The messenger of stars (Part 2)
By Rex Catubig
LIKE a movie reel, life derailed just when it was getting exciting. My father’s plan to move us to the house he built on a property he bought in Babaliwan was aborted. Then, life rolled again.
After Grade 4 at the Calmay Primary School, it was time to transfer to West Central Elementary for Grades 5 and 6. It was in baley, so I had to ride a bangka to cross the river, then walk to reach it. It’s a walkable distance, but my father took to heart driving me to school in his old black Buick. Despite his loving intention, unbeknownst to him, I was discomfited to have my classmates see me in his dilapidated scabrous car.
No reason to feel inferior. My father surprised me with a signing privilege at the City De Luxe so I could invite my classmates to meryenda of ice cream, halo-halo, siopao and hamberger. The restaurant had a jukebox . By inserting ten centavo coins, it played 45 rpm records. We loved to play Volare repeatedly.
Later, he opened me a bank account at the Security Bank with an initial deposit of fifty pesos, so I could learn how to handle my own money.
To be 11 and mighty proud!
And proud of me my father was — in a weird way. When I was 6, he would bring me to the New Dagupan Lumber and Siwasiw Sawmill where he was the manager. Without warning, he would gather his Chinese co-workers around, ask me to spread my hand palm down on his office table, then pound it with his balled fist. “See! He did not flinch!”, he would boast.
The summer before high school, he made sure I was ready for the prerequisite of puberty. He took me to the downtown clinic of Dr Villaflor to undergo the manhood rite of circumcision. For days, I wore my aunt’s sapey, holding the skirt up so the cloth would not brush against my bulbous protuberance. It looked like a red tomato—kinmamatis. Had to wash the wound with boiled guava leaves so it would heal in time for 1st year High.
Just when I was adapting to teenhood, my face broke out with acne in the tumult of adolescence. He called on the same doctor to the rescue, who promptly scribbled a prescription for Acnomel cream. Still concerned, he played doctor himself and routinely pinched the raging pimples all over my face. And to fortify the regimen, he made me drink Agua de Carabana to cleanse my system. I swear it tasted so gross, but “father knows best”.
Yes, our father and son bonding was crazy, but it outlined the storybook tale of my early years and composed the overture, the theme, and possibly the coda of the rest of my life.
I probably disappointed him for missing the chance to turn from the boy Robin he fancied me to be, into the Marvel hero that he dreamed of. Maybe Ding and Darna were to blame. But without a doubt, his doting, loving and caring ways made me the person that I am. Not invulnerable, but one whose heart, though it beats to the sound of a different drummer, beats to the rhythm and melody of love.
At the twilight zone, the past flashes back like a Facebook reel “memories”. My father is patiently waiting.
Seeing me, he waves and bids me to walk with him. I’m now his age when he passed on, but as if I were his child of old, he pulls me by my arm to view the sunset in Babaliwan. As we stand on the Franklin bridge, he grabs my cane and wields it in the air like a conductor’s baton and, against the darkening sky, the fading clouds burst into a sonorous thunder, and angels sing the love sonata of my life.
“Look!”, he exclaimed pointing at the shooting stars.
“I love you, son”, is what the falling stars wrote on the sky.
I held my breath. “Thank you, Tatay”, I whispered.
It was time to walk back home.
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
