by J. E. Park
I nodded. “Yeah, I figure it would be. What bar does she work at?”
“Not around here,” Tony said after he finished his drink and stood up from his seat. “She works in Barrio Barretto, near Baloy Beach. I’m going to head over that way now.”
“Baloy Beach?” I asked as I finished my drink. “Is there any surfing there?” I hoped I could throw myself into riding Philippine waves instead of spending the next month testing my sexual willpower.
Tony shook his head. “I wouldn’t think so. It’s still Subic Bay, so it’s protected from the ocean swells.”
I let out a long sigh. “Well, there’s got to at least be swimming out there, right? You mind if I tag along?”
Slapping enough money on the bar to cover both of our drinks, Tony said, “No, not at all. Let’s go.”
We took a jeepney out to Barrio Barretto and as soon as I laid eyes on Baloy Beach, I knew where I was going to be hanging out. Though not as crowded, Baloy reminded me of Ocean Beach back in San Diego. On the saltwater side of Long Beach Road, there was little more than sugar sand and the occasional wooden casita. The landward side was loaded with bars, but they bore little resemblance to the gaudy nightclubs of Magsaysay. Baloy watering holes were more like the Sand Flea, my California haunt. They were simple shacks, with seating beneath a palm frond palabra.
Like the bars on Magsaysay, these ocean-side taverns were full of willing young women. Fewer servicemen made it out that far though, so the ladies seemed much more plentiful. Tony and I split after a drink at the Piccadilly Well and I spent a couple of therapeutic hours soaking in the water with my clothes on.
Lying in the ocean, I meditated on why I had blown up at Palazzo and thought about how to make it right. When I got thirsty enough, I left the bay to venture into a bar called the Blue Shack. There I was again besieged by hard-bodied vixens even though I was still dripping wet.
“Wha? You no tink I pretty,” pouted a stunning mocha-skinned heartbreaker when I rebuffed her advances.
I smiled at her. “Sweetie, you’re one of the prettiest girls I’ve ever seen. I just don’t, you know, I’ve never paid for, well…”
“You don’t puck whores,” she said.
That was not the way I wanted to phrase it, but her sentiment was spot on. “I don’t pay for sex.”
“Why no? You tink we dirty girls? We no good enough to…”
“Hey,” I interrupted. “I don’t think anybody should be told what to do with their own body. I’m not judging you, and if you’re happy doing this, then more power to you. It’s just not my thing.”
The girl cast her eyes down at the bar. “I no happy doing this,” she sighed.
I looked at her for a moment and then nodded my head in sympathy. “Is someone forcing you to do it?”
The girl shook her head. “No, but I got not’ing else. I can quit anytime I want, but ip I quit, I no get money. I go hungry.”
“Yeah, that’s the real reason I don’t sleep with bar girls. It feels like I’m taking advantage of some poor woman’s misery, you know? That’s not exactly a turn-on.”
The girl nodded. “I understand. You nice guy.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” I said. As the girl got up to leave, I stopped her. “You get a commission if I buy you drinks, right?”
“Yes.”
“Then what are you drinking?”
“It call a Butterply.”
“Butterfly? What’s in it?”
The girl smiled. “It just orange juice, but ip you buy it por me, it cost double you pay por you beer.”
I raised the bottle of San Miguel I had bought for what equated to seventy-five American cents. “Deal. Let me buy you a drink.”
In the end, I bought her four. I learned that her name, well, the one she used while working anyway, was Betty. She was from Iloilo City and was lured to Olongapo by the prospect of finding a job at the base. It had not worked out, and she ended up working in the bars like most of the other women that came there. Though she wished to make a living some other way, she also told me that she was better off now than she had ever been.
We talked at the bar for a couple of hours until we were interrupted by another woman slipping up from behind me. She caught my attention by placing her hand on my shoulder, then running it into my shirt against my bare chest. Whispering in my ear, she said, “Halo, Petty Oppicer Murpee.”
I recognized the voice. Gasping, I spun around in my seat to face her. The last time I had seen Rafaela Green, she was wearing her hair pulled back into a simple ponytail and dressed in an oversized tee-shirt and jeans. Now, she was wearing makeup and had squeezed herself into a skin-tight, bright red minidress that accentuated her figure. She was stunning.
I stammered as I tried to find the words to answer her but could not get anything out. She let me stutter for a while but finally asked, “Aren’t you happy to see me?”
I wasn’t, but I could not bring myself to say that. I was heartbroken to see her. Hannah and I had run into Rafaela while walking through Balboa Park in San Diego months before. She had been begging me to tell naval investigators the real reason that I had nearly beaten her husband to death. Randy Green was facing years in prison for assaulting me, a senior petty officer, and she wanted me to confess that he was acting in self-defense. She wanted me to tell them that we were going to hurt him for breaking the arm of Rafaela’s son in a drunken rage. If I didn’t, and her husband went to the stockade, she warned me that she would end up back in the Philippines, working as a prostitute.
At the time, I thought she was exaggerating, but seeing her before me proved me wrong. “Rafaela, what are you doing here?”
“What it look like I doing, Murpee? I looking por love!”
I shook my head in sadness. “Why didn’t you stay in the US? I know things would be hard for you after Randy was out of the picture, but they would have had to have been easier than this.”
Rafaela scoffed. “Stay in da US? What I gonna do in da US widout Randy? I no know how do anything but dis! And I can’t do dis in US widout getting arrested. Ip I get arrested, dey deport me anyway. So here I am!”
Trying to swallow the lump in my throat, I told her I was sorry. “Rafaela, that man was…”
“Dat man was my husband, Murpee!”
“He was beating you…”
“So what! You no tink men hurt me now? Sometime, dey beat me por pun. Dey tink dat because dey give me money to puck dem dat dey can do anyt’ing dey want. So dey hit me. Dey…” Rafaela started shaking. She looked around, presumably for her purse. Suspecting that she was seeking a cigarette, I offered her one of mine.
“Randy no was a perpect man, Murpee,” she said after I lit her Marlboro. “And I was not bery happy wid him. Still, it was better wid him dere dan it is widout him here. Especially por Manny. He hab a chance to do good in California. Here, he just another poor boy.”
“Randy would have eventually killed you, Rafaela. He would have…”
“No!” Rafaela barked at me. “No! Randy no is you daddy, Murpee! He not! He might hit us, but he never going to shoot us like you padder did to you pamily!”
“You don’t know that…”
“Neidder do you!” Rafaela’s eyes were getting glassy.
I sat there staring at her for a moment, trying to figure out what to tell her. Finally, I just said, “I’m sorry.”
Rafaela scoffed. “A lot op good your apology do por me.”
“What do you want me to do, Rafaela? What can I do?”
Sliding up close to me, she slipped her hand between my legs. “Pay my bar fine, Murpee. Take me home tonight.”
“Rafaela, I can’t…”
“I suck you dick, Murpee. I suck you until you dry.” With her other hand, Rafaela grabbed me behind my neck and pulled me in until our lips met. She then stuck her tongue between my teeth. I was too shocked to resist.
“Let me puck you, Murpee,” Rafaela purred. “I take you between my tits. I pull you dee
eep into my pussy and puck you so, so hard. I let you cum in my pace. You can rub it in my eyes. You can piss on me, pull my hair, choke me, punch me. I even take you in my ass, Murpee. Deep into my ass…just like I do to all dese men every single day!” As tears started rolling down her cheeks, she hauled off and slapped me across the face.
“Every day, Murpee!” She struck me again. “You see what you do to me, you son-op-a-bitch! You ruin my lipe!” She balled up her fist and planted it on my nose. “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” Each exclamation point came with another punch. I took them all. “You did this to me! You pucking prick!” The last one split my lip and drew blood.
Alerted by the commotion, a young man with arms covered in crude prison tattoos rushed in to separate us. Able to see that Rafaela was hysterical, he grabbed her around the waist and dragged her away to someplace in the back of the bar. Rafaela let out a long, anguished scream and kept hurling curses at me while I paid my tab and left.
As I walked away, I knew that Rafaela Green would now be added to the list of people that would haunt me forever. She was yet another woman I had wholly ruined despite good intentions. I thought about what she was doing, what she was enduring in the Olongapo skin trade. I caught myself wondering if it would have been more humane had I allowed Randy to kill her instead of having beaten the bastard into clinical epilepsy.
*****
I intended to go back to the ship, but I ran into Tony Bard and his girl at the jeepney stop. Telling him about my encounter with Rafaela, he shook his head in disbelief. “Jesus Christ. You know, Doyle, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that you guys did the right thing. You took the law into your own hands. That has consequences. Knowing what I know now about Randy Green, I can honestly say that you saved Rafaela's life, though. Her son's, too. What are you going to do?”
After a shrug and a sigh, I said, “I’m going back to the ship. I don’t think the Philippines is agreeing with me.”
Bard sighed as well. “I’m not letting you go back sober. Let’s go back to the Captain’s Mast and at least get you all fucked up.”
We never made it. We took a jeepney back into town, where we ran into Dixie and his girl, Darlita. After slamming a few beers on the sidewalk, Kevin pulled me over to a food cart to try a local delicacy. Belut is a fertilized duck egg that is hard-boiled just before it is ready to hatch, then allowed to ferment. It was disgusting, but I ate a half-dozen on a dare from Bard. Afterward, I asked if anyone had seen Palazzo after our altercation. Dixie grinned. “I saw him walking into a place called Marylin’s.”
Anna and Darlita both giggled. “He going to play ‘smiles.’”
I heard of that game. It was where a bunch of men sit around a table drinking beer while trying to guess which one of them was being serviced by the girl beneath the tablecloth. It was something Palazzo would do.
Making our way up Magsaysay, our dinner was comprised of various types of street food. We had more monkey meat as well as lumpia, a type of delicious spring roll dipped in banana ketchup. At Darlita’s insistence, we also tried isaw, skewered pig intestines grilled over an open flame. It tasted much better than it sounded. Eventually, we found a kiosk selling a garlic-flavored noodle dish called palabok and rounded it off with a serving of shaved ice and fruit.
Finally full, we were way up Magsaysay Drive, well past the places where Americans usually ventured. We stumbled into an open-air tavern to take a load off of our feet and settled down with a couple of San Miguels to watch the locals pass. It was the first bar we had come across that was not a brothel, though I was sure that the table next to us was full of off-duty working girls. “No,” Dixie corrected me. “They’re Benny Boys.”
“No shit?” I asked, spinning my head around to take a closer look. Sure enough, they all had Adam’s apples.
We had a few rounds of beer there, and I enjoyed hanging out with Bard, Dixie, and their dates. I did not feel like a third wheel at all. In fact, because of my modest Tagalog skills, I talked with the ladies more than Tony and Dixie did. Like the little girl I met earlier, they enjoyed teaching me the local lingo once they discovered I was willing to learn. Before I knew it, both Palazzo and Rafaela Green had fallen off of my mind.
Sometime near midnight, I stood up to start making my way back to the ship. As I was stretching, I watched Bard drop his head into his hands and start shaking it in disbelief, laughing.
“What?” I asked, glancing down to see if my fly was open or something.
“Look behind you,” Tony told me. “Is that Master Chief?”
I spun around to see Darrow walking down the street. He was heading right for us with his arm around the shoulders of a woman he was obviously having a good time with. He spotted us just after we saw him and rose his arms up into the air in victory. “Hey, guys!” the master chief shouted. He then pulled his girl in tight and planted an enthusiastic kiss on her lips. “I found her! I told you I’d find her if I looked hard enough! This is Lorna, the girl I’ve been telling you all about!”
We cheered and welcomed the couple into our group, making room for them at our table. Since Darrow ordered a fresh round of drinks, I stayed even though I was flirting with a curfew violation. After a quick toast and a sip of her cocktail, Lorna excused herself to use the restroom. When she was out of earshot, I leaned in toward Darrow and asked, “What happened?”
“You know that grocery store you dropped me off at?”
“Yeah.”
“She runs it now.”
I burst out laughing. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!”
“Nope,” Darrow said while taking a drag off of his cigarette. “I stepped into the store and literally ran into her as she walked out of her little office up front. There was no way to avoid her.”
Shaking his head, Kevin said, “That sounds like divine intervention.”
“Fuck,” Darrow responded, turning to me. “Whatever it is, I had the best of intentions, Doyle. I really did.”
“Master Chief,” I said. “You can still do the right thing here. Tell her that you’re married and…”
Darrow shook his head. “Nope. Too late to do the right thing.”
“What?” I gasped. “You already…”
“Yep,” my master chief told me. “We already did the wrong thing. Did it twice, actually.” As he confessed this, Darrow rummaged around his pocket. After pulling out a key, he slid it across the table to me and asked, “You interested in an apartment?”
*****
CHAPTER 12
D ixie, Bard, and I all leapt at Darrow’s offer to take over his apartment. For forty American dollars apiece, the price of one night in a cheap Philippine hotel room, we had a place to sleep for the entire month we were in Subic Bay. I very quickly discovered that I might not have thought things through, though.
Bard’s girl, Anna, was a screamer. She was also very limber and approached sex like it was some sort of acrobatics competition. She bent Tony into positions that a human body should not be able to twist. By default, this made Tony a screamer, too. The two of them made sexual intercourse sound like a violent home invasion, which set off Dixie’s competitive nature. Not wanting to be outdone, Kevin decided to break out the good sex and do everything he could to make Darlita even louder than Anna. My room was between Bard and Dixie, so of course, I was having a hard time sleeping.
When they had all finished, I was the one who needed the cigarette. I got up and felt my way through the dark to the courtyard to light up. About halfway through my smoke, a trike pulled up in front of our building and dropped off a woman so short that, at first, I thought she was a child. Then I saw the way she dressed. She had on a satin Chinese-style cheongsam, short-sleeved, form-fitting, and very, very sexy.
After paying her driver, the woman picked up her high heels from the sidecar and walked barefoot right toward me without realizing that I was there. When she saw me in the shadows, she jumped back and screamed bloody murder, begging me not to hurt her.
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“Okay lang! Okay lang!” I tried to reassure her, telling her everything was good.
“Ako ang iyong…bagong kapitbahay! Nakatira …ako dito!” That was my attempt to convey that I was one of her new neighbors, but I struggled to come up with the right words. My vocabulary in Tagalog was limited. I also had a difficult time figuring out how to put the words in the proper order.
The woman clutched her chest as she tried to decipher what I said through my thick American accent. Once she put it together, though, she breathed a loud sigh of relief. “Oh my god!” she exclaimed in English. “You scare me to death! You must be da man Mari telling me about.”
“Mari?” I asked. In the excitement, I forgot the name of the little girl I met in the courtyard earlier.
“My daughter. I tink she see you dis apternoon. She tell me about a white guy who speak Tagalog in da flat across prom us.”
We heard the door to my apartment open and watched as Tony and Dixie ran through it in their underwear. “Hey! Who’s down there? Is everything all right?” Dixie asked.
“Yeah, Kevin,” I answered. “It’s fine. I’m just down here scaring the shit out of our neighbors.”
Sensing there was no imminent danger, Dixie’s girl slid up behind him and looked down at us. As an expression of recognition flashed across her face, she called out, “Tala? Is dat you?”
Tala squinted up the stairs until she figured out who was calling to her. “Divina! Halo!”
Divina had introduced herself to me as Darlita. That Tala knew her by a different name did not surprise me. Women working in any facet of the sex industry rarely used their real names. Forgetting that I understood a fair amount of Tagalog, Divina told my neighbor that I seemed like a nice guy and Tala should try sleeping with me.