“Shit. Babylon’s such a fucking drunk, he doesn’t even know what happened to his wife,” said Manong Pepe. He slapped Benny’s shoulder. When they were through laughing, Benny turned once more to me.
“What do you think, Angela? One second there is a man on the wall, and the next he’s gone.” Benny studied my face. His eyes were light-colored, like a mestizo. I’d heard my mother say Benny thought he was too good to be a driver. “Do you think he flew away?”
I shook my head.
“Here.” Benny dug around in his pocket and produced a red rubber ball — the cheap kind from the market. “Why don’t you go play with it, Angela, or are you too smart to play?”
“I can play,” I responded, holding his gaze. I took the ball and held it. I let it drop on the pavement, catching it after it bounced.
“Now you go play, and when you think you know what happened to that man, the one that flew straight down, you come and tell us, okay?”
I nodded slowly. I didn’t like Benny. I was glad to have a reason to leave the garage, to leave the drivers and their game.
At first I just bounced the ball along the pavement, losing it every few times, but this soon lost its charm. I started throwing it in the air a few feet above my head, then higher and higher, until it was just a speck and seemed to hover still in the air before racing downward. I managed to catch it most times. I thought of the invader — the man — the one who flew straight down, like my ball, and threw it higher still, as if this could answer the question. I sent the ball soaring upward until it was nothing but a small red pinprick against a bright blue sky. I threw it again, this time too high. I stood patiently and saw it returning to earth. It was too far away for me to catch. The ball bounced once on the driveway and then again. I chased after it, but it bounced again, ricocheting off a paving stone and landing somewhere in the back garden.
The tangle of the back garden was very different from the front. Trees reached their arms across the small dark paths. The paths wove in and out through the vegetation in ways that I could never remember. The ball had gone to the left, so I headed that way. I looked over my shoulder to see the drivers who stood watching me, now interested. Bebeng too had suddenly appeared and I saw Ligaya with the others, wiping her hands on her skirt. I heard the insects. It was noise I had heard all day, but now the sound was loud. There was the hum of crickets and abruptly the frogs and toads all started to croak. The birds were chirping now, lots of birds, and as I made my way along a path, the sounds grew louder. The broken glass at the top of the wall high above me glittered in the sunlight. The noise was loudest right beside the wall. I was drawn to the sound and to the broken glass shining at the end of the path. And there was the ball, waiting for me. It was in a clump of makahiya grass — grass that fainted as my shoes brushed against it. I bent down, the song of the insects humming in my ears, and picked up the ball. There were ants on it, too many ants. In the grass, the ants were moving in an army. I followed them with my eyes and then I saw a huge hand, dark and still, as if it were carved out of wood. A man lay facedown in the long grass, beneath the tangle of vines, in shadow. There were ants, masses of ants marching over my feet, crawling off the ball and down my arms, marching to that rising hum of noise and life in the garden. The ants were moving onto the body in two straight columns. There was a hole in his back, a hole from which he had bled, soaking his shirt, leaving wet sticky clumps on the grass. The noise of the garden was too loud now and made me wonder whether it was really insects and frogs, or rather a strange echo in my head. I smelled the blood above the fragrant frangipani, above the rotting leaves. The man’s head was turned to one side as if he were sleeping and I crouched down to see his face, the eyes shut tight with thick lashes, his mouth slightly open with still, full lips — he was somehow held in a dream, in a better sleep than the cold dead that happened with guns and invasions and guards and walls. He had the sleep of a tired man who could never be woken up, who would go on dreaming forever.
After Midnight
by Angelo R. Lacuesta
J.P. Rizal
When we finally roll out, our seats are pitched up like we’re on a plane lifting from the tarmac. My window’s open a crack and I’m breathing the firecracker fog like I’m swimming in it.
A harness of greasy chains moors us to the truck. There’s a little bit too much give. We lag a couple of seconds on the turns and sway loosely whenever there’s enough room to accelerate. The truck hits a pothole and we feel it late because our front wheels are off the ground.
There are still people out at this hour. They’re gawking at us as we rumble down the street. They look like they’ve never seen a smashed car and a tow truck in their lives. The girls are on the sidewalks sitting in plastic chairs with their butts out and their elbows on their knees. The glow of big-screen TVs is pumped out from the shadows in the doorways behind them. They look at me like I’m the one to feel sorry for and I can almost hear them clucking to themselves.
It doesn’t matter. It’s way after midnight now, and I’m far from the places where there are people I know. Actually, we really aren’t that far, but there’s a big difference between that side and this side and J.P. Rizal is the line in the middle.
The driver’s arm darts out of the truck window to flick a cigarette into the haze. I try my best to remember their faces but it’s too dark. I should have told them which route to take home but it’s pretty straightforward and I feel like they’re doing me a favor and I don’t want to mess things up. It’s New Year’s Eve and nobody would take my business and these guys came all the way from Caloocan or something like that.
I switch on the stereo even though I’m fully expecting it not to work. Instinct, I guess. While I’m still trying to remember what we were listening to before it happened, the speakers blast Patsy Cline singing “Walkin’ After Midnight.” Everything starts coming together.
She was messing with her phone, trying to make calls, trying to text, cursing every time it failed. A security guard came over waving his big flashlight in the air. He asked us if we were okay and I asked him if he knew the number of a towing company. He said no and walked over to my car shaking his head like it was his property or like this was any of his business. People get drunk, people get crazy this time of the year, the security guard was saying. I was in the middle of making all these calls and I got in his face and he sort of backed off. He was thinking maybe I was the one who was drunk or crazy on something. I gave him attitude, like things could be worse, buddy — it could be you instead of me. I stood around like I was a congressman and the pale girl with me was some hot starlet, when all I am is a guy making a living writing ad copy.
We heard the truck coming before we saw it. I was just about to give up and leave the car right in the middle of the street. The front of it was a lopsided mess but the rest of it was still an unmarred black, the nighttime sheen on the hood cutting through all that gunpowder smoke in the air.
There was a thin man and a fat man. It would have been funny if they weren’t there to tow my car. The fat man was just the driver and the muscle. He unloaded the chains from the truck and went under the car to hook them up. The thin man did most of the talking. He told us there was no room in the truck and we needed to get back into the car. I’d never been in any situation like this so it seemed like the most logical thing to do. I’d considered hailing a cab and making a convoy but it was all too much trouble.
We crawled back inside and the fat man pulled on another chain coming off the pulley. The tires lifted from the ground and the car jerked on the chains like it was a little toy. He kept pulling until I heard the front grill crunch hard against the top of the pulley. I gripped the steering wheel like an idiot and Andy giggled. She looked like every bit of her was ready to party again. She had her legs folded under her thighs and she was smoking a cigarette, just like I’d found her earlier, sitting and smoking in the VIP section at Club Vetica as if she’d been born there, which as far as I know is the only way you ever get into the VIP section of any joint worth going to.