The Samsons: Two Novels; (Modern Library) (47 page)

“You really know,” she said, her eyes crinkling in a smile.

“Of course,” I shot back. “You think wisdom is the monopoly of those who go to exclusive schools?”

She shook her head. “You really have a chip on your shoulder.”

“A block,” I said.

“What is it you really want to do?”

I looked at the intense face, the dimple that had disappeared, the down on her arms. “You are very pretty,” I said.

She blushed. “I asked you a question,” she prodded.

“I would like to eat well,” I said. “I ate at a Japanese restaurant for the first time yesterday. And I do not like to go to school.”

“Same here,” she said.

“But I like campus popularity—and my friends in school.”

“Same here,” she laughed.

We were now both laughing.

“Hey,” I said. “We are both pushers, you know. Except that I get paid and you don’t.” Then, seriously: “You must tell the parents of your friend even if she ends up hating you. And take her to a doctor … only a doctor can help her, and you can, by refusing to give all this to her, by reducing her intake. By talking her into disciplining herself.”

“You will be losing one good customer.”

“I’ll make two new friends.”

“You are no pusher.”

“Not yet, but given time …”

We had sat there for almost an hour. “I enjoyed talking with you,” she said as we stood up.

“The pleasure is mine,” I said leaving a big tip for the waiter. She noticed it. “My—” she shook her head.

“It’s not my money, it’s your friend’s,” I said.

We walked to the door and shook hands. “Next week,” I said.

She turned and walked across the small plaza to the parking lot. She had a mustard-colored Beetle, and as she passed me on her way to the exit, she smiled and waved.

At four, the Medical Center. I sat in the lobby, a few minutes early, but I noticed him at once, a man in his forties, very patrician, with a black leather portfolio on the floor at his feet. He was impeccably dressed in a gray double-knit suit as if he was an executive, which I was sure he was. I walked over to him with the usual, “Joe is not going to make the deliveries anymore.” He quickly stood up and told me to follow him. He walked fast ahead of me as if he did not
want to be seen with me, and I followed him to his car in the parking lot, a huge, black Lincoln. He motioned me inside. It was air-conditioned. We drove out without talking. He was soon driving very fast, and he seemed tense. This was all wrong, but there was no way I could tell him to stop. I had already gotten the envelope out and laid it beside him, saying it was all there, and may I please have the payment? But he grunted angrily, and we sped on. We were on the highway now. I began to panic. Then, at the intersection, at a red light, I tried to open the door so I could rush out, but it wouldn’t budge. He turned to me with that kind of laughter that chills. “Only I can open the doors,” he said. “They are all automatically locked.”

I could break the windows and squirm through. This was one time I should have been armed or known karate.

“I am not going to harm you,” he said softly. “I just want to ask a few questions. You know what happened to Joe? I am sure you suspect. No, I am not a policeman—it is useless going to the police. The sonofabitch was blackmailing me, was upping the price, too.… He had it coming … and you will, too … if you don’t talk.”

There was something frantic about him, and I knew that there was a gun under his jacket, for the bulge showed.

“What do you want to know, sir? You know I am new at the job,” I said. “I just follow instructions.”

“Well, I want to know who your boss is—the top man—because I want more, and no blackmailing, no stories. I have been on this for two years now, and I need it as I need food and air. I will kill if I have to. Or I will have to get it from other sources. Why are you doing this to me? Am I not paying enough? Why do you want my family to know … and my friends? Don’t you know this will destroy me? Each man has his private passion. Can you not understand that?”

He was shaking and beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. We were now in Cubao, and he drove toward Marikina. He was no longer talking sense: “You are greedy; you cannot be satisfied. You want everything and only because I have this passion that only you can fill. Why can it not be a simple business transaction? The supply is there, abundant, and so is the money, so why ask for more?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about, sir,” I said. His eyes were not on the road and, once or twice, I thought we would crash head-on into trucks.

“Please, sir,” I said, “your driving.”

“Hell,” he said, then laughed. “You only live once.”

His gaunt face was now really wet with perspiration even though the air-conditioning was working. We had reached Katipunan, and to the right was the huge Ateneo compound. He swerved left, his tires screeching, but he was not fast enough—the car crashed over the embankment. He stepped on the brakes in time to avoid hitting the acacia tree by the side of the road. The automatic lock of the car door clicked and I rammed my shoulder against the door. It opened, and to his curses, I jumped out and ran. At the corner, I looked back. He was sitting in his car like a statue.

I boarded the first jeepney that came by—all I wanted was distance from him and from this job.

Kuya Nick answered the number I was to call in an emergency. Yes, he would be in Cubao where I had stopped, in thirty minutes. “Just go to the Chinese restaurant by the Nation Theater and wait.”

When he arrived, we drove together to Katipunan. The car was gone. “It is one of those things,” he said. “I told you there are certain risks. When he asked you to follow him to his car, you should have resisted. Never fraternize. You don’t know them, you did not get them originally—”

I had made up my mind. “Kuya,” I said as we drove back to Manila, “this job is not for me. I am too cowardly for it. I like the money but …”

He was silent.

I had to tell him about Joe. I asked what he was like, how old he was.

“About thirty; small, a little bit on the fat and balding side. He looked unkempt but he was always clean.”

“He was extorting money from them,” I said. We should part as friends, I should go with his trust. “I did not make only so much yesterday,” I said. “Even today, the girl gave me a hundred fifty pesos more. I would like to give it all back to you. And the watch, too.”

Kuya Nick turned to me, a broad smile on his face. “Pepe, that is what I like about you. You can be trusted. No, you can keep them—you earned them. My problem now is to find someone who will do the job tomorrow. If the worst comes, I may have to do it myself.”

I gave him the money and the notebook with the codes and time tables. He placed them on the console beside the gearshift.

“Next semester,” he still tried, “think about La Salle. You really have to work in those schools, not in Recto. Like I said, that is where the money is. And those girls, if they will not give you their mothers’ jewels, you can have all the cunts you want. My
toro
, you will have the time of your life!”

It was all so appealing, but I had to turn it down.

“Think about it, Pepe,” he repeated as he dropped me off in front of the university.

Professor Hortenso was not in; I had more than a hundred fifty pesos so I decided to see a movie.

It was seven in the evening when I got to the apartment, and Mila’s door was ajar. She sat in the dimly lighted living room, and when I walked in, she bade me put on the latch.

“I was wondering why it took you so long,” she said coyly. And then, as if to reassure me, she said she had sent her maid out to see a movie. There was a lot of time for us before she would return.

But I was not going to be unkind to Kuya Nick; he had, after all, given me a chance and, in his own perverse way, he had practiced some form of ethics. I did not even hold her or kiss her when she stood up and came to me, her breath warm and sweet on my face, her body pressed against mine. “I am sorry,” I said, “but I will not be able to see you on Friday.”

She held my hand to her breast. “Then now,” she whispered. “We have a little time. Nick … we really don’t do it, not even once a month … and I need it so much.”

I pulled away. “They are waiting for me,” I said, “and besides, I was just with him and he may be on his way here, now.”

Her arms dropped. I headed for the door, trembling and angry at myself as I walked out.

T
he following day I enrolled at the International Karate School two blocks down Recto from my university. My decision to take karate was preordained not just by the experience with the psycho but by Lakay Benito of my boyhood, who had taken me on a journey to a subterranean world that imbued those who belonged to it with inexplicable powers. He had taught me an effective
oración
against unfriendly dogs and I wanted more. He was inclined to pass on to me and to those with whom he felt vibrations the knowledge he had accumulated; he was long past middle age and the
comedia
he directed and acted in was no longer being shown in our town fiesta. Cheap penicillin, too, had diminished his clientele, and only the gullible or fanatic went to him for his miracle cures. Even in church, he was no longer an imposing presence, as a new priest had taken over and gathered around him young people to “humanize” and make the Church ever present and relevant.

You are on the way to manhood, he said; so it is time for your perseverance and your courage to be tested. It was possible—he said this, his face as somber as if it were Judgment Day—to achieve the kind of power that would make you more agile than the fly, more
sensitive than the weed whose leaves fold at the slightest stirring of the breeze, and run faster than a horse. When the banana flowers, just as the heart of the flower dips, there would drop from its tip a jewel that you must be prepared to swallow instantly. You should, therefore, be before the plant, with mouth wide open, your hands clasped behind your back, and once the jewel is in your mouth, let no force take it away. All this would happen in all probability at night and there would be unspeakable and powerful forces that would strangle me and pry my mouth open. This was the hour of judgment and I would either end up as just another weakling or a man possessed with mind and muscle of incredible strength.

I remember my initiation into that secret domain Lakay Benito knew. We had this
aritondal
species in our backyard that had survived both typhoon and drought. It was a popular native variety, bitter when green but deep yellow and very sweet when ripe, not pulpy and tasteless like those bananas grown in the south for export to Japan. That dry season one of the plants had started to flower. I had waited for the heart to rise then dip, a process that took almost a week. I watched the whole time, wondering how much longer it would take before the heart would drop to point earthward.

On the fifth day I knew that the time had come, and after Mother and Auntie had gone to sleep, I stole down to our backyard and stood breathless beneath the banana plant. It was one of those April nights when not a breeze stirred, yet all around the night was alive with the chirp of crickets, the distant barking of dogs, wisps of talk from the neighbors, and the mooing of carabaos in their corral. Above, the stars studded the black cloudless sky, and I wondered if the jewel that I coveted would be just as bright. I was not afraid, standing there alone, the bananas like a dark canopy before me, while around were the huddled shapes of houses, some still distinct with yellow frames of light; even the earth seemed to heave and listen to the steady pounding of my heart. Vivid imaginings swooped through my mind, my eyes transfixed upon the pointed end of the banana heart above me. How would it be when the jewel finally fell? What powers would it give me? Would I be able to walk a single wire or ascend any wall like a fly? Would I be dexterous enough to pick any pocket without being caught? Standing there, for how long I did not know, my neck had started to cramp. I turned to ease the discomfort and the pain then arched skyward again; it was then that
I noticed a glow on the ground and felt the earth breathe; the glow started up the banana trunk, rose slowly, filling the trunk with an eerie light that pulsed slowly up the trunk and then to the heart itself. And I stood beneath it, my feet planted apart, my hands clasped behind me, my mouth wide open waiting for this white and dazzling pearl or jewel or king’s ransom, paused uncertainly at the tip of the heart, to drop into my mouth. I felt it warm and smooth, but hardly had I closed my mouth when I felt huge and hairy arms clasp my neck in a grip so tight I could not breathe, while more slimy hands tried to pry my mouth open. I could smell the damp foulness of age, of decay, warm and final upon my face. I would choke if I did not free myself; if I opened my mouth to scream, however, everything would be lost. No, I must not yield. I must summon all the nerve and bone that this puny body could muster, I must not give up this vaunted treasure. With one final surge, I twisted around to evade those grasping, coiling hands and crashed to the ground.

That was where I woke up, in the chill dawn, the east already amber, the other houses already stirring with the womenfolk who must cook the morning meal. When I looked at the banana heart, indeed, it had already dipped.

I rose and walked to the house hoping that my steps would be light and some unfamiliar strength would suffuse me, but I felt instead cramped and feverish and when I sneezed, I knew that I had caught, not an incredible talisman, but a cold.

The stairway that led to the karate school wound through floors occupied by nondescript law offices and companies that must have survived through sheer tenacity. Past doors tarnished with age and secured with three or four padlocks, I finally got to the top—the karate school—and the beginning of a new wisdom if ever I was to survive in a deformed physical world. So here I was, ready for another kind of school, not just to build my stamina but to discipline my body. My lessons were to be twice a week, but I could come every afternoon if I wanted to for the karatistas liked having people around. Various schools of self-defense had proliferated in the area—tae kwan do, kung fu, and judo—and the competition was very keen. It was eighty pesos a month, plus thirty pesos for my very rough cotton uniform. I was not aiming for a black belt or to smash bricks and
planks of wood. I was just interested in self-defense. I did not have a gun, not even a knife. My instructors were all young, and they enjoyed their work, for when they were not teaching they were always practicing. They lived in the school itself to save on rent. Cups they had won from various tournaments adorned the shelves. When I went for my first lesson I was amused at the ritual of bowing to the instructor before the actual exercises started. Rading, who was the best, took me under his wing, although he was available for instruction anytime. He asked where I went to school, and when I told him he said he went there, too, but was just taking a few credits in accounting, for he wanted to be a karatista. He was about twenty-one, slightly taller than I, and his taut frame was all muscle.