The Demon in Uncle Joe's House

CHAPTER 1

I used to call Old Jose Cantores Uncle Joe, not that he was my biological uncle, but because I was very close to him. The truth was that there was no consanguinity relationship between us. But there was a reason why I was very close to Uncle Joe. I never saw my father in the flesh. I was a posthumous child. Papa, named Emiliano Almendares—so my mother told me -- died three months before I was born. I really yearned the love and attention of a father, and I believed that Uncle Joe supplied all these. 

My mother, Sandra, was left alone in raising me and my older sister Aurora (she now lives in New York with her American husband, and three kids). Mama was quite lucky because Papa left her with a fortune, which she used in raising us comfortably. Mama told me that Papa was a successful stockbroker, which earned him huge amount of money. He put up a fair-sized convenient store in our town, now managed by Mama. 

I remember when I was ten or eleven years old, Uncle Joe used to take me to his farm in Sitio Gugumbaen, and together we hunted quails and pigeons. He taught me how to trap banyas (lizards), an activity I really enjoyed. Sometimes, he would take me to his cornfield, and we picked corns. Together, we roasted the corns under a robust acacia tree.   

We were neighbors—there were two houses between his house and ours. He lived alone in his house, which he built sometime in 1972. His older brother named Simon died when he was sixteen years old. He drowned in the Agno River when he and his four friends went there swimming. Uncle Joe never got married—in fact, I never saw him court a woman. That puzzled me because he was a good-looking fellow. He closely resembled the great actor Leopoldo Salcedo.

"Uncle Joe, don't you have any plan of marrying?" I asked him once.

"You know, Zandro, I am married  to my business," he replied with a smile.

The business he was referring to was his bakery located on P. Sison Street in Poblacion East. It was the only bakery in our town of Alcala. Which was why it was the only supplier of pandesal and other bakery products. It earned him a big income, so that could have been the reason why he devoted all his time to his business.

"But Uncle, that won't give you any children," I argued.

"My products are my children," he smiled meaningfully.

"Don't you like Aling Maring? I think she likes you, Uncle," I teased him.

Aling Maring was a tilapia vendor who remained single despite her age of 43. I said she liked Uncle Joe because she always gave him tilapia (of course through me). She knew that Uncle Joe loved roasted tilapia because I told her so. Aling Maring wasn't bad after all. She also got the looks. If Uncle Joe looked like Leopoldo Salcedo, Aling Maring looked like Amalia Fuentes! That's my honest assessment.

"Maring is just a friend to me, Zandro, no more, no less," Uncle Joe reasoned out. Then he continued, "Our relationship is purely business. She gives me her big tilapias, and I give her my sweet long Spanish bread."

A naughty thought suddenly crossed my mind. I secretly smiled at the thought.

He noticed my mischievous smile and eyed me sternly, "Hey, you little devil, don't give any meaning to what I have just said!" Then he too smiled.

"You're not getting any younger, Uncle Joe, so you'd better tie the knots before the last trip catches up with you," I admonished him.

"Don't worry, son, when that time comes, you will be the first one to know," he assured me.

"Promise, Uncle Joe?" I asked.

He then raised his right hand as if he were in an oath-taking ceremony and said solemnly, "I promise—scout's honor."

"I will wait for that promise," I told him. But that promise proved to be just a promise.

Many years had passed and many changes had occurred in my life. For example, I became a civil engineer and worked as a municipal engineer of Alcala. Uncle Joe had grown old, but I had to still see the fulfillment of his promise. Next year 2020 I'm going to marry Rachel, my fiancée, but Uncle Joe was still wanting of a woman whom he would marry.

"I wonder how old is Uncle Joe now," I told Mama.

"Well, Manong Joe is three years older than I. I'm now 75 years old, so he must be 78 now," Mama explained.

"With that age, he should have someone to look after him. A son or a daughter, for example," I mused.

Mama sighed, "I don't know why he opted to remain single. I knew Manang Maring (God bless her soul) liked him, but he never paid her any amorous attention. Poor woman! She died loveless."

"Good for her she had Manong Gener who looked after her," I said.

Manong Gener was a nephew of Aling Maring. She raised him like her own son because his father Mang Badong (Aling Maring's younger brother) died when Manong Gener was quite young. 

Uncle Joe was a different case. He had no one to look after him—a real family to see him through. I really had a great compassion for the old man. I had seen a lot of single people living a solitary life, people who hungered for the love and care of a precious loved one—it could be a son, or a daughter, or a husband, or a wife, but fate denied them any of these. That's why I decided that I would look after Uncle Joe. After all, I had been very close to him. I wonder what would Mama say. I looked at Mama for a couple of seconds, thinking for the right words to say.

Then I said, "Mama, I want to look after him. I hope you don't mind."

Mama looked at me and said, "You mean, he's going to stay here?"

"Why not? There's enough space for him here. Besides, you know that he's been like a father to me," I told her.

She was silent for several seconds. I didn't know what's in her mind. Perhaps, she was weighing matters down . Finally, she opened her mouth and said, "I know that you've been very fond of him, and I also know that you are a very compassionate fellow."

"So, what's your decision?" I asked her.

"Well, I think it's not bad if he stays here. Okay, I give you my blessing," she said with a smile.

"Thank you, Mama," I said with gladness." I have to see him this afternoon when I get home from work."

"You'd better do that because I haven't seen him for days now," Mama told me with an alarmed look.

"Maybe he's in Gugumbaen, He usually goes there to see his farm," I explained to her.

With that note, I stood up and kissed Mama's forehead. Then I walked to the door. It's time for me to go to work.