by Noël Alumit
I couldn’t take No Good Nolan anymore. He kept hopping around the way he usually did.
“Let’s fight. Let’s fight,” he constantly kept saying. He punched me in the stomach. Real hard. I hit him back in the face, knocking him over. The Weber Breads said they wouldn’t stand violence in their house. They had a terrorist for a son, but they kicked me out anyway.
I was tired of living there. I had seventeen dollars saved up.
Mrs. Sims painted flowers and fruit then displayed them in her living room.
“They don’t look like flowers to me,” I said. They really didn’t. They were big purple blotches or straight lines or circles within circles.
“Look closely,” she said.
I did. I twisted my head every which way and they still didn’t look like flowers. I told her so.
“It’s a degree of perception,” she said. “That’s how I’m going to leave my mark in the world.”
“What mark?”
“My mark of existence, so the world will know that I was here. I’m going to do it through my art,” she said, signing her name to a painting. I didn’t know why anyone wanted to be remembered for a purple blotch that any five-year-old could do.
But still. I thought what she said about a “mark” was very important. Even if it was only blotches.
I felt Montgomery Clift left a mark on the world. He left all his movies and a few books were written about him. He left a mark that everyone could see. At the time, I didn’t know how significant that was to me.
Mrs. Sims was the nicest woman I’d met in a long time. She treated me well, asking how school was or offering to help me with homework. She even did a painting of me: it was a golden brown blotch.
Mrs. 45, But Really 60 had one drawback. She was a vegetarian. Really strict. I hadn’t had a piece of meat for months. Once I came home from school and stopped by McDonald’s for a burger. As soon as I stepped into her house she said, “You had meat, didn’t you?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Because I can always detect the disgusting smell of a butchered cow, having his throat slit, blood pouring from his neck until it slowly dies, then processed into rancid meat—probably with carrion buzzing about—then cooked in pig lard.”
“It was delicious.”
“Bong, there is not a lot I ask of you. I like you and I think you like me, too. But please don’t eat meat. I’ll make you tofu burgers instead.”
So she made me these terrible Toe Food burgers that I couldn’t stand, but it was either that or spinach day in and day out.
I eventually moved in with Mr. Phelps. He lived in Torrance. Both he and his wife were therapists. Mr. Phelps took me in after Mrs. 45, But Really 60 threw me out.
Mrs. 45, But Really 60 had a cold, a really bad one. She had to stay in the hospital for a while. I told her I was old enough to take care of myself. She agreed. She told me where the food was and would call me every once in a while.
As soon as she left, I stocked up on some of the juiciest, meatiest burgers I’d ever had. I couldn’t finish one, and left it in the refrigerator. I forgot about it. Mrs. 45, But Really 60 came home and ate it thinking it was a tofu burger. With her cold, I guess she couldn’t smell it. She had an allergic reaction and broke out in hives.
“Twenty-five years of a strict vegetarian diet down the drain because of you!” she screamed.
She also had a humiliating experience at an art show, and blamed me. The allergic reaction remained for days; the hives spread to her face. An art critic asked if her “blotches” were self-portraits.
I liked Mr. Phelps, except sometimes he got too personal. He was my first therapist, although his services were unasked for.
“How are you FEELING today?” He asked.
“I’m fine.”
“No, no, no. What I’m asking is how are you really feeling.”
“I’m really feeling fine.”
He had this habit of touching the back of my head. Which I didn’t like. There was something condescending about it. To make things worse, he asked about Mama.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
“It’s hard having parents abandon you.”
“They didn’t do that.” I knew they didn’t. My doubts would come later in life. Parentless children were always considered abandoned. Sometimes parents had to do other things with their lives, like fight for something they believed in, like pursue a dream that existed before children came into the picture, like choosing to find my father because my mother loved him just as much as she loved me. I believed that they didn’t run out on me, they left for a little while. And I knew they didn’t stop loving me.
“Bong,” he said, patting the back of my head, “it’s not your fault that they didn’t come to get you.”
I left him really quick. I told my social worker that Mr. Phelps touched me in a way that made me feel uncomfortable. No questions asked. I was out of there.
CHAPTER NINE
Mabuting Kapalaran
Dear Monty, May 18, 1981
I have ninety-six dollars saved up.
I got all sorts of brochures, telling me the troubles of traveling. If you’re in trouble, call the American consulate right away.
I got it into my head to call the Philippine Consulate to help me find my parents.
I called.
“Kamusta-Ka,” I said.
“I’m fine,” Operator Woman said.
“I’m trying to look for someone.”
“Someone who works at the consulate?”
“No, I’m trying to find my parents.”
“How can I help you, sir?”
“My dad was beaten up and taken away and—”
“Here in the States?”
“No, in the Philippines. He’s a writer and he was beaten up by soldiers and taken away and I’m trying—”
“Hold on, sir.”
She put me on hold. Then a click. Then a dial tone.
I called again.
“Hi, it’s me again. We got disconnected. I’m trying—”
“Yes. I know.” She took a deep breath, and was quiet for a very long time. “Sir,” she said carefully. “We are not a human rights organization.” She lowered her voice, almost to a whisper. “We are not a human rights organization. We are not in the position to find people. Do you understand? We are not Amnesty International.” She said it again slowly. “Do you understand? We are not Amnesty International.”
I wrote down the name. And thanked her. Before she hung up, I think I heard her say Mabuting Kapalaran. Good Luck in Tagalog.
PART TWO
CHAPTER TEN
Frosty Pink Nails
Dear Monty, September 16, 1981
Thank you for listening to me. My new foster home is with a Filipino family in Los Feliz. The Arangans. They’re loaded. Auntie Yuna would die if she saw me now.
The Arangans have a daughter. Her name is Amada. She’s thirteen like me. I haven’t seen her yet. Mrs. Arangan said Amada is going to a Catholic girls’ school near San Francisco.
I went through their family albums and Amada was always doing something weird in the photos. In one photo, Amada is at her birthday party with cake smashed into her face, white frosting dripping from her chin, grinning. Mr. and Mrs. Arangan looked kind of mad.
I peeked into Amada’s room. Teddy bears lean against her pink walls like dear friends under a sky of bubble gum. A worn black leather jacket hangs from her closet doorknob, the leather dried and cracked like a desert lake. Cassette tapes of Billie Holiday and Janis Joplin sit by her stereo; I can imagine the sound of wailing women filling her room.
Two posters of Marilyn Monroe hover above her bed. One poster is of MM smearing perfume all over her chest and the other is of MM trying to keep her white dress down from wind blowing upward: a woman caught on the tip of a tornado.
Amada seems like a hoot.
Sincerely,
Bong
PS. Didn’t you do a mo
vie with Marilyn Monroe?
I met the Arangans in all their glory. It’s sad how they eventually turned out, but I didn’t know that then. To me, they were a breath of fresh air.
In the summer of 1981, I was exposed to the beauty of Mrs. Arangan, mesmerized by her. She sat in front of her mirror, fixing her hair, carefully placing every strand in place. She spoke to me in Tagalog, her voice both raspy and sweet. I enjoyed talking to her, her voice entering my ears, tickling my brain.
“I can tell you are a very good boy,” she said, and I blushed. I watched her carefully apply lipstick. There was something precise about the way she did it. Auntie Yuna smeared it on. Mrs. Weber Bread applied it mechanically like she was cutting vegetables and Mrs. 45, But Really 60 never wore any. (“Do you know how many animals are tortured because of the cosmetics industry?” she once told me.) But Mrs. Arangan slid it onto her lips as finely as you’d caress a newborn baby’s head.
“What is your most favorite dish in the world?” she said, looking up from her mirror, her face cracking a slight smile.
“Fried chicken.”
“Fried chicken. Good. We’ll make sure it’s made at least once a week. So you can have something to look forward to.” There was charm in her voice also, a seductive quality.
“What is your favorite dish?” I asked not wanting the conversation to end.
“I have lots of favorite dishes, Bong, but my most favorite is pizza with lots of anchovies,” she said and laughed. “I have that once a week, too. My husband and my daughter don’t like it so I order a whole pizza for myself and eat it all.”
“I like pizza with anchovies.”
“Good. I have someone to share with. Eating alone is a terrible thing,” she said dabbing perfume onto her wrists and neck and shoulders. The smell of something sweet and strong filled the air.
“When I offered to be a foster parent with the department of children services,” she said, “I told them I would prefer Filipino children. I don’t know how to raise any other kind. I love all children, but I think my services would be of better use raising Filipinos.
“I wanted more children, but God wanted me to have only one, my daughter. When you came by, I was thrilled. A boy no less. My husband had always wanted a boy. If things work out, maybe we can adopt you.”
I thought of what it would be like to be her son, the child of a fancy lady, the child of a woman who wore bright stones on her fingers, who smelled of Estée Lauder, who placed lace on her coffee table and barrettes with dangling pearls in her hair.
She sat still in front of her mirror, her back straight. I did not move because I knew she was looking at herself, her amazingly beautiful self. She picked up a porcelain brush and lifted it to her hair, hesitated, and placed it on the table. “I think that will do for now,” she said. I knew she was not speaking to me, she was telling herself that her work in front of the mirror was accomplished, at least for the moment.
She turned around, looked up at me and said, “Bong. It is a nice name. I went to school with a lovely boy named Bong Bong. There are certainly many with that name. It is common. We will give you another name, a special name, an American name.” She looked up to the ceiling; her mascara was perfect. “I know. We’ll call you Bob. Yes. Bob. It sounds like your old name, but more appropriate for your life in the States.”
“I like my name the way it is,” I said.
“Please. Bob is a good name. It suits you.” She took my hand, looked at me with a face that reminded me of summer, warm and full of light. “Please.”
I nodded. I would have agreed to anything she said.
She smiled. “Good. I prayed for a good person for me to care for.”
She stood up and walked into the hallway, her pink silk dress rustling with each step. She led me to my room, opening a white door with a golden knob. On my bed, was a present. I unwrapped the gift and discovered a baby blue sweater.
“I hope you like it,” she said. “I’ll get you more later, but I wanted to make sure you like this one. You need a good sweater to keep you warm.”
“Thank you.” Mrs. A was the most charming woman I’d ever met. She sat on my bed, leaning on the mattress with one hand. Her frosty pink nails made the brown bedspread look hideous.
“Maybe you would like to decorate your walls, put some posters up. You can decorate your walls any way you want. I can help. I like to decorate.”
I knew she did. Her home was immaculate, precise. Everything was in its place: cream sofa angled just so, an oriental rug to match the sofa, green in the rug matching the paintings of forests and jungles on the wall, framed in oak wood to complement the brown tones of the coffee table and bookshelves.
She pointed to a wall and said, “You need a desk. Right over there. So you can do your homework.”
I looked down, saddened by the way she talked.
“What’s the matter, Bob? Is something wrong? Is it about your parents?”
I knew she wanted me to feel at home. I felt regret because I wanted to be Mrs. A’s son. I felt guilty for this. I thought Mama was the most beautiful woman I’d known, but Mrs. A was beautiful, too.
I didn’t want to talk about my parents with Mrs. A. I wanted to keep the two worlds different. I liked Mrs. A’s world filled with palm trees on the sidewalk, a huge house—a French Normandy, she called it—with green awnings over the windows. I liked the stone driveway with a fountain in the middle and the backyard with weeping willows providing shade. I liked the foyer with a chandelier glimmering with light and the oriental rugs, with specks of gold, in the living room. Her world was about having dinner on time and buying sweaters and putting posters on my wall and gossiping about people she read about in the Filipino newspapers and deciding which rosary to take to church—the pearl one or the silver one? It was about a daughter in a boarding school and a successful husband who let her buy whatever she wanted.
“I know about your family,” she said.
“You do?”
“Not a lot. Your social worker said your aunt disappeared, left you. I can’t believe she did that. Your parents left you and then your aunt. How horrible for you.”
She didn’t know the whole thing. She thought I was simply abandoned like so many kids in foster care. She knew about Auntie Yuna, but not about Mama or Dad. I didn’t want to tell her. My past would taint her perfect life. My past didn’t fit into Mrs. A’s world. To tell you the truth, I didn’t want it to either.
“We won’t leave you, Bob. You can stay for as long as you like.”
I loved her. I loved her and all that she offered…until secrets came out and it all came crashing down.
•
Mr. Arangan came home from work one day and fell asleep in the living room, a newspaper on his face. He snored a godawful sound. Like he was sucking in air then choking on it. He sucked in so hard, he inhaled the newspaper into his mouth and almost asphyxiated himself. I pulled it out by putting one hand on his forehead and yanking the paper from his face. Mr. A coughed and heaved. He looked around the room, then at me, squinting to see my face.
“Salamat, Bob,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
In the three months that I’d been living there, that was the first time Mr. A had ever said anything to me. He rarely spoke. Mr. A usually nodded at me when I came into the room. Then nodded when I left. I didn’t think he was mean or anything, because my dad rarely spoke, too. He seemed to like me. Well, he didn’t seem to dislike me. In a way, he was kind of friendly. He passed me more eggs at breakfast when he saw that I needed some. He passed me the funnies when he was done. He refilled my cup with soda when I’d slurped up the last drop. Sometimes before I left for school he slipped me a five note. I didn’t tell him I stuck it with my fly-to-the-Philippines-to-search-for-my-parents cash.
He sat on the couch, his belly rolling over his belt like bread rising. His round face twitching and ticking like a pot of simmering stew. One leg was always moving up and down like a sewing
machine needle going at full speed. Having to maintain three accounting offices made him a little on edge, I guess.
“You all right?” I asked.
“I’m fine. Fine. You saved my life,” he said and laughed a little.
I folded the newspapers and stacked them on the coffee table. “Is school going OK?” he asked.
I realized why he never spoke. His voice sounded like it came from a throat filled with phlegm. Rough and wounded.
“School’s ’kay.”
“How are you in arithmetic?”
“All right.”
“Maybe someday you can work for me. I’ll give you your own office somewhere in West Covina. But you have to be good in arithmetic,” he said grandly. Mr. A was like many Filipino men I had known, boisterous and jolly, trying to impress me with what he could do for me.
When the Arangans lived in that gorgeous home, not the little place they live in now in Pasadena, but that huge home in Los Feliz, there were photos of Mr. A on a wall as you walked up and down the staircase. Mr. A at graduation from the University of the Philippines. Mr. A at the opening of his first office in Glendale. Mr. A at his second office in Carson. He was smiling in all of them, but with every picture, his face becomes a little more weary, his stomach a little more pudgy. By the time you got to Mr. A at the opening of his third office in Alhambra, his face was caught in mid tick: one cheek raised to the sky, lips twisted like dead worms.
He got up and slapped me on the back. “Do you have a girlfriend yet?” he asked and rubbed his belly. I knew he wanted to relate to me. He and his wife had been trying so hard. I liked the attempt.
I thought of J, and how he hadn’t written in a long time and said, “No. I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“Maybe that is best. You have plenty of time.”
I watched him stagger to bed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Prisoner of Conscience
Dear Monty, November 27, 1981