their wake. My eyes caught the dust they stirred. It seemed that the people on the side of the road were pushing us out into the street, nearer and nearer to the beasts of the road, path to oblivion. I imagined Spartans pushing Persian soldiers off the cliffs of Thermopylae. Only that these Spartans were lean, had shoddy clothes, had to think of their debts to Bessie, Clavio or Amir, and not a smile among them.

It was nothing like Cavite at all.

I kept myself guarded against this crowd, carefully holding a Panda ballpen with the tip unsheathed inside my pocket. Red didn't seem to care. She walked listlessly, craning her head to this and that direction, as if looking for any landmarks that would ensure her that we were going the right way. The way her red bobbed hair waved reminded me of those red fishing lures floating in puddles. She was walking right in front of me, but she never looked behind to see if I was still there. She was on her own.

But, listless as she was, it seemed that some intense need was pulling her to where she had to be, guiding her perfectly through the crowds. I merely followed, preoccupying myself with the history behind the Persian Wars in ancient Greece.

It was an old mosque just before a left turn that would have taken us to Paco Cemetery, its white adobe now blackened by soot by some fire long ago. If it was a mosque, the contents were already gone; a Chinese thrift store had already replaced it. This was the place, she said. We had seen nothing like it so far, so this had to be it. To the side, right behind the outdoor baggage counter with a wooden wall propped up like the hiding wall on a theater stage, a woman walked out with hands clutched on the straps of her shoulder bag. The shoulder-less blue tube that perfectly hugged her petite figure kept me distracted, and I liked how white her feet were inside those plexiglass stilettos so popular with dancers of the exotic discipline. It was obvious that the woman was a hooker of sorts, so quickly I averted my gaze, half in respect mixed with pity, the other in fear that Red was looking. She was. At the hooker, though. The woman served as a confirmation to the end of our journey. This was the right place. But the way Red's face was scrunched up made it obvious that she never wanted to see it.

I was supposed to wait outside. I didn't ask how long; I knew it was going to be useless. Red squeezed my right hand with both of hers. Dainty, flawless little things, they were so tiny that she could barely wrap my enclosed fist. She then walked away, disappearing behind the baggage counter. Exit stage left. Before shifting my eyes to the street, I could swear that the lady guard at the counter was looking at me.

Terrific. Of course this place would be well-known here. Everybody and their mother must probably think that I was the father. I was in Sartre's hell. There was no way to explain to them that I was just a good friend.

"Explain, explain all you want," my old girlfriend said in the back of my head. It was the day of our breakup. Despite pleas, kisses, more pleas, I left her, so I guess I could say that it was a breakup. I was telling her why I was leaving her, why I was so unhappy with our relationship, why I was afraid of ending up hating her one day. But she just cried, cried, and cried some more. Her tears drowned out my voice. I got tired, and left, thinking that she didn't want to see me anyway. I grew frustrated with people. Why is it that they never gave me a moment to explain myself? It was so unfair.

I waited in front of the thrift store for a while, but I could feel the stares pierce right through my back. Even if there was a complete possibility that none of them gave a damn, my oversensitive self-awareness had done its job--I crossed the street to a cart that sold Mami and Pares, almost getting hit by a taxi in the process. I ordered Pares with fried rice, scooping in liberal amounts of free garlic, chilies, chives, and Kalamansi juice. I had to take my aviators off; the steam from the Pares kept fogging them up. I loved Pares. Whenever I was hung over after work, 4 in the morning, I always found myself at a cart like this.