Diary 7

He came wearing khaki shorts and a silk shirt too bright even in the night.

"You look like you've just been to Hawaii," I quipped.

I've noticed his smooth shaved legs, shapely and he has a good ass. He did not respond to me as enthusiastically as he did last night. He appears serious tonight. Leaning against the trunk of one coconut tree, he looked at me calmly, with hazy gaze, empty, shiny brown eyes. I hope he won't pull another joke with me tonight. I need money to pay rent.

"Hey pretty boy, you heard me? What are you thinking?" I nudged him.

He inhaled smoke from his cigarette while staring at me until I felt uncomfortable. I am puzzled by that stare, there is something not right... the pupils are abnormally wide, like that of a cat in the dark. Strands of his hair fell over his face and he slowly pulled them back. He turned away from me to face the bay. What in the hell is he up to now?

"I failed to ask your name last night," he spoke pensively. "I came home in high spirits, thanking the angels for finding me a friend, recalling the brief moment we had, but when I thought of your name, I realized I didn't even know it. It was so stupid of me not to have asked."

This is getting sick. "Big deal," I said. How many people know my real name? My dead parents, my creditors, the registrar in my school... come to think of it.

In my profession, revealing true identity is a big no-no.

"What is your name?" he asked.

Just like in the movies, I had learned to adopt different screen names that fit different situations. Tonight I felt young, playful, monosyllabic, adventurous, bold, sexy, ready for action and money.

"Jeff," I answered.

"No, your true name."

"Jeff," I repeated, grinning.

"Okay Jeff, my name is Roberto Policarpio."

Damn! "You know, Nameless Adonis sounded much better." I'd rather he kept his name secret like mine. But some people are just too honest, I guess. In this hustling game, sharing one's name is too risky. He needs to watch Gigolo and Cruising to learn this lesson.

He ignored my comment. He dropped his cigarette and smashed it with his shoe.

"Our wonderful conversation was abruptly curtailed by your hasty departure last night," his language was very formal, completely different from last night; very old English that I wanted to puke. And he sounded accusingly.

"I told you, I had studying to do."

"Now you tell me, what else is there in the other side of hustling?" This son of a bitch is really dead keen in knowing the secrets of myself and Manila Bay!

"Roberto Policarpio, a person of your status need not see them. They are just, how would I say it ... animalistic."

"The better." he said.

"If I were you, I would stay away from inquiring about hustling. Sometimes, talking about it can be depressing."

"Why?"

I just wished he would stop. "Because they make a person sad."

"No difference to me... Jeff are you happy?"

"Happiness is relative, it depends on one's point of view."

"That's what they all say, I want your explanation."

"What explanation?" Damn, I am here to hustle, who am I talking to now… Socrates?

He turned his eyes to the bay. "Another explanation about life... explanations as to why I still linger in the night while the rest of the world is sleeping? Why when I am about to start a friendship, I am abandoned."

"Because you are gay." I said to cut this melodrama quickly.

He was silent for a long time. And then he spoke again. "Last night I remembered the runner that followed me, offering me a light even when I did not ask for it, following me from behind, begging for a little attention, a little sex, will that be my future when I turn old and gray? Is that a punishment for being gay?"

"I said - you are gay. I didn't say you'd become that runner who followed you when you get old."

"I don't want to be gay!" He screamed.

"Hey, hey. No yelling please. You ask questions, I answer. If you don't want my opinions, then go fuck yourself." I said mild mannered.

He calmed down but remained fidgety. Crazy fellow!!! He obviously has a personality problem. I am not intimidated by these outbursts though. In my job, surprises don't surprise me.

"All I want is to understand more about myself." He is beginning to cry.

Oh boy, this is super-schizophrenia!

"Well, come and follow me."

In the early night in Manila Bay, the heterosexuals dominate its seawall but after midnight, another kind of gender appears homosexuals borrowing passions and obsessions with one another. I had seen them before wearing masks of imaginary identities, as if trying to fool even God. This is the place where they do it all.

It's now after midnight.

We kept walking along the seawall. I kept my quiet. The squared rooms of Holiday Inn were surrendering to the sallow evening, its squared lights were being turned off one by one. I slapped myself for one or two mosquitoes biting my skin.

"This is the other view of Manila Bay," I said when we reached the road Lawton. It is a strip of about two miles lined by herbs and vines crawling along the barbed wire fence. On the left are the old executive buildings of Congress and the Supreme Court. On the right is an expansive greenery that is being converted into a golf course. Along its way are entrances to universities and bus stops. It merges with Roxas Boulevard after passing through Luneta. Roxas Boulevard is the main coastline of Manila leading up to Cultural Center of the Philippines. It spreads arteries towards Mabini, noted as the red district of the sex capital of Asia.

"Jeff", he said with grave eyes. "I can't stand being alone, I wanna die."

I stopped, I've had enough of this!

"Robert, I just hate it when someone so good looking and muscular like you says he's so lonesome he wanna die. With all the starving, homeless, helpless people surrounding you, you still wanna die. Get a life! Join the Mother Theresa way. That Saint is my hero. Look, she was lonesome, old, loveless at forty. So she formed Sisters of Charity or something. Now she is the most popular spinster in the modern world."

Hearing this, he smiled.

I continued. "Hmm, on the other hand, you won't look good as a Saint, you need to call somebody like that "toning guy" on the late night talk in the radio just to tell you to prepare some water that he blesses via radio before you drink it. What about following my solution? What I do when lonesome is write. I have this hidden notebook full of horrible entries. When I hear of bad news, like when a friend is raped, when a hooker is killed in an accident, or when another is murdered by a serial killer, I jot it down. Every time I get depressed I re-read my entries. And I say to myself, Damn, I am still lucky though I had a night without a customer, John was hit by a truck. Then I feel blessed."

He started laughing hard.

But by now I was getting desperate for an income. I had to go. Bullshit, why couldn't he just do whatever he intended to do? Then go to his own business and I with mine.

"I don't want to be gay," he said again.

I blurted out, "Then go find a girlfriend."

He looked at me with frightened eyes. "I don't know if I could do it with a girl again after what I've gone through."

Oh man, I'm really really stuck with this man.

"What happened? Were you gang raped? Did you rape someone? Some people couldn't handle such traumas you know. Not me. I am paid to do those. Nowadays nobody gets a bloody hand-shit or a blow-shit for free. I am no nymphomaniac."

"Nothing... I am not gay.Anymore."

He was going too far.

"As I said, since you are so sure of your masculinity, just drop it all down here, you see, and hit the road, along the way, if you find a nice looking pussy, just grab it good. Simple."

"No", he answered.

I breathed deeply. Okay, for this last time, I would try to help this wretched gook. I may not earn my rent money but for the sake of Humanity., I would direct him to the right path of self fulfillment, or whatever gays achieve when they finally accept themselves. I wonder if he had money to pay me for this.

"Please Robert, I am not here to blackmail you. Just say it and I will find anything or anyone you want. It will not be difficult to do that with your good looks. I know the moves in the city. For a small fee I can match you even with Queen Nefertiti but first, tell me what you want."

"The only thing I want is to talk with you. Will you quit this sexual innuendoes and listen?"

I am telling you! These people come acting stupid at first and in no time would turn into some big shit insulting and ordering you around. The nerve! And they don't even pay! I sat down to keep my cool. I wished him to turn into a politician's son so he could at least be added to my list of connections. As a consolation. Not that I needed it. Believe me, I have a long list of connections.

"Billy Holiday once sang," I said, thinking of her, the Favorite Singer of all Manila Hookers with her beautiful gardenia, some argue it was Ertha Kitty, "If I take the notion to jump right into the ocean, it ain't nobody's business if I do... you see Roberto, I can offer nothing but sexual solutions. It ain't my business if your dick atrophied, dehydrated, wrinkled and fell off, as I'm now tempted to believe, all I want is to know what happened so I can help."

Alex Maskara