The story of a story

Something very unusual happened to me a few days ago. I got hold of a story I hadn’t seen in 35 years. I vaguely remembered what it was about and how it began, and what the climax was, but I couldn’t recall what the characters said, beyond the heroic swagger that the author gave them, thinking that it would give the piece a classic feel, as if it had been written by someone older. That part I remember, because I was the author, and the story was the first one I ever submitted to the Palancas.

The year was 1975; I was 21, then employed as a writer at the National Economic and Development Authority in Padre Faura. I was writing feature stories about government projects like Pantabangan Dam and the Philippine National Railways, but what I really wanted to do was to write stories and plays. It was the time of martial law, so there wasn’t much to write for except Kerima Polotan’s Focus magazine, to which I’d submitted a rather tepid story just the year before, my first major publication in a national magazine.

I wanted then what any young, brash writer wants — a little fame and fortune, and the Palanca Awards, which I’d heard about but which seemed just beyond my reach, looked to be the ticket.

So I wrote a story I called “Agcalan Point,” pounding away at my father-in-law’s Olympia typewriter. It went on to win a share of Second Prize — something like P2,500 — with which I bought my first car, a battered 1963 Datsun Bluebird that ended up a year later in a police garage, shot full of bullet holes; but that’s another story.

I was, of course, deliriously happy when it won, but strangely enough, after I submitted that story to the Palancas, I practically forgot about the piece — and I can’t remember exactly why. I suspect that I realized early enough that it wasn’t that good, because I never included it in any of the three short story collections I later published; I didn’t even have a copy, although the Palanca Foundation had one in its library. I think it won mainly because of its theme — and we’ll get to that in a minute — but the language was, well, exactly what it was: that of a 21-year-old doing his best to sound 42.

About a month ago, I received a request from Lulu Reyes, an old friend who teaches English at the Ateneo and who edits an online magazine called Kritika Kultura; they were going to publish an interview with me, but also needed an unpublished story to go with it. I didn’t have any, I said… until I remembered “Agcalan Point,” hibernating in the Palanca Foundation files since 1975.

A request to the kind Mr. Ross Bautista at the Foundation promptly produced a Xerox copy of my original manuscript. Seeing the familiar font of the Olympia and flipping through the pages was like taking a ride in a time machine to watch myself thinking and working back when my hair was thick and wavy and my waist size a demure 28 (and now it’s 40; tell me, how can a foot of fat grow around any man without his realizing it?).

I remembered what had inspired me to write that story: in 1974, Beng and I had to spend a couple of weeks in my seaside hometown of Alcantara, Romblon, after I’d received a tip that I might be re-arrested for continuing to work with the Left, despite my government job. Beng was eight months pregnant, but we ran all the same, fearing for our freedom. There in Romblon — where the old people pinned talismans on Beng’s blouse to ward off evil spirits — I looked at a hill looming over the water, and saw a story.

When I sat down to it, I would set that story in the mythic past — remembering Jose Garcia Villa’s “Mir-i-nisa” — and imbue it with all manner of dramatic flourish. My story was about a brave young warrior who refused to believe in demons, and who — forced to fight one such demon — found himself facing the old, oppressive datu, whom he then destroyed, thereby elevating reason over superstition.

I know, it doesn’t sound too bad, but as every writer knows, a plot synopsis tells you nothing about the execution of the story, or about the quality of its language. When I read the manuscript again last week, I couldn’t help smiling at my own turns of phrase — some of which I wouldn’t be caught dead using, today. But then again, when you’re 21, who’s to tell you what not to do?

Next week, I’ll publish the opening paragraph of “Agcalan Point,” and discuss how a writer’s language changes over time, and why.

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There’s one more thing I need to do today: offer a heartfelt apology to the man who gave me first professional writing job. City editor Nemesio Dacanay took a risk on an annoyingly persistent 18-year-old dropout and brought him in as a reporter for the Philippines Herald in 1972. A few years ago, I remembered “Dac” in a piece I wrote to acknowledge my writing mentors, but inadvertently turned it into a eulogy by describing him as “the late…” His daughter Christine Dacanay Kelley wrote in to say that her father is, in fact, very much alive and well here in Manila. I’m sorry about that most terrible of journalistic bloopers, sir, and hope to see you again one of these days!

And finally, on a truly sadder note, my deepest condolences go the family of Engineer Patrocinio Manes, who died very recently. It was Manong Patring and his wife, my father’s cousin, Manang Adoring, who gave Beng and me shelter in Romblon when we needed a hiding place back in 1974. He was a great guy, the kind of man you think every father, uncle, or elder brother should be.

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E-mail me at penmanila@yahoo.com, and visit my blog at www.penmanila.net.