WHEN I WAS 21: The year of the yellow Bluebird

It was 1975 when I turned 21 that January. Just eighteen months earlier I had been in martial law prison, but in that time since my release I had managed to find myself a job as a responsible if hapless member of the New Society, to get married, and to become a father. I had lots of hair, weighed 140 pounds, had a 28-inch waist, and smoked three packs of Marlboros a day.

It was, by any reckoning, an eventful year — more so for the nation, which marked 1975 as the year the Filipino people supposedly approved of martial law and Marcos’s extended powers in a referendum, the year Muhammad Ali collided with Joe Frazier in the “Thrilla in Manila,” and the year the Philippine Basketball Association took off at the Araneta Coliseum.

Aside from the babyhood of our unica hija Demi, however, I remember 1975 for two other firsts: my first Palanca award as second prize co-winner for the short story in English (for a forgettable story titled “Agcalan Point” that I didn’t keep a copy of and have therefore almost forgotten). I felt, of course, elated, not knowing that I would lose for the next four years straight, and come to see my first victory as a fluke.

But with the prize money (a share of second place, probably around P1,500) plus P1,000 of my own meager savings, I bought my first car — a lemon-yellow 1963 Datsun Bluebird that I had seen on the street outside the apartment. It was a piece of junk, but it showed promise, and P2,500 was all I could afford.

I didn’t even know how to drive, but I wanted a car badly, so I had a friend who was a mechanic (let’s call him Felix) take the car for me in the meanwhile and get it all repaired and dolled up. Felix applied himself to the task with great enthusiasm. Many months and thousands of borrowed pesos in expenses later, I still didn’t have a car, could barely drive, and then Felix vanished to the Middle East with nary a peep about where my spiffed-up Bluebird was.

And then I received a telegram from the QC Police, asking me to claim a car in their impounding area that they had traced to my registration. When I went there, I found my Datsun — all caked with mud, its tires busted, and its body and windshield shot full of bullet holes. They asked me for P3,000 in storage fees. I said a prayer and left the Datsun to oxidize its way to car heaven.