DENNY HAD had already become a famous painter, a rockstar and a champion
tennis player by the time his mother arrived to pick him up. He glanced
up from his Choose Your Own Adventure book—an old, worn copy
that had belonged to his mother—and saw her standing by the
school gate, the very last rays of the afternoon sun casting her hair
in an orange glow. She cut a lovely figure in her office clothes,
but she had on large oval sunglasses that made her look a little like
an alien. He hurried to put on his backpack and scrambled towards
her, waving goodbye to the aging security guard who had been on duty
for the past hour. The old man took off his hat and his silver hair
glinted in the waning light as he waved back. Denny beamed. He tugged
at his mother's blouse so that she would lean down to him, and he
whispered in her ear, "That's Mr. Ubas, my friends and I always
tell him, Mr. Ubas pengeng ubas! but so far he hasn't given us any."
She whispered back, "Why do you guys call him Mr. Ubas?"
He rolled his eyes. "'Cause that's his name!" He sneaked
a peek over his shoulder; the old guard was walking away, turning
the pergola lights on as he went. "Allan said he overheard Mr.
Ubas beg the teachers to help him stay a bit longer, so a while ago
I asked Mr. Ubas if he was leaving. He just said yes and then told
me to go back to my book. Why do you think he's leaving?"
"Well, maybe it's time for him to retire," she replied,
glancing back at the pergola. Then she shook her head and said, "Dear,
stay out of other people's troubles, all right?"
He stared at his reflection in her big sunglasses and pouted. "All
right." He had simply gotten bored, and Mr. Ubas had kept him
company. He was supposed to stay in the library but the aircon had
conked out. Today had been his first day without a school bus to take
him home, so he had had to wait all afternoon for her mother to fetch
him. He wondered why he couldn't ride the old school bus anymore,
and wished his mother would find him a new one. "You took so
long to come," he said.
"Sorry, boss." She removed her sunglasses as she stooped
to kiss him on the head. "Jeesh, you smell like sweat! Didn't
you do anything in school but run around in the sun?"
"No, Micky and JP brought their Bey Blades today, we played
that instead. JP's yaya scolded us because we made her and JP's driver
wait for two whole hours!"
"Two hours, playing with plastic tops? Well, those things did
cost a fortune," she said, clucking her tongue in mock exasperation.
She took his backpack from his shoulders, and he stretched with relief,
eased of the burden. Then he sprung forward and repeatedly poked his
mother's waist where she was ticklish. "Cut it out," she
laughed.
Her laughter tickled him back: it was airy and high-pitched, something
like a cross between a gasp and a giggle, and whenever she laughed
hard enough it seemed to Denny that she would suffocate from happiness.
When she laughed, her lips, no matter how she colored them, set off
her big blinding-white teeth. He thought that when he grew up he would
probably look the same way when he laughed, because he already had
her features anyway, except that he dimpled distinctly, one on each
cheek. Her mother had a tiny dimple on the left corner of her mouth,
but it only appeared sometimes. Many weeks ago he had asked her why
sometimes the dimple was there and sometimes it was not, but because
she didn't know she had simply laughed. Her mother laughed easily
during that time, in that same period when Tito Mello still frequented
their house and slept over almost every night. The man was nice to
him, much nicer than Tito George or Tito Raffy had ever been—George
had been too grumpy and Raffy had seemed to like too many women besides
Denny's mother—and he wondered why lately he hadn't been seeing
him as often as before. Nowadays, his mother rarely laughed, too.
Denny felt something in his chest—something that was happy but
also sad, he couldn't understand which—as he watched his mother
swing his backpack onto one shoulder.
The parking lot was empty except for Tito Mello's car, a shiny dark-green
Honda that was parked all the way on the far side of the lot. Denny
could make out Mello's tall, hunched figure under the lamppost. He
clung to his mother's hand as they walked across the parking lot.
"I got a big yellow star for my math homework, the one you helped
me with," he said, looking up at her.
She met his gaze and smiled. The sun had set and everything in the
world was in a violet haze, but the lights in the parking lot were
on and Denny could see her face clearly. She didn't have to say anything
with that smile- the way the skin under her eyes creased ever so slightly,
how her lips pursed together, corners turned up just a bit, the tiny
dimple making an appearance—and all he could wish for was that
those brown eyes weren't so sad. As far as Denny knew, however, his
mother could smile no other way. She looked like she had practiced
until she had perfected it, turning up the corners of her mouth at
just the right angle so as to produce the lone, miniscule dimple,
but she could not do anything about what her eyes said. When Denny
had been accepted in his present school, when he won Best in Reading
and Language for the first-grade class, and before, whenever she and
Tito Mello held hands, his mother smiled like that, her face ready
to brim over with an emotion she seemed unable to release. To him,
that feeling should be joy—why else would she smile?—but
he couldn't understand why her eyes just wouldn't show it. His mother
had the prettiest smile in the world but he liked her face better
when she laughed; her laughter he could understand.
He knew she knew he was staring at her. She shook her head, smiling
to herself, and squeezed his hand. The rough edges of her fingers
bit into his palm. He held on tighter.
Halfway to the Honda, his mother stopped and released his hand. "Wait,
all right?" she said as she put down the backpack. She lit up
a cigarette and began taking long drags, careful to exhale away from
him. He sat down on his backpack and watched the smoke curl up into
the evening air. She was supposed to have quit, but he forgave her
this time.
When she had burned the cigarette down, she sat down on her haunches,
skirt and all, and crushed the stub on the cement. A narrow, translucent
bracelet glittered softly on her wrist. Denny recognized the beads
as those that his mother had been stringing into cheap jewelry the
past few nights, quaint delicate trinkets that he had helped her staple
into little plastic packets. He wondered why she wore only one little
bracelet when she must have made over a hundred pieces. Denny stared
at her face as she stood up, as she pulled him up and swung the backpack
onto her shoulder.
"Do your eyes hurt, Mama?" he asked.
Her mother shrugged under the backpack's weight. "Hm? Why do
you ask?"
Denny knew the backpack was heavy: aside from the everyday load of
textbooks and toys, he had brought his whole collection of Choose
Your Own Adventure books to class for show-and-tell. None of his classmates
had known what they were, but his teacher had congratulated him anyway.
He reached up to take back the bag from his mother. She refused. He
stuck out his tongue, then snorted, "Your eyes—they're
red and puffy again."
She paused so he glanced up at her, but she was already putting
on the big black sunglasses that made her look like an alien. His
mother was so funny sometimes. It was already dark, she didn't need
those shades anymore. Then he thought he understood. He jumped away.
"Aagh!" he yelped, pointing an accusing finger at her.
"You have sore eyes!"
"Sira," she replied, but her lips were smiling and the
tiny dimple played on the corner of her mouth.
When Denny and his mother came near, Mello ground the cigarette
he'd been smoking under his foot. "Pare," he said as he
exchanged high-fives with Denny. Wordlessly, he took the backpack
from Denny's mother. He looked in and, seeing the Choose Your Own
Adventure books, flashed Denny a smile. "Hey, I haven't seen
these titles in a while! These things are still around, eh?"
"They're all from Mama," he said as he watched the tall
man who used to read to him whenever he spent the night at their house.
He felt like he hadn't seen him for years, even though he had driven
Denny's mother home only some weeks ago and had even helped him with
his science assignment. Denny tried to decide whether something about
Tito Mello had changed, but he still had a stoop, he was still a little
browner-skinned than Denny and his mother was, and he still wore that
powerful cologne that had made Denny sneeze the first time they'd
met. He was not sure if he really liked Tito Mello, if he ever really
did, but he appreciated the way the man talked to him, and how his
large eyes always seemed to twinkle under those black-rimmed glasses.
He was taller than Denny's mother but he had a bad back that made
him hunch his shoulders in that near-permanent stoop. Denny looked
up at his mother, expecting her to reach out and tap Mello's back
to remind him of his posture, the way she always used to when Denny
still saw them together often. But she did nothing, said nothing,
and they all got into the car without another word.
Denny settled down in the back, with Mello's folders piled up on
his right and his bulky backpack resting on his left. A faint, lemony
fragrance filled the car. He shifted in his seat, running his palms
all over the plush leather upholstery, and he realized he had missed
this car, and all the hours he had spent in this backseat while his
mother rode in front and Mello drove them to Enchanted Kingdom, to
out-of-town picnics, and to the malls. One time they had gone to the
hospital in this car and Denny, sick with indigestion, had thrown
up all over the seat cover. Tito Mello had had the leather cleaned
afterwards, but for many days he had been angry with Denny's mother.
Now as he watched Tito Mello start the engine and his mother put on
her seatbelt, he wondered if he had done anything that had caused
the seeming distance between the two adults. He wanted to ask, but
was frightened by what the answer could be.
The car rolled out the parking lot and onto the street. Tito Mello
shifted gears and the car accelerated, while outside, the darkness
streaked past with the streetlights. Denny's mother turned the radio
on, and Denny sighed in relief as soft music filled in the silence.
Soon their car slowed down and turned onto a main road, joining what
seemed like a hundred other cars with impatient, blinking lights.
Tito Mello glanced at his watch then struck the dashboard in annoyance.
"This is why I didn't want to come here," he muttered as
the car stopped moving. Denny sensed his mother bristle.
"Don't worry, I'll pick him up by myself tomorrow," she
said in a tone that made Denny want to curl deeper into the plush
leather seat.
"Yeah, well, you're the one who came begging," the man
replied evenly. "Next time, get a school service you can afford."
The old Toyota in front gently advanced a few inches. Their car jolted
forward and braked. "Hell, transfer him to a school you can afford."
Denny's mother yanked the glove compartment open and took out Mello's
CD player. "Here, Denny," she said as she handed it to him.
He put on the huge headphones but there was no CD inside the player.
He looked up at his mother's face; her mouth was set in a stiff line
and her big oval sunglasses showed him nothing but his tiny reflection.
She settled back in her seat. He turned to look up at the rearview
mirror.
"Tito Mello?" His voice failed him when he saw how the
man's glasses gleamed from the lights of the cars coming from the
other side of the road. When the man glanced at the mirror, though,
his large eyes crinkled up in a smile, then he winked and gestured
to the folders beside Denny. In one of them Denny found a CD case;
quickly he plucked out a disc and slipped it into the player. The
soundtrack of one of his favorite animé shows blared in his
ears.
"Cool," he said without hearing his voice. The song was
in Japanese and the only English words in it were "CHA-LA, HEAD
CHA-LA" and he couldn't even understand what they meant, but
he enjoyed the song anyway. He bobbed his head to the music as he
looked out the window. On the other side of the road, traffic was
smooth; on theirs, the cars barely crawled. He tried identifying what
cars were there—a four-wheel drive, a BMW, a Ford Lynx—and
when he got tired of that he read the brightly lit shop signs on the
roadside. He got bored with that, too, so he thought about taking
out his Choose Your Own Adventure books, but it was too dark to read.
He rummaged through his bag for his Bey Blade toys and then realized
he couldn't play in the car. Restless, his gaze fell on Mello's hand
gripping the steering wheel- gripping, it seemed, with all his strength,
and Denny noticed his mother's hand, too, making swift movements in
the air the way she did whenever she spoke with emotion.
The traffic inched forward at a snail's pace. Denny wondered why;
it never got this bad when he still rode home in the school bus. He
watched quietly as a scrawny man with a cigarette-and-candy box wove
his way easily around the cars, tapping on windows, and when he came
near, Denny saw despite the darkness that the man was young, many
years younger than either Denny's mother or Tito Mello. The young
man passed by his window and Denny moved hurriedly to ask his mother
to buy something from him, but as he leaned forward he accidentally
tugged the headphone cord, and the CD player fell onto the car rug
with a thud. The Japanese song vanished so abruptly from Denny's head
that it took him a moment to realize that his mother was crying.
In the rearview mirror, Denny saw the skin under Tito Mello's eyes
twitch. He thought the man would say something to comfort his mother,
but only Mello's hand spoke as it clenched the gearstick. His mother
was still wearing her large sunglasses, so Denny reached over to take
them off. His mother recoiled. She fell silent instantly, and her
hands flew to her wet cheeks. She shook her head and turned away.
Denny felt as if the headphones were crushing his ears. He removed
the headphones, picked up the CD player from the rug and placed the
set neatly on top of Tito Mello's folders. Then he looked up at the
rearview mirror.
"You'll still drive us home tonight, won't you?" he asked
softly.
Light from oncoming cars bounced off Tito Mello's glasses and hid
his eyes from Denny, but the man said "Yes, of course" and
Denny thought that was all right for now.
The traffic plodded on, and then began to move a little faster.
Mello exhaled in relief as they finally saw the next intersection,
but almost immediately after he groaned, because a policeman seemed
to be re-routing the sea of cars. The policeman was herding them away
from where a large shiny jeepney was parked right in the middle of
the traffic. Denny twisted around as their car inched away. He strained
for a look. There was another policeman—he could tell from the
hat and the blue-gray uniform—standing by the jeepney driver's
seat and writing something on a little notepad. It was too dark to
see the jeepney driver himself, but there was another person not far
from the policeman. Denny didn't see him immediately because he was
bent over, pulling another man who lay there on the concrete road.
"Mama, what's that black pool on the ground, beside the man's
head?" asked Denny as he knelt up on the backseat, gazing back
at the accident. "Is that oil from the jeep?"
Mello glanced in the rearview mirror and gave another groan, while
Denny's mother struggled against her seatbelt to reach behind her
and urge the boy to sit back down. She asked him to listen to the
CD again. His eyes shone and his heart beat fast, because he'd never
been that near to the scene of an accident before. Did the jeepney's
oil tank leak and make that other man slip and fall? He wanted to
talk about it. But his mother looked at him like an alien, with those
big oval sunglasses, and her hand shook as she told him to go on,
listen to the CD.
As "CHA-LA, HEAD CHA-LA" resounded in his ears, his gaze
shifted between Tito Mello's eyes in the rearview mirror and his mother's
hands, which held on tightly to the backrest. Denny waited a long
time but neither seemed to talk. Nothing happened. Denny relaxed.
Soon he became aware of the cold, lemon-scented air flowing from the
car aircon, enveloping him so that he pressed against his school backpack
for warmth. The soundtrack played on in his head, and he nodded to
the beat as the traffic moved forward steadily. The fluid, gentle
vibration of the Honda put him at ease. Soon he was asleep.
He dreamed he was an undercover policeman disguised as a rockstar,
and he was at a concert, singing "CHA-LA, HEAD CHA-LA" onstage.
Mr. Ubas and a young, emaciated cigarette vendor composed the band
that backed him up—they played with all their heart so Denny
sang with all his heart, too—and all his classmates were in
the audience, singing along. Then from somewhere outside the concert
hall there was a great big oil spill, and the thick black oil began
seeping in under the doors, but instead of leaving, the audience hooted
and cheered and began chanting Denny's name. His teacher flung up
a Choose Your Own Adventure book and as he signed his name on the
first page, the chanting took on a single voice. He was about to sing
again when he felt himself being lifted. Someone said "Karen"
and he thought of his mother, because that was her name, and he held
on tightly, comforted by the warmth of the arms that carried him.
"Mama," he mumbled, half-awake. A strong cologne smell
tickled his nose. He opened his eyes with difficulty and saw his mother's
face, half a meter away but at a level with his own. She had removed
her sunglasses and Denny could see her tired, beautiful eyes. She
passed by him, carrying his school backpack, then he heard keys jangling,
and finally, the familiar creak of their front door as it opened.
Denny heard Tito Mello's soft voice come from just above his head.
"I'll tuck him in, then I'll be off." They moved into the
cramped house, the living room light blinding Denny, but when he struggled
to open his eyes he saw his mother's face again, still at a level
with his own, and her hair seemed to shimmer in the hazy fluorescent
light. Her eyes met his and she managed a smile. It was just the right
smile, for when he saw the tiny dimple peep from the left corner of
her mouth, Denny smiled, too, and drifted back to sleep.
---------------
