Uglier Than You and I

We can go for a walk where it's quiet and dry
And talk about precious things
- The Smiths

Let's say my voice is okay. All right? Let's say it's okay enough so I can sing for a mediocre rock band and get a few voice-over gigs punted my way. It's solid enough so it doesn't crack while I'm talking in mid-sentence, the way it does for some unfortunate guys, who, when they're ordering from McDonald's, will say something like, "I want a cheeseBUR!ger and a Coke." You know what I'm talking about.

Problem is, I still haven't met anyone else who receives unwelcome attention just because of her voice. If you've heard me talk, you would get what I'm driving at. My voice is deeper than that of your average 25-year old, a bit on the husky side, with a lot of caramel tones to it. Humor me, I'm flattering myself! And I should, goddammit, because I've received too many disparaging comments about my voice and what it says of my person, oh, these remarks were designed to break me and reduce me to a self-loathing pile of flesh and fat, cursing my own vocal co--

Anyway, so yes, people have been insensitive and tactless. I've been told once, over the phone, that I sounded like I was in my forties. IN MY FORTIES!! As in, with eight wriggling toddlers clamped to my torso? In my forties, with a soiled diaper stuck to my face and an unshaven, potbellied husband asking me for money and sex? Fucking shit.

And that isn't the end of it. A couple of months ago, I got into one of the elevators in our building, just thinking about work and life in general and the mystery of halitosis, when someone snuck between the doors just as I was about to close them. "Whoops, sorry," I said, deeply apologetic. Shutting elevator doors on people gives me literal spasms of guilt, which is funny, since I'm one of the meanest people I know and am hardly ever contrite for anything I do.

Anyway, so it was just him and me in that mirrored elevator, flying up through the floors in a most intimate situation. This is normally a great time for throat-clearing, feet-shuffling, and secret farting, activities which establish lasting ties of friendship and affection between strangers. But of course he had to ruin it all by jumpstarting a conversation, which began like so:

Unknown Man: Excuse me, lalake ka ba, o babae?

Oh, wow. This was a complete, absolute winner. I swung around to face Unknown Man, who was leaning casually against one corner of the elevator, and told him that I was, indeed, female. It was almost pathetic, the fact that I needed to prove that I was born with a functional pair of ovaries and a cushiony uterus, perfect for unwanted pregnancies. Unknown Man nodded thoughtfully when I responded, and after a slight pause, came back with another question.

Unknown Man: Kung ganoon, ba't ganyan ang boses mo?
Me: (obviously vexed) Ano'ng problema sa boses ko?
Unknown Man: Parang ang lalim eh.
Me: Bosing, babae ako.
Unknown Man: Totoo?
Me: (incredulous) Mukha ba akong lalake??

This man was relentless, unforgiving. He must have been brought up in a cruel household, his folks must have spanked him with the bottom of a gigantic frying pan. I could already imagine it. Growing up, the rest of the kids must have ostracized him. During his free time, he tortured cute, unsuspecting animals and set fire to spiders. Girls rejected him. No wonder he was preying on me, lashing out on me for all the times that Ching, Lorna, and Jonalyn told him that he was "just a friend".

Unknown Man: (quickly) Hindi naman sa ganun. Yung boses mo lang kasi, masyadong malalim.
Me: Eh ganun lang talaga. Malalim lang talaga boses ko.
Unknown Man: (smiling) Miss, taga-States ka ba?
Me: Deins. Taga-Pinas ako.
Unknown Man: Ba't ganyan ang accent mo?
Me: Ewan ko.
Unknown Man: Call center ka ba?
Me: Deins. Writer po ako.
Unknown Man: Sa dyaryo o magasin?

At this point, it hit me that Unknown Man was asking too many questions, that he was getting creepy, grinning slyly at me like that, his shirt stretched so tight over his gut that I could make out the pit of his navel through the fabric. I could even make out his nipples, but I don't want to refer to his nipples more than thrice in this post, so that's the last you'll hear of his tits. This guy was, without a doubt, a consummate scuzzball, a flea farm, the ultimate source of pubic crabs. My stop was on the 13th floor, and we were already at 11, but the damn elevator couldn't seem to go fast enough--

Unknown Man: Miss, anong floor ka?
Me: Thirteenth.
Unknown Man: Ah.
Me: --
Unknown Man: Anong pangalan mo?
Me: --

All of a sudden, a chorus of angels, redemption at hand, the elevator doors whooshing open to the expanse of the 13th floor. I stepped out and was about to do a little jig of joy when Unknown Man stepped out as well, smiling at me.

Unknown Man: Actually, sa 14th floor ako.
Me: Okay.
Unknown Man: Kung gusto mo ako hanapin, andun lang ako.
Me: Fine.
Unknown Man: Miss, anong number mo?

I'd had enough of this joke. It had run on for too long, it wasn't funny, and I was annoyed that my little jig of joy had been interrupted by this chumbucket of a man. He was still calling out to me, but I was gone, zooming through the hall, faster than a rocket, heading towards the airconditioned safety of my office.

I don't know about you, but I think women all over should be spared from such Unknown Men. I believe that ensuring the safety of the general public is paramount, and that some people have to make personal sacrifices to this end. Ching, Lorna, Jonalyn, wherever you are, the fact that this man is still running amok is YOUR FAULT. You shouldn't have told him you were "just friends". You should have gone on one harmless date with him -- just look at the sort of mess one broken heart could result in! One date. Just watch out for those pubic crabs, though.

Biography

It all began early on in the 20th century, in 1938, in the unassuming municipality of La Castellana, Negros Occidental. In a number of years, the Japanese would have come thundering in with their bayonets, their keening planes, and their intractable appetite for destruction. But the year is 1938, and the townsfolk won't recognize the auguries of discord until much later.

It's also safe to assume that when Leonila Bautista Paderna gave birth to her third son that year, she had no clue what a tornado of a boy he would turn out to be, ripping into everybody's hearts and getting away scot-free every time, a grin spreading across his face at each successful escape.

In school, he shat in one of the Christmas jars ranged proudly inside the principal's office: his idea of a joke. He swilled ink around his mouth and sent the girls shrieking with his blackened teeth. He cut classes habitually, mostly because he was too damn lazy to listen, and all he could think about, really, was trotting off to the nearest creek to go fishing.

If he wasn't reeling in the hapless fish during class hours, he was scurrying back to the land that his family lorded over, deliriously happy to be unhampered by the morass of formal education. In the fields, he would heft himself onto the back of an ill-tempered carabao and spend the rest of the afternoon smoking stolen cigarettes and keeping the flies at bay, which he couldn't, because he stank as badly as the carabao did. Carabao, dung, boy, they were all the same for the damn flies.

Nobody thought he would grow up to be handsome, handsome enough to keep scores of girls trailing in his wake, young women and bent old ladies batting their eyelashes at him in unison. In college, he decided his life would be all about truancy. Booze! Dames! He piddled around in jobs, piddled around with women well until his forties, until he ran headlong into the woman whose wit, flinty eyes, and proud carriage kept him rooted to a final, single spot.

And then two daughters came tumbling in, two little hurricanes in the house, always a melee forming in the living room and the kitchen and the car. Once he had those girls, though, he let his former life recede from the landscape he now occupied. Just one bottle of beer every night, and in time, he needed the alcohol no more. He became famous for his Kare Kare, which went on to be the best in all of human history. He was a genius in the kitchen and in many other secret ways. When his daughters were in grade school, he handed them copies of National Geographic and told them the pictures inside were only half the fun, that they had to love the words as well. He was a rapacious reader, and often drifted off to sleep with a book on his chest and his glasses still perched on the bridge of his nose.

When his younger daughter hit High School, she began joining him in his morning walks, the two of them huffing up and down the snaking, twining roads at the break of dawn. He wished a good morning to everyone he met, whether it was a farmer carrying a sack uphill or a fresh-faced couple jogging leisurely. Sometimes they smiled back and greeted him, and sometimes they turned away, too surprised at a stranger's warmth. The daughter asked him once, Why do you keep on saying good morning to these people? And he said, It doesn't hurt to give a little kindness when you can.

When both his girls moved to the opposite end of the country for university, there was no one left but the wife to talk to, and he was fine with that. They got a dachshund and named him Coco. The household help had also left them, so he began doing the laundry for his wife, heaving over the large basin of clothes every evening. As was his habit, he paid weekly visits to his fruit farm in Kidapawan, where every tree he saw concealed the miracle of fruit, and he waited until each globe of seed and pulp sprung free in wild abundance and hung heavy from the branches.

The girls still called him up, and whenever the younger one did, she would dissolve into a blubbering puddle of tears, wanting to go back home. He still went on his morning walks with Coco the dachshund, still cooked for his wife, did the laundry, drove for three hours to visit the fruit farm. The house was mostly empty by then, but he killed time by watching documentaries on TV and doing crossword puzzles. He chopped firewood sometimes, and each time he did, he did it with astonishing strength.

He turned 70 today, and his younger daughter woke up at 6 in the morning to call him up and greet him a Happy Birthday. She calls him her Easter Egg dad, because he seems so much like that holiday token, ovoid, containing many surprises. He thanks her and tells her it's good to be 70 and healthy, still sharp, and he wants to know how she is. Is she better? Is she okay? She assures him that she is. She tells him she misses him, and that she loves him. He has just turned 70, and she is only 24, but she loves him so that in her world, he is immortal, larger than his own body, unbound from time.