Alex Maskara
Thoughts, Stories, Imagination of Filipino American Alex Maskara
Short Stories
~
Disposing, Clearing
I will meet with a hauler I hired to partially empty my storage unit. The garbage inside my storage alone needs to go, some of the items had been there for 3 decades. I need to throw them out to gain extra space for the new items that are filling up my house. I could not even get inside my closet nowadays after I filled it with junk. I am rather a big procrastinator than a hoarder. I have the habit of promising myself to organize later. ‘Later’ is the keyword. My ‘later’ becomes days, weeks, months, years. The only time I think about my storage is when I need to store another thing in it.
The items I stored piled up. I did not have the time to arrange them to optimize the space. I threw things on the floor, new items got on top of the old forming a heap. After a while I didn’t even know the items I placed in the heap. Recently I noticed bits and pieces of loose papers, looking like they were chewed on by rats. Not sure how rats got into the storage unit - the only thing I suspect is that I brought them there.
Clearing my storage makes me happy. Especially the books I have stored since the 1990's. At one point, before the current technology and instant availability of information and data through the Internet, knowledge was concentrated in physical spots like bookstores and libraries. These were the places I hung out all the time, spending hours upon hours browsing, reading. I was so happy when the bookstores added cafes like some kind of mini-Mr Donut. But change became inevitable. Bookstores were slaughtered by the likes of Amazon. One by one, my favorite bookstores folded and those remaining did all sorts of modifications and product inventories to keep their foot traffic which did not pan out sadly.
During those bookstore days, I put a lot of value on books that I invested in and collected like jewelry with the thought they could be worth more than their original values in the future. Little did I know how devalued they would become. A newly printed book nowadays would have its best price but as time goes, when the interest on it wanes, it will just end in a second-hand store, thrown in a derelict bin, like the Salvation Army or Goodwill for less than a dollar each. The more entrepreneurial would start selling them through amazon or ebay. I once fantasized selling books through an online store which did not materialize due to my busy schedule. I worked full time and my work was very physical so I could hardly find the energy to attend to hobbies at the end of work shift.
Well, I might be able to fulfill my dreams that I am already semi-retired. I am able to adjust my work hours. I work roughly 12-15 hours per week nowadays, maybe 20 if I add driving time. There is a lot of time for me although my energy is no longer as good as it was before. I still prioritize my workouts, walks and jogs due to health issues. And I face many mini-crises everyday ranging from my rental business problems to an unexpected call from a home insurance company to inspect my current home, to finding mold in my rental unit. There is always something. In fact, I sometimes feel I have a busier lifestyle and ‘things to do’ in retirement than working full time.
That is life. I learned to pick and choose what I love to do.
---
I arrived approximately 2 hours before the hauler to sort out my stored items. I wanted to get rid of my book collection in the hundreds that are stacked up against the wall of the storage unit. Staring at them reminded me of all the grand plans I had with them when I was much younger. I thought of building a personal library in my room, assuming I got a big house somewhere. This never materialized because I lived in condos most of my life. Being single soured my desire to own a big house; it would have been different if I had a family, wife and kids. Condo was enough for me. So I kept the books that multiplied in the storage. I contemplated the idea of bookselling business, through Amazon or Ebay. In fact I sold a few when bookselling online was in its infancy. I thought it was fun initially until I got upset by a review posted by a pissed off customer who complained I wrapped the book she ordered too carelessly. Her order arrived wrapped by a flimsy wrapper that was torn. I immediately stopped selling. I was also working full time and overtime at that time and to stress myself with a business on the side for a pittance wasn’t worth my time and stress. But I did not give up my collection.
Later on, I found the books I valued so highly being sold by Amazon and Ebay for a fraction of their original costs. I did not see a reason to pursue the angle of bookstore online store from that point on. Instead, given how cheap second hand books became, I accumulated more and stored a lot of them in the same storage to read ‘later’. There was my procrastination again. Soon, the books got scattered all over the floor as I threw other stuff into the storage - bicycles, electronics, kayak accessories, bike racks, helmet, cables, lots of cables, clothes, linens and beddings, Christmas decorations. The heap soon prevented me from entering the storage without lifting heavy boxes to give me way. I got increasingly disgusted seeing the stored stuff. Until I could no longer find an available space in the storage and instead used my home as my secondary storage.
In no time my walk-in closet got filled with tools for gardening and tools for house repairs. Toilet snake, hammers, chisels, nails and screws, portable Ryobi tools for weed whacking and hedge trimming, long handled garden pruner, long pole tree branch trimmer, leaf blower, pressure washer, ladder etc. My house's closet got easily full and the next thing I know, even my laundry room started filling up. I could be turning into a hoarder. It did not help that I upgraded my living quarter from a condo to a small family home. It was a very small house no bigger than a condo, same limited space for too many accumulations, it never ends.
The trouble with single people like me is the benefit of doing things ‘later’. There is no hurry. I will order some cheap gadgets for exercises to start a home exercise program ‘later’. I will order a book that got me excited to read ‘later’. I will order curtains and dividers to assemble later. Oh I would get this exercise mat on sale so I can video myself exercising for my youtube account later. Bought a kayak to enjoy ‘later’. When my rental unit was empty and I was divided between converting it to AirBnB or regular rental, I bought cheap foldable chairs and a bed to use ‘later’. I bought camping equipments, inflatable bed to use ‘later’. My only consolation is my lack of class so most of the things I buy are cheap. And it goes without question that cheap things require space. And space is really expensive. I turned into a person who pays 200 bucks a month to accommodate junk worth maybe 50 bucks. That is how I can get stupid at times.
Aging becomes a friend. Especially when one realizes the illogical habits he has developed. I see how people’s accumulations are dealt with when they leave the earth. Discarded things they valued so much. Everything loaded in boxes and thrown into the bins. My father valued a special pen when he was still alive. I could still imagine him keeping that pen both as a teacher and principal and retiree. He kept it close to a small notebook that he carefully secured in his locked cabinet. The notebook has records of bits and pieces of information; birthdays of his children, phone numbers, addresses etc. After he died, they all were thrown away. My father kept old stuff as well. He was impoverished as a teacher and the little side business he had, selling gas stoves, profited him a stove for himself; the non working stove was still stored decades later, in one of the old house cabinets. On the shelves of the kitchen, I still saw the thermostat used for my siblings' instant milk decades ago. Unlike me however, my father was truly organized.
All our properties, valued or not, would all have the same outcome. Discarded and forgotten, just like our hopes, dreams, struggles, successes, fights, reconciliations. The only thing that matters are those with sentimental values.
I found one of the boxes I am looking for in my storage. I pried it open. My friend James’ box contained the remaining things he kept after he lost everything - his two houses, his wife, his car. He pleaded with me to keep his box for safekeeping until he came back. That was before the pandemic. He neither returned nor contacted me.
I paused at his box. It was a small box made of plastic, a container with a black top. He said he wanted to try his luck somewhere in Arizona, to find a job. He was an electrician by trade. I vividly recall him filling his duffel bag with his clothes, the meager things that would keep him going for the next few days on his trip to Phoenix. He said his mother was living there, and retired in her 70s. He was not happy to come back to her, she was too old to be burdened by a son who failed in his 40s. His life was alright until his wife got hooked on drugs, cocaine, heroin, you name it. He got into it as well and from that point on, their lives spiraled out of control, she got into prostitution, he sold one of his houses, burned all the proceeds to drugs, his other house was foreclosed. He tried to rent but they both got evicted in no time.
And before he left, he handed me this box that I am staring at now. I wonder if he would ever return to reclaim it. I opened it and saw all his papers, old certificates from his training on the job, back accounts that surprisingly still looked fresh and crisp as if they were just mailed to him yesterday. His wedding photos. How beautiful they were as a young couple, they looked like kids out of college full of potential. I carefully dropped the items back into the box and immediately closed its lid. I felt like invading his privacy, I have no business knowing another person’s personal affairs and businesses.
I finally got into the other box I was looking for. My old box of what I thought was personal. Unlike James, my box was full of things that I value but has no value for anyone else. Papers mostly, these were pages of the stories I wrote a long time ago when I still dreamed of becoming a writer. I had stories written in highschool, some notebooks filled with my jottings of pain and supplications and momentary bliss all through college. These pages don’t matter anymore. I have since digitized their content but for some reason their physical presence reminds me of the pen and paper I wrote them with, the faded pages seem to return me back to an earlier age when possibilities in life abound. Then in the same box, I saw some of my old pictures. Faces of my siblings’ children, most of them are already parents now. I saw our old home with my old parents pausing for the last time before their passing.
What do I get out of these stored objects? When I die, no one would care about these - no one would feel how I felt towards them. They represent my story, the accumulation of emotions that accompanied me throughout my days. There is a tendency for humans to work intensely for their legacy when they get old, they want to be remembered with fondness if not with more frequency, they work hard to leave a good footnote behind, but whether we like it or not, we still end up in the annals of oblivion, relegated to ghostly tale and spirits. So - really - there is no need to worry about anything. I get so worked up sometimes with the things I share with the world, always asking myself if these would be acceptable, appropriate, and won’t destroy my reputation. What reputation?
2024-09-04 08:43:25
shortstories
I went through the routine of housekeeping that often starts the night before. I cleaned my sink, took out the garbage. And today, the first thing I did the moment I woke up was brew my coffee. It tasted good. Earlier I thought of dropping by the gym for my resistance training. But the drive would chip away at my free time that could otherwise be spent writing, which is my morning habit now.
Yesterday I had this thought of going to the library in the afternoon for better learning and working. I usually accomplish more in the library with a cool temperature and presence of other learners that usually inspire me. But I had to eat lunch first and as my usual habit, I surfed the Internet. I also had to allow Jim’s pet Rocky outside to pee. Jim texted me earlier to do just that since he'd be at work the whole day and I'd be home before him. When all was done, I fell asleep. When I woke up from my nap, there was no way I'd go anywhere with thunder and rain that just rushed into my city without warning.
Since I walked more than 3 miles in the morning yesterday, I ended writing my meditation in the evening which was grand. I spent time talking about something, now I don’t even recall what that something was, oh it must have something to do with the zealot dude in the park last Saturday, he was obviously damaged by psychosis. He could be a material for a fine story. He was yelling at anybody passing him by and suddenly would open his bags and pull out their contents and put them back in again. I moved away from his path but couldn't get him out of my mind. Most days, he would be preaching alone in one of the sheds in the park. Today, he was fighting with some imaginary enemies.
I was also impressed by my own behavior now. Yesterday I managed to respectfully greet a homeless dude who greeted me the same way. Yesterday I also saw a fisherman who must have caught the biggest fish from the Intercoastal. I said he got a big catch, the biggest catch I could remember. He smiled and acknowledged me. The usual park crowd swelled as the morning sun lifted itself higher in the sky. A few homeless people dragged down their baggage on wheels, some sitting in hidden corners as if embarrassed by their luck, refusing to make eye contact with people passing by. This state of Florida, for whatever reason, has turned so expensive that it is now beyond the reach of low-paid workers. A lot end up being evicted and it is much more difficult for the retirees who have no means to move somewhere or start all over again. It is tough to pass by them knowing I could be one of them if luck would turn against me.
I thought of my roommate Jim. Without me, Jim would have lost any chance of living here in Florida although he has his mother in Arizona to rescue him, hopefully. She’s supposed to be rich and it puzzles me why Jim would not go to her now. They must have some family dynamics that Jim tries to avoid but I made sure that he knows that one day I will be gone and hopefully he will have secured his own dwelling and life by then. I admit there are some perks in having him as my roommate. My current neighborhood is risky for people living alone. It helps that I have Jim here (I tell everyone he is a roommate/tenant to avoid people thinking we’re partners or lovers because we are not; he is as straight as an arrow) with his pitbull pet Rocky providing peace of mind and security. He contributes to the cost of utilities, at least. Now and then he does home repairs that require ladders and especially electrical, which is his line of work. It is all good. The Lord blessed me with having him around.
Other than that, I am content as Floridians approach what is predicted to be a severe hurricane season, which will contribute more agony to the already stretched out people. Between hurricane-driven property taxes that tripled and insurance premiums that increased more than quadruple, people are reassessing their stay in this state. I guess the Lord is telling us something. As for me, I don’t want to focus too much on the negative what ifs. The Lord has always guided me in making decisions in life and whatever disaster comes along, I will follow whatever He tells me. If I lose everything, I will just sell and leave. For I am in a much better position in life at this point. I am retiring soon and there will be a fixed income coming my way. It is not much, but better than nothing. I saved a little which in my estimation will help me fund my old age. I also have the option of returning home to the old country if my life comes from bad to worse. This is the way of life that I worked hard and prepared for. The last thing I would like to do is worry as much as I did when I was young.
My health could afford to worry when I was young, when I took all the responsibilities of providing for my extended family. Those were the days when I refused even to drive long distances for fear of getting injured because being disabled would cause a total failure not only on me but the family I vowed to support. Those days are over. What took their place are the aging-related problems of slowing down and getting sick easily. There is still the possibility of losing it all with a result more woeful for me because I am alone. Even that is something not to fret about. I did something good for those who needed it most in my halcyon days.
Remember the extended family I supported? They will never abandon me. I can see that in their eyes, their loving eyes that say ‘ if I was there when they needed me most, they’d make sure they will be around when it is my turn to need them.’
But I fiercely protect my independence. I want to go on fighting and kicking till the day I die. I don’t need someone’s hand guiding my weakling arms and legs to cross the street. I would refuse a seat offered to me by a young man or woman in the LRT. I want to pass on from this life like my dear old grandaunt who was a solid spinster. A week before her death, and no one could figure how she knew it, she pulled her hidden brown baro’t saya and told her niece that should she die, that is what she would like to wear in her wake. She died a week later without drama and fanfare. She was admitted to the hospital due to pneumonia and died peacefully. That is the way to go, I think. She was almost 90.
Ah the drama of my youth when life was hard and full of responsibilities still makes me teary-eyed but it is all over. My sister reported to me yesterday that everyone back home is doing very well. Another house was built by a niece on the old land owned by my deceased father. My older brother, the one I followed, is planning to visit his son, my nephew and family in New Zealand. I heard of my youngest brother getting away from his family for a few days, sulking after his wife and daughter argued over something, which amused me more than worried me. Apparently his daughter bought a piece of land that was still occupied. And the occupier refused to leave. It is a family affair beyond me. Trivial matters I have nothing to do with. My old intention of saving my siblings and their families from a disastrous future had been preempted and it is all over now. Time for me to bow and take my own trip somewhere. Not sure where but somewhere with a total peace of mind and calm spirit.
Again, this is my drama and I own it!
Today is another day of meditation, work and maybe workout. I must spend time blogging my fiction website that surprises me with a few readers based on Google analytics, much better than my health website that I regularly update. I feel that Filipinos are hungry for stories, especially stories they could relate to. It so happens that Filipino bloggers, upon my close examination, are populated by lifestyles and whatever they want to show off. And these lifestyle blogs are meant to fade away. They are meant for the young and hip and rich which is irrelevant to the majority of the population that are middle class or poor. Lifestyle blogs are for those who think they live in a well-to-do-country, like the US, showcasing things that I myself have nothing to do with. I live in America and I have no plans of elevating my lifestyle, like theirs, wearing expensive clothes and traveling with a camera pointing at me telling people - Look here, see how wonderful my life is and should yours be’. Ok. My answer to that is no.
What I want to share is what I am writing now. The Filipino’s resilience in life. The Filipino’s power over his demons and adversities. The Filipino’s power to look at his misery straight in the eye and kill it until it is gone. Sadly, this requires a lot of story-telling, a lot of serious thinking and these are done without self-promotion because who cares? Most especially me. I was never a good looking person to start with. I am hideous, what is the point of sharing my appearance?
My Filipino story is what matters. It is the only gift I can give to those who are interested in what I have to tell. And millions of Filipinos have millions of stories to tell. Most of them have no outlets for their stories because they could not find a decent quiet place to tell them or a venue to show them. Their stories could not compete with all the distractions all fighting for netizens’ attention. The worst part is, when they have the opportunity to share their stories, they are buried under lifestyle blogs that impress on them that these are what they should emulate.
Not me. I studied how to design websites. I learned how to create reels and videos and shorts and how to scale images and convert them to jpegs and store them in AWS S3 or in youtube or even on web hosts and clouds. But I also practiced writing all my life. Am I good at writing? Heck no. But I can be good in sharing and hoping that someone would get what I am driving at in my stories.
And this is what I am driving at: that Filipinos would own themselves again, and I am talking about their true selves. They should unshackle themselves from what the world tells them they should do. They should get away from appeasing and attracting and feeling a sense of false superiority because one Filipino won a beauty contest or one foreigner posted his admiration for the Philippines as a beautiful country. Worse, Filipinos seem to have this propensity to feature themselves with a foreign spouse or husband/wife/partner called AFAM, and feel cut above the rest of the country. Worse, other Filipnos become so jealous and start looking for their own afam as well. It is almost comedic. Here I am dealing with all kinds of ‘foreigners’ ( in relation to where I come from) and feel not a single iota of pride, even when most of my friends, Caucasian, Blacks, Latinos sleep on my sofa. Jim is white. Matt is black. Javier is Latino. They don’t care how I look. Or act. They just know I am a good friend, equal to them, and have nothing to do where I come from. All they care about is the joy of being together, doing things together which, sadly, is getting rarer as we get old. Aging is dooming us.
In order to do that, they need to leave the noise behind, they need to dwell inside, way deep inside and find what they want and accomplish outputs and products they are good at doing. Everyone was given a gift by God.
Lazaro Sembrano (circa 1994)
Will someone say, why, then, this
divine compassion extended even to
the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but
because it was the mercy of him who
daily "maketh His sun to rise on the
evil and the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and the unjust." (Mat 5,45)
St. Augustine, The City of God
I take the liberty of chronicling a Gay Sainthood foretold.
My friend, Lazaro Sembrano, was a sucker of tragedy; this he attributed to his mediocre looks and strict Catholic upbringing. He was, as a product of Tarlac farmers, replete with superstitions. A mole on the side of his nose was a destiny to weep gallons of tears; his shoulder growth meant a lifetime cross to bear; his buttock birthmark supposedly spawned disasters. He blamed his misfortunes, earthquakes, typhoons, drought, floods, fires and volcanic eruptions to these bodily marks. Their house used to stand beside a cemetery. As a kid, he'd jump over the fence during the burial of anybody and join mourners just for the heck of it; when it was time to wail, he'd wail the loudest. Such a nuisance! He said, "To cry for someone you don't know is the highest form of sympathy." He sure found tragedy everywhere.
During his residence in Murfreesboro Tennessee as a nurse, he learned through Discovery Channel that Marlon Brando championed Civil Rights and Native Americans. He wrote him a letter - addressed to Marlon Brando c/o Tahiti - "I'm rooting for you. Sincerely, Lazarus." Just one problem - Brando's activism occurred thirty years ago and was residing in California when my friend mailed him the letter. Worse, when Brando's son was charged for the murder of his half-sister's husband/lover and, when later, this half sister committed suicide for the same reason, Lazaro cried for days. He got hysterical in the middle of A Streetcar Named Desire, where Brando, his wet shirt torn, cried - "Stellaaaaa!" And I couldn't pacify him. His tears carried-over Guys and Dolls, a comedy. More recently, he wept with Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire. Which reminded me of his previous similar reactions to Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams , Mickey Rooney's BoysTown, and Mel Gibson's Ransom. Judging from the looks of these actors you'd become suspicious. Suspicious or not, Lazarus also cried through The Sands of Iwo Jima, All Is Quiet in the Western Front, The Dead Poets' Society, Hamlet, Kiss of a Spiderwoman, Ten Commandments and Chariots of Fire. Nothing could beat the impact of Philadelphia though. On the scene where the young brother of Tom Hanks could no longer bear the dying Tom, I thought Lazarus would collapse!
Call his weeping multimedia. He burst into tears listening to Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, which I bought him for Christmas. He cried over the biography of Ernest Hemingway. I teased him all the time; I said, "Your favorite tree is weeping willow and passage from the Bible- Jesus wept." Lazaro I believe, was born with the largest lacrimal sacs in the world. Of course he is gay.
He'd find travesty in mundane things. I dragged him to a gay bar. When a go-go dancer mounted the stage and gyrated, Lazarus asked me, " What makes a man drop his pants for a few bucks? Is he hungry? Is someone in the family sick? Is his child needing milk?"
Goodness, where did he get these ideas? When the rich Bill Gates was featured in C-SPAN, I said, "That Gates is one lucky guy." Lazarus murmured something like, "Sadness is written on his face. It is lonely at the top." To test him I asked him once, "Is this glass half full or half empty?" His answer was, "Do you realize how many people on earth need clean running water? How insensitive of you to even ask that."
Eventually I had to confront him about his miserable psyche. I said, "What is disturbing about you Lazaro is that your love for tragedy is turning you into tragedy itself." My question was ill timed, he was reading Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Right after finishing Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice. Which meant he was on the verge of tears. Again.
"I can't help it," he said. "I love tragedy because I'm gay."
"Excuse me. Say that again?" I asked.
"Are you blind? Gays like us are pressed down, buried under the feet of society. Teen-age gays have the highest suicide rate; gays are dying by the thousands because of AIDS; we are deprived of honorable positions, made fun in all forms of Art, condemned by religions, discriminated and deprived of happiness. Can you blame me if I find everything tragic?"
I stood there counting one to a hundred. I was really pissed. "So?" I said, smarting. Did he read something in the Servant of the Bones? When my counting reached fifty seven, I resumed the konfrontasi. "Stop this weeping now Lazaro, this immense attachment to tragedy or else you'd join the long list of gay psychotics and eccentrics."
Wrong again, he had an immediate response - crisp, strong, full of conviction. "What else is new Mario? Aren't we considered abnormal now as we stand here?" I surrendered.
My friendship with Lazarus was, to put it mildly, an act of charity. It began when one of the Filipino nurses in Tennessee tasked me to visit him. She said he was extremely depressed and homesick. I soon found him virtually dead. Socially. He limited his adventures to five places - the SNF where he worked, the Xanadu video store, Kroger Grocery, Texaco gas station, and the library. I beseech him to come with me to Nashville Mall which he declined, preferring to mail order from International Male. On week-ends, he'd rent twenty videos and watch them in a row until his eyes hurt. He'd finish reading two novels a week until his vision became blurred.
After our confrontation, our friendship took a sharp turn. He did something unimaginable. My hermit friend who never ventured beyond the two mile periphery of his apartment suddenly turned into Houdini. He vanished.
Because he received his green card. Or so I thought.
That was three weeks ago, on the Feast Day of St. Augustine. In three weeks, he submitted his resignation, hoarded his little property to a Nashville Storage, packed up his duffle bag and drove all the way to Fort Lauderdale. He did these without telling anyone, including me. And I was his best friend. The rat.
And then, he called me.
"Mario," he said in a mild and nervous tone.
I blurted out my fears and anger. "What have you done? Where are you now? Are you okay? What happened?"
"Calm down," he answered. "I am safe here."
"In Florida?... Why did you do this shit Lazarus?"
"I was visited by St. Augustine."
Being a La Salle graduate, I have a low regard for any Augustinian. I was Dominican bred. Besides being sociable, I was practical.
"Do you have a job there?"
"No."
Dammit! "Medical insurance?"
"No."
"Do you have money?"
"A little."
"Lazaro, Lazaro, why are you so impulsive? Do you know what you're doing?"
"Please understand Mario, I need to act upon my visions. They are gifts from God."
I had the urge to hang up the phone, guilty for what I suspected was his mental demise. I should have done something. I was imagining a headline in Fort Lauderdale: A Homeless Filipino Nurse - Murdered.
And then he narrated his visions, he talked as if I was not even in the other line:
St. Augustine came wearing a bishop's habit, stomped his staff on the floor three times and cried, "Lazarus, wake up." I raised my head and asked him what he wanted.
"How long will you remain dead?" His words made me tremble. I corrected him by saying I was alive.
He raised his staff and pointed it at my chest. "The world and time have passed while you lie in your tomb. Lazarus, the Saints and Angels in heaven are agitated, for lately, there are droves of souls knocking on our doors, crying out for justice. They died before their appointed times. This was unprecedented since the Black Death of 1346. You've seen them, Lazarus."
I stared at him puzzled. He continued. "Have you closed your eyes so long you're blinded to them? Saying this, thousands of spirits came to me like a tornado, encircling me. They were the faces of people who died of AIDS. Arthur Ashe smiled.
But these souls did not know me at all. I was just an ordinary person. I shook my head.
The Saint's voice became threatening. "Don't make your resurrection too hard for me Lazarus. You don't want the Saints to get mad. During the Black Death, 16,000 Jews were murdered after being accused of starting it. Now, listening to the voice of time, there are hidden whispers blaming homosexuals for this new plague. If you do not act now, history will be repeated."
I told him to forget about it, who would listen to me, I was a homosexual myself. After I said this, a flash of lightning cut across his face, he released a thunderous cry, raised his staff again and struck me, yes, he hit me so hard I rolled in pain.
"From what measure do you judge yourself Lazarus?"
Well, who else but the modern moral crusaders, especially the Catholic Church.
"Stooop!" he cried. "I am not exactly proud of the Dark Ages. Who could have ever thought that the earth was round; that Joan of Arc was guiltless; that the sun was the center of the universe as Galileo claimed; that man would land upon the moon? And the gravest mistake of all, who could have ever thought that the Inquisition would imprison the great writer Cervantes? But Lazarus, who said that I, the scholarly Saint of Christendom, would be free from mistakes?" He paused for a while, mulled his thoughts, and then continued. "Hear my confession. When I was your age, I lived in sin. I housed a woman who bore me a child. We were not even married! I continued living in the joys of flesh, torn apart by the good and evil within me. I was on the verge of suicide one day when I heard the voice of a child. He said, 'Take up and read. Take up and read.' I began my Confessions. Today it's a classic. Oh Lazarus, you are no worse than me."
Still, I argued, people listened to him because he was a solid heterosexual.
"Oh your affinity to self condemnation makes me sick," the Saint said.
I told him that nowadays, people categorize sins in a certain hierarchy, homosexuality being at the bottom of the totem pole.
"And you believe that rubbish?" He asked.
That's the Catholic tradition, I answered.
"No one can be blamed for that but the secular Dante. And he was not even a man of God. Listen to me my child, to our Lord and Master, a sin is a sin. There is no difference between a lie and a murder. That is written in the Bible."
That was new to me. So I expanded our discussion into some moralists' claims. Which was homosexuality being responsible for the falls of Greek and Roman empires. And for the spread of AIDS. And for the moral decline of America.
St. Augustine seemed surprised.
"How wrong and pitiful. How odd. I thought the modern man have erased myths already. Listen, during my time, after the Goths sacked Rome, I believe it was in 410 AD, Christianity was considered the culprit. Otherwise, I would not write the City of God in the defense of persecuted Christians. Lazarus, people will always find a scapegoat for their failures. Don't listen, look instead to the visions I am going to show you."
He raised his staff and two doves, carrying the Bible between them descended upon me. The Book opened before my eyes. A passage was marked, it was Romans 1,26: "Because they do this, God has given them to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way, the men give up natural relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result, they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing."
After reading the passage, one of the doves flapped its wings turning the pages, which stopped at another marked passage. It was Matthew 5, 27-28: "Do not commit adultery. but now, I tell you: Anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing adultery in his heart."
The Book and the doves disappeared. I looked at Augustine, confused.
"Lazarus, God who condemned homosexuality is the same God who condemned a heterosexual fantasizing about a married woman. So stop condemning yourself. Look at this new vision."
Two men appeared.
One was in drag, swayed his hips, danced before a raucous crowd, he lip-synched Ertha Kitt, the audience was delirious with laughter. Naked dancers toured the tables, some of the men tipped them as they passed.
The other was married, I could tell by the wedding ring he wore. He came out of a hotel with a woman, they furtively drove away. "That was his mistress," the Saint whispered.
Sunday came. The man in drag shed off his clothes, counted the money he earned from his show the previous night, kissed his lover goodbye, proceeded to Publix Supermarket, bought groceries, drove to his mother, laid the groceries on the table, cleaned the house. Then his mother came out of her room and shouted, "I don't need this! This comes from your sinful job! Get out of my house!" He left in pain, crying.
Then his mother changed into her Sunday's best clothes, proceeded to her local church and worshiped God with her preacher. The preacher was the man who the night before drove away with his mistress from the motel!
"Now tell me Lazarus, what is wrong with this vision?" St Augustine asked.
I was too shocked to say anything.
"What is the consequence of this vision?" St Augustine pressed on. "Look at what happens next."
The man in drag appeared again, this time he was carrying a banner marked with symbols ACT-UP. With anger in his eyes he shouted. "We are queer, get used to us!"
On the side of the road, the preacher was holding a banner. On it were printed the Biblical passage Romans 1,26. He reacted to the shouts of the gay marchers: "Sinners you'll burn in Sodom and Gomorrah!"
St. Augustine stopped the vision. "Tell me Lazarus, who has the right to condemn the other?"
I was quick in my conclusion. No one Father, I said, both are sinners.
He raised his head toward the sky: "Let the man without sin cast the first stone. My child do not condemn yourself, for God lets the sun and rain fall on both the sinner and the good, the just and the unjust."
He stared into my eyes, full of gentleness and kindness. He said, "As for the falls and declines of empires, contrary to your beliefs, the cause was neither gender nor sex orientation. Look closely at the faces of the two men and you will see the real cause - the three faces of the Devil himself."
I looked and looked and looked at the faces. But I saw nothing.
St. Augustine quoted another passage from the Book. It was Mattew 5,22: "But now I tell you: Whoever is angry with his brother will be brought to trial; whoever calls his brother 'You good for nothing' will be brought before the Council; and whoever calls his brother a worthless fool will be in danger of going to the fires of hell."
Hearing this, the three faces of the Devil on the two men were slowly revealed. Hatred, Intolerance and Deceit.
The Saint spoke once more. "Yes, these are the true faces of moral decline. But... Lazaro there is another evil face that I haven't shown you yet. It was the face that toppled the Greek empire. Before Greece fell, the people took upon themselves to live in pleasure and selfishness.
Sometime after the death of Socrates and the Philosophers, they descended into the place of this evil face and in doing so, fell."
I want to see the fourth evil face my Saint, I pleaded.
"Before I reveal that, are you willing to come out of your hole to take the Cause of AIDS victims, those poor souls who are crying out in the heavens?"
I am afraid. I am a foreigner, gay, poor - what can a lowly man like me do?
"If you won't heed me Lazaro, this final vision will happen."
The vision came to me, it was short and brutal, it was insensible. The man in drag was singing in the bar and four masked men barged into the door. One of them was the preacher. He shouted: "In the name of God, I'm going to kill all you faggots!" He raised his rifle and began shooting.
I broke down and shook. No. No. No. I knelt in front of the Saint. Don' t let this happen Father, I begged.
From his hand, the Saint brought out a mirror and placed it before my face. I looked at my reflection.
He spoke again. "That is the fourth face of the Devil. It is called fear."
I finally realized what he wanted. I asked him what I should do. He gave me this instructions: "Lazaro, Lazaro, rise up from the dead. Awaken your spirit and heart. There are many souls crying before the Council of Angels and Saints. Justice they ask. Reason, they call. Come out of your tomb Lazaro, roll the rock away from the door. Go to Miami and there your mission will begin."
So there! The first visions of my friend Lazaro which hastened his departure to South Florida. One rainy day, he unfolded his umbrella and drove to Coral Gables, knocked on the door of a building named Dade Rest and spoke with solemnity: "My name is Lazaro Sembrano. I am here to offer services to People With AIDS.
Thus began his crusade which I am about to foretell. He waged a holy war that led to healing and reconciliation in Miami.
And I thought all the while he was insane. And I hope he'd forgive me for calling him a Rat one time.
ow I am a good friend, equal to them, and have nothing to do where I come from. All they care about is the joy of being together, doing things together which, sadly, is getting rarer as we get old. Aging is dooming us.
In order to do that, they need to leave the noise behind, they need to dwell inside, way deep inside and find what they want and accomplish outputs and products they are good at doing. Everyone was given a gift by God.
2024-05-24 10:20:25
shortstories
Disposing, Clearing
Disposing, Clearing
I will meet with a hauler I hired to partially empty my storage unit. The garbage inside my storage alone needs to go, some of the items had been there for 3 decades. I need to throw them out to gain extra space for the new items that are filling up my house. I could not even get inside my closet nowadays after I filled it with junk. I am rather a big procrastinator than a hoarder. I have the habit of promising myself to organize later. ‘Later’ is the keyword. My ‘later’ becomes days, weeks, months, years. The only time I think about my storage is when I need to store another thing in it.
The items I stored piled up. I did not have the time to arrange them to optimize the space. I threw things on the floor, new items got on top of the old forming a heap. After a while I didn’t even know the items I placed in the heap. Recently I noticed bits and pieces of loose papers, looking like they were chewed on by rats. Not sure how rats got into the storage unit - the only thing I suspect is that I brought them there.
Clearing my storage makes me happy. Especially the books I have stored since the 1990's. At one point, before the current technology and instant availability of information and data through the Internet, knowledge was concentrated in physical spots like bookstores and libraries. These were the places I hung out all the time, spending hours upon hours browsing, reading. I was so happy when the bookstores added cafes like some kind of mini-Mr Donut. But change became inevitable. Bookstores were slaughtered by the likes of Amazon. One by one, my favorite bookstores folded and those remaining did all sorts of modifications and product inventories to keep their foot traffic which did not pan out sadly.
During those bookstore days, I put a lot of value on books that I invested in and collected like jewelry with the thought they could be worth more than their original values in the future. Little did I know how devalued they would become. A newly printed book nowadays would have its best price but as time goes, when the interest on it wanes, it will just end in a second-hand store, thrown in a derelict bin, like the Salvation Army or Goodwill for less than a dollar each. The more entrepreneurial would start selling them through amazon or ebay. I once fantasized selling books through an online store which did not materialize due to my busy schedule. I worked full time and my work was very physical so I could hardly find the energy to attend to hobbies at the end of work shift.
Well, I might be able to fulfill my dreams that I am already semi-retired. I am able to adjust my work hours. I work roughly 12-15 hours per week nowadays, maybe 20 if I add driving time. There is a lot of time for me although my energy is no longer as good as it was before. I still prioritize my workouts, walks and jogs due to health issues. And I face many mini-crises everyday ranging from my rental business problems to an unexpected call from a home insurance company to inspect my current home, to finding mold in my rental unit. There is always something. In fact, I sometimes feel I have a busier lifestyle and ‘things to do’ in retirement than working full time.
That is life. I learned to pick and choose what I love to do.
---
I arrived approximately 2 hours before the hauler to sort out my stored items. I wanted to get rid of my book collection in the hundreds that are stacked up against the wall of the storage unit. Staring at them reminded me of all the grand plans I had with them when I was much younger. I thought of building a personal library in my room, assuming I got a big house somewhere. This never materialized because I lived in condos most of my life. Being single soured my desire to own a big house; it would have been different if I had a family, wife and kids. Condo was enough for me. So I kept the books that multiplied in the storage. I contemplated the idea of bookselling business, through Amazon or Ebay. In fact I sold a few when bookselling online was in its infancy. I thought it was fun initially until I got upset by a review posted by a pissed off customer who complained I wrapped the book she ordered too carelessly. Her order arrived wrapped by a flimsy wrapper that was torn. I immediately stopped selling. I was also working full time and overtime at that time and to stress myself with a business on the side for a pittance wasn’t worth my time and stress. But I did not give up my collection.
Later on, I found the books I valued so highly being sold by Amazon and Ebay for a fraction of their original costs. I did not see a reason to pursue the angle of bookstore online store from that point on. Instead, given how cheap second hand books became, I accumulated more and stored a lot of them in the same storage to read ‘later’. There was my procrastination again. Soon, the books got scattered all over the floor as I threw other stuff into the storage - bicycles, electronics, kayak accessories, bike racks, helmet, cables, lots of cables, clothes, linens and beddings, Christmas decorations. The heap soon prevented me from entering the storage without lifting heavy boxes to give me way. I got increasingly disgusted seeing the stored stuff. Until I could no longer find an available space in the storage and instead used my home as my secondary storage.
In no time my walk-in closet got filled with tools for gardening and tools for house repairs. Toilet snake, hammers, chisels, nails and screws, portable Ryobi tools for weed whacking and hedge trimming, long handled garden pruner, long pole tree branch trimmer, leaf blower, pressure washer, ladder etc. My house's closet got easily full and the next thing I know, even my laundry room started filling up. I could be turning into a hoarder. It did not help that I upgraded my living quarter from a condo to a small family home. It was a very small house no bigger than a condo, same limited space for too many accumulations, it never ends.
The trouble with single people like me is the benefit of doing things ‘later’. There is no hurry. I will order some cheap gadgets for exercises to start a home exercise program ‘later’. I will order a book that got me excited to read ‘later’. I will order curtains and dividers to assemble later. Oh I would get this exercise mat on sale so I can video myself exercising for my youtube account later. Bought a kayak to enjoy ‘later’. When my rental unit was empty and I was divided between converting it to AirBnB or regular rental, I bought cheap foldable chairs and a bed to use ‘later’. I bought camping equipments, inflatable bed to use ‘later’. My only consolation is my lack of class so most of the things I buy are cheap. And it goes without question that cheap things require space. And space is really expensive. I turned into a person who pays 200 bucks a month to accommodate junk worth maybe 50 bucks. That is how I can get stupid at times.
Aging becomes a friend. Especially when one realizes the illogical habits he has developed. I see how people’s accumulations are dealt with when they leave the earth. Discarded things they valued so much. Everything loaded in boxes and thrown into the bins. My father valued a special pen when he was still alive. I could still imagine him keeping that pen both as a teacher and principal and retiree. He kept it close to a small notebook that he carefully secured in his locked cabinet. The notebook has records of bits and pieces of information; birthdays of his children, phone numbers, addresses etc. After he died, they all were thrown away. My father kept old stuff as well. He was impoverished as a teacher and the little side business he had, selling gas stoves, profited him a stove for himself; the non working stove was still stored decades later, in one of the old house cabinets. On the shelves of the kitchen, I still saw the thermostat used for my siblings' instant milk decades ago. Unlike me however, my father was truly organized.
All our properties, valued or not, would all have the same outcome. Discarded and forgotten, just like our hopes, dreams, struggles, successes, fights, reconciliations. The only thing that matters are those with sentimental values.
I found one of the boxes I am looking for in my storage. I pried it open. My friend James’ box contained the remaining things he kept after he lost everything - his two houses, his wife, his car. He pleaded with me to keep his box for safekeeping until he came back. That was before the pandemic. He neither returned nor contacted me.
I paused at his box. It was a small box made of plastic, a container with a black top. He said he wanted to try his luck somewhere in Arizona, to find a job. He was an electrician by trade. I vividly recall him filling his duffel bag with his clothes, the meager things that would keep him going for the next few days on his trip to Phoenix. He said his mother was living there, and retired in her 70s. He was not happy to come back to her, she was too old to be burdened by a son who failed in his 40s. His life was alright until his wife got hooked on drugs, cocaine, heroin, you name it. He got into it as well and from that point on, their lives spiraled out of control, she got into prostitution, he sold one of his houses, burned all the proceeds to drugs, his other house was foreclosed. He tried to rent but they both got evicted in no time.
And before he left, he handed me this box that I am staring at now. I wonder if he would ever return to reclaim it. I opened it and saw all his papers, old certificates from his training on the job, back accounts that surprisingly still looked fresh and crisp as if they were just mailed to him yesterday. His wedding photos. How beautiful they were as a young couple, they looked like kids out of college full of potential. I carefully dropped the items back into the box and immediately closed its lid. I felt like invading his privacy, I have no business knowing another person’s personal affairs and businesses.
I finally got into the other box I was looking for. My old box of what I thought was personal. Unlike James, my box was full of things that I value but has no value for anyone else. Papers mostly, these were pages of the stories I wrote a long time ago when I still dreamed of becoming a writer. I had stories written in highschool, some notebooks filled with my jottings of pain and supplications and momentary bliss all through college. These pages don’t matter anymore. I have since digitized their content but for some reason their physical presence reminds me of the pen and paper I wrote them with, the faded pages seem to return me back to an earlier age when possibilities in life abound. Then in the same box, I saw some of my old pictures. Faces of my siblings’ children, most of them are already parents now. I saw our old home with my old parents pausing for the last time before their passing.
What do I get out of these stored objects? When I die, no one would care about these - no one would feel how I felt towards them. They represent my story, the accumulation of emotions that accompanied me throughout my days. There is a tendency for humans to work intensely for their legacy when they get old, they want to be remembered with fondness if not with more frequency, they work hard to leave a good footnote behind, but whether we like it or not, we still end up in the annals of oblivion, relegated to ghostly tale and spirits. So - really - there is no need to worry about anything. I get so worked up sometimes with the things I share with the world, always asking myself if these would be acceptable, appropriate, and won’t destroy my reputation. What reputation?
2024-09-04 08:43:25
shortstories
Lazaro Sembrano
I went through the routine of housekeeping that often starts the night before. I cleaned my sink, took out the garbage. And today, the first thing I did the moment I woke up was brew my coffee. It tasted good. Earlier I thought of dropping by the gym for my resistance training. But the drive would chip away at my free time that could otherwise be spent writing, which is my morning habit now.
Yesterday I had this thought of going to the library in the afternoon for better learning and working. I usually accomplish more in the library with a cool temperature and presence of other learners that usually inspire me. But I had to eat lunch first and as my usual habit, I surfed the Internet. I also had to allow Jim’s pet Rocky outside to pee. Jim texted me earlier to do just that since he'd be at work the whole day and I'd be home before him. When all was done, I fell asleep. When I woke up from my nap, there was no way I'd go anywhere with thunder and rain that just rushed into my city without warning.
Since I walked more than 3 miles in the morning yesterday, I ended writing my meditation in the evening which was grand. I spent time talking about something, now I don’t even recall what that something was, oh it must have something to do with the zealot dude in the park last Saturday, he was obviously damaged by psychosis. He could be a material for a fine story. He was yelling at anybody passing him by and suddenly would open his bags and pull out their contents and put them back in again. I moved away from his path but couldn't get him out of my mind. Most days, he would be preaching alone in one of the sheds in the park. Today, he was fighting with some imaginary enemies.
I was also impressed by my own behavior now. Yesterday I managed to respectfully greet a homeless dude who greeted me the same way. Yesterday I also saw a fisherman who must have caught the biggest fish from the Intercoastal. I said he got a big catch, the biggest catch I could remember. He smiled and acknowledged me. The usual park crowd swelled as the morning sun lifted itself higher in the sky. A few homeless people dragged down their baggage on wheels, some sitting in hidden corners as if embarrassed by their luck, refusing to make eye contact with people passing by. This state of Florida, for whatever reason, has turned so expensive that it is now beyond the reach of low-paid workers. A lot end up being evicted and it is much more difficult for the retirees who have no means to move somewhere or start all over again. It is tough to pass by them knowing I could be one of them if luck would turn against me.
I thought of my roommate Jim. Without me, Jim would have lost any chance of living here in Florida although he has his mother in Arizona to rescue him, hopefully. She’s supposed to be rich and it puzzles me why Jim would not go to her now. They must have some family dynamics that Jim tries to avoid but I made sure that he knows that one day I will be gone and hopefully he will have secured his own dwelling and life by then. I admit there are some perks in having him as my roommate. My current neighborhood is risky for people living alone. It helps that I have Jim here (I tell everyone he is a roommate/tenant to avoid people thinking we’re partners or lovers because we are not; he is as straight as an arrow) with his pitbull pet Rocky providing peace of mind and security. He contributes to the cost of utilities, at least. Now and then he does home repairs that require ladders and especially electrical, which is his line of work. It is all good. The Lord blessed me with having him around.
Other than that, I am content as Floridians approach what is predicted to be a severe hurricane season, which will contribute more agony to the already stretched out people. Between hurricane-driven property taxes that tripled and insurance premiums that increased more than quadruple, people are reassessing their stay in this state. I guess the Lord is telling us something. As for me, I don’t want to focus too much on the negative what ifs. The Lord has always guided me in making decisions in life and whatever disaster comes along, I will follow whatever He tells me. If I lose everything, I will just sell and leave. For I am in a much better position in life at this point. I am retiring soon and there will be a fixed income coming my way. It is not much, but better than nothing. I saved a little which in my estimation will help me fund my old age. I also have the option of returning home to the old country if my life comes from bad to worse. This is the way of life that I worked hard and prepared for. The last thing I would like to do is worry as much as I did when I was young.
My health could afford to worry when I was young, when I took all the responsibilities of providing for my extended family. Those were the days when I refused even to drive long distances for fear of getting injured because being disabled would cause a total failure not only on me but the family I vowed to support. Those days are over. What took their place are the aging-related problems of slowing down and getting sick easily. There is still the possibility of losing it all with a result more woeful for me because I am alone. Even that is something not to fret about. I did something good for those who needed it most in my halcyon days.
Remember the extended family I supported? They will never abandon me. I can see that in their eyes, their loving eyes that say ‘ if I was there when they needed me most, they’d make sure they will be around when it is my turn to need them.’
But I fiercely protect my independence. I want to go on fighting and kicking till the day I die. I don’t need someone’s hand guiding my weakling arms and legs to cross the street. I would refuse a seat offered to me by a young man or woman in the LRT. I want to pass on from this life like my dear old grandaunt who was a solid spinster. A week before her death, and no one could figure how she knew it, she pulled her hidden brown baro’t saya and told her niece that should she die, that is what she would like to wear in her wake. She died a week later without drama and fanfare. She was admitted to the hospital due to pneumonia and died peacefully. That is the way to go, I think. She was almost 90.
Ah the drama of my youth when life was hard and full of responsibilities still makes me teary-eyed but it is all over. My sister reported to me yesterday that everyone back home is doing very well. Another house was built by a niece on the old land owned by my deceased father. My older brother, the one I followed, is planning to visit his son, my nephew and family in New Zealand. I heard of my youngest brother getting away from his family for a few days, sulking after his wife and daughter argued over something, which amused me more than worried me. Apparently his daughter bought a piece of land that was still occupied. And the occupier refused to leave. It is a family affair beyond me. Trivial matters I have nothing to do with. My old intention of saving my siblings and their families from a disastrous future had been preempted and it is all over now. Time for me to bow and take my own trip somewhere. Not sure where but somewhere with a total peace of mind and calm spirit.
Again, this is my drama and I own it!
Today is another day of meditation, work and maybe workout. I must spend time blogging my fiction website that surprises me with a few readers based on Google analytics, much better than my health website that I regularly update. I feel that Filipinos are hungry for stories, especially stories they could relate to. It so happens that Filipino bloggers, upon my close examination, are populated by lifestyles and whatever they want to show off. And these lifestyle blogs are meant to fade away. They are meant for the young and hip and rich which is irrelevant to the majority of the population that are middle class or poor. Lifestyle blogs are for those who think they live in a well-to-do-country, like the US, showcasing things that I myself have nothing to do with. I live in America and I have no plans of elevating my lifestyle, like theirs, wearing expensive clothes and traveling with a camera pointing at me telling people - Look here, see how wonderful my life is and should yours be’. Ok. My answer to that is no.
What I want to share is what I am writing now. The Filipino’s resilience in life. The Filipino’s power over his demons and adversities. The Filipino’s power to look at his misery straight in the eye and kill it until it is gone. Sadly, this requires a lot of story-telling, a lot of serious thinking and these are done without self-promotion because who cares? Most especially me. I was never a good looking person to start with. I am hideous, what is the point of sharing my appearance?
My Filipino story is what matters. It is the only gift I can give to those who are interested in what I have to tell. And millions of Filipinos have millions of stories to tell. Most of them have no outlets for their stories because they could not find a decent quiet place to tell them or a venue to show them. Their stories could not compete with all the distractions all fighting for netizens’ attention. The worst part is, when they have the opportunity to share their stories, they are buried under lifestyle blogs that impress on them that these are what they should emulate.
Not me. I studied how to design websites. I learned how to create reels and videos and shorts and how to scale images and convert them to jpegs and store them in AWS S3 or in youtube or even on web hosts and clouds. But I also practiced writing all my life. Am I good at writing? Heck no. But I can be good in sharing and hoping that someone would get what I am driving at in my stories.
And this is what I am driving at: that Filipinos would own themselves again, and I am talking about their true selves. They should unshackle themselves from what the world tells them they should do. They should get away from appeasing and attracting and feeling a sense of false superiority because one Filipino won a beauty contest or one foreigner posted his admiration for the Philippines as a beautiful country. Worse, Filipinos seem to have this propensity to feature themselves with a foreign spouse or husband/wife/partner called AFAM, and feel cut above the rest of the country. Worse, other Filipnos become so jealous and start looking for their own afam as well. It is almost comedic. Here I am dealing with all kinds of ‘foreigners’ ( in relation to where I come from) and feel not a single iota of pride, even when most of my friends, Caucasian, Blacks, Latinos sleep on my sofa. Jim is white. Matt is black. Javier is Latino. They don’t care how I look. Or act. They just know I am a good friend, equal to them, and have nothing to do where I come from. All they care about is the joy of being together, doing things together which, sadly, is getting rarer as we get old. Aging is dooming us.
In order to do that, they need to leave the noise behind, they need to dwell inside, way deep inside and find what they want and accomplish outputs and products they are good at doing. Everyone was given a gift by God.
Lazaro Sembrano (circa 1994)
Will someone say, why, then, this
divine compassion extended even to
the ungodly and ungrateful? Why, but
because it was the mercy of him who
daily "maketh His sun to rise on the
evil and the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and the unjust." (Mat 5,45)
St. Augustine, The City of God
I take the liberty of chronicling a Gay Sainthood foretold.
My friend, Lazaro Sembrano, was a sucker of tragedy; this he attributed to his mediocre looks and strict Catholic upbringing. He was, as a product of Tarlac farmers, replete with superstitions. A mole on the side of his nose was a destiny to weep gallons of tears; his shoulder growth meant a lifetime cross to bear; his buttock birthmark supposedly spawned disasters. He blamed his misfortunes, earthquakes, typhoons, drought, floods, fires and volcanic eruptions to these bodily marks. Their house used to stand beside a cemetery. As a kid, he'd jump over the fence during the burial of anybody and join mourners just for the heck of it; when it was time to wail, he'd wail the loudest. Such a nuisance! He said, "To cry for someone you don't know is the highest form of sympathy." He sure found tragedy everywhere.
During his residence in Murfreesboro Tennessee as a nurse, he learned through Discovery Channel that Marlon Brando championed Civil Rights and Native Americans. He wrote him a letter - addressed to Marlon Brando c/o Tahiti - "I'm rooting for you. Sincerely, Lazarus." Just one problem - Brando's activism occurred thirty years ago and was residing in California when my friend mailed him the letter. Worse, when Brando's son was charged for the murder of his half-sister's husband/lover and, when later, this half sister committed suicide for the same reason, Lazaro cried for days. He got hysterical in the middle of A Streetcar Named Desire, where Brando, his wet shirt torn, cried - "Stellaaaaa!" And I couldn't pacify him. His tears carried-over Guys and Dolls, a comedy. More recently, he wept with Tom Cruise in Jerry McGuire. Which reminded me of his previous similar reactions to Kevin Costner's Field of Dreams , Mickey Rooney's BoysTown, and Mel Gibson's Ransom. Judging from the looks of these actors you'd become suspicious. Suspicious or not, Lazarus also cried through The Sands of Iwo Jima, All Is Quiet in the Western Front, The Dead Poets' Society, Hamlet, Kiss of a Spiderwoman, Ten Commandments and Chariots of Fire. Nothing could beat the impact of Philadelphia though. On the scene where the young brother of Tom Hanks could no longer bear the dying Tom, I thought Lazarus would collapse!
Call his weeping multimedia. He burst into tears listening to Les Miserables and Miss Saigon, which I bought him for Christmas. He cried over the biography of Ernest Hemingway. I teased him all the time; I said, "Your favorite tree is weeping willow and passage from the Bible- Jesus wept." Lazaro I believe, was born with the largest lacrimal sacs in the world. Of course he is gay.
He'd find travesty in mundane things. I dragged him to a gay bar. When a go-go dancer mounted the stage and gyrated, Lazarus asked me, " What makes a man drop his pants for a few bucks? Is he hungry? Is someone in the family sick? Is his child needing milk?"
Goodness, where did he get these ideas? When the rich Bill Gates was featured in C-SPAN, I said, "That Gates is one lucky guy." Lazarus murmured something like, "Sadness is written on his face. It is lonely at the top." To test him I asked him once, "Is this glass half full or half empty?" His answer was, "Do you realize how many people on earth need clean running water? How insensitive of you to even ask that."
Eventually I had to confront him about his miserable psyche. I said, "What is disturbing about you Lazaro is that your love for tragedy is turning you into tragedy itself." My question was ill timed, he was reading Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky. Right after finishing Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice. Which meant he was on the verge of tears. Again.
"I can't help it," he said. "I love tragedy because I'm gay."
"Excuse me. Say that again?" I asked.
"Are you blind? Gays like us are pressed down, buried under the feet of society. Teen-age gays have the highest suicide rate; gays are dying by the thousands because of AIDS; we are deprived of honorable positions, made fun in all forms of Art, condemned by religions, discriminated and deprived of happiness. Can you blame me if I find everything tragic?"
I stood there counting one to a hundred. I was really pissed. "So?" I said, smarting. Did he read something in the Servant of the Bones? When my counting reached fifty seven, I resumed the konfrontasi. "Stop this weeping now Lazaro, this immense attachment to tragedy or else you'd join the long list of gay psychotics and eccentrics."
Wrong again, he had an immediate response - crisp, strong, full of conviction. "What else is new Mario? Aren't we considered abnormal now as we stand here?" I surrendered.
My friendship with Lazarus was, to put it mildly, an act of charity. It began when one of the Filipino nurses in Tennessee tasked me to visit him. She said he was extremely depressed and homesick. I soon found him virtually dead. Socially. He limited his adventures to five places - the SNF where he worked, the Xanadu video store, Kroger Grocery, Texaco gas station, and the library. I beseech him to come with me to Nashville Mall which he declined, preferring to mail order from International Male. On week-ends, he'd rent twenty videos and watch them in a row until his eyes hurt. He'd finish reading two novels a week until his vision became blurred.
After our confrontation, our friendship took a sharp turn. He did something unimaginable. My hermit friend who never ventured beyond the two mile periphery of his apartment suddenly turned into Houdini. He vanished.
Because he received his green card. Or so I thought.
That was three weeks ago, on the Feast Day of St. Augustine. In three weeks, he submitted his resignation, hoarded his little property to a Nashville Storage, packed up his duffle bag and drove all the way to Fort Lauderdale. He did these without telling anyone, including me. And I was his best friend. The rat.
And then, he called me.
"Mario," he said in a mild and nervous tone.
I blurted out my fears and anger. "What have you done? Where are you now? Are you okay? What happened?"
"Calm down," he answered. "I am safe here."
"In Florida?... Why did you do this shit Lazarus?"
"I was visited by St. Augustine."
Being a La Salle graduate, I have a low regard for any Augustinian. I was Dominican bred. Besides being sociable, I was practical.
"Do you have a job there?"
"No."
Dammit! "Medical insurance?"
"No."
"Do you have money?"
"A little."
"Lazaro, Lazaro, why are you so impulsive? Do you know what you're doing?"
"Please understand Mario, I need to act upon my visions. They are gifts from God."
I had the urge to hang up the phone, guilty for what I suspected was his mental demise. I should have done something. I was imagining a headline in Fort Lauderdale: A Homeless Filipino Nurse - Murdered.
And then he narrated his visions, he talked as if I was not even in the other line:
St. Augustine came wearing a bishop's habit, stomped his staff on the floor three times and cried, "Lazarus, wake up." I raised my head and asked him what he wanted.
"How long will you remain dead?" His words made me tremble. I corrected him by saying I was alive.
He raised his staff and pointed it at my chest. "The world and time have passed while you lie in your tomb. Lazarus, the Saints and Angels in heaven are agitated, for lately, there are droves of souls knocking on our doors, crying out for justice. They died before their appointed times. This was unprecedented since the Black Death of 1346. You've seen them, Lazarus."
I stared at him puzzled. He continued. "Have you closed your eyes so long you're blinded to them? Saying this, thousands of spirits came to me like a tornado, encircling me. They were the faces of people who died of AIDS. Arthur Ashe smiled.
But these souls did not know me at all. I was just an ordinary person. I shook my head.
The Saint's voice became threatening. "Don't make your resurrection too hard for me Lazarus. You don't want the Saints to get mad. During the Black Death, 16,000 Jews were murdered after being accused of starting it. Now, listening to the voice of time, there are hidden whispers blaming homosexuals for this new plague. If you do not act now, history will be repeated."
I told him to forget about it, who would listen to me, I was a homosexual myself. After I said this, a flash of lightning cut across his face, he released a thunderous cry, raised his staff again and struck me, yes, he hit me so hard I rolled in pain.
"From what measure do you judge yourself Lazarus?"
Well, who else but the modern moral crusaders, especially the Catholic Church.
"Stooop!" he cried. "I am not exactly proud of the Dark Ages. Who could have ever thought that the earth was round; that Joan of Arc was guiltless; that the sun was the center of the universe as Galileo claimed; that man would land upon the moon? And the gravest mistake of all, who could have ever thought that the Inquisition would imprison the great writer Cervantes? But Lazarus, who said that I, the scholarly Saint of Christendom, would be free from mistakes?" He paused for a while, mulled his thoughts, and then continued. "Hear my confession. When I was your age, I lived in sin. I housed a woman who bore me a child. We were not even married! I continued living in the joys of flesh, torn apart by the good and evil within me. I was on the verge of suicide one day when I heard the voice of a child. He said, 'Take up and read. Take up and read.' I began my Confessions. Today it's a classic. Oh Lazarus, you are no worse than me."
Still, I argued, people listened to him because he was a solid heterosexual.
"Oh your affinity to self condemnation makes me sick," the Saint said.
I told him that nowadays, people categorize sins in a certain hierarchy, homosexuality being at the bottom of the totem pole.
"And you believe that rubbish?" He asked.
That's the Catholic tradition, I answered.
"No one can be blamed for that but the secular Dante. And he was not even a man of God. Listen to me my child, to our Lord and Master, a sin is a sin. There is no difference between a lie and a murder. That is written in the Bible."
That was new to me. So I expanded our discussion into some moralists' claims. Which was homosexuality being responsible for the falls of Greek and Roman empires. And for the spread of AIDS. And for the moral decline of America.
St. Augustine seemed surprised.
"How wrong and pitiful. How odd. I thought the modern man have erased myths already. Listen, during my time, after the Goths sacked Rome, I believe it was in 410 AD, Christianity was considered the culprit. Otherwise, I would not write the City of God in the defense of persecuted Christians. Lazarus, people will always find a scapegoat for their failures. Don't listen, look instead to the visions I am going to show you."
He raised his staff and two doves, carrying the Bible between them descended upon me. The Book opened before my eyes. A passage was marked, it was Romans 1,26: "Because they do this, God has given them to shameful passions. Even the women pervert the natural use of their sex by unnatural acts. In the same way, the men give up natural relations with women and burn with passion for each other. Men do shameful things with each other, and as a result, they bring upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wrongdoing."
After reading the passage, one of the doves flapped its wings turning the pages, which stopped at another marked passage. It was Matthew 5, 27-28: "Do not commit adultery. but now, I tell you: Anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing adultery in his heart."
The Book and the doves disappeared. I looked at Augustine, confused.
"Lazarus, God who condemned homosexuality is the same God who condemned a heterosexual fantasizing about a married woman. So stop condemning yourself. Look at this new vision."
Two men appeared.
One was in drag, swayed his hips, danced before a raucous crowd, he lip-synched Ertha Kitt, the audience was delirious with laughter. Naked dancers toured the tables, some of the men tipped them as they passed.
The other was married, I could tell by the wedding ring he wore. He came out of a hotel with a woman, they furtively drove away. "That was his mistress," the Saint whispered.
Sunday came. The man in drag shed off his clothes, counted the money he earned from his show the previous night, kissed his lover goodbye, proceeded to Publix Supermarket, bought groceries, drove to his mother, laid the groceries on the table, cleaned the house. Then his mother came out of her room and shouted, "I don't need this! This comes from your sinful job! Get out of my house!" He left in pain, crying.
Then his mother changed into her Sunday's best clothes, proceeded to her local church and worshiped God with her preacher. The preacher was the man who the night before drove away with his mistress from the motel!
"Now tell me Lazarus, what is wrong with this vision?" St Augustine asked.
I was too shocked to say anything.
"What is the consequence of this vision?" St Augustine pressed on. "Look at what happens next."
The man in drag appeared again, this time he was carrying a banner marked with symbols ACT-UP. With anger in his eyes he shouted. "We are queer, get used to us!"
On the side of the road, the preacher was holding a banner. On it were printed the Biblical passage Romans 1,26. He reacted to the shouts of the gay marchers: "Sinners you'll burn in Sodom and Gomorrah!"
St. Augustine stopped the vision. "Tell me Lazarus, who has the right to condemn the other?"
I was quick in my conclusion. No one Father, I said, both are sinners.
He raised his head toward the sky: "Let the man without sin cast the first stone. My child do not condemn yourself, for God lets the sun and rain fall on both the sinner and the good, the just and the unjust."
He stared into my eyes, full of gentleness and kindness. He said, "As for the falls and declines of empires, contrary to your beliefs, the cause was neither gender nor sex orientation. Look closely at the faces of the two men and you will see the real cause - the three faces of the Devil himself."
I looked and looked and looked at the faces. But I saw nothing.
St. Augustine quoted another passage from the Book. It was Mattew 5,22: "But now I tell you: Whoever is angry with his brother will be brought to trial; whoever calls his brother 'You good for nothing' will be brought before the Council; and whoever calls his brother a worthless fool will be in danger of going to the fires of hell."
Hearing this, the three faces of the Devil on the two men were slowly revealed. Hatred, Intolerance and Deceit.
The Saint spoke once more. "Yes, these are the true faces of moral decline. But... Lazaro there is another evil face that I haven't shown you yet. It was the face that toppled the Greek empire. Before Greece fell, the people took upon themselves to live in pleasure and selfishness.
Sometime after the death of Socrates and the Philosophers, they descended into the place of this evil face and in doing so, fell."
I want to see the fourth evil face my Saint, I pleaded.
"Before I reveal that, are you willing to come out of your hole to take the Cause of AIDS victims, those poor souls who are crying out in the heavens?"
I am afraid. I am a foreigner, gay, poor - what can a lowly man like me do?
"If you won't heed me Lazaro, this final vision will happen."
The vision came to me, it was short and brutal, it was insensible. The man in drag was singing in the bar and four masked men barged into the door. One of them was the preacher. He shouted: "In the name of God, I'm going to kill all you faggots!" He raised his rifle and began shooting.
I broke down and shook. No. No. No. I knelt in front of the Saint. Don' t let this happen Father, I begged.
From his hand, the Saint brought out a mirror and placed it before my face. I looked at my reflection.
He spoke again. "That is the fourth face of the Devil. It is called fear."
I finally realized what he wanted. I asked him what I should do. He gave me this instructions: "Lazaro, Lazaro, rise up from the dead. Awaken your spirit and heart. There are many souls crying before the Council of Angels and Saints. Justice they ask. Reason, they call. Come out of your tomb Lazaro, roll the rock away from the door. Go to Miami and there your mission will begin."
So there! The first visions of my friend Lazaro which hastened his departure to South Florida. One rainy day, he unfolded his umbrella and drove to Coral Gables, knocked on the door of a building named Dade Rest and spoke with solemnity: "My name is Lazaro Sembrano. I am here to offer services to People With AIDS.
Thus began his crusade which I am about to foretell. He waged a holy war that led to healing and reconciliation in Miami.
And I thought all the while he was insane. And I hope he'd forgive me for calling him a Rat one time.
ow I am a good friend, equal to them, and have nothing to do where I come from. All they care about is the joy of being together, doing things together which, sadly, is getting rarer as we get old. Aging is dooming us.
In order to do that, they need to leave the noise behind, they need to dwell inside, way deep inside and find what they want and accomplish outputs and products they are good at doing. Everyone was given a gift by God.
2024-05-24 10:20:25
shortstories