Ang Huling Sayaw ni Susan
(Susan's Last Dance)

I'd like to classify this blog entry as for adults only. I wanted to preserve all the decadence during the time that the events happened and so I decided to include a lot of offensive words which are commonly used by streetwalkers.


"Fear gripped my whole being as I heard gunshots in dissonance with the thumping of music from the nearby bars. I felt my knees turn into jelly as I lumbered towards the direction of the commotion...."


Manila.

I love hanging out at Rosie's Diner in Malate because of their exquisite Chili con Carne. I also get to meet a lot of "Magdalenas" --hookers-- here as they grab a quick bite before heading off to whatever hell-hole they called home. It was a rainy night and I had just finished doing an interview with two street walkers, their stories leaving a bad taste in the mouth, so to speak. So, I decided to duck into Rosie's to indulge in a bowl of Chili as my mind attempted to digest the stories which the two prostituted women told me. "Great!", I mumbled to myself. "I'll have a lot of materials for my compositions." This was a period when I was deep into writing feminist protest songs and decided that the best way to understand the situation was to be among the people whom I was writing about. I’ve previously done research among the prostituted children of Pagsanjan, Laguna- Which made me want to vomit and gave me endless nightmares of lifeless corpses of children floating in a sea of blood. The “Magdalenas” were my next stop.


I must have drank more beer than I should because I could not remember how we started talking. She sat beside me in one of the booths with over-stuffed chairs. She had long black hair, big black doe eyes with a world-weary gaze, pert nose, sensual lips and a mestiza complexion. She was built like those girls that I used to ogle at in the pages of Playboy Magazine when I was a teenager. I found myself staring at her tight spaghetti-strap top and had to pinch myself to remind me that I'm here to research on prostituted women, not to goof around with them. There I was, sitting closely and laughing with Susan.


I motioned one of the waitresses over and asked Susan,


"What do you want to eat?"


"I'll have Spaghetti with meatballs, a burger and some chips." she demurely answered, winking playfully at me as the waitress scribbled her order. Susan sidled closer to me after her order was taken, drunkenly settled her head on my shoulder. I started asking questions and she readily answered.


Susan was born and raised in the Bicol Region. Her father was a drunkard and used to beat her. Her brothers also treated her badly. Giggling and making obscene jokes while she talked, she stressed that she hates her father and brothers but loves her mother so much. Her mom, Nanay Anna, was sick with Cancer and she sends her money for treatment and medications. But when she mentioned the name of one of her brothers, Manuel, her voice took on an eerie tone. Susan said that Manuel was one of the main reasons why she fled from Bicol. Manuel was her first sexual experience. She said that the older brother came home drunk one night and went straight to her and banged her like a whore. After the initial rape, Manuel then, would do that to her whenever they were alone… even during the times when she was having her menstruation. "Typical story!" I thought. I was convincing myself to be brave and be detached... without much success.


Before I could ask another question, her food came.


The waitress arrived with her order and it was then that Susan's demeanor changed. While sipping from my beer bottle, I watched her. She sat with her back straight and attacked her food like she had not had a morsel to eat in days. I sat there, amazed at how she gobbled up the pasta, plate-sized burger and the hefty serving of fried potatoes. She did manage to smile at me from time to time in-between bites, though, which reminded me of an innocent young girl enjoying a hearty meal after getting a vaccine shot from the doctor’s clinic.


After she was done, I teasingly said "Wow! Where do you manage to put all of that food, Susan?". She smiled demurely and gave me a sudden smack in the arm.


"Ouch!"

"I'm sorry. Did it hurt?"

"Damn! You punch like Muhammad Ali and you ask if it hurt?"

"Hindot! Don't be such a wimp!" Another smile. "Will you take me home?"

"Okay. Where do you live?"

"Tanga! I meant to your place."

"Not possible."

"Why?"

"I'm here to do research, Susan. Not to fuck around."

"Research on what? Are you a reporter?" her voice became edgy and wary.


I offered her a cigarette, lit it then lit my own stick of poison. "No. I'm a songwriter. I write songs about what's going on in our society. I’m also a comic book scriptwriter and I also write scripts for television dramas. You know, Lovelfe Komiks, Precious, Tagalog Classics… Shocker Komiks… Regal Shockers… Viva Teledrama, etc….”


She waved a hand as if dismissing what I just said and let out a carefree laugh. "What for? Who would want to listen to a song or read a story about a whore?"


"People who want to know more. People who don't know. Perhaps those who already know but don’t have the guts to do something about it"


She was silent for a while, seemingly lost in thought, absently studying the hazy cigarette smoke surrounding us. Then, she retrieved money from her bag, placed it on the table, stood up and said "Take me to my house." Then she added, "Please." Another smile.


We went out of the restaurant and into the coolness of the early morning hours. The place was still bustling, playing the game of PREY AND PREDATOR. Australians, Japanese, Americans and god-knows-what-nationality hunting for that ever-famous "Little Brown Fucking Machines" as advertised in sleazy magazines in their countries. There were different playing fields in Malate, though. The Japanese would always opt for Filipina pussy. The Americans' taste is a bit diverse because some would go for "LBFM" while some would look for Filipino hunks. The worst were the Australians, not because they were the most noisy and most boisterous but because a lot of them would hunt for "young meat". Damned pedophiles who strictly adhere to their motto... "Eight is too late!", meaning that they prefer to stick their filthy cocks into the pussies and assholes of young girls and boys not older than seven years old. During my research work in Pagsanjan, Laguna, I also had a nightmarish time with a lot of Australians because they were the main seekers of young meat. Such a scary period in the flesh trade in Manila and the Philippines!!! What made things more scary was that there seemed to be a "supply" for every "market" just as long as the price was met.


Susan took my right arm and wrapped it around her shoulders as we walked amidst the johns, the pimps and the prostituted. There were also junkies and suppliers. All of them were busy doing business. My eyes were darting around, observing… every nerve straining to make sense of the madness while she was oblivious to the circus.


"One gets numb of it all after a while, Tony." Susan whispered when we were aboard a taxi going to Pasay City. "A person would learn to ignore the pain and humiliation... eventually."


Susan asked the driver to drop us off near a shanty town. Stumbling and precariously navigating our way through the dark alleys, we finally reached a small house with concrete walls, newly painted and way better than the other houses in the squatters’ area. Susan was drunkenly fumbling with her keys so, I took the initiative to open the door.

“Welcome to my palace! It’s in a squatters’ area, but it is still my palace.” She said with a drunken snort, waving her hand ceremoniously at the small space made more cramped by new appliances. “Soon enough, I’ll be moving to an apartment, so says one of my rabid suitors. Hah! That’s what they become when they see me dancing… Rabid!”


“I should leave now so you can rest.” I was trying to recall the way out of the maze of alleys that we went through.

“Stay.”

“I can’t.”

She lunged at me and kissed me, her mouth aggressively hungry and brazenly exploring mine. I pushed her away and managed a very weak, “No!”

“This is what you wanted, right?”

“No!” I was shaking.

“Gago! Hindot ka! Then, what the hell is that bulge in your pants???”

“That bulge is what I call weakness, Susan.” my voice was shaky. “I’m sorry but we can’t do this. We can be friends, right? You can be my elder sister.”

“I don’t want to be your elder sister. I want you to fuck me! Now!”

“I’m different from the guys that you meet in Malate.”

“Tangina!” she said with amusement mixed with disgust. “Are you gay?”

“No. I just want to be your friend.” My voice was shaking and only above a whisper.

I suddenly had the urgent need to bolt out of the door. I stumbled along the alley, looking for my way out of the maze of shanties… Made more confused by the drunken haze in which I was in… Trying to save face from giving in to my weakness and to what Susan was offering me. Desperately trying not to go down to the pathetic level of the meat hunters in Malate!

Behind me, I heard her shouting. “Gago! Take care! Come and visit me at the Blue Bayou! That’s where I dance!”


I eased back into my routine during the next weeks. Doing this and doing that. Writing this and writing that. Going here and going there. I was still trying to obliterate the bad taste which the encounter with Susan left in my being’s mouth.

However, I went to the Blue Bayou soon enough. And as a pimp was roughly pulling me into the bar, a kiss landed on my left cheek. When I turned, it was Susan… Smiling like a little girl who have finally seen her long lost friend.

Susan wore a very small bra and a negligible bikini panty. “Oh, brother!” I muttered to myself.

“I can’t stay long. I just wanted to say sorry.” I sheepishly said.

She laughed and pulled me into a booth, teasingly straddled me and waved to a waiter. “Take his orders. I’ll pay for his tab.”

“I want to be your friend, too.” She softly whispered into my ear.


That started of our very strange friendship. Once in a while, she would try to tease me but when things went too “greasy”, all we had to do was to hit each other on the arm. Whenever I had free time, I would go to the Blue Bayou. Susan would always pay for my tab. I was also able to watch her dance and, as naughty as she was, she would always do a lap dance for me… stark naked. This embarrassed me so endlessly, and I would always be inconvenienced by that other “head” which was mindlessly bulging in my pants so, I asked her not to do this anymore.


There were times when she would go out with a customer and she would go to my table and put money into my pocket. “For your tab and for your taxi going home.” She would whisper. “Don’t wait for me. I’m already a big girl.”


Susan showed me the ins and outs of the Malate flesh trade. She introduced me to all sorts of pimps who managed stables of prostituted people (Adults and children) from the least expensive to the most expensive and I got to interview a lot of Magdalenas and prostituted children. All of them left me feeling dazed after talking to them. It was like putting poison into my own mouth… It was like digging my own grave… just talking to them and letting their pains worm into the very fiber of my being made me want to run as far as possible. Talking to the pimps and drug dealers was a much more depressing story.


Many sleepless nights followed as the anguish of every prostituted woman, man and child hounded me and ran me down, eventually reducing me into a meal twice eaten and twice crapped. I felt as if I was being eaten alive and felt the pain of every bite being done on my prone body.


But I stayed, letting myself go with the turbulent flow of the Malate scene. Susan really knew how the “system” worked. The what, who where, when… except for the “why”. “There’s no reason for all of this, Tony. Well, maybe, it’s just because the world has already gone to hell.” she would whisper in my ear so that the other people won’t hear.


What happened was, Susan became my “elder sister”. We started to treat each other as flesh and blood. Susan would always wrap her arms around me and say, “I just wish that you are really my brother. Anyway, you are my brother now and I am so thankful.”


“I AM your brother, Ate Susan!” I’d say while doing my best to prevent the tears from gushing out. I could feel her emptiness and she had filled me with it.


Susan had one great regret. That was not being able to show her face to her mother. Nanay Anna was sick with cancer. Whatever kind of cancer it was, Susan and I never bothered to know because we were already seeing a lot of “cancer” on the streets. Susan told Nanay Anna that she was working as a secretary in Makati City and sent her money for her treatment and medicines.


But that was also the time when Susan would get drunk and ramble about how she loves her mother. She would always grab my collar, pull me close to her and shower me with boozy spittle while saying “When I’m dead, you should go to my mother and tell her that I am so sorry. I only lived the life of a whore because I do not have any other choice.”


“You still have a choice now, Susan. You can start anew. I can teach you how to write and…”

“Crap! What??? So I can earn a few lousy Pesos??? I earn more than what a doctor does, Tony!!! Besides, a whore like me can only fuck! And that’s where I get the money that I send to my mother for her treatment… Fucking!”

“Stop it!” I would say weakly.

“Why? It’s true, isn’t it???” she would snap.

I always feel my knees getting rubbery and soft whenever we get into these discussions of her EMPHASIZING her being a whore so, I would just shut up and look away.

She also started telling me things about the drug trade in Manila and what, how and where to score… Including who were involved.

“How’d you know about all of these things?”

“I don’t have to study in U.P. to know a lot.”

“C’mon!”

“One of my suitors is called Blackie. He always wears black clothes.” she told me. “He’s a big-shot assistant of a politician here in Manila.”

“Oh!” I knew who she was referring to and started to get a very sick feeling churning in my stomach. Things started to get scary that I started shutting these things out of my mind whenever she would talk about them.

I did not want to “pollute” my system further.


One night, Susan and I were walking arm-in arm along the street. That was after I picked her up from the Blue Bayou after her dancing gig.

“Can you teach me how to write?” asked Susan.

“Sure! What??? You want to write a book?” I teasingly grinned at her. Then she elbowed me in the ribs. “Ouch! What???” I protested.

“I’m serious. I won’t dance again. .. ever!” she intoned in an eerie manner. “I don’t want to do bad things anymore.”

I kissed her cheek and said, “Way to go! Let’s start working on some stories on…”

I stopped talking when a car suddenly screeched beside us. Four men got out and three accosted Susan while the biggest and the most mean-looking grabbed my hair and pushed my head down. But not before I caught a glimpse of “Blackie”. I’ve seen the bastard’s pictures on some magazines.

I could hear voices, one of them Susan’s voice screaming. “Let go of him! He’s just a friend. He’s not involved here!”

The big man kept his scalping hold on my head and dragged me inside a bar. He seated me on a chair and sat close to me, our faces almost touching. He glowered. “Putangina mo! What do you know?”

“About what?”

A punch landed on my stomach.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please do not hurt Susan!” I barely whispered while gasping and doubling over from the pain.

A punch landed on my back. “Am I going to die now???” I meekly thought.

“I can kill you right here, right now. What do you know?” Through clenched teeth.

“What are you talking abou…”

A blow landed on the back of my head and I saw a white and bright scorching explosion in my brain…. Then, everything went black.


It must have been minutes, or maybe hours. But when I came to, I heard a gunshot. Then another, and another…

Despite the buckling knees which were refusing to follow the commands of my brain, I managed to get on my feet. My whole body was enveloped with pain and was covered with the cold sweat of sheer terror.

Fear gripped my whole being as I heard more gunshots in dissonance with the thumping of music from the nearby bars. I felt my knees turn into jelly as I lumbered towards the direction of the commotion.

I knelt, clothes immediately soaked by blood. There was blood everywhere... a warm salty liquid squirting into my face. I tried to put pressure on the wounds with trembling hands to quell the spurting liquid. Feeling like sticking my thumb into a hole in a dam.

"Putangina! You promised me! Tell me that you'll fulfill your promise!", it was a bleak gasping as she tried to put on her usual game face of toughness. "You'll go to my mother and tell her that I'm so sorry, won't you?" Tears fell from my eyes as I bent closer to grasp what she was saying. "Don't talk now. Everything will be fine. An ambulance is on its way. Yes. Yes! I'll go to your mom.", I said realizing that we're running out of time.

“They won’t bother you anymore. It’s me that they wanted.” She managed a raspy whisper.

“Why did they do this???”

“I wanted to be free. I can’t do bad things anymore. Not now that… I already have you” Susan smiled as she struggled to release the words. “You showed me what is… right.”

“Hush now. You’ll be fine. I’ll always be with you”

“You won’t be with me. I'm dying. You’ll go to heaven… I’ll go to hell.” She barely whispered, gasping for air.

“You won’t die… You’ll live.” I lied.

I shuddered as her body went into spasm, her eyes showing white. I screamed useless obscenities into the night, feeling her pain dig into my own consciousness like sharp talons. Then she was still. I gently held her. I did not dare let my eyes stray from her face. I wanted to engrave every detail of her memory onto my brain.


Susan is at peace now.


“Blackie” or any of his cohorts were not charged of anything. Nobody wanted to stand witness. After a few weeks, though, I received news that “Blackie” and his companions who murdered Susan were gunned down in separate incidents. All of them were riddled with bullets the same way they riddled my dear Susan with lead.


As the smoke cleared, I gathered the nerve to go to Nanay Anna. While I was face to face with her, I felt that Susan was speaking though my mouth. It was eerie and I still can not find the words to describe what happened in Bicol.


I have kept these experiences tightly-locked inside me through the years but I have subsisted on them. Sick as it may seem, I still bring myself to that place in my mind where I keep this bloody scene, from time to time … That’s whenever I feel myself lapsing into a self-righteous smugness of the semi-bourgeois world that I exist in.


It makes me feel alive to still be touched by Susan’s anguish and sufferings in life.


From these experiences, I have derived the inspiration for some songs like “Bangon, Maria!” and “Sawang-sawa na Ako” (I am Fed Up). It might be relevant to note that I wrote “Sawang-sawa na Ako” in less than 30 minutes. The songs which became the fruits of these experiences were songs which screamed for justice for women and equality. Susan also gifted me with inspirations for a lot of scripts and short stories.


For all that it is worth, I feel that Susan is still with me… And I love her still being close to me.

Peace to all! May God always be with us!

NGITI NI YOHAN
(Yohan’s Smile)

A lot of friends have been asking me to write an article on how the guitar piece “Ngiti ni Yohan” came to be. Here’s the story...
I write music based on what I see and hear and feel and can understand and also from matters which I am attempting to comprehend.
I wrote “Ngiti ni Yohan” based on what I feel and heard and saw and understood and matters that I am still learning to comprehend… My dear Yohan’s magical smile.
I remember when Yohan was still a small bundle of joy. I was trying my best to finish a musical composition and he just kept climbing on my back, tickling my nose, tugging at my earlobes, performing all sorts of antics, and doing his best to distract me so that I’d play games with him. But his Tatay was hell-bent on completing what he was working on.

Yohan, then, started on a new tack. He knows that I get easily distracted upon hearing dissonant notes while slaving on a musical piece. Yohan, started humming. Just a note in the beginning (Mi), then joined by a few more notes later on. He was trying to be dissonant but he just can NOT!

Anyway, Yohan tried his best in singing discordantly. From Mi, he added a Do sharp and then a Ti and then another Mi. Mi, Do sharp, Ti and Mi.. Again and again and again. He didn’t realize that I was warming up to the germinal musical idea that he was offering me.
Finally, I stopped what I was doing and he climbed off my back and sat face to face with me, staring with eyes full of expectations and lovable mischief. It was then that I asked him, “What song are you humming?” Yohan shrugged and said “Wala lang, Tatay!” (It’s nothing, Father!) and then gave me the sweetest smile which I will never ever forget! It was a smile any father would die for!!!
As usual, Yohan won. And as we played games, four notes were beautifully resonating inside my head. Mi, Do sharp, Ti and Mi!
From those four notes, I developed the music for “Ngiti ni Yohan”. After weaving the initial part of the piece, I attempted to write lyrics for it, but discovered that no words can paint the picture that I wanted to show to my son.
After finishing the piece, I was inspired to work on the “Yohan Sketches” which consists of Classical Guitar works inspired by and dedicated to my son. But there will be other opportunities in “unveiling” the other pieces.
Yohan’s smile is more heart-warming now that he has grown to be such a fine, gentle, talented and smart young man. He has become a 15 year-old gentleman who is about to enter his freshman year in college this coming June. He will soon leave Rica and me.
For now, this father would like to close his eyes and go back to the times when his little Yohan would climb on his father’s back, tickle his father’s nose, tug at his father’s earlobes, perform all sorts of antics... showing his Tatay who the real boss is.

THIS CROSS IS MINE!!!


November 19th, 2007 by Tony Palis

(I wrote this blog on November 19th, 2007 on another blog site. Some recent events urged me to re-publish this on this new blog site that I have just started to use.)

Sometimes, I feel that the cross that I am carrying is just too heavy for me! Not that I am complaining to God about the tasks that He has given me but…it’s just that there are times when I feel like my back is about to break, my knees about to fold and my feet no longer to take a step further.

I serve in a church right smack in the middle of a “slum area”… a “squatters’ area”. The poorest of the poor all thrown together into a hell-hole of a place. I take care of around 300 souls, a lot of them are former prostitutes, guns-for-hire, robbers, etc.

Yesterday, there was another crisis in my church… I was told that an 18-year old girl had been “possessed” by the devil. People said that she had been acting strange for the past few days. I went to her “barung-barong” (shanty) and quickly recognized the symptoms of rabies in her. Well, her mouth was already frothing and she did look like she was being taken over by the devil!!! It was horrid!!! I immediately rushed her to the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (R.I.T.M.), a hospital specializing in these kinds of cases. But it was too late. The rabies virus had already destroyed her nervous system… Her brain was already devastated and stopped functioning after I brought her to the medical facility. Her heart stopped beating after a few more hours.

The girl’s name was Monica, 18 years old, a former prostituted woman and a single mother… a bite from a rat killed her. (Doctors may argue about rats giving "dry bites"- meaning that rats do not spread rabies. But the case was a clear-cut example of rabies infection.)

There are times when I get the impression that there are more rats than people where Monica lived. Well, rats were already teeming in that place even before people started settling there. One would ask, “Why would people move to a place where pests abound?” They would answer, “Why not? We have no other place to go to!”

This is not the first time that a church mate of mine was killed by rabies. There was Totoy (An 8-year old boy), Nanay Crising (60 years old) and a lot more!!!

There were also victims of food poisoning… Popong, Michael and Steven who only wanted to have a taste of fried chicken. They pooled in their money to buy “Tirtir” or “Tira-tira” which were sold on the streets. “Tirtir” or “Tira-tira” are left-over fried chicken from Jollibee or McDonald’s which are collected by scavengers from garbage bins, re-fried and sold to people who can not afford to buy from those fastfood restaurants. Those three children exhibited severe symptoms of food poisoning after a few hours but were not rushed to the hospital by their parents that night because… They did not have money. By the time I was alerted and was able to rush those kids to the hospital, it was also too late. Brain damage had already set-in due to severe dehydration and high-grade fever.

Steven and Michael were 8 years old while Popong was merely 5 years old. They did not want to eat rice and SALT that night. Their desire to eat something "special" killed them.

There are times when I do not want to go there anymore!!!! My heart keeps on getting shattered into a million pieces whenever things like these happen. There are times when I just pray that God would send me to serve in another church… a less heart-breaking one!!!… a church where people don’t die because of empty pockets… a place where already shattered hopes and dreams are not being pulverized again and again by helplessness. I always ask the question: "Why is this happening to those poor people???"… Then I would always open the Holy Bible and read Ecclesiastes 3:1-11. Indeed! There is a time for everything. God’s plans are revealed slowly and, I guess, all we’d need to understand those plans is faith in Him.

I have learned to trust in God’s plans and in His infinite wisdom! The Holy Spirit is always there to comfort, guide and encourage me, along with the people whom I serve! Yes! I will bear this cross and serve wherever He wants to send me. I will bear this cross with strength in my soul and a smile on my face because I know that this
is nothing, compared to Christ’s sufferings.

Yes! I will bear this cross because it is MINE!

Peace and love to all! God be with you!

(Additional note, as to why I re-published this article... Last January 29, two more kids from my church succumbed to Rabies. I was attending the First Philippine International Guitar Festival 2010 at that time and found it very difficult to think about music while the people whom I love are dying. Before the Festival was over, I was able to transform my grief into inspiration and was able to write songs, Classical Guitar pieces and do some arrangements. I was wondering as to how those kids who died would be if they had the chance to grow up, fall in love and have a family... grow old... I was able to come up with an arrangement for three Classical Guitars for Rey Valera's "Kahit Maputi na ang Buhok Ko".)