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Patron Saints of Nothing
Author: Randy Ribay

 

IT WAS A DAY OF SOIL, SUNLIGHT, AND SMOKE. Curtains thin as bedsheets glowed gold as roosters called out from the backyard on the other side of concrete walls and single-pane windows. On the floor of the room my father and his two brothers had shared growing up, my mom held me as I held a lifeless puppy and cried. The oscillating fan hummed, blowing warm air on us every few seconds.

I was ten, and it was my first time back in the country where I’d been born. A few days earlier, my family had driven the eleven hours along frightening roads from Manila to Lolo and Lola’s house in the Bicol Region.

When we arrived, we found that their dog—an unnamed mongrel chained to the cacao tree out back—had just given birth to a litter of puppies. Only one lived. The mother refused to care for him, so I had taken the task upon myself. I held him close to keep him warm. I tried to feed him by hand, dipping my finger into a bowl of evaporated milk and then offering a drop to the puppy’s impossibly small mouth.

However, the puppy would not drink the milk. Maybe because of the grief from losing his brothers and sisters, or maybe because of his mother’s rejection. Whatever the reason, his breathing grew shallow. His movements slowed. Each time he blinked, his eyes remained closed longer and longer until they never reopened.

At that point in my life, I had encountered death only in fiction. I had heard about other people’s relatives dying. But I had never seen death up close. I had never held it.

“Listen,” Mom said in that moment, hugging me closer. So I did. Baby birds chirped just outside the window. “One thing dies, and another is born. Maybe the puppy’s soul now has wings.”

Gradually, I calmed down and stopped crying. But I still felt heavy with sadness as the warmth left the tiny ball of brown-and-gray fur still cradled in my arms.

When I finally stepped outside, almost all my Filipino titas and titos laughed. Not in a mean way, I think, but more like it was amusing that a dog’s death affected me so much because it was nothing to them. Another day. Another dog. My cousins did not need to have someone stroke their hair and reassure them that death was part of life.

It wasn’t long before the family’s attention drifted away like the smoke from the garbage being burned a few houses down. My brother and my sister resumed the card game of Speed they’d been playing. My dad and Lolo returned their attention to their bottles of San Miguel. My mom gave my shoulder one last squeeze and then went over to the outdoor kitchen to help Tita Chato, Tita Ami, and Lola finish preparing lunch.

Tito Danilo rested a hand on the top of my head and spoke of finding comfort in God’s love, while Tito Maning told me to stop crying and took away the puppy’s limp little body. He returned a few minutes later, brushing his palms as if he had just taken out the trash. He moved to pet the puppy’s mother as he walked past, but she shied away. He continued on, took out a new bottle of beer from the cooler, and sat down next to Dad and Lolo. Tito Danilo stood by in awkward silence for a few more moments before joining them, leaving me there alone.

But I was not alone for long.

My cousin Jun walked over and hugged me.

“I am sad, too, Kuya Jay,” he said, using the older brother designation, which never seemed right. I had been born only three days before him, and besides that, he was one of those people who moved through the world as if he had been around for a long time. An old soul, as they say.

I almost asked Jun what his father had done with my puppy, what he had done with its brothers and sisters the previous day. But I didn’t. We can only handle so much truth at any given moment, I suppose. So instead, I said nothing.

He looked at me with sympathetic eyes, eyes so brown they were almost black. “Do you want to go inside and read komiks?”

I nodded, grateful for the chance to escape from everyone without being by myself.

He threw his arm over my shoulders. We went inside. We read comics.

A few days later, the vacation ended. I flew back to pine trees, overcast skies, and a Michigan winter that could sputter till May. My tan faded. My tongue forgot the taste of tocino and Tagalog. I stepped out of tsinelas and back into my suburban life as if I had never left.

 

 

WISDOM FROM ON HIGH

Seth and I are walking across the roof of my old elementary school, which is covered in a layer of round stones that knock together like skulls with each step. A charcoal, overcast night sky hangs overhead, and the air is warmer than usual for mid-April.

We reach the end of the roof and sit down on the ledge. Seth takes up about twice as much space as me because he’s basically a bear in human form. The kind of white kid who’s been shaving since middle school and who’s spent the last four years rebuffing the football coach’s recruitment attempts. Meanwhile, I’m the kind of senior sometimes mistaken for a freshman.

We settle in and fall quiet, letting our legs dangle over the west side of the building. It’s the quietest side, the one that faces the unlit field that stretches out in the darkness at our feet. The playground and parking lot are to the south, while the neighborhood pushes up against the other two sides of the building.

Even though I’m the one that lives nearby, it was Seth who, in the summer before we started high school, first realized we could get up here by climbing the fence that surrounds the HVAC units. I wouldn’t do it that first time because it was the middle of the day and I was afraid of getting arrested, but he eventually persuaded me to go back later and climb it with him under the cover of darkness. It took a few more trips before he could convince me to sit on the ledge. The school’s only two stories high, so if we jumped we’d probably only sprain an ankle or something. But it was high enough to make me feel scared back then, high enough to make me feel philosophical now. It’s been our nighttime hangout spot ever since.

Seth swings his backpack around so it’s in front of him like a kangaroo pouch and starts riffling through. It’s Friday night, so I’ve got a pretty good guess as to what he’s looking for.

Sure enough, a few moments later he pulls out a joint, grinning like he’s reuniting with a long-lost friend. He lights it and takes a hit. He holds the smoke in his lungs for longer than seems possible and then exhales slowly, letting the thick smoke unfurl into the evening. He offers even though he already knows I’m going to decline. This time’s no different, so he simply shrugs and takes another hit. Not that I have anything against it. My desire to smoke has not yet surpassed my fear of getting caught.

The wind picks up, rustling the leaves of the surrounding trees and tossing our hair. I reposition myself upwind so I won’t go home completely reeking of pot. We sit like that for a long time, sinking back into silence as we consider our numbered days. With spring break around the corner, and then only a few more weeks after that until graduation, the future is a wall of fog obscuring the horizon.

“Oh, shit,” Seth says, “I almost forgot. Hold this.”

He hands me his joint as he roots through his bag again. This time he pulls out something in a white plastic shopping bag. He tosses it in my lap, and despite only having one free hand, I catch it without falling off the ledge.

“Surprise,” he says.

“What is it?” I ask, passing back his weed.

“Open it.”

I reach inside and pull out a hoodie, soft and smelling brand new. I hold it up in front of me. It’s a deep yellow gold that’s bright even in the darkness, and by the faint orange light from the parking lot lamps I can read MICHIGAN printed out in bold capital letters across the chest.

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