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P.S.-- Here are some translations and referancesfor the words:
longanisa--This is mainly just a pork or chicken sausage. I prefer chicken.
buk-buk--I'm not sure this is an actually word, but my parents would always threaten to do this to us when we were bad. They'd scream, "Do you want buk-buk? Huh? Then eat your mongo!" Then to emphasize the point, they'd take of their slipper, hold it threateningly above us, and we kids would stuff the mongo into our mouths our of fear that we'd be slapped with the slipper. I'm still scared, now.
eggrolls--This is pretty straightforward, but they're actually called Lumpia Shanghai, at least that's what I read off a Tropical Hut, a Filipino restuarant menu. They're small eggrolls with meat stuck in the middle. I'd explain how to make them, but it's 2:01 AM, and I don't wanna.
pansit palabok--This is one of my favorite Filipino foods. I don't really know how to describe it other than orangish noodles with shrimp, what I assume to be mussles, and boiled eggs.
nasaan ka man--One of my most favorite movies. Very complicated, and very creepy.
bakla--Gay, of course.
anak na lasi--Son of a bitch. People say it a lot.
jericho rosales--He's in Nasaan Ka Man, and I guess he's pretty popular when it comes to movies. I'd say he's good-looking, so it's looking up for Marc!
“Stop trying to be a gangster, Allen. You sound like a retard.”
“Yo, you da retard. You just jealous—that I’m pimpin’ and you stank ass!”
“. . . ‘You stink ass!’ you idiot. It’s ‘You stink ass.”
“Fuck, man, at least I get dates. This one girl, y’know, we was fuckin’ like bunnies, man!”
Allen does some crude gestures with his hips. A gaggle of girls look at me from across the bookstore, and I blubber, “I don’t know this guy. Stay away from people like this, girls. I mean it.”
“Yo, what the fuck, man? Those girls were checkin’ me ou-t! Ya see, chicks love pimps.”
“I’m sure they don’t wanna be prostitutes, Al,” I counter as I briskly walk away from the loud-mouthed asshole who’s probably going to get me kicked out of the only other bookstore who doesn’t label me ‘That Poser’s Friend.’ I almost fainted when a cashier said that.
I round up to the cashier, who’s panting slightly, like he just hurried on over there, with Allen in tow, sadly, and as Allen spits out idiotic lingo, the cashier looks at me sympathetically. I look at his name tag. It says Marc.
“Because they gave me the worst topic. I got Editorial and now I have to write the a sappy, crappy ‘Back to School’ article. I mean, that’s not interesting!” I complain softly as I log onto the computer.
“Uh,” Pause, wait for the magical epiphany that will mix your opinion with my opinion, and continue, “well, it seems easy. Is it?”
I shrug, not really wanting to admit that the editorial is pretty easy, but I always have to have the last word. I just feel like I’m ignoring the person if I don’t. So I start typing and soon enough, Karen gets the idea that I’m not in the mood for talking, and I can’t talk when my creative juices are zapped away because of the most inane assignment a person could think of.
“Mr. Schwartz? Mr. Riley needs to see you about the Literary Magazine,” someone asks from the front of the room. The voice is almost girlish but rough, so rough the person could pass for a guy.
And it is a guy, I see when I look up, and he’s Filipino, like me, because his eyes are bigger than your stereotypical Asian, and he has this light brown skin, like a real dark tan. He almost reminds me of Jericho Rosales but chinky-er. I feel like I’ve seen this guy before, and it’s killing me trying to figure it out, and as I’m figuring out, I look hard—almost like I’m glaring—at the kid. The kid probably thinks I’m glaring anyway because he pales at the sight of me.
“See, that’s exactly what I told Allen! He’s, like, such a fucking ass to be around. I’m guessing this is just some phase, like he’s trying to be some ‘cool guy’. It’s not cool. It’s not even attractive!” I whine as I dump three cups of rice into the rice cooker. I hate cooking rice. It’s just meaningless, even though rice is three quarters of my diet.
Fuck that. I’d rather die than cook rice every day.
Too bad my mom still threatens to give me 'buk buk', and I hate getting hit with a slipper.
“Hey, you know, my friend Christine?” my sister, Minnie, coos.
“Yeah. Isn’t that the girl who likes Allen?
“Uh, yeah, sure,” Minnie says uncertainly. Pause, poke at the longanisa, continue, “Well, she was stalking you—uh, you guys—and she saw that someone else was stalking you—er, you guys.”
“Wait—why was Christine stalking us?”
Minnie pokes a hole a little too hard into the longanisa, hard enough that you can hear the scrap of metal against metal. Pause, wait, scrape, cough, pause, shout, “Hey! I think I hear Mom coming!”
I look down to see my hands covered in wet rice, realizing that it’s been ten minutes since I started cooking rice. My mom’s gonna have my ass if I don’t start cooking, and I’ve got a million other chores to do for Minnie’s birthday party, like mop the floors, clean the toilets, dust the furniture, pick up the food from the Philippino Ihawan, a restaurant specializing in Filipino food, and get the cake from the Blue Ribbon, a bakery.
“Uh, um, I gotta go. Tell Mom, I’m picking up the food.”
“Salamat,” Edgar thanks, and I nod in appreciation to him and his kids, noticing how Marc is slowly ebbing away from me, toward some car.
What? Do I stink? I put deodorant on. Or did I fart? I know I didn’t fart.
God, stop thinking.
I close the trunk and round up to the front of the car, seeing Marc staring at me from his own car. We stare at each other for thirty seconds, before I realize that I’ve been taking too long, and there’s this nagging feeling in my gut, and Nasaan Ka Man—a Filipino movie starring Diether Ocampo, Jericho Rosales, and Claudine Barretto—pops up in my mind, and then I remember the party starts in an hour.
“Is it your birthday or Minnie’s?”
“How old are you now, honey? Have you got someone right now?”
The questions fly around my mind like bugs as I bless every one of my aunts and uncles and people who I think are aunts and uncles. The back of their hand goes to my forehead or their cheek to my cheek or their nose to my hair. It’s a little gross if you think about it.
I don’t even realize who I’m blessing at this point because my parents invited tens of thousands of people to cram into our little ranch house, so I could be blessing some non-Filipino or one of Minnie’s friends or even one of my friends. Upon realizing this, I look up, my face gradually reddening as my fingers sweat onto the hand I’m holding, and I realize that it’s Marc. From the Philippino Ihawan. ‘Philippino Ihawan Marc.’
Marc!
Wait—what the hell is he doing here?
“Uh, hi,” I shake away Marc’s hand when I realize I’m still holding it.
“Hi,” Marc smiles. It’s a nice smile. He even smiles with his eyes. He’s got nice eyes. Really chinky eyes.
“I’m sorry. I don’t really know you.”
Marc’s face falls, and mine would too if I were told that, so I sputter out, “I mean, I know you. But I didn’t know you were coming.”
“. . .”
“I’m sorry if I offended you.”
“No, it’s alright. Your s-sister invited me.”
“Minnie?”
“Yeah, Minnie.”
“But she never goes to the Philippino Ihawan.”
Idiot, there are other ways to know a person. I mentally smack myself.
“She, uh, knows my sister. They volunteer at the library.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“. . .”
“Then where’s your sister?”
“At home.”
“So you’re here alone?”
“Is that alright?”
“I guess.”
“But why?”
Marc falters a bit, but quickly sobers up, whipping out an answer, “She’s coming later. She just needed to get ready. . . . I-I came straight from the restaurant.”
“Oh”
My friends haven’t shown up yet, so I’m awkwardly making small talk with Marc. We’re currently talking about cars. I know nothing about cars. It seems that Marc does. I feel like a bad Filipino, not knowing about cars. Even my mom knows about cars.
“So I added a chemical—”
“Marc? What’re you doing here?” That’s my cousin Cooper. I heard from my mom on the phone saying in such a thick accent, “Tsk. Cooper? Bakla? With a patient? Anak na lasi!” It creeped me out a bit.
“You’re Cooper, right?” Marc asks, confused.
“Yeah! And you’re Blake’s godchild, right? We met at the hospital, right? Man, your godfather’s sixth toe was disgusting, right? Thank God my friend Delia, you know, the surgeon, hacked it off. It was sickening to examine, and to touch it! Jesus! ” Cooper blathers on about sixth toes, and then he turns to Marc’s side where I am, and finally notices his cousin, not his boyfriend’s godchild. “Kevin! Didn’t even see you there! You know how you wanted to meet Blake?”
I don’t recall ever mentioning that.
“Sorry, but he couldn’t come. His dog died.”
I resist the urge to laugh. “Yeah, that’s really funny, Coop. ‘His dog died,’” I snort.
“No, Kev. His dog just died. That’s really insensitive.” Pity head shake, tisk, and turn to Marc, “Are you hearing this, Marc? Your cr—“
“Kevin!” my mom’s voice sings—or screams, rather—through the air. “Come on. Help me with Minnie’s cake. Come on, Kevin!”
I realize that I forgot the cake at Blue Ribbon.
“Hello?”
“Uh, hi. This is, um, Kevin, Cooper’s cousin.”
“Oh, so you’re Kevin!”
“Yeah. . . .”
“Psst, don’t tell Cooper you know this, but my dog didn’t really die. I just gave him away. Your cousin is just so attached to him.”
“Then why’d you give him away?”
“I was, well, you know, jealous that a dog got more attention to me.”
“Oh.”
“I hear you are friends with Marc?”
“Uh, yeah. I guess.”
No, not really.
“He’s cool, isn’t he?”
“I guess. . . .”
If cool meant I didn’t speak to him much, then yeah. He’s fucking awesome.
“I’m glad that he finally has a friend. You know, he isn’t really sociable, so this is great, right?”
“Cool.”
No. Not really. More like pitiful.
“Turns out he’s got his eye on some kid. Won’t tell me the kid’s name, but I bet it’s a he. I always thought Marc rolled that way—”
“He’s gay?”
“That’s not a problem, is it?”
“. . . no. I don’t think so. I mean, Cooper’s gay, right?”
“Nope. Bi, and so am I.”
“Uh—”
“I just think it’s cool, you know, ‘cause he’s turning out like a normal kid, with crushes and friends and shit like that. And his crush—whenever I speak to Marc, he’s always got this dazed look in his eyes now. He told me all about his crush, with a bit of coaxing, but whatever. Turns out the kid’s a fucking genius—all Honors classes. My kind of guy—“
Mumbling in the background like Cooper yelling, “I’m smart, too?” and Blake screaming, “Just keep watching TV, man. It’s rude to listen to other people’s conversations!”
“—Anyway, kid’s a fucking genius. And I hear he likes books or something and has this stupid friend named Alfred or Allen or Albuquerque. He’s Asian and likes eggrolls. Uh, and there’s tons of other shit that would take thousands of years to tell, but I dunno. I guess I feel like it’s my right to tell you ‘cause you’re his friend, right?”
I’m guilty too for staring at her boobs.
“Yeah. . . .” Kendra, another senior, the one guilty for looking at Lila’s boobs laughs. Kendra has a really quick and happy voice, takes Creative Writing with me, and loaned me her pen one day. “I don’t do that. . . . Anyway, all you hopeful writers, it’s time to vote for Literary Magazine Positions! Whoo! C’mon, cheer, guys! . . . Guys? C’mon! . . . Fuck, you guys suck!”
In the Creative Writing room, the door is pretty much jammed. It’s not like a regular door, where you just turn the knob and push. You don’t even have to turn the knob. You just apply all your weight into the door, allowing its squeak to damage your eardrums, and push. Most of the time, no one knows how to open the door, so the kid is stuck outside until people have a heart to let them in.
So you can probably hear the door open even while Kendra is talking as if she’s on speed.
“Is this the Literary Magazine?” a high rough voice sands over the room.
Lila laughs, saying, “Yeah! Come in!” She turns to me, evidence that she’s gonna pick me out from the crowds of girls and that he/she in the background. “Hey, Kev, we’ve got more testosterone!”
I awkwardly laugh because I pressured to do so because she’s a senior and I’m a lowly sophomore and a meek, shy, possibly psychotic kid who happens to like to write so everyone probably thinks he’s emo when he should be a nerd because that’s what Asian are. And I’m really embarrassed as Lila starts laughing, “Oh, gosh, I think our Kevy is embarrassed,” and that gets the rest of the club laughing, and I try to pick out one kid that isn’t laughing, and the only one is the other testosterone who’s subtly trying to hide a smile, but I’ve got superpowers and I can see that he is. With my mighty, awesome superhero memorization powers, I know that it’s that guy.
That, and he came to Minnie’s party.
My head collides with another head, and CLUNK! I fall on Kenniemon (a mix between Kevin and Minnie and Pokémon), my dog, who was scampering behind me in confusion and fear, and I swear Kenniemon is whining like hell. Just my luck to get a gay dog.
“Kevin! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”
I look up and see Marc—yes, I finally remember who he is. See, these past few days, I feel like he’s been everywhere. I mean, it’s not obvious, but when you look around, you see him. At the bookstore, at the Newspaper meeting, at the Philippino Ihawan, at Minnie’s party, at the Literary magazine, and now. Damn, he’s like everywhere.
“Marc!” I say and his eyes get wider as I get up. He starts blinking profusely, and I’m staring at him, and he’s reddening, and he’s looking down at the sidewalk in front of the Church. “Are you okay?”
Marc’s blushing like a dahlia and it’s pretty funny how almost every time I see him, he’s blushing or something happens where he’s embarrassed, and I dunno. I just think it’s funny, like a good kind of funny, not tease-the-kid-making-him-think-we’re-having-an-intelligent-conversation-but-really-I’m-just-shitting-with-him funny, but an appealing funny, like baby picture funny, like a pleasing funny, like enthralling funny, like magnetic funny, like stunning funny, like captivating funny.
And I realize that my face is also reddening, and so I look down, only to see Kenniemon sniffing Marc, going around and around and around the kid’s legs, knocking him down, and because I’m holding the lease, I get knocked down with him, and we land on Kenniemon, yet again, and Kenniemon is whining, and we’re ignoring, and I’m staring at Marc’s eyes, but he’s staring at the cross in front of the Church, and I think that Marc is tearing up, and I don’t know but I have this sudden urge to tear up the cross, beat it down with—I dunno, a stick, my cell phone, Kenniemon!—just to stop Marc from tearing up.
But I can’t ‘cause I love God.
So I sit up, lifting Marc off of Kenniemon, who scampers away doing something, maybe pissing in holy water for all I care at this moment. And I hold Marc in my arms as he lets out sobs and bawls into my shoulder, mumbling, murmuring, whispering, “I don’t wanna be like this. . . . I feel sick. . . . Too much. . . .”