Tong-Ick!

Life hardly seems fair. And with God having the infamous reputation of throwing the dice every now and then, the ensuing game of existential "craps" does tend to smite at some degree or another. "Craps" being the appropriate word, of course. (Ironic how one of the world’s leading casino favorites was christened after a term which meant anything other than a good time.) And when God Himself decides to play "craps" with your life, sometimes it seems that being thrown around like dice would actually be a less disheartening fate.

You see, E-Male was never known to be a gambling man — not in the finest sense of the word anyway. And when lord chance decided to take a drive down E-Male’s alley, it only seemed like a logical bet that crashing would come as the next step.

That was because Tong-its hardly seems like a fair game. "Fair" referring to any sense of talent God had given E-Male in winning some game like that. And though it might’ve appealed to him at first because of its rustic flair with a kalye sense of belonging (almost oddly rebellious in his mind’s eye), the pay-off must’ve been in the fact that he actually thought he could win. Win, being defined as what E-Male was supposedly doing after the first two games of his total 45.

Then again, losing 43 games in a row is hardly a small tale to tell. And how E-Male, a neophyte to the syndicated world of gambling along the dark corners of Quiapo — where overweight men in sandos and wicked body odor abound — got mixed up in such fiddly-diddly is actually an entirely new story altogether. One that unfortunately ends in bitter tragedy and epic loss (talk about Bernardo Carpio).

To set the record straight, E-Male is actually, by nature, a man of honor, dignity (and other virtues that supposedly meant something sometime in this country’s history) and with enough decency to not try and steal a glance at his opponent’s hand. Up ’til this very moment, E-Male claims that his 43 losses was a classic result of flat-out cheating and well-executed street hustling. And though the tricycle drivers he was supposedly pitted against confess to no such thing, E-Male now condones gambling as a keen way into stealing the very hard-earned cash the Pinoy worker built this fine nation on.

Now, a bystander might’ve pinpointed the beginning of E-Male’s story at the point where his car breaks down along Arroceros and E-Male is forced to seek refuge with the Philippine’s most trusted (and abundant) mechanics: tricycle drivers. And after a throng of them diagnose the car trouble as an inopportune case of weak car-battery (E-Male still swears that he left the house with a full charge), the happy-go-lucky throng of Pinoy-Hell’s Angels invite E-Male to play a few rounds of Tong-its with them.

But that’s what a bystander would say.

E-Male, however, would still stick to his story about how five men came rushing to his car to quickly hold him at gun-point, literally forcing him to play Tong-its with them to swindle away his money. When asked why the five men didn’t just straight out rob him, E-Male just nods and mumbles something about knowing Karate.

And so E-Male sits beside Mang Danny, Mang Richard and Mang Lando for a supposedly friendly (or not-so-friendly, according to our protagonist) game of Tong-its. A few slaps on the back are quickly exchanged after E-Male sweeps the first couple of rounds (which the tricycle-drivers claim to have been practis lamang). But by the third round, the game wasn’t nearly as light.

Soon enough, what began as a friendly (yes, yes — or not so friendly) game between strangers escalated into a tiny skirmish between the tricycle drivers and E-Male. Though the former were taking the game for what it was, E-Male, on the other hand, took his loss as an attack on his social status. A flat-out mockery of his position as dangerous destabilizer of government, and an essential component of this nation’s judicial system.

But E-Male being the stalwart (or plainly arrogant man that he cannot be blamed to be) soon tried to follow suit by trying to beat these Manongs at their own game. But what quickly followed suit instead was his money, his wallet, his watch, his car, his home, his assets (he was actually surprised to know that the Manongs knew what assets meant) and finally, his actual suit. But then again, that’s an exaggeration.

But by the end of the 45th game, E-Male had lost everything on a single night: a cool five hundred bucks (what a big gambler). A tragic end to an already tragic beginning. And as he walked away from probably the biggest mistake in his ongoing career as a human being (eventually begging for money to scrounge up P4 for that jeep ride to the nearest Motolite shop), he just began to wonder about what he had left. Finally, he gave out a sigh of relief knowing that at least he remembers hitting the jackpot: his girlfriend.

Unless of course, he had gambled her off as well. Ah well, maybe if he tried "craps" instead.

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Comments are welcomed at argee@justice.com.