Diary 21

Elmo pressed the notebook against his chest.

"What in the world is this?" he asked. "This is a wild diary. Was he Catholic or what?"

"See what I mean?"I replied with a sigh of relief. I was comforted by the realization that I was beginning to have a witness to the mysteries I am now witnessing.

"Whoever this guy is or was, I'd like to meet him."

"What diary did you read?"

His mouth was wide open. "Sex, and more wild sex diary."

I was expecting a more profound answer from him. Sex was the farthest in my mind at this time. I stretched out on his bed and stared at him. "I thought you found something deep or philosophical."

His lips widened into a grin. "But I just did. What else can you call these but deep and philosophical sex?"

"There is more about him than sex."

Elmo looked rabid. "Please describe this fellow."

"He was tall, well tanned and very handsome."

"Right." He said, teasing. "Now, describe how he made love with you."

"What do you mean made love?"

He opened the diary and read it aloud.

"...I know what this dirty old fag wants. If it wasn't for his money, I wouldn't even get near him. Argh. I am about to throw up now just thinking about it . . . He rolled over and moaned and trembled . . . how could he enjoy this? His sweat against my skin was disgusting . . . then he asked me to get inside him. I felt like an enema . . . "

The words were like razors' blade cutting my skin. I didn't know what took over me. I grabbed the notebook away from Elmo and threw it to the floor. My outburst surprised him.

"Antonio, what the hell is going on?" he asked as he watched in disbelief the way I reacted.

"He would not dare do that." I said.

"Oh don't be ridiculous. This is just a diary."

"Just a diary? He became my best friend, man."

Elmo blushed; he studied me carefully.

I apologized after regaining my composure. "I didn't mean to act that way."I said as I wiped the sweat forming on my face and pretended to proceed to reading the diaries.

"Since when did you start seeing this guy?"

I shook my head. "Two weeks ago. Since then, he began surfacing in my daily life."

"Antonio, I cannot figure the head and tail of your story. I am beginning to get confused too . . A ghost is there. A hallucination is probable too. You say he is dead but came back in the form of human flesh, you touched him, felt him, talked with him. Now, you react like some madman to his diaries, for all I care he wrote them in fantasy. Antonio, what is wrong? Have you fallen in love with a ghost?"

"You're full of crap Elmo."

We remained silent for a long time.

I continued reading the diaries. Elmo yawned and fell asleep. In silence, based on the diaries, I began to piece together Roberto Policarpio's past, reconstructed his brief life on earth. . .

Roberto's diaries were handwritten on 5 X 8 inch Sterno Shorthand notebooks. His penmanship possessed feminine grace, of varied styles, which relied on the emotions of the moment. Addressed to Dear God, his notes took a span of eight years. The ink was colorful, but not intentionally colorful, he wrote as if he took any available pen whenever he felt he needed to make an entry to his diary. The pages were inked in blue, black, green and red. Symbols were placed in between lines and pages like a dried leaf, a blot of tear or sweat or saliva, a dried gardenia, a telephone number, street directions, hundreds of names, local and foreign.

The initial entry appeared to have been written out of desperation to talk with someone. He wrote out of fear and loneliness in the barrio Santo Domingo of Sual in the province of Pangasinan where even the silent blades of rice could echo whispers. He refused to confide his secrets with anyone, afraid his secrets would spill out from house to house, village to village and he'd be condemned.

Most of his diaries were impressions, were mostly lacking actions. They read like prayers. Recreating a life story out of these was difficult, his real life was hidden beneath words, swimming in empty spaces. All I could deduce were unwritten feelings. There was a meaning behind a page that bore only the date and Dear God, for example, and I have to figure out that meaning; there was a lot of inconsistencies with his entries. Some entries were recorded daily in a month followed by nothing the next two months; there were reasons why an entry contained only one sentence, or why it took the length of a short story. Again, I have to figure that out. Roberto Policarpio wrote like a priest, an educator, a sociologist, a story teller, a doctor, a student, a hustler, a model. Calm at one point, explosive at another. His diaries revealed the different faces of the same man. In reading and deconstructing them, my affinity and bond with him got stronger.

I could not go on turning the pages without long pauses. I marveled at their beauty. Like jewels, these pages contained the life of a human being that once walked the face of the earth. I could see him stooping over the page, on his table. Touching the page he wrote on, I felt his warm hands.

I felt suffocated inside the room. Seeing Elmo asleep, I placed the diaries inside my knapsack and went to Manila Bay to continue reading.

Sitting comfortably atop the seawall, I took one of his earlier diaries and opened it. I felt a Srong Presence, it sat beside me and began to whisper.

Roberto Policarpio's Ghost Tells His Story

Dear God,

Hi. My name is Roberto Policarpio, 15 years old, good looking, and in third year of highschool.

On October 9, 19--, I was born in the province of Pangasinan. The only child, I thrived on the sweat of my peasant parents. Growing up, my mother treated me differently from the way other mothers treated their children. She used to dress me up like a girl and called me "my little Nora Aunor." She made me sing those songs - Pearly Shells and Sweet Sixteen. In fact I can still sing them without falter. When my father saw me dressed up like a little girl he beat and whipped my mother first, then me. They quarreled about me almost everyday. I need your help my God.

My mother has a history of madness, she nearly ended up in an asylum when she was twenty-five years old; her madness was blamed on her nightly baths after ironing clothes. Despite warnings, she still dried her hair beside the stove. My grandmother tried to reason with her. "Your head, if subjected to extreme temperatures, will turn you crazy," grandmother said.

And crazy my mother became, it was expected of her. Her mental instability influenced my rearing. Before she died my grandmother begged my mother not to treat me as a baby girl.

My mother would not listen. "Inang, please don't take away my joy. I wished for a baby girl and my wish was granted. This baby can't tell the difference anyway right now. When he reaches puberty, he will make up his mind. Right now, let me have my daughter."

When my father discovered this, he nearly threw my mother out of the window. He yelled at her - "This child is now and will be a boy." A verbal battle ensued while I sulked in the corner of my room. I heard the neighbors giggle and clap as if listening to a soap on the radio.

Despite the threats from my father, my mother kept on dressing me like a little doll while my he was at work. When my father returned, he subjected me to labors which he thought would turn me a tough boy. I knew then that I had to lead a double life to maintain peace in our house. I forgot who I was in my confusion.

It was easy at first but when I approached my tenth birthday, my double life became unbearable. Since I was dressed up as a girl most of the day, I enjoyed the company of girl playmates in the village. Soon they got rid of me.

"My father does not want me to play with you, you are a boy and a very sick boy." Cristata told me. So I turned to boy playmates who were eagerly learning basketball, I did not know what to say to them or say properly what I had to say.

"That is awful," my mother said when I asked her about what I am. She pacified me by placing gumamela flowers on my hair. "You are a pretty girl." And we sang together.

One time, I overheard some neighbors meeting in the marketplace. "They should lock that woman for what she does to her son." They were pointing at my mother. I got scared. I did not want to see my mother go to jail because of me.

When my father arrived from work, his eyes were cold and suspicious. He smelled me for any trace of powder or perfume; ordered me to water the garden plants or cut tree branches. There were times I suspected he wanted me to fall from trees and bicycles so I could toughen it out. "Take everything as a man," he said. Occasionally, rumors from neighbors reached his ears. Flaring up his temper.

"What the hell did you make out of the boy this morning Purita?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Goddamit Purita, if this boy will grow abnormal someday, I will make you pay for it."

They quarreled as I crept to the corner of my room, listening to both of them and the giggling neighbors. "Go away." I whispered.

My father caught me one day dressed as a girl; after I placed gumamela upon my hair; after I wrapped a batik cloth around my chest; after I danced the hula. My father sprang from nowhere, he tore my flowers, pulled away the batik, grabbed me by the neck and beat me. "Those damn flowers are not for boys, do you hear?"

One time the other children seduced me to dress up as Queen Helena in a playful Santacruzan. My mother got so excited she made me wear her wedding dress. While the children's procession proceeded, my father pulled me out of the throng and forced me to walk naked.

I must have cried three glasses of tears! What was wrong being born on earth? I felt being pushed from all sides. I asked for help but nobody came. Everyone, including my mother, enjoyed watching me naked. In my tears, I saw flowers covering my naked body. I asked the darkness to shield me. Only flowers and darkness helped.

I remembered the warnings from my father before the beatings. "That mirror, I'll crush it on your face." "How many times do I need totell you to act like boys?" Every time, I wanted to scream but nothing would come out: "Get away from me, leave me alone!"

Ignoring my sufferings, my mother would wake me up the following day to dress me as a girl.

I began to hide. In my young mind, I was nothing but a toy. No one would rescue a toy. A toy was for amusement, left in a closet when darkness descended. I took the courage of joining the boys in basketball, but my wrist and delicate arms would be twisted, miss the ball, my throw wasn't forceful enough. The boys would laugh and shout, "Faggot!" I'd promise myself not to come back again. I was not as tough as the other boys to gain mastery of the ball. I stayed on the sidelines to observe. Then I'd go home with impressions of tough boys. I thought, I must pretend to be tough. I must talk like a boy. My body should be as tough as steel.

By being tough looking, boys stopped calling me names. Slowly my body metamorphosed into a man, my voice became hoarse, and pimples popped out of my face.

Suddenly, my mother dropped me as a toy. It happened so unexpectedly. She did not dress me. "Put on your own pants," she ordered me. It dawned on me that I was not a baby anymore.

Yet, I'd never felt so alone in my life.

I lived up to everybody's expectations, assuring myself that the madness I went through did not damage me at all. Neighbors began to consider me the nicest boy around. I did not mingle with the young "bandits" throwing rocks at houses, smuggling beer in abandoned lots or taking drugs. I was so gentlemanly for a young man. My shyness became intense. And to my horror, while I watched the boys playing basketball in front of our window, their sweaty bodies rubbing against one another, panting, my thoughts turned them into my lovers. At nights they invaded my desires. I was so ashamed and I suppressed these thoughts.

This hiding was further reinforced in school. Being ashamed, I immersed myelf in books. The library became my succor - from pain, loneliness, fears, desires, guilt.

I found the ultimate escape in God. I became a fanatic. People thought I was just as crazy as my mother. I withdrew from day to day talks of people. I became a mere spectator to the activities of my classmates. I refused to attend the social dances, the latest craze over John Travolta and Brooke Shields. She did not touch my emotions at all. School years came and went while I remained in the side lines, in a corner at our house, or inside libraries.

But I was running out of time. Sooner or later, people would ask me who my girlfriend was. Or my father would soon ask me for a grandchild. Days became challenges for survival. I did not have too many options for escape. I was trapped. My fears turned into panic when I graduated from highschool. I've outgrown both my childhood and teenage years totally unaware. I was lost. Unlike the boys my age, who each began planning for his future wife and children, my life became more confusing. I did not know what I wanted. At seventeen, I decided my life to be nomadic, running away from place to place, a wanderer, a pilgrim of no light. My religious escapism took a new form, grand, heroic, great, martyrdom. I prayed to leap high, and there was no other way for me but to become extraordinary. I wanted to become a priest, but I was rejected. And then, God heard my prayers. After winning a scholarship to study in the top University of Manila, I left the town with excitement. I knew my dreams were not so far from my grip. There was an escape from this imprisonment.

Alex Maskara