Dogeaters (20 page)

“I work. I have a job, remember?”

“Don’t worry about money. Come on, I’ll talk to—what’s his name. Your boss, Andres. He’s a reasonable man. I’ll call him today. He can get a substitute for a week, can’t he? What about that other guy last night? Don’t you know someone?”

“Not like me. No one’s as good as me. I’m the best DJ in Manila. Andres will tell you that.”

Enjoying myself, I play my stubborn games, reminding the German over and over how good I am, how much Andres depends on me, how I’m indirectly responsible for the club’s success. When I’ve got him where I want him, I finally and reluctantly give in. “All right, all right—one week. But you’d better fix it with Andres. I don’t want any shit from him after you leave.”

I climb out of the pool. “Where are you going?” Rainer asks, grabbing my ankle. I wiggle my foot, loosening his grip on my leg. I give him a cold look. “To bed. I’m going to bed. How about you?”

I feel the heat from the morning sun, slowly rising. Without looking back, I walk through the patio to the bedroom, the German at my heels.

The day he leaves Manila for Berlin, we have an early breakfast in the coffee shop of the Intercontinental Hotel. The German prefers the coffee shop to having breakfast at the mansion. He’s never gotten over being uncomfortable in the presence of servants. Me, I don’t give a shit. When I feel their eyes on me, I stare right back. So what. If I stare long enough, they drop their gaze and go about their business. It’s simple. I know them and they know me.

The German carries his shoulder bag, the canvas one filled with his most precious possessions: drugs, passport, plane ticket, notebook, pens, toothbrush, comb, and dollars. He’s paranoid, dragging his bag with him wherever we go. “You don’t need your passport at Studio 54,” I’ve told him. He wouldn’t listen. “You never know, I might need to make a quick getaway—”

“You think like a criminal. Are you a criminal or an artist?” I tease him.

“Both,” he answered, smiling that dumb sad smile of his.

What a weirdo—seems like that’s all I meet these days. What the fuck. He’s so generous, I can’t complain. I just have to put up with his crazy shit a few more hours.

After breakfast, we’re going back to the house and pick up his suitcases, then off to the airport for one last time in the fancy car. “I don’t care about my clothes or shoes,” Rainer says, as we sit down at a booth in the coffee shop. “But I can’t afford to lose this—” He slides the bag under the table, between our feet.

“Joey.”

We’re drinking coffee. The German drinks his black, with plenty of sugar. I like mine with plenty of milk. Except for another foreigner with eyeglasses reading a newspaper across the room, the coffee shop is empty. I love the interior of our booth, all striped garish upholstery, tiny mirrors, and bright plastic banners like a loud, gaudy jeepney.

“JOEY. I’m talking to you.”

“What.”

“Have you ever been in love?” the German asks, shyly. I remember the American and his postcard, pouring myself more coffee from the steel coffeepot the sleepy waiter has left on our table. It isn’t even six thirty yet; I’ve slept a few hours, but I feel like I’ve been up all night.

“Joey. Did you hear me?”

“Yes. And the answer’s no.”

“I’m a little in love with you, I think.”

He confuses and exhausts me. I’ve grown to like him too, but I’ll never admit it. “A little? How can you be a little in love?”

“Are you sorry I’m leaving?”

“Sure, Rainercito.”

“I told you, goddammit. RAINER.”

“Okay, Rainer. You want me to be sorry? I’ll be sorry.”

“Whoretalk. You’re too young to be so cynical, Joey. You enjoy hurting me, don’t you? This is foolish, I suppose. I’m much too old for you, anyway.” He pauses. “Would you like to order breakfast now:

I thought he’d never ask. I look for the sleepy waiter, who scurries over when he sees my signal. He must be a hundred years old, a bent man with faded eyes. He wears a limp
barong tagalog
over black uniform pants, shiny and threadbare from too much use. His thin-soled, imitation-leather shoes with pointy toes are gray with dust. There’s nothing sadder than cheap shoes on a man. “Yes, sir—” the waiter is ready with pad and pencil.

I order a big breakfast: scrambled eggs over garlic-fried rice, side of
longaniza
sausages and beef
tapa
,
kalamansi
juice, and fresh pineapple for dessert. My last good meal for the next few days…The German is amused.

I feel his eyes boring holes into me, watching every move as I eat, as if he’ll never get enough. “It’s a picture I take with my mind, so I won’t forget you.” I wish he’d stop. I don’t mind when he takes
real
pictures of me with that fancy camera of his, which he’s done all week:
Joey Swimming. Joey and Cup of Coffee. Joey Lighting a Cigarette. Joey Bored. Joey Brooding.
The man has titles for everything! I can’t stand those imaginary snapshots he takes, especially when I’m eating. “Stop staring at me! You’re bugging me, man. You’re spooky—” I stress my words, narrow my eyes to make my point. Crazy. He keeps it up. I give him an exasperated look, then give up and go back to my food. I’m too tired to fight. Let him look all he wants—he’s paying for every second.

I eat my rice, my
longaniza
, slices of
tapa
, and fluffy scrambled eggs. Lots of ketchup and Tabasco sprinkled on everything; it all tastes incredibly delicious. I’m still hungry. I could eat a whole other plate of the same thing; I can’t wait for dessert.

The German refuses to eat. He orders more coffee and just sits there, smoking, staring at me. His sad, stupid smile—just like Neil. I keep my eyes on the crumbs on my plate. Ask the old waiter to hurry up with the dessert. If I keep my mouth busy, I won’t have to think. Should I ask the German for more money? Should I ask him to send for me? Whatever it is, I don’t have much time.

The foreigner reading the newspaper looks up and recognizes the German. He waves, getting up from his table, to come over to us. “Oh, shit,” the German groans, waving back. Turns out the man’s an American journalist covering the film festival, a big fan of the German’s work. I get up from our table. Rainer looks alarmed. “Joey! Where are you going? Don’t leave me alone with this bore—”

“Relax. I need cigarettes. Want some?”

“Have the waiter get them. For godsake, Joey. I don’t even know the man’s name! He’ll bore me to tears—”

“The shop in the lobby’s still closed. It’s too early,” I lie smoothly. “I have to go outside, find a street vendor…Don’t worry, Rainer. I’ll be right back—”

The American journalist approaches our table, grinning with pleasure and holding out his hand. I wait until Rainer gets up to greet him and his attention is diverted. While his back is turned, I quickly reach under the table for the bag. It happens very fast, the only way it could possibly happen. I walk out the door without looking back, sorry to have missed the fresh pineapple, which the waiter is just now bringing to our table.

I’m fast, slippery, and calm. I’m out the door and in the lobby, walking quickly but not too quickly across the thick red carpet toward the hotel’s main entrance. I know better than to run and arouse suspicion, though it’s still so early in the morning that no one’s at the front desk, everyone else is yawning and sleepy, not paying much attention.

It’s okay. I take out the packet of drugs and money and slip it into my jeans pocket, casually leaving the bag with Rainer’s passport and airline ticket on the couch facing the registration desk. Maybe Rainer gets his stuff back, maybe not. This way, he has a chance.

It seems strange, there’s no one around and it’s so quiet. There are two exits on either side of the main entrance. I move toward the door on the left just as a car pulls up in front of the hotel. Long and dark and important-looking, the car’s navy blue or black. I’m not sure. I hesitate at the doorway, curious. Where’s the doorman? The driver steps out, walks over to the passenger side, and opens the door. I hold my breath—I instantly recognize Senator Domingo Avila. Dressed casual yet businesslike, he looks just like I once saw him on TV, being interviewed by that slimy Cora Camacho. She asked all the wrong questions and didn’t get any answers. Shit, Cora. Get to the point! A man like him would be fun to interview. I would’ve said: “So, Senator Avila—what makes you fearless? How come you’re still here? Everyone else is leaving town…”

The bastard would’ve said what he always says. “Joey, the handwriting is on the wall.”

Not bad for an old man, that Avila. Tall and trim, with a flat stomach, gray crew cut, horn-rimmed glasses. Unaware of my presence, he walks briskly toward the lobby, as if he was late for an appointment. It only takes a second for the noise, quick spurts of explosion I recognize immediately. I dive for the concrete sidewalk, hoping to be swallowed up by benevolent, unseen forces, hoping to come out of this alive. Something tells me I should’ve known better, I should’ve known all along, everything was too quiet and empty back there and now, I’m going to die. I’m going to die for something stupid, because I am a witness and I am a thief, I took the German’s fucking drugs and money and I don’t care about his loving me, I know the Senator’s dead like I know my own name, I want to look behind me into the lobby, see his blood—

His blood
, oozing bright and dark on the carpet. I wait for another burst of noise, wait for them to catch me outside on the pavement where I shouldn’t have been, wait for the cold steel to press against the back of my bent head. I see everything. I want to scream, concrete sidewalk pressed against my face, my face twisted as I snatch one more glance at the blood in the lobby, imaginary gun pressed against the back of my head by imaginary assassins, my flesh bursting open—

The eerie silence lasts only a moment. Just as dangerous, just as unbearable. I hear screams come out of nowhere. The desk clerks, the bellhops, the drowsy waiters, the invisible doorman are all suddenly here in the lobby, bending over the dead Senator. Everyone’s busy being hysterical, no one’s seen me crouching on the ground outside. One of the desk clerks gets on the phone. She’s the only one acting calm, unaffected by the Senator’s bullet-ridden body sprawled on the carpet in front of her.

I know it’s begun. I’ve seen the Senator’s long, dark car speed away. There was another car. Something else I don’t want to remember. I scramble up to my feet and start running, I don’t look back. I run. I run, I almost fly down the street, I disappear around the corner before the faceless men with dark glasses show up, before the shocked American journalist and the German wander out, dazed and confused by the noise and the blood, bullet holes in the walls, the Senator’s lifeless body, so much blood from one man spattered everywhere, before the German Rainer, my Rainer, calls my name.

T
HERE IT IS, THE
centerpiece on the presidential table: a twelve-tiered, gold and white cake trimmed with silver sugar doves. No. It’s a twelve-tiered, white and silver cake with white sugar doves and gold filling, created especially for the occasion by the Alacran family dentist, Dr. Benita Zamora. Her son is a poet of the underground, and
she is not at the wedding.
The perennially smiling dentist has been detained by four unsmiling members of the Special Squadron Urban Warfare Unit while on the way to her car after baking the splendid cake. The car, a modest gunmetal-blue Toyota, is still locked and parked in front of the Makati Dental Center’s steel and glass building. A half-eaten ham sandwich lies on the back seat, wrapped in wax paper. There seem to be no witnesses to the sudden event.
Dr. Benita Zamora is simply not at the wedding.
Her son’s whereabouts are also unknown. According to
The Metro Manila Daily,
the poet’s mother has been placed under house arrest. Or rather, she was placed under office arrest. The popular, affluent dentist, dentist to the stars, has chosen to spend the rest of her days within the confines of her professional environment. “It doesn’t matter anyway. I only go home to sleep…. I’d rather die in my office,” the dentist reveals under torture. She refuses to disclose her son’s whereabouts.

No. It’s actually a twelve-tiered hallucination, a golden pound cake with white vanilla and rum icing, white marzipan doves with silver candy eyes, sculpted white chocolate bows attached to silver filigree butterflies imported from Spain. No. Actually, the silver filigree butterflies were carefully constructed by sixteen blind nuns from the Convent of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow. The silver filigree butterflies are a gift from the First Lady, filigree butterflies suspended by invisible wires, filigree butterflies flying out of the bottom tier of the phenomenal cake.

The dentist is dead. The dentist never existed. The unforgettable wedding cake has actually been designed and baked from scratch by the bride’s glamorous mother, Isabel Alacran. “I never knew she could cook!” the First Lady exclaims, visibly impressed by the intricacies of the edible sculpture. “My wife was trained to be an architect,” Severo Alacran whispers confidentially to the First Lady and the President. The beaming President grunts with admiration. He hardly moves at all, swollen and rooted to his chair. He and his wife are guests of honor at the wedding.

Holding hands under an arc of violet, spun sugar flowers, the bride and groom figurines are balanced on a bed of buttery roses on the top tier of the cake. The First Lady groans with pleasure. She is served the first slice, and takes a healthy bite. The President shakes his head, points to his stomach, and refuses the cake offered to him. The First Lady signals for more. A young waiter with Elvis Presley hair rushes to serve her.

Senator Avila once said: “Food is the center of our ritual celebrations, our baptisms, weddings, funerals. You can’t describe a real
Pinoy
without listing what’s most important to him—food, music, dancing, and love—most probably in that order.”

So the Senator once said, so even his enemy the General agrees. So the weeping bride dreams the night before the Senator’s assassination: cakes melt in her mouth, tomatoes and onions ooze out of the slit bellies of grilled
bangus
, silent women baste the roasting flesh of pigs with honey, then smother the lacquered baby pigs under a pile of banana leaves.