“You know,” Jose told me, “I woke up questioning whether I could ever bring this girl home. She would want to go during Lent for the pageant.” It had always been a special time, he said, with his father carving, painting, and decorating a mask. “A Roman soldier was what he played, because playing that specific role had become a tradition, and nothing was more important to us during Lent, not even Mass. I first thought of my family and not the woman I dated, if we were to get serious: everyone one of them would have a hard time accepting her into our fold. On Easter, I walked around, thinking of my father in his mask, in his costume, and with his sword: our town would be filled with tourist, many of whom would be American. So my young lady would look like just another tourist. ‘It is Easter morning.’ The young American would be about to become my wife.” Since it would be Easter, the town wouldn’t notice her that much. “All of the town would be too busy putting on the pageant, including my family,” Jose said sadly. “My thoughts are full of contradictory feelings. Once during the evening my date asked me if were a Catholic. I didn’t know what difference it would make to her but I lied. You’re Seventh Day Adventist, are you not? Isn’t that awkward sometimes?”
Only on Saturdays I said.
He smiled haply and offered me a concoction he had been cooking. “It’s blood,” he said, and he went on to say that it was a favorite dish of his, which was something I had a hard time eating. Right after his first date, when he was still high from it, he made a point of telling me that she was Protestant and that was why he thought she had asked him about his faith. His main problem was to convince her that he wasn’t a Catholic.
I put the spoon of hot blood in my mouth and regretted it, as he instructed me to let it cool. He was very pleased that I tried it, and offered me a beer again, which I gladly accepted.
“I think of myself as being opened minded,” Jose explained as he took two beers out of his cooler-chest. “It doesn’t matter to me: all races are beautiful. But damn why did she go out with me?” He opened a bottle with a church key. “You know,” he continued, “my family wouldn’t say anything negative, but I would know what they were thinking. Would it eventually work out?”
“There are some things we can’t change,” I said. “You’ll always be a Filipino, and I’ll go on being an American, and….”
“No, shit! Then I should give up dating blue-eyed blondes.” After opening his own beer, he leaned against the windowsill. But he wasn’t comfortable. “You know, I wish I hadn’t dated someone so vivacious, so all-American,” he said. “Everywhere we went, we stood out, which I supposed was because she was so beautiful.” He told me that she was really built, which surprised me that he cared how stacked she was. He was already thinking about taking her home with him, home to the Philippines, to Boac, which had all kinds of ramifications, some nice and some not so pretty, creating a clash perhaps, culturally and religiously, if it got that far, after he had only dated her once. He couldn’t understand why right off the bat she asked him about his religion, and if she had known anything about the Philippines, she would’ve known that chances were he grew up in the Catholic Church.
The beers soothed us, and, after a long talk, Jose said he needed to study. He held out his beer for a toast and afterwards drank the rest of it. “I originally bought my car in hopes that it would help me fit in better,” he said, “But it has only made me stick out more, because it’s a hot convertible and a deep blue, and also because I chose to date a striking blonde with long hair.” So, Jose went on to say that he never thought about all of the ramifications. He had just bought the car, a temptation, and a drain on his time, and tooled around town in a way he had never dreamed of before. He now spent less time studying, which meant he could end up disappointing his family even more. (They no longer controlled him now that he lived thousands of miles away from them.) He used his car to boost his self-esteem. “It’s a nice car,” he said. “It gets all of twenty miles to the gallon.”
Jose told me about Boac. He began with the Moriones Festival. He said however that there was more to the island than the festival, much more on the island which was actually named Marinduque, after Marina and Garduk, two lovers who when they tried to elope died at sea and whose bodies formed the island that bore their names. Only Jose cared more about how his people resisted the Japanese and how it cost them dearly because he knew the part his father played, played then and afterwards in the reconstruction. If, on the other hand, you were to ask Jose what most characterized his people, he would reply their hospitality. They even had a word for it: “putong,” which literally meant crowning or crown, with the singing and dancing, the giving of palms and coin tossing that went with wishing visitors good luck, so why did he worry so much? For after all, they catered to tourists, domestic and foreign. They welcomed them, and thousands came every year to enjoy the natural beauty: the beaches, the caves, the mountains, and the springs, all were worth the trip. “I would make a good tour guide who would gladly show you around if I ever got the chance,” he said. Once he stopped giving his Chamber of Commerce spiel, he turned quite serious and said his parents underneath resented tourists and how they had taken over their island. After we talked, he studied, and his desk was suited for that. He had on his desk photographs of his family: one with just his parents and group one, which included him with a sister and five brothers. After studying for most of the afternoon, the idea of going for a ride in his car stuck Jose; he asked me if I wanted to go; and then went around the room, inviting everyone until he filled his car up.
Randy Ford
