MEMORY OF

May Now 24

Sir Ernie Yee died yesterday morning from a heart attack.

May Now 23

I call, choking, “Is this true?”

“Yes…”

NONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONONO

I hang up.

I call him. Ringing. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. You always pick up.

SUBSCRIBER CANNOT BE REACHED. PLEASE TRY YOUR CALL LATER.

I am choking.

A message comes:…Missed you…Have something for your eyes…I bring sad news though; Ernie Yee died today.

Wanting to scream NONONONONONONONONONONONOONO I reply, “I know.”

I call him again. Ringing. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. Pick up. You always pick up.

SUBSCRIBER CANNOT BE REACHED. PLEASE TRY YOUR CALL LATER.

I call again, “I need the number of Bobby V…”

I hang up.

A message continues: I’m in shock…Going to drink gin in memory of him…

A message comes: (Number)…

I do not reply.

I send a message to Bobby V, “Sir…Is this true?”

He says, “…called me. Nabigla ako. Didn’t know what to ask. I’m still hoping it’s not true.”

I reply, “I was supposed to come and see him and we would talk…”

We talk.

I vomit, feeling myself becoming faint…To go away…Go away…Sleep.

I hear Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata.

May Yesterday

I called him.

I nagged in jokes about his drinking our poison.

Only once a week, he said, no longer everyday, that rum.

And the cigarettes?

Only when he wrote, trying to finish his book of poems.

I squealed, “I want to read them!”

And the loneliness?

Sometimes but sighed, laughed.

He asked, “Now what do you think of this…”

I answered questions and later reminded him, “Stay healthy, okay? Until I grow up and you can stop working and I’ll take care of you. You’re still going to marry me, of course. You, me and Bobby V!”

He kept on laughing.

May 6 Then

The Ernesto Superal Yee a.k.a. Sir Ernie had welcomed the fellows who just flew in from Manila and arrived at the Occidental Hall in Silliman University with, “Where’s Mia Tijam? Who’s Mia Tijam here?”

         There I was in my light blue Tom & Jerry shirt, oversized drawstring khaki pants I filched from my brother, and white Bench sneakers my boyfriend bought me--- wincing and wanting to hide.

         I answered, “Yes, Sir?”

         I thought that I would be berated for sending a very curt message to the secretary of CAP for giving out my mobile number without asking for my permission.

         I had received a call from an unregistered number days before and I had thought that it was one of my stalkers with a new number and with the usual threats. The caller was a worried and anxious Mrs. Banzon asking me to watch over her daughter. I thought that she was the mother of one of my former students and that one of my former students had used me as the trustworthy chaperone in some fictional school out-of-town trip. But I was sure that I did not have a former student with that surname. It turned out that she was the mother of one of my fellows, got my number from the secretary of CAP, and that could I please watch over her daughter.

         I had asked, “How old is your daughter po Ma’am?”

         She had answered that her daughter was already 22.

         I had thought--- Diyos ko. Matanda na yan. Di na kailangan bantayan. Ayokong maging yaya. Then I snorted-- Look who’s talking. I’m already 28 and my Ate’s coming with me and staying for several days to help me settle in and watch over me---especially because I did not even know how to go about and get around the airport stuff and I snivel like a little girl when I get homesick.

         So I had laughed, “Sure po Ma’am. Bantayan ko po anak niyo.”

Sir Ernie laughingly said, “Finally! You’re here! I get to meet you!”

I thought Well, so much for staying anonymous--- since some people there were then giving me looks.

No, he did not berate me for the curt message to the secretary.

But it was an indication that I was remembered for being the constantly rejected applicant for years--- which made me visibly cringe while smiling and laughing. And really, who would not smile and laugh with Sir Ernie’s contagious joy and warmth?

And then he addressed my issue with the recommendation letter and said that there were applicants who get fellowships without a recommendation letter. That some get fellowships without even submitting works. And that sometimes all the applicants were good and it was tough deciding on who will be granted the fellowship. And then there were also budget constraints.

I thought while laughing at myself--- That angry application letter, too. I had really hoped that it was forgotten.

He did berate me for only submitting three texts all those years and only one was always especially and conventionally good enough for all the panelists. I thought--- Thankfully, I submitted five this time. But there we were chatting like two old gal pals.

I would have fallen in love with him but then again I was the wrong gender for him.

I did ask him to marry me though some time in the third week.

He had answered with a laugh and something like, “Buang!”

Always in those three weeks, he would ask, “And where have you been running off to, my dear girl?” He would speak of his love for the word, how this love made him feel unrewarded and unappreciated sometimes, and how he had become joyous and lonely from love.

On the third week, he had declared with that certificate given, “My favorite!”

He was a door with two warm hands who made me laugh, the first to say, “Write of the pain. Don’t hide it in that laughter.”

May Now 24

Sir Ernie died yesterday morning from a heart attack.

Twiggy told me in the afternoon.

I was choking, vomited, felt myself becoming faint…To go away…Away…Sleep.

May Now Just After Midnights Before

I called Twiggy, woke him up, apologized for the hour.

“No, no, it’s okay,” he said, “You okay?”

I said, “Just got off work, beyond exhaustion, felt the word ‘lonely’ whisper in my head when I saw the empty streets and orange lamps of the city.”

He had a fever.

I fussed.

He said that he saw Sir Ernie and that he was very thin.

He said that when I returned to Dumaguete last year, Sir Ernie was in the hospital.

He said that Sir Ernie couldn’t play the piano anymore because of his Arthritis.

Alarm calmed, I said, “I’ve been arranging the whole fucking lot so that I can go there next month, come and visit him. This time’s for him…”

May Now 24

Sir Ernie died yesterday morning from a heart attack.

Twiggy told me in the afternoon.

I was choking, vomited, felt myself becoming faint…To go away…

What’s wrong, they asked.

…died, he answered.

The silence of sleep was my answer.

Just before that:

Mom arrived.

I cried, so happy she’s finally home, relieved. Mom cried as she hugged and rocked me, said I was too thin, why was that but I looked good. I laughed--- when she used the word “erection” and that she wanted to see the recent sex scandal videos--- “A I live and breathe good Lord, what you have done to my mother?!”

After that, just before midnight:

I wake---Everyone was asleep--- Shower--- Sneak out to grant an invite--- To be saved from more----I drive----Into a memory of the last time I had done this--- February two years ago---Into this midnight now--- Zigzagging at 100 k/ph----Quinta---110----Quinta---120---Slide from accelerator to tap the break---Clutch---Clutch----Shift to Quarta---- Just in front were white tail lights--- No screeching of tires---- Just this flying---- Zipping smoothly around cars, buses, trucks in empty roads---This--- This I can control---Flying--- A reprieve from backpedaling against blows as I struggle to step back.

I kept on calling Sir Ernie, waiting for him to answer.

I want to scream at the onslaught of blows.

I arrive, chatter, shrugging sighs as answer to questions about the black mourning pin and the puffy eyes, ask, “Good boy, what’s wrong, huh? Why don’t you want to stay home?”

“Nothing…Nothing…”

I smile, “Nothing won’t drive us out of our homes at this hour…C’mon, let it out. It will kill you, you know.”

“I arrived last night from work…Broken stuff everywhere….Mother had a black eye…”

It all makes sense, doesn’t it----Wait for another sunrise----For the sun to rise----The night to fall away---In our grief---We close doors----Banging shut----To all stinging----From a heart failing----This time the scabs of death ripping---I feel like a daughter crying for her mother and mother refused my cries----

I say, “I understand. It’s painful to rear parents, huh?”

In my head, Dr. Stronzo says: IT’S NOW BACK TO DRIVING TO BE KILLED, HUH? ISN’T DRIVING FORBIDDEN AT THIS STATE?

And now:

I am told, “…No need for violence.”

I quietly snap.

I am told, “…Condolence.”

I hiss, “I detest that word.”

I am told, “…Let’s get together maybe sometime next week. Celebrate with those who knew him in that short time…”

I want to laugh----Time Continued----Can’t we all see the violence of the act of breathing itself amid the blows----From this I can’t seem to breathe----Past 4:00 pm now----Bobby V struggles to stay afloat and says… I guess it will “take practice like breathing”----I blink from the memory of that line----To remember that it is mine---From a smile----I read in my room Sir Ernie’s Prayer For Yuan ----I am one of his flowers.

I slept and woke for a Sister’s 35^th birthday.

Bearing gifts.

In my mind was a series of hazy slides of mouths in the gritty dark sucking and puffing air from cigarettes; burning cherries with their chatter; sipping poisonous gold to the Beatles’ Across The Universe; thinking perhaps it was the poisoned cherries and gold that killed his heart; asking perhaps it was the loneliness of those fingers pining for the piano; perhaps---

Waiting.

Birthday Sister sends a message, “Sorry, running late…”

I kept on calling and he wasn‘t answering.

Birthday Sister sends a message, “I’m walking towards you, baby.”

And I finally replied to unanswered messages, to one, “Drink rum in memory of him. Not gin.”

May Now 25

I climb 35 floors up, to make miracles, upon entering a box of lives----wanted to run out before I start weeping there for all those I refused to cry about---- With regret----Once more, too late----The clock says I cannot leave for a wake, a funeral----I stay.

May Now 26

Twiggy says, “It was Sir Ernie who wrote Photo Albums.”

A mistake in the earlier stages of swimming in the Dark Blue South Seas, it was a poem under my name but not mine, nobody had an answer as to why.

I say, “That just made me cry.”

He says, “I’m sorry.”

I say, “I read it, you know, after you sent DBSS (pdf). I could have written it, years from now.”

The Air said that it was all sadness and disappointments, that not using the space bar was showing lack of impulse control, and where was the bitch they all knew and loved?

The Wretched Bitch replied that Impulse control’s been in fuckery lately…Like for the past three years. Oh-ho, the castrating bitch is still around. Masquerades as a sweet toothy bitch sometimes, haha. But hey, life’s sad and I wusa-ed the rage away. Just emo drained and hormonally-weepy: not fangless.

How’s your nutdom?

May Now 27

The whole day a Bitch Bull infamous for “Again, Again, Again, There you go” hears exhausted and exasperated shrilling, “OPEN THAT MOUTH!”

The Bitch Bull winces, shakes head, The shit we are driven to do, and laugh The Leprechaun’s fangs are coming out, “Oh don’t you worry my dear Dudongs and Didays. You don’t sound as holy mother of godawful as they do.”

Laughter.

It is easy to laugh when high on painkillers and the pain screams of bleeding hollowness---

Unto a floating dinner, I drink to be grounded and I am asked, “Why do you want to burn bridges…”

I answer, “Why can’t we seem to separate the personal from the business…”

Later, in the Goodbye To Green Papaya Conversations, I ask Film and Theatre, “So which is more affective in the empirical sense? And what is the role of what you do in the formulation of a national consciousness, a national identity?”

One of the “best actors of the future” was a human drunken laughing and weaving and staggering into the seats next to me--- almost onto me--- to sleep. I pat his passed-out-sprawl like a baby, laughing an unharmed shrug to two alarmed hands pulling me away to safety, “Here, stand up first baby” and to two hands waking him as an apology to me, “Hey, I’m sorry about this”.

Tonight, I am called Margaret.

Impulse is dead.

May Now 28

The Debutante tells me that she will sing her debut tomorrow.

I clap a laugh, “Am I the fucking Oracle of Delphi or what?”

The Debutante laughs, leaves, and I wait for the Chipmunk.

The Chipmunk thought that it was my usual shindig--- impromptu parties of all these who and who gathering for an imperial summons.

I shook my head, knowing how shindigs have even become more reclusive and exclusive through the absence of Shrooms and THC.

I haven’t slept since Saturday.

May Now 29

In gratitude for staying, I am told, “I think you’re really an angel with----” the fingers sign horns.

The Zombie laughs my gratitude.

The Zombie is told to stay for more brainstorming strategies, “I need your brain.”

The Zombie stayed as long a it could until asked, “Hey, hey, where are you going?!’

I answer, “A wake.”

A wake: a series of hazy slides of aging mouths in the gritty dark sucking and puffing air from cigarettes; burning cherries with chatter; sipping poisonous gold that rambles on about this time on and that name on laughter.

I ask Bobby V, “How are you? How does he look…”

Bobby V answers, “I didn’t look. I want to remember him the way he was…”

I answer, “I understand.”

And was wants to be kept as is.

Cracking and spinning in this daze, I cry, “I’m sorry…”

The Debutante says, “Don’t be…”

I am told, “I’m sorry…”

Everyone says sorry for not knowing what to say or what to do to comfort grief.

I say, “Don’t be. The dead is dead and the business of the living is to survive it…”

Impulse is finally dead.

May Now 30

I wake up.

Today a friend is buried.

June Now 1

The dead, my friend, is remembered.