Waiting for the war
October 1, 2001 | 12:00am
On a stormy Monday morning he turns back while on Boni, the sudden downpour flooding the low-lying parts of Mandaluyong. The lone passenger, a Grade 6 student in a school on the other side of town, says he is "duwag sa ulan," afraid of rain, the memory of past floods, past monsoons that left stranded many inhabitants of the city still fresh on his mind.
The Grade 6 pupil has to content herself playing gameboy and nurse to a younger brother, who is nursing a fever.
By mid-morning, the drive is towards the airport to meet a sister-in-law, flying in from Dumaguete where she attended the centennial celebration of Silliman University. There are five pieces of baggage, two of the heavier ones threatening the suspension of the borrowed car.
The rain lets up by noon, indeed goes on and off, as if playing hide-and-go-seek with the somewhat shy sun. On cable TV, latest updates on a brewing war are broadcast and re-broadcast, "Dubya" saying it’s going to be a long, unconventional war not likely to be carried live over CNN, not all of it anyway.
In the office his seatmate informs him that the poet Mike Bigornia has died, bad news received over text message by mobile phone. Dead at 51, the author of Punta-Blanko and Prosang Itim.
Though he has neither book, he considers Mike an old face, always hovering somewhere in the background at literary gatherings. He remembers last seeing Mike B. at the National Book Awards on Sept. 8, hovering as usual somewhere at the back of the hall, perhaps to root for his friend Teo Antonio, whose book was a finalist for the award.
The poet always greeted him amiably in these random meetings, which inevitably wound up at a nearby watering hole to reminisce about art, poetry, common friends, music and whatever it is makes the world go round.
Time was when it was at Chino’s Food House along Quezon Ave., which always seemed to be half-empty, but the beer was always available. Last he looked, Chino’s seemed to have disappeared into thin air, overrun by vines, weeds, the elements. The beer garden might have sank into the roadside creek.
Another time it would be at Tia Maria’s, with the Mexican food and pulutan, the raucous conversation and antics that stretched into closing time.
Every time he ran into Mike B. at one of these events, the master of black prose would always ask him: "Pare, paano kita mako-contact?"
There would be an upcoming congress of the writer’s union at the Goethe Haus, or else the union, of which Mike was chairman, was putting together a writer’s directory, and could he please attend or provide some pertinent biodata?
For some reason he never got to attend any congress, and clean forgot to send biodata, and the invitation letters which used to come regularly gradually stopped. But the wry invite to drink at a nearby bar was omnipresent, extended whenever they ran into each other at a launching, a reading, or a wake.
Once it was at the wake for Maningning Miclat, where Marne Kilates commented, why is it we only see each other when somebody dies?
If not a wake, then it was at an awards ceremony of some sort, where Marne, Mike, Teo Antonio, maybe Fidel Rillo and Jess Santiago would be laughing over some private joke, deep in their cups, or else ogling the muse of the moment.
There was an invite too to an opening of the works of Yeye Calderon at the Blind Tiger, on the second to the last Saturday of September, called Kulayeye, to which he almost went, and if he did maybe Mike B. was there because the proprietor was Fidel’s wife, Mo.
There might have been drinks galore as usual, the small talk amid the watercolors, and maybe someone could have commandeered the microphone for an impromptu videoke concert, these videoke machines always turn up in the unlikeliest places.
And now, when the poet of the black, point-blank prose has been laid to rest, he remembers other wars, if he’s old enough to recall any of consequence.
It was a stormy Monday, as Mondays go, but with one less poet to go around, Tuesday was just as bad. Duwag sa ulan, and the prospect of life during wartime were like a bad joke.
But there is a light too that never goes out (as that old Smith song goes), as we try to make heads or tails of the weather that has children falling sick or under an undefinable spell or malaise.
The Grade 6 pupil has to content herself playing gameboy and nurse to a younger brother, who is nursing a fever.
By mid-morning, the drive is towards the airport to meet a sister-in-law, flying in from Dumaguete where she attended the centennial celebration of Silliman University. There are five pieces of baggage, two of the heavier ones threatening the suspension of the borrowed car.
The rain lets up by noon, indeed goes on and off, as if playing hide-and-go-seek with the somewhat shy sun. On cable TV, latest updates on a brewing war are broadcast and re-broadcast, "Dubya" saying it’s going to be a long, unconventional war not likely to be carried live over CNN, not all of it anyway.
In the office his seatmate informs him that the poet Mike Bigornia has died, bad news received over text message by mobile phone. Dead at 51, the author of Punta-Blanko and Prosang Itim.
Though he has neither book, he considers Mike an old face, always hovering somewhere in the background at literary gatherings. He remembers last seeing Mike B. at the National Book Awards on Sept. 8, hovering as usual somewhere at the back of the hall, perhaps to root for his friend Teo Antonio, whose book was a finalist for the award.
The poet always greeted him amiably in these random meetings, which inevitably wound up at a nearby watering hole to reminisce about art, poetry, common friends, music and whatever it is makes the world go round.
Time was when it was at Chino’s Food House along Quezon Ave., which always seemed to be half-empty, but the beer was always available. Last he looked, Chino’s seemed to have disappeared into thin air, overrun by vines, weeds, the elements. The beer garden might have sank into the roadside creek.
Another time it would be at Tia Maria’s, with the Mexican food and pulutan, the raucous conversation and antics that stretched into closing time.
Every time he ran into Mike B. at one of these events, the master of black prose would always ask him: "Pare, paano kita mako-contact?"
There would be an upcoming congress of the writer’s union at the Goethe Haus, or else the union, of which Mike was chairman, was putting together a writer’s directory, and could he please attend or provide some pertinent biodata?
For some reason he never got to attend any congress, and clean forgot to send biodata, and the invitation letters which used to come regularly gradually stopped. But the wry invite to drink at a nearby bar was omnipresent, extended whenever they ran into each other at a launching, a reading, or a wake.
Once it was at the wake for Maningning Miclat, where Marne Kilates commented, why is it we only see each other when somebody dies?
If not a wake, then it was at an awards ceremony of some sort, where Marne, Mike, Teo Antonio, maybe Fidel Rillo and Jess Santiago would be laughing over some private joke, deep in their cups, or else ogling the muse of the moment.
There was an invite too to an opening of the works of Yeye Calderon at the Blind Tiger, on the second to the last Saturday of September, called Kulayeye, to which he almost went, and if he did maybe Mike B. was there because the proprietor was Fidel’s wife, Mo.
There might have been drinks galore as usual, the small talk amid the watercolors, and maybe someone could have commandeered the microphone for an impromptu videoke concert, these videoke machines always turn up in the unlikeliest places.
And now, when the poet of the black, point-blank prose has been laid to rest, he remembers other wars, if he’s old enough to recall any of consequence.
It was a stormy Monday, as Mondays go, but with one less poet to go around, Tuesday was just as bad. Duwag sa ulan, and the prospect of life during wartime were like a bad joke.
But there is a light too that never goes out (as that old Smith song goes), as we try to make heads or tails of the weather that has children falling sick or under an undefinable spell or malaise.
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