Persona Non Grata

Scene 8 - Francisco dela Cruz

"Come on, Francisco! We're late for class! We're dead if we don't get to the roll call in time." screamed Quintino as he jogged the sidewalks leading to the Ateneo campus in the night, heaving heavily as he was galloping like a horse along the pavement.

"Wait! Slow down!" I gasped as I tried to catch up to him - my stamina almost depleted.

"Ah, carambas! We won't make it if you keep that up!" he complained with a tone of impatience, still running as fast as he could.

"I can't go on, Quintino!" I yelled back at him, gasping for air. "I feel like...my lungs...gonna rupture..."

"Well, I'm not waiting for you. I've been marked two times for being late. I AM NOT GOING TO PAY TWO PESOS AGAIN!" he replied as he gained more and more distance as the strength of my feet started to escape me.

"Damn it, he actually left me." I muttered under my breath, trying to recoup my strength with long and deep respirations.

Tonight is not a particularly good night for a class. In fact, today's not a good day for anything at all. Curses! Today was an unusually hot day - it was as if the May weather refuses to release the Philippines from its clutches - and it prevented me from having a good afternoon sleep for my schedule. This would be my first mark of absence in my Latin class this semester, all because I am late in showing up for the roll call, and it's only halfway through June! Knowing the professor, I'd need to cough up a peso or two to make up for this and my ate (big sister) would not be too happy if she finds out about my marked absence nor the money that I'm about to spend because of that.

And it did not help that I've been left alone in the house for months now with no one to borrow money from, because the one hundred pesos she has left me to last the month before she went to work in Batangas is now down to ten pesos. Well, being a student of Arts and Trades, I deemed it wise to put my knowledge to practice and take risks in engaging in business like an entrepreneur would, and so I did. I was so confident that I could increase my holdings, but the enterprise me and Quintino invested in was unfortunately put down to the ground and collapsed.

Damn that Quintino. I knew I shouldn't have bet on the white cock.

But then again, I cannot blame him for the bet he had made on our behalf. The white cock was bigger than its opponent, that it seems unlikely that the odds will be against us. But somehow, we still managed to lose that one hundred fifty peso bet when the smaller one managed to impale the neck of our contender with its tari when it pounced.

Sheer, dumb luck. It was a devastating thing to have lost our 'investments' looking back, so I just console myself with the thought that it was somehow a penance offering for placing a bet without dedicating it to a saint for luck. Anyway, sooner or later our fortune is sure to change one of these days. I just know it.

After a short while of resting my feet, I regained my strength and decided to walk away from the campus grounds and towards the pharmacy on the other side of the road. This is my only class tonight and I'm late anyway, so I might as well make use of my time on  productive endeavors. If I can't make it to class, I might as well make some money.

And like a bolt of lightning, an idea crossed my mind and decided to go to the house of Señor Mercado, the owner of the general store I once worked for, to see if he has a job for me at his warehouse. Last I heard, his night watchman resigned from his work a few days ago to try his luck in Spain after he's saved enough money to secure a passport and to cover the other expenses on the trip, so I suppose it wouldn't hurt if I tried asking Señor Mercado for a quick one-time job as his watchman for the meantime since, after all, he needed someone to guard the warehouse. But as I'm making my way to his estate, I just had this weird feeling that there's some important matters that I missed to address. But I just try to shake off the thought - it's just probably my anxiety acting up again, anyway.