Get it in 1

1.

As I awake and into the first smoke of Day 1, I resolved to do what makes me happy in the year that the world ends according to a calendar long dead. I commit to being happy and prepare to say “Fuck You All Normalcy”.

On Day 1, at Mass, youngest sister cries in exasperation from her son’s stubborn demons. As we are all required to say “Peace Be With You”, youngest sister ignores her son’s “sorry” and says, “Sorry is not enough”.

I shake my head as I smile, There you go, Boy. Your lessons on How The Hell Do I Understand Women begins. And you seriously don’t fuck with the baby of the family. You make her cry and you mess with all your mamas and papas--- you get the evil dagger looks from her Ates and Manoy. Check Pops? He’s not pissed. He’s amused. Good.

And being the only grandson, he sidles up to his grandmother who then hugs him. I shake my head and laugh, Well, there’s your Mama and you know she will always be on your side and you know she’s the boss. The boy is smart.

Flashback to 12.25.2011

C’mon, stop watching TV coz it’s time for your bath. Your sisters are done. We’re going to Mass and we can’t be late.

----But it’s still early! And why can’t the others go first?!

Because the others are still doing something. There are many of us. There’s a schedule.

---- But I’ll just sweat again!

Then don’t move around so much. And you’ll hardly stink. C’mon.

---- But you’re not listening to me!

I hear you. You don’t have to shout.

--- Why aren’t you listening to me?! I don’t want to take a bath yet!

You have to take a bath now because there are four other people who will use the bathroom after you. It’s 4 already. The mass is at 5:30. I also have to get ready and I still have other things to do.

---- I don’t want to take a bath yet! And why are you telling me what to do?! I’m not even your son!

And there I lost my temper. I growl, “You’ve turned out into a brat. You do what I tell you to do. And you don’t get to talk to me like that. Nobody is allowed to talk to me like that. If you don’t want to take a bath, fine.”

And I walked away, feeling like crying.

Pops then exclaimed, “Oh, why is there no one minding the child? He can’t reach the switch for the shower heater.”

I answered back, “Let him be! Let him do it himself! We were all bathing ourselves at his age and minding other things!”

As I vent out my frustration via text to a friend. It gets like that, my friend said, especially when they’re getting older. It hurts, yes, but shrug it off.

Pops was told by second sister about how I lost my temper. She had taken over supervising his bath, talked to him about not talking to me like that. He approached me after.

---- Inay? Sorry po.

‘Boy, I’m not your mom but I’m your second mom. I’ve been taking care of you since you’re a baby, since you were inside your Mommy’s tummy. To me, you’re my baby. That’s why you call me Inay. Don’t talk to me like that ever again, ok? And don’t talk to your Mommy that way.

Because next time I just might beat the crap out of you.

And I don’t want to do that.

Ever.

And because I don’t want to do that, there are switches to the heart turned so that it won’t care so much, won’t get so hurt.

--- I love you, Inay.

I love you too, baby. When you become a man, don’t make women cry so much, ok?

And then I cried.

1.

On Day 1, at Mass, there is a creature in the ceiling of the Cathedral that looks like a giant bug, like the bugs in my room, like a huge zebra-striped leech.

On Day 1, at Mass, we are asked what do we leave the house without? The Church says, “Jesus.” I say, “The cross?”

On Day 1, at Mass, beside me is Father sitting asleep. He wakes up and says, “Nobody dances the Pastora anymore.” A dance for the New Year, umbrellas and skirts decorated with flowers made of crepe or felt paper.

On Day 1, at lunch after Mass, I am asked by my first niece, “Where is Itay?” She is quickly admonished by her brother, “Told you not to say that word!” He spells it out, like a bad word, which makes me laugh.

Here we go again. How to do this and get it finally over with?

I blurt out, “He’s dead.”

My niece is all wide-eyed and open-mouthed shocked, “HAH?!”

Oh shit. Oh shit. Is she gonna cry?! Oh shit.

My nephew says, “Yay!”

I laugh.

Father pipes in, “He’s buried.”

My niece asks, “Did he go to Heaven?”

I say, “People who are good go to Heaven they say. People who are bad go to Hell they say. There’s no more Purgatory, according to Vatican II in 2007. You can pray for him, if you like.”

Mother is all wide-eyed and open-mouthed shocked, “HAH?!”

I nod, “Yep. Limbo does not exist.”

I ask youngest sister what she tells them whenever they ask about their second father. She says, “I tell them that he went abroad, far away, that he’s never coming back.”

I laugh, “We’ll, I told them that he’s dead, so there.”

Youngest sister slaps my arm, “HAH?!”

I laugh again, “Get with the program, bitch.”

I’ll deal with it when the time comes that they start on Facebook and find out that the dead is alive.