Olongapo Earp (Tequila Vikings Book 2)

by J. E. Park

  Though I told myself I was going to seek out Palazzo and make nice that morning, I was in no shape to deal with that man. I left muster, caught a few hours of sleep in my radar dome, then once again went back to crash in my apartment. That was when I discovered the extent to which brown-outs were a way of life in the Philippines.

  The local utilities were unable to meet Olongapo’s demand for power. As a result, they had to cut electricity away from residential areas and divert it to the commercial zones during working hours. That put a severe crimp in my plans of passing out naked in front of our apartment’s air-conditioning unit. All I could do was lie in bed and sweat. My bedroom was a sauna. It grew so hot in there that even the geckos running the walls abandoned it for milder climes outside. Before long, I decided to join them.

  I dragged the picnic table in the courtyard to the shade offered by the steps to the upstairs apartments. It was a Herculean task in my condition, and I exerted myself enough to doze off again as soon as I lay down on top of it. From there, three hours passed like thirty seconds and I did not stir at all until I felt something sharp jab me in the ribs. When I opened my eyes, I saw Mari Bono, the little girl next door, standing beside me. She was poking me with a stick to figure out if I was still alive. Judging by how far back she jumped when I moved, she was almost as surprised as I to find that I was.

  “Ayos ka lang ba?” Mari asked as I forced one of my eyes open, wondering if I was okay.

  “No, but I think I’m getting better,” I answered in the best Tagalog I could muster. “I’m hungry, though.” Looking at my watch, I estimated that it had been at least thirty hours since my last meal.

  Mari smiled at me. “Do you like lumpia?”

  “I love lumpia,” I answered.

  “There is a sari-sari store down the street that sells lumpia. You can get some.”

  “Do you like lumpia?”

  Mari’s face lit up. “Yes. It is my favorite. After Jollibee spaghetti.”

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of crumpled peso notes. Handing it all to the little girl, I told her that I would buy us a lumpia dinner if she would go get it. “If you fly, I’ll buy,” I told her in English, then explained what it meant in Tagalog. She giggled, liking the way it rhymed. “Get us a couple of Coca-Colas, too!” I shouted as she ran out of the courtyard.

  When Mari returned, I suspected that I had handed the little girl far more money than I thought. She came back with a LOT of lumpia. But nothing to drink. “I have to go back. I could not carry it all!” Mari told me after I asked where our Cokes were.

  It was easy to see why when she returned. Bottles were expensive. When you ordered a Coke in a sari-sari store, they poured it into a cheap little plastic sandwich bag and put a straw in it. You could only carry one per hand, and you could not set it down. I had to hold Mari’s when she got back so she could run up to her apartment and get some banana ketchup to dip our food in.

  As the two of us devoured our lumpia together, I watched Mari as she ate. I noticed that she winced as she chewed, obviously in pain. “Are you okay?”

  “My teeth hurt.”

  “Really?” I asked. “Do you have a loose tooth?”

  Mari shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Can I take a look?”

  Mari opened her mouth. After I peered inside, I was the one who winced. Her back teeth were a mess of decay. She needed a dentist.

  It took me a while because I confused the Tagalog words for lips and teeth, but I managed to ask her how long her mouth had been bothering her. She told me for a long time. “Does your mother know?”

  Mari nodded. “She working a lot to get money to fix it.”

  I let out a long sigh. The thought of what Tala had to do to pay the dentist ran through my head, turning my stomach. I wondered if Mari knew how her mother made her living. I doubted it.

  The more Mari and I talked over our plates of lumpia, the more I realized how much Tagalog I was learning from her, and how much I was enjoying learning it. I liked Mari. She was smart, spunky, and loved to giggle. And when she giggled, I could not help but erupt into full-blown belly laughs. My stomach was still in a fragile state, however. I had to be careful how hard I laughed to keep myself from bursting out into a Technicolor yawn.

  Besides Tagalog, I also learned a lot about Mari and her mother. They chose that apartment for the same reason that my master chief had. It was out of the way, which helped them avoid someone they were having problems with. I assumed it was an ex-boyfriend of the little girl’s mother.

  Like any other child who did not get as much attention as they needed, Mari talked a lot. She was taking full advantage of having someone around who was willing to listen to her. I only understood about a quarter of what she said, but I enjoyed her company. I had never spent much time around children, so I never realized they could be so funny.

  And sad. Mari missed her mother and wanted to spend more time with her. She felt guilty that Tala had to work so much to earn the money they needed to fix her mouth. Like a child would tend to do, Mari thought it was her fault that her mother was gone so much. She believed that if she had only taken better care of her teeth, Tala would be home more. It was sad to hear.

  After we finished eating, I went upstairs with Mari to her apartment and knocked on the door. Mahal, the woman sharing the flat with Tala, stuck her head out and allowed me to introduce myself. As a bar girl, Mahal’s English was far better than my Tagalog. “Do you know when Tala will be home?” I asked her.

  “Late. She work very long shifts.”

  “On Magsaysay?”

  “No,” Mahal said, looking at me with disapproval. She shuffled Mari inside and closed the door behind her so that we could speak candidly. “She work at da Pagoda in Barrio Barretto.”

  Shit. Barrio Barretto again. For some reason, I was hesitant to go back there but not able to recall why. “I don’t remember seeing a bar called The Pagoda. Where’s it located?”

  “Closer to Baloy Beach, at end op da strip.” She suggested that I take a trike when I got off the shuttle because it was a long walk.

  *****

  Mahal was not kidding. I ignored her advice when I got to Barrio Barretto and tried to hoof it to the Pagoda. Even the Blue House, the bar I had gotten so drunk in the night before, was a haul when not stopping for a drink at every third watering hole. I considered popping in there for a rest after Danilo spotted me and tried to wave me back inside. I declined, though, fearing a hard descent into another Bullfrog coma.

  The Pagoda did not in any way emulate the traditional east Asian building it was named after. It looked like any other bar and brothel lining Baloy Beach. The only thing that made it seem Chinese was the way that the girls dressed. They all had on short-sleeved, collar-less cheongsam dresses with long slits cut from the hemline to the upper thigh. It was a sexy look, and upon seeing it, I found myself confronted with a fetish that I did not even know I had.

  A bubbly young lady slid up alongside me as soon as I walked in. “Hi, Joe! You come sit wit me?”

  I smiled and told her I couldn’t. “I’m looking for someone. Is Tala here?”

  “Who?”

  Bar names, Doyle. Bar names. “Tina. I’m looking for Tina.”

  “Oh! No, Tina no here now. She very busy. Dere couple op other men looking por her. You can wait por her at da bar, dough. You sure you no want girl who no so busy?”

  “I’m not here for that,” I told the young lady. “I want to talk to her about her daughter.”

  “Oh! She okay?”

  “Yeah, she has something wrong with her teeth, though.”

  The young lady nodded. “Okay. I make sure she know.”

  When I sauntered up to the bar and told the woman tending it that all I wanted was water, she laughed. “Hard night last night?”

  “You have no idea,” I said. I still could remember almost nothing after my second pitcher of Bullfrog from the day before.

  As I drank my water,
I sat back and watched what was going on around me. For a place located so far away from Magsaysay, the Pagoda was very busy. A black drape covered the passageway to the “boom-boom” rooms in the back. Every so often, one of the ladies would take a man through that curtain. And every so often, a man would emerge from it by himself, sweaty, disheveled, and smiling. Occasionally, a woman would emerge from it a little while later, cleaned up, hair put back in place, and makeup fixed, ready to go back on the prowl.

  Not everyone used the “boom-boom” rooms, though. Those were for what the girls called a “short-time.” If a man wanted a woman for a “long-time,” he paid her bar fine for the entire night. That got her off of work and freed her to leave. It was a kind of hall pass that allowed a bar girl to be out on the street with her client. I did not understand the system, but I figured it worked to exploit a loophole in the law. It let one of the world's biggest red-light districts thrive in a country where prostitution was technically illegal.

  I saw Tala come out from behind the curtain after about half an hour. She was not put together like the other girls I saw walk in from the back when she did. Her hair was still messed up, her lipstick smeared, and beads of sweat popped up all over her forehead. She looked distressed as she scanned the crowd for a familiar face. A Marine stood up and approached her, apparently next in line, but she stuck her index finger up at him to let him know she needed a moment.

  When Tala’s eyes glided over my part of the bar, I waved. Zeroing in on me, she marched over and asked, “Is Mari okay?”

  I nodded. “She’s fine. Have you seen her mouth, though? She needs a dentist.”

  Tala looked at me with disbelief. “Is dat it? You come all dat way here to tell me Mari’s mout’ hurt? You no tink I know dat? You tink I no take care op my daughter?”

  “No, no, no,” I told her. “You got it wrong. Mari told me that you’re working a lot to earn money to fix her teeth. She misses you and…”

  Tala’s eyes narrowed. She did not trust me. “Why you talking so much to Mari?”

  “She’s trying to teach me Tagalog, so…”

  Tala stuck her finger in my face. “You stay away prom my dau…”

  “Fine. Can I pay for her to have her teeth fixed, though? That way, you don’t have to work so much and can spend more time with her.”

  “What?” Tala asked.

  “How much does it cost to get a kid’s teeth fixed? If you want, tell me what dentist you take her to, and I’ll pay for them to see her. I want to help Mari get her teeth treated.”

  Tala was still suspicious. “Why? What you want prom us?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Mari’s helping me learn Tagalog. If you’d let her keep talking to me, that’d be nice. I understand why you wouldn’t want her hanging around a twenty-two-year-old guy, though. If you want me to stop talking to her, I will. Still, I want to help the two of you with her mouth.”

  Before Tala could answer, some greasy old fat man came up from behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her body against his. Planting a slobbery wet kiss on the side of Tala’s face, he told her, “That was great, honey! You here tomorrow? I’m thinking about coming back for more.”

  I glared at the classless geezer, shooting him a look that suggested he get lost before I knocked him in the chops. He grinned and shot me a look back, daring me to. Tala turned on a fake, uninterested smile. Instead of brushing him off, though, she told him that she would be there by ten in the morning.

  From a logical standpoint, I believed that prostitution should be legal, as long as the women engaging in it were doing so of their own accord. In my view, how free could you be if you could not even choose what to do with your own body? On an emotional level, though, I thought it was disgusting. Picturing what that creepy old man had paid Tala to do struck some primal nerve deep inside of me. It made me nauseous. Tala must have seen it on my face because, for an instant, she looked ashamed about me seeing her at work. “Dentist no is cheap. Why you wanna spend so much money on girl you no even know?”

  I shrugged. “Because if I don’t spend it on Mari’s mouth, I’m going to blow it on alcohol. After what I did to myself yesterday, letting me help Mari just might save my life.”

  *****

  A jeep emblazoned with the decals of the Philippine National Police passed me on the opposite side of the street shortly after I left The Pagoda. It slammed on its brakes, did a U-turn, and pulled to a stop right beside me. “Murpee!” I heard the officer shout from inside it. “Murpee! Get da puck over here, you pucking idiot!”

  With my memories of the previous night still hazy, the officer only seemed vaguely familiar. The fact that he was calling me by name showed we had met, but I had little recollection of it. I could see his face standing above me through some mental fog but could not put it into any context. The officer saw my confusion and laughed. “Do you even know who I am?”

  I glanced at the rank on the lapel of his fatigues. “Sergeant, I have no idea.”

  Laughing even harder, the officer exclaimed, “You were dat pucked up? You no remember me? I save your pucking lipe last night!”

  It was not ringing a bell.

  “I’m TJ mudderpucker! Sergeant Tejada! I’m a priend op your master chiep!”

  At least those two aspects came together. I suddenly remembered Darrow from the night before, but all the sergeant’s talk about saving my life was completely lost on me. Equal parts amused and frustrated, the policeman ordered me to get into the jeep. He then reminded me how he and Master Chief Darrow interrupted a gaggle of Filipino gang members carrying me across the street. Tejada also told me how they were about to take me to the hospital, fearing I had drunk enough to kill myself. They only reconsidered after I started coming around on the couch in my apartment.

  When TJ finished, he looked at me again and shook his head. “You no remember any op dis?”

  The fractured memories would eventually come back to me, but not until weeks after leaving Subic Bay. At the time, I was clueless. “Jesus Christ,” Tejada said as he floored the jeep’s accelerator and peeled off toward the other end of the strip. “I tell you again, den. Barrio Barretto is my beat. I patrol all da time here. I know evert’ing about it. Ip you come here wit you priends, it perpectly sape. Ip you come here by youselp and get so drunk you pass out on da beach like you do, you gonna get into trouble. You understan’?”

  I nodded.

  “What you doing here, anyway? Your master chiep say you no looking por da girls in da bars. Dis long way prom you apartment. What bring you all da way out here?”

  I explained the situation with Mari’s teeth. I told him I came out to Barrio Barretto to get permission to take the little girl to the dentist. “Are you pucking kidding me?” TJ asked. “You riskin’ coming back here by youselp because some kid have a toothache?”

  The policeman grinned. “Your master chiep say you a good boy. He say you like a son to him. He say you very smart.” Tossing a sideways glance my way, Tejada then said, “I don’t see it.”

  “To be fair, until now, you’ve only seen me drunk,” I told him, trying to stand up for myself.

  TJ laughed. He then pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and offered me one. As I was lighting it, Sergeant Tejada said, “OK. I give you another chance. Because op your master chiep. You know, Brad and I go back long time. Long, long time. I know him more dan twenty years.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard him talk about you.” Darrow told me how the two of them once shot the corpse of a child-molesting lieutenant commander to manipulate evidence. I declined to mention that to TJ, though.

  “You really gonna pix da teeth op dat little girl next door?”

  I nodded. “That’s my plan.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know. As soon as possible.”

  Tejada nodded as he pulled up to the jeepney stop. “I know good dentist. Let me talk to him. Maybe I get you deal. I stop by you place tomorrow; let you know.”
/>   “That’d be great!” I held out my hand to the policeman. “Thank you, Sergeant Tejada…”

  “You call me TJ.”

  “I’m not sure if I’m capable of that. Master Chief Darrow told me over a year ago I could call him ‘Brad’ as long as we’re not around anyone else. I’ve still never done it.”

  Tejada laughed and shook my hand. “Okay. You go home and be carepul. I see you tomorrow about da dentist. Okay?”

  *****

  A jeepney left as Tejada and I pulled up, so when I took a seat on the bench to wait for the next one, I was there by myself for almost fifteen minutes. That made me a little nervous. Eventually, a couple showed up and took a seat next to me. They then began passionately mauling one another in a way that suggested either they were too drunk to be aware of my presence or too horny to care. Within twenty minutes after that, three more pairs arrived and started doing the same thing.

  At some point, one of the bar girls lifted her eyes and caught me staring at her. It was bound to happen. As the jeepney stop filled up, there was nowhere else for me to look but at people engaging in foreplay. The girl giggled and blew me a kiss, causing me to laugh at the absurdity of my situation. I was in the easiest place on earth for a man to find a woman, yet I was going home alone. That girl must have thought I was either the biggest loser on the planet or had some heinous rash that I did not want to expose the ladies to.

  Thirsty and feeling a little awkward, I gave up my seat and walked about a half-block to a nearby sari-sari store to get a soft drink. When I turned to go back to the stop, I saw that the jeepney had arrived, loaded up, and was already taking off. I broke into a sprint to catch it, but it was a futile effort. I only succeeded in arriving back at the same bench I started from, out of breath and having to begin the process all over.