Diary 6

"With all due respect to your effective art of hustling, how are you making it in Manila Bay as a hustler?" he asked while we savored the warm breeze of the bay.

"I never apply them to myself, I don't aspire to be professional."

"Right," he said.

"I’m serious! The truth is I am a temporary hustler. After college, I'd call it quits and leave. I don't wanna become a corpse ...if you just know the other side of hustling in the bay," I sighed.

"Why... is there another side to hustling?"

Oh please...

I did not answer. What he doesn’t know he doesn’t need to know. " I better go home now," I said.

I won’t tell him the other side of hustling; the other truth... in this field, nothing lasts forever. Even the best looking guys turn cold and ugly, become over-the-hill prostitutes like Lola of Copacabana in Barry Manilow’s song. Refusing to face the truth, they eventually resort to vicious crimes to regain their faded lusters. I am referring to the young men who were the stars of the nights only a couple of months ago. How sad it is to see them now arrive at their usual places to find no client to bother them.

Surprise, surprise?

How many cigarettes have they smoked while waiting for nothing? Leaving their posts in the early mornings empty handed? Trekking on the back alleys hoping that someone sick or drunk would still be fooled into soliciting them. They would do this night after night, until the black skin coloration develop around their eyes, their eyelids droop, and later, their muscle tones loosen, giving way to bulging bellies. Despite it all they would persist returning to the same streets peddling their bodies: "Hey I'm for sale!"

Pitifully changing tactics, pitching all tragedies of life: "My daughter is sick"; "My mother is sick"; "Please help, can't find a job". And when no one comes, they succumb to the futile life of homelessness, "Please spare me a cigarette"; "Can you toss me a coin?" Just pleading.

Others are lucky enough to end in the streets of foreign lands, the rest are recycled back in the provinces as farmers and laborers, or hired by crime syndicates to do the art of scheming, luring baits, robbing, or killing until they become Masters of the Sigue-Sigue and Sputnik gangs, everyone scared of their ruthlessness.

I am unlike them - I am practical, callous. Aware of the insecurity of this job, I decided earlier on, while enmeshed in this debauchery, to figure out a profitable end. I went to college, reinvented and re-created myself like Madonna, added a vast wealth of new skills and trades to my bio data. Now I am about to graduate in college.

Oh it is hard! How many nights have I wanted to quit this whoring and college-going and pretending? I've been claiming I am a virgin for years now. Virgin my foot ...Crying wolf every time wouldn't fool fags forever. It is lousy to hustle especially when you are a has-been, an old salt, a worn out shoe... I always tell myself I’d forsake all these now, forget the past easy like a cool dude. Yet, every night, I return with my books and study in a spot where there is quiet and illumination; whoever comes along and wants me, I take. "Speaking of studying, I need to work on an assignment."

"Please lets keep walking, the night is young." Roberto said.

"I have studying to do." I am thinking of working on my thesis in the boarding house. "Unless you ‘d pay me..."

"You bitch", he cussed.

But really, my desire to have sex with him for pay is now passed. Intimacy is always the culprit! When a person gets intimate with me, reality sets in, shatters the mask, reveals the true face, kills the fantasy and mystery.

He checked his watch. "I’m hungry. Damn, it's late."

Most restaurants are closed by now. As we searched for a food stall, our attention caught a late night jogger, a disguised cruiser who winked lustfully at him as their eyes met. "There goes your potential sex partner," he joked.

"Not mine, yours", I answered.

It was dark along the shore by now. "Darkness has always been a good company," he mulled. "It gives way to sins and death and hatred..., " he turned his face to me.

"And money... " I said.

The runner made a U turn at the end of the jogging strip. His eyes did not deviate from my companion's.

"I'll show you the proper technique of hustling." He parted from me and walked briskly towards the Food stall being managed by the Blinds. There was apathy in his voice. He was soon being trailed by the runner.

... The sound of No More Lonely Nights by Paul McCartney emanated from the stall's jukebox. Roberto settled on one of its stools. I stayed behind, lingering among the coconut trunks, watching him, curious as to how he would handle this.

He groped for a single Marlboro stick he bought from a peddling kid inside the jeepney a while back. He lazily turned his head for a light, a lighted match was offered him by the runner. He watched the flame form a red glow at the end of the cigarette as he inhaled deeply. "Thanks," he muttered, slightly squinting his eyes at the runner. Without any warning, the runner stuck out his tongue and lasciviously wet his lips while pinching his nipples.

Oh God. Well?

The other people in the stall beamed with interest. Perhaps he did not expect this outright public show of sexual intent from the runner. He appeared embarrassed and retreated. "Shit," I heard him cuss.

You are plain amateur Roberto, I thought.

The runner quickly followed behind him. "Just once," he implored behind Roberto in a soft voice.

Roberto turned around furiously, making sure his voice could be heard all over the seawall. "You son of a bitch, are you soliciting me for sex? Come here, fag, I am the police, you hear? This is an arrest."

The runner sprinted like an olympian.

I came out of the coconut trees.

"It really takes a lot of practice." I hollered.

He looked back at me somewhat funnily. Pointing at the frightened runner, he feigned an act of masturbation. The crowd at the stall, still watching him, started laughing. "Ten dollars, twenty yen, thirty pounds, forty marks, fifty reals, sixty rubles..." he moaned.

The lateness of the night is reminding me of my thesis assignment. "Nameless Adonis, my friend, I have to go." I waved my hand.

"You won't stay with me?" he asked, stopping his masturbation pantomime.

"I will see you again, I promise" I said half-heartedly.

"You bet." I did not hear the rest of his muffled words.

When I reached the dark front of the embassy, I was jolted by a cold sensation on my shoulder. I quickly turned but no one was there.

A whisper in my ears : "My friend, listen to what I say. Fuck the world, I am free starting tonight." I shuddered and ran as fast as I could.

The following night, my landlady in the boarding house threatened to throw me out for not paying my rent. I was intent in making money when I returned to Manila Bay.

But I met Nameless Adonis again.

Alex Maskara