by Noël Alumit
I let her go, her body fell against the mattress. She bounced, giggling.
“Bitch,” I said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Words Burned Into My Mind
Dear Monty, July 25, 1986
I flew over the Pacific Ocean, the second time in my life, and landed in Honolulu. Mrs. Billaruz met us at the airport.
“Hello, my sweet boy,” she said, then planted a wet kiss on my cheek. She took Amada and me to her small two-bedroom apartment. She’d been kind enough to let me and Amada crash here. Mrs. Billaruz sleeps in one room, Amada sleeps in the other bedroom and I sleep on the pullout sofa.
I wanted to talk to her about my parents right away, but Mrs. Billaruz said, “You rest first. We talk in the morning.” I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to write to you. Morning can’t come quick enough.
There was something comforting about Mrs. Billaruz; her round barrel belly jiggled when she talked. She wore shapeless, tent-like dresses with flower prints. Amada would hang out at the beach while Mrs. Billaruz and I spent time together.
“I would pray,” she said. “There was a lot of time just doing nothing. So much time. There were a lot of random executions…” She sat still for a long while, her eyes darted back and forth. “Sometimes the prisons would get full and they would have to make room somehow.”
“My dad was kept alive?”
“So, the random executions. I spoke English good,” she said. “I sounded smart, but anyone who knows me knows that is not true,” she laughed. “They kept me alive, because I knew English good. Those guards were afraid of English. They were intimidated by it.”
“But my dad?”
“They did things to some of the people,” she said. “Things I do not know you should hear. How old are?”
“Eighteen. I’m old enough—”
“So young. I don’t think you know how cruel people can be sometimes.”
“I understand that my father was taken away and my mother is missing. Help me understand more.”
“Sometimes, sweet boy, I don’t understand it myself.” She reached into a nearby bureau, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. She lit one and said, “I’m sorry to have made you come all this way, but it is hard to talk about what happened.” She blew a long stream of smoke into the air.
“They do things to a woman,” she said. “They degrade her. Pinch her nipples, make her lie on the floor naked while men look down. They grab parts of her. They rape her, hold her down, while they take turns. She may scream, but they don’t care. They like it when she screams so they can release themselves into her mouth. This is what they do. They do this. They do this for hours.” She sucked on the cigarette, keeping the smoke inside her for several seconds, then let it go. “They did this to me,” she said.
“Oh, god.”
She put out her cigarette, puffs of smoke dissipating in the air. She straightened her dress and stretched her legs. She looked at me, providing me with a faint smile, and said, “I am tired, sweet boy.” She got up and went into her room.
They do things to women, she said. I pulled out one of Mrs. Billaruz’s cigarettes and lit it. I coughed on my first inhalation.
Monty smoked. I knew he did. I’d seen lots of pictures with cigarettes in his hands.
They do things to women. I went to sleep with those words burned into my mind.
•
Amada scored some weed from some German tourists. I smoked some. It was our last day in Hawaii.
“I’m going to miss this place,” she said. “Have you been talking a lot with Mrs. Billaruz?”
“Yes.”
“Cool. Tell me.”
“My father’s dead.”
“No way.”
I didn’t say anything for a long time.
Mrs. Billaruz sat me down and said, “About your father. How badly do you want to know what happened?”
“Real bad,” I said.
Then she gave me a look. In that look, I knew something was going to devastate me. She said, “If you want to know then I’ll tell you.”
She told me everything. She told it. From start to finish. “We were picked up,” she said, “taken to a safehouse. Let me tell you something, there is nothing safe about a safehouse.
“They bent him backwards so the back of his head and the bottom of his feet faced each other. They tied his neck and feet together. The guards told him to sign a confession or else they would let him choke himself to death. Emil wouldn’t sign a confession. They wanted him to admit to being a Communist. ‘I am not a Communist,’ he said, but the guards didn’t listen. They let Emil squirm on the floor, like an animal. When Emil’s legs got tired, he would try to straighten them, making himself gag. Spit came out of his mouth, tears came from his eyes, mucous came out his nose. Every opening on his face spilled liquid. After a while, the liquid turned red. I saw this happen. They wanted me to see.
“‘Sign the confession,’ a guard would say, ‘then we can stop hurting you.’
“If he signed a confession, it meant they would have proof that he was a threat to the government and could put him away for a long time. He wouldn’t sign. So they cut the rope, and beat him, kicked him. They knew he was a writer, so they stomped on his hands. They broke his hands.
“Blood covered his face. His face looked like wet turnips, bulging and red. But he still wouldn’t sign. They beat him for hours. It was night when they started torturing him. It was daylight when they stopped. They quit for a while, then beat him for several more hours.
“Then they electrocuted him. They made him strip off his clothes. They tied wires to his thing, his penis. Jolted him with electricity. He screamed. He screamed. The electricity made him jump. Made his whole body shake and shake and shake. But he wouldn’t sign. Then one of the guards said, ‘Maybe we should go back and get your wife, get your kid. Do you think they can take as much pain?’
“When the guard said that, Emil signed. With his broken hand he signed.”
I felt sick, my stomach ready to explode. I had this image of my dad, swollen and messed up. I wanted to vomit, but I sat there still.
“Your father and me were sent to a prison camp in Manila. Your father shivered a lot. He was always cold, he kept shaking. Sometimes he would be mean to the guards and spit at them. He couldn’t speak anymore so he would just spit at them. Sometimes they put him in solitary confinement for it. Locked away in the dark for months at a time.”
I wanted to run out of the room, scream, flailing my arms like a madman. Then I saw Monty Clift, standing beside Mrs. Billaruz. He wore a T-shirt and badly faded blue jeans. His hair looked windblown, partly falling across his forehead. He gave me a comforting nod. I was taken out of Mrs. Billaruz’s apartment and transported to another place, a lodge perhaps. I wasn’t in Hawaii anymore, I was in a country home. There was a ceiling with beams. Outside were trees, a squirrel ran on a branch. I didn’t know where I was but I felt safe.
“Sweet boy,” I heard a voice say.
In an instant I was back in Hawaii. Mrs. Billaruz’ voice jarred me into reality.
“My boy, maybe I should stop. I talked too much already.”
“No. Go on. Please, go on.”
I stayed and listened some more. My small retreat with Monty reenergized me, but my fingernails dug into my arms. I felt my nails rip into my flesh as she continued.
“There were times when the prison was so full, they took people away, killed them. Just to make room. Your father was one of the men they took away. Executed.”
The tips of my nails were imbedded in my skin.
“Don’t do that,” Mrs. Billaruz said, pulling my hands from me. She placed her palms over my arms, massaging the skin.
I left Mrs. Billaruz and found Amada on the beach. She handed me the joint. I inhaled, waiting for I don’t know what. “I don’t feel anything,” I said.
“You have to wait a little while for it to take effect.”
PART THREE
CHAPTER TWEN
TY-SIX
Peering Through Dirty Water
Dear Monty, May 1, 1987
Freshman year at USC was a dud. The best moments were the ones I spent with you. I rented your movies, the ones that were available. When I watch one of your films, I don’t have to think about anything: school disappears, my father’s death goes away, my mother’s absence becomes nothing to me. I don’t want to think about my parents or the Marcos regime. I don’t want anything to do with the Philippines.
I bought that movie Lonelyhearts. (Well, I told the video store that I lost it and was willing to pay for it.) I wanted to see that movie over and over until my heart wept. Lonelyhearts validated all that I’d believed between us.
You had a job writing the Miss Lonelyhearts column, receiving letters from lost souls seeking comfort, begging for advice. You read their letters, putting every bit of yourself into helping these desperate people, getting entangled in their lives.
Sometimes after my last class, I’ll come home, close my eyes and summon you. I’ll call your name: Monty, Montgomery, Mr. Clift. I’ll drift into a black and white movie; we’re together. I’ll watch you work in Miss Lonelyhearts. I’ll sit next to you in your office. The walls are gray and dreamy like peering through dirty water. You answer letters.
I’ll sit at a desk in the corner while you review words from the unhappy. I can see the small lines on your face, the tiny pores in your skin, your bushy brows bunching up when you get confused. You’re older in this movie, your hair is thinning, but you’re still handsome, so handsome. And fragile, delicate like a frail kitten. Every once and awhile you’ll look up at me and nod, confirming my existence.
I live for these moments, Monty. I live for them. Nothing ever felt so good; the only thing missing is your touch. How do I touch you, feel you?
Monty, I crave your arms around me.
I got a job at a restaurant near school. And after my last shift, I’d walk around and study the contours of my new neighborhood. The broken streets (probably from good ole California earthquakes) sprouted threads of green grass. The tips of downtown buildings looked like giant needles, and at night, small rubies and diamonds of light flickered from them.
It was the people that made the place; the skin tones attracted me. They were mostly black, Latino, with a few Asians. The Asians were mainly Koreans working in shabby liquor stores.
There was an elementary school nearby. The shades of brown bouncing up and down in the schoolyard, hitting yellow balls tied to metal poles, made me dizzy, drunk in a way. If I unfocused my eyes, creating a blur in my vision, the children looked like part of the earth. The earth danced.
I’d walk through the university at night. It looked different. It passed for serene, romantic. I’d sit on the grass by Taper Hall and watch the dark branches of ominous trees sway to the nudge of wind. I’d take a swig of vodka from a small flask I carried in my back pocket, light a cigarette, and think of my father.
I tried to conjure his face in my mind, but I didn’t remember it. I didn’t remember him. He was just a blur. I hadn’t cried for him. How could I cry for a blur?
•
Mr. and Mrs. A moved into a little townhouse in Pasadena. It was nothing like the house in Los Feliz, but it was nice enough. Amada seemed to be getting along better with her folks since she and I moved out.
“Why do you want to live on your own? Why don’t you move home and save that rent money?” Mrs. A asked.
“Because you and I would kill each other,” Amada said. “And besides, there really isn’t any room.” They had a two-bedroom place, and I knew Mr. A wanted to use the other bedroom as an office to work out of. Selling the house broke Mrs. A’s heart.
Mrs. A’s hands and neck were bare, no more sparkling gems. She had sold most of her good jewelry to pay off debt.
Mrs. A would reach for my face, but I’d pull away. I didn’t want to be around her. I didn’t want to be around Mr. and Mrs. A. After what Mrs. Billaruz told me, I couldn’t help but see them as contributors to my father’s death. And the rapes, the horrible rapes.
Amada was not pleased with my behavior, saying, “Mom and Dad want to know why you don’t come around.”
“Just don’t feel like it.”
“They think of you as a son. As far as I’m concerned, you are their son and you’re my brother.”
“I’m a part of the Arangan family, because my own family disappeared. Your parents made that happen.”
“Jesus Christ. They’re not mass murderers, Bob. They’re my folks. I know my parents can be lunatics, but nothing like you’re saying.”
“I just don’t want to be around them. I can’t.”
Amada, dear sweet Amada. I loved her, but she’d been bugging the shit out of me. She had gotten nosy, asking me things she shouldn’t. I almost regretted renting an apartment with her near school.
“How did you get those bruises on your legs?” Amada asked.
“I bumped into something.”
“You’ve been acting weird all year. It’s about your dad, isn’t it?”
“I guess.”
“You gotta get outta this funk, Bob. Somehow you gotta get out of it. All this negative energy isn’t good for you. It isn’t good for me.”
Amada had been cranky. Her acting career hadn’t taken off like she’d planned.
“You never want to go out,” she said, “just come home and get drunk.”
“Lay off, Amada.”
“I got a lot of shit going on, too. Mom and Dad having to sell the house and everything. I can’t get hired to save my life. Maybe it’s my headshots. Maybe if I get new headshots. The last thing I gotta worry about is you.”
“You don’t gotta worry about me.”
She gave me a wicked little look that said, I’m going to kill you if you give me grief. She left the room.
She didn’t have to worry about me. I had Monty. I knew he was taking care of me. I spent every opportunity I could with him. I was still functioning then, still leading a life. It didn’t get really bad until later.
I was able to go to school, communicate with people, send Christmas cards to professors I’d really liked. I sent a New Year’s card to Mr. Boyd at Amnesty International wishing him the very best. I also thanked him for doing what he could to find my parents. I thought of sending Mrs. Billaruz a card also, but I didn’t. I just wanted to forget her, forget everything.
I recalled a scene in The Misfits, the first scene that Monty was in. He waited by a phone booth, waiting for a call from his mother. Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe pulled up to him in their car. His mother called and he told her his face was healing nicely. In the movie, Montgomery Clift smashed it up in a rodeo he was competing in. I knew it must have been a difficult scene to do because, in real life, he smashed up his own face in a car accident. He was never the same again.
My head fell back and my mind drifted until I was there with Monty in The Misfits. I stood outside that phone booth, my face pressing up against the glass walls, steaming up the window. He looked at me again. He smiled. It didn’t matter that Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe were waiting for him in a car a few yards away, it still felt like we were alone. It was just us.
I continued to do extra work. Extra work had paid for a lot of shit, like books or a movie or an extra night out. I was saving up for wheels.
I was an extra for a credit card commercial in Downtown L.A. It was supposed to be a warm summer in the commercial, but it was ball-busting winter in real life. Between the fake summer and the real winter, I’d choose the summer anytime.
“Try not to shiver,” the director ordered the extras. I kept warm by smoking weed in the john between takes.
I didn’t do extra work all the time, just whenever. It was a break from my regular waiter job. Amada refused to do extra work, but she worked with me at the same restaurant.
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re willing to wait tables, but you won’t do extra work?”
“That’s right. Waiti
ng tables is a ritual on the way to becoming a great actress.”
Amada took acting lessons in Hollywood while I finished up general education requirements at USC.
Amada had gotten her first real acting gig. It was only a student film, but Amada was psyched about it.
“I’ve got lines,” she said. “I’ve got lines.”
“What do you do in it?”
“I play this foreign exchange student who falls in love with this American. I kill myself because he rejects me in the end.”
I was happy for her. I really was.
I hadn’t declared a major yet.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Longing in My Heart
Dear Monty, February 8, 1988
I bought a motorcycle. It was cheaper than a car. The guy sold it to me for next to nothing. He gave me some riding lessons. I almost have the hang of it.
I’m learning to do wheelies in the parking lot. Once, I fell. I scraped my forearm, an abrasion, pink and white, formed on my arm. It tingled like fizz.
I spent hours and hours in the school library. Page 168 was mine. I saw a guy in my Human Values class with a book that I knew I’d blotched. The guy was a real jerk, big loser fratboy with an I’m-better-than-you-bullshit-attitude. He’d come into class hung over, sitting with his frat brothers, joking about I didn’t know what. The book I blotched sat on the portable desk in front of him. I stared at him, his blond crewcut and grubby sweatshirt with Greek letters emblazoned on the front.
Loser Frat Boy turned around and caught me staring. I think he was scared of me. He was probably from some suburb somewhere in the Midwest and got antsy when a minority looked at him. Especially since I didn’t shave as much, drove a beat-up motorcycle, and wore a faded leather jacket, which kept me warm when I rode my bike.