Farsiding

by Vanya Vetto

  I never did ask my source if he was a member of the Dark Angels.

  'Wasn't it obvious?'

  He puts the gun back in the holster and slaps me on the back.

  'I was only fucking with you.'

  Everyone carries a gun in Manila, he says, 'so watch what you say, it could be the difference between a morning crap or a dump in Manila Bay.'

  Sound advice.

  And I'm listening.

  This was a lesson in the Catholic temperament. It was one I wasn't going to forget for a long time.

  ‘It’s not novocaine,’ the hunchback dentist says. Thinking he must escape now, Jack Russell gripped the dental chair as his bones turned to jello; his nails into writhing boa constrictors.

  'Next you are gunna say you felt naked and vulnerable, ' said the hunchback as his vixen assistant picked up her crossbow and a tube of tangerine lip gloss....The novocaine must be getting to me.

  I'm in a country where they shoot you for taking illegal drugs.

  ‘Marijuana is an organic substance, Duterte won’t kill you for smoking that,’ says the Dark Angel.

  Not so in Indonesia, where it was legal up till the late 70s. Now possession of it, or even dealing in it, can get you a bullet at the end of the firing squad.

  I'm not feeling well.

  The Butcher of Manila Bay is to thank for that.

  When he put his arm around mine and broke bones and cartilage, I knew this could either cure me or aggravate the problem.

  But that was neither here nor there as I hit the ATM to withdraw my last dental payment.

  Dr. John arrived late.

  ‘I was at the lab supervising your crowns, eighty percent complete.’

  I didn’t ask him if he was killing a few drug dealers on his night shift.

  I had the money and counted it out in his office.

  For some reason, I felt I was short.

  I cursed and said the bank ripped me off or I forgot to take the cash from the machine.

  ‘You have paid up,’ he said. I was running around circles. I don’t know what they put in the Nescafe three in one, but I was bouncing off the walls and fuming.

  I was losing my mind.

  Dr. John put a hand on my shoulder and said I had paid him up.

  I said hand over 2000 pesos, and now. I had overpaid him.

  It must be all the injections I’ve received over the last week I tell him.

  I’m just not my normal self.

  The last injection had me speeding faster than light.

  ‘It's supposed to calm you down,’ he says.

  Well the injections I got in Malaysia and Indonesia never got me this racy.

  ‘It’s not novocaine,’ he says.

  I know, it’s something much much stronger.

  I’m just hoping the Dark Angels aren’t monitoring me. I’m taking on those scattery paranoia qualities associated with shabu.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ says Dr. John, ‘I won’t inform the police that you have been sending up our president and my affiliated club, the Dark Angels.’

  But, but, but.... I was only quoting you.

  I said patient and doctor confidentiality counts for something.

  ‘I won’t inform on you,’ he says, ‘now ease up on the coffee and see you tomorrow.’

  Ok, I said.

  ‘You have a lovely smile to look forward to.’

  I sometimes feel I’m living in a parallel universe. Manila breaks me out in hives.

  ‘It’s just withdrawals,’ he says. ‘It must be the ephedrine I mixed with the pain killer.’

  It’s all making sense now.

  ‘I’ve never had a patient who hasn’t enjoyed a session in my dental chair.’

  Transparency first, then closure.

  ‘You mean crowned.’

  Dr. John says to take the cup he gave me. It says after eight hours, ‘caffeine has left the blood system.’

  ‘You’ll need it more than me.’

  And what about the ephedrine?

  ‘It’s our little secret, but I’d say it’s still coursing through your veins from the last session two days ago.’

  'You can drink as many coffees and teas and smoke as many cigarettes and your teeth will never stain,' says Dr. John as he buffs the four front crowns to match the new ones he's putting in.

  It was meticulous and tedious work putting in the twenty crowns, but Dr. John seemed to relish every moment of it.

  'Do the preparation properly and the last part of putting them in should be easy.'

  He says it's like a jigsaw puzzle.

  'Start with the upper teeth and hope for the fucking best that the bottom fit perfectly.’

  He tells me to bite.

  'Perfect!'

  Not only have I got a perfect bite, but a realigned smile.

  'No sunken cheeks, no lower lip drooping like you are sucking out of a straw because you have no teeth.'

  He fired off the 'before' and 'after' pictures to his colleagues moments after I was free to wander the streets of Manila with a real and genuine smile.

  'Incredible,' says his peers, 'and a fast turn around.'

  They weren't looking at the TV smile element of it, 'but the symmetry, the design of the teeth and lastly the aesthetics.'

  No doubt about it Dr. John, you are the miracle man in my eyes.

  I didn't think he could save my bottom teeth that were ground down from the four upper porcelain.

  'You look ten years younger,' he says.

  I can't thank him enough.

  I give him a hug.

  It seems the right gesture.

  'At least people won't think you are a junkie anymore,' he says, 'and if you ever do see our president, he now won't have you shot because you look like a user.'

  Not only do I look younger, 'you look different.'

  I said it would help a lot with my enemies.

  'They'll be looking for the guy with the bad teeth.'

  Dr. John is one tuned in Filipino, in one sentence he'll spiel off my different alias. He knows my backstory. I even showed him my passport.

  'I even changed the angle of your tooth next to the canine to make it look like a natural tooth grown at the wrong angle.'

  He said he did it to compensate for the bite.

  But there's nothing like a bit of authenticity in this espionage game, I tell him.

  He's impressed I even noticed.

  'Not many do.'

  Hello Boss.

  Hello Big Boss.

  Even Hello Small Boss.

  The Filipinos don't like it much.

  'They are crabs,' says Dr. John.

  A crab is someone who wants you to be a bottom feeder.

  'They'll never rejoice in your happiness.'

  The Filipinos abroad are a misrepresentation of the good honest folk back in the Phillipines who decided to give their country a go.

  Operation Escape Philippines has been going on for too long, he says

  'But when our president doubles the pay of teachers, I'm sure there'll be a clause, 'don't employ those who escaped for more money.'

  They are little opportunistic whores, grovelling and crawling up the asses of the Thais, I say.

  'Most of them are teaching on fake degrees,' he says, saying they make good fake copies in the Philippines too.

  I can't say much about their I-phone 10, though.

  He tells me so far the army, the police force and certain public sectors like public banking have received a 100 percent pay rise.

  Dr. John is glad the Philippines is having a revival.

  ‘My client at the bank down the road says in the last few quarters the economy has been growing at double figures.'

  I said that my initial impression of the Philippines was lousy.

  'Our expats are crabs,' he says. 'They are our worse enemy, telling the world that the Philippines is a useless third world backwater.'

  Another thing, these Filipino teachers in Thailand are really good at disinfo
rmation, saying that English is the official language.

  'Bull shit, most of them speak Tagalog, and then English, just to sound cool.'

  Those expats have a lot to answer for?

  'Not the best of ambassadors,' he says.

  He wants the Philippines to have dignity and respect.

  'And the only way we can do that is not let those bastards who abandoned ship back into the country.'

  Have you ever tried to run for local office?

  I've no idea what Mr. Korea is saying.

  He eats at the restaurant in the hotel.

  He looks at my stumps.

  'There must be a reason for not having good teeth, perhaps bad DNA.'

  This is perhaps making the drunk fart feel superior.

  'Or perhaps you were a street fighter.'

  I'm too polite to tell him it was from drinking too many energy drinks. My fatty liver is too polite to complain as well.

  Mr. Korea was having a smoke outside last night.

  He didn't even notice my new teeth and I didn't bother making the announcement.

  But he did show me more respect.

  Having a good set of chops must be one of the ways in getting on in polite Korean company.

  He lived on the East Coast of the States.

  He's asking me questions about East and West.

  I'm trying to enunciate the argument with my new teeth.

  It's not going well.

  I'm floundering.

  I drop some history.

  He's excited now.

  I excuse myself.

  Twenty minutes of listening to a drunk is hard work, but it's even harder with a Korean who can hardly speak English.

  Even the talk about American beef vs Australian beef was hard work.

  In the end, I conceded there was more grass in the USA so that could be a factor why everyone buys it and not Australian beef.

  Mr. Korea is very excited now.

  He's a big guy and isn't scared of the thugs on the streets.

  'If they pull a gun on me I'll tell them to shoot me.'

  He said that on the first night I met him.

  He's now slurring and had one too many drinks.

  I think he's in need of a new whore. I haven't seen his old one for over a week now.

  Maybe she found it hard work listening to him too.

  The Japanese waltz into the Karaoke bar like they are presenters of some kinky game show.

  Even the Japanese owner of a large complex, that has Karaoke, a massage parlour and a ramen noodles restaurant, likes to enter his establishment on an electric scooter.

  The Saudi Arabian across the road, who runs a headhunting business for Filipinos working abroad, prefers to drive in his new white Mercedes Benz.

  The Koreans by all accounts are more low key.

  The Chinese, they are floating around.

  They are by far the less ostentatious. It will only be a matter of years when they’ll be looking down at the Koreans and Japanese as pretenders. I suspect that’s the case now.

  Local seaman tell me about their trips on supertankers, carrying 100 000 tonnes each load from Port Headland Western Australia to Shanghai in China.

  A van pulled up outside of Coconuts.

  Two Japanese jumped out, one in his fifties, the other, who cares.

  As they waltzed into the bar, the hostesses, all of them hot and wearing pink dresses, said in chorus welcome in Japanese.

  This isn’t Thanya Plaza in Bangkok.

  Sure you got the big fake boobs and nice nose jobs, but there’s none of the elitism and more of the fun.

  I’m waiting for the Chinese to consolidate themselves.

  Talk amongst the Koreans suggests that China is worth considering and befriending.

  The Japanese are not quite on the wane.

  The battle of the Northern Asian countries continues on the street.

  China hasn’t yet to flex its muscle.

  But they aren’t running bars or restaurants. They are running supertankers and employing Philippine seaman who are talking about the wealth mined from the Australian deserts and turned into amazing consuming machines by the Chinese.

  I ate in one of those hostess bars across the road from Seven Eleven. In the daytime, they sell food.

  I got to talk to the hostesses.

  They gave me generous portions of vegetables.

  And last night I got a little chorus from them of my own as I walked past them.

  Eventually the two drunk Japanese leave the bar, pissed as drunken seamen given a day pass to the whore pits of Manila.

  They are still being lavished with sweet nothings in Japanese.

  The hostesses have fleeced them well.

  A Korean at my hotel looks on in disgust.

  'We just pick up the whores and fuck them,' he says, 'none of this wasting cash on lady drinks.'

  I put my old joke to the test.

  Where are we, I ask.

  'We are in Manila.'

  Now where is Vanilla?

  They don't know.

  I say it's just over there.

  It's over there.

  I'm kinda repeating myself.

  I'll mumble a word up to ten times.

  This would get me admitted back home, but here I only get funny stares.

  Like my software has briefly frozen, I begin talking normal again.

  I'm doing mind experiments with the Filipinos.

  It's really fun.

  Ellen from the Seven-11 just stared at me. I was outside looking in. She was just about to start her shift. I was lip syncing, 'You are my friend.'

  But all she was looking at was my perfect set of teeth. She managed to reply back, 'You're my friend.'

  It's been an ongoing joke, trust me.

  Things are getting weird. No denying it. No weirder than a whore trying to chat me up on the street and slipping her hand into my pocket looking for a wallet.

  Janet is collecting bottles. She's getting a pile of them. I don't even throw her a coin. She got a note from me the other day.

  Sophie is in her wheelchair. She's a stunted lady and sells single sticks of cigarettes and candy. I've been given permission to take photos and reach in my pocket and hand her a handful of coins.

  Her teeth were once better than mine.

  She lives in the wheelchair. I don't know where she goes to the toilet or showers. She's just outside the Philippine Bank and an umbrella placed on the side of her wheelchair protects her from the 35-degree temperature and the torrential rains in the typhoon season.

  It was fucking hot.

  A guy lying on a bench next to my local wakes up and wants to ask me something.

  It usually means it's going to cost me something.

  He's giving me dagger eyes.

  There's been a walk today.

  'Walk for Poverty,' says the T-shirts, as if they can speak.

  And the four men wearing them are walking past my local and eating grilled meat on a stick.

  'Would you mind helping this guy,' I say, 'he's poor.'

  They do mind and keep on walking.

  He's still giving me dagger eyes.

  I have no idea what he wanted to tell me but I hand him a coin.

  'Don't worry, please don't worry.'

  Well if you don't want money then why the fuck did you want to ask me a question?

  I was getting Medan Madness flashbacks. One inch and they'll take you for a ride for weeks.

  It's rare people stop you on the street to have a chat without ill intentions.

  You gotta get hard.

  I hobbled around the block a few times. A group of boys are playing basketball on the street, with a hoop set up permanently on the side of the road.

  'Take picture me, take picture me.'

  There went my theory that they were out to rob me on every back street.

  Bars, and more of them, promising nightly entertainment.

  This is a playground for horny old corporate t
ypes who threw away their business suits for a chance to live out their fantasy.

  The women here will oblige.

  Illusions on a set of tits.

  The streets of Manila are accommodating and catering and every second person seems to put out their hand and demand coins.

  It can get to you if you let it. Other times, it's just bliss.

  Janet tells me she got hit by a taxi a year ago. She can't walk well without crutches.

  She poses for a photo as a I take a shot of her sorting out plastic bottles she collects from the bins outside the massage parlor next door to her turf on the pavement.

  On another street, is a bin for recyclables. Anyone is welcome to empty it and cash in the plastic for coins.

  Manila is trying.

  The streets might not be paved with gold but boy do they work hard to get a few coins.

  I'm at a loss.

  I did tell Dr. John I'd be back after treatment.

  I had a safety clause.

  He's a smart guy and I knew he was good for a few more coffees and chats.

  'No inflammation of gums,' he says. He's getting over a head cold.

  But once he's exploring mouths, he's in his element again.

  'The adrenaline always pumps.'

  It's not the only thing that was pumping when Joanna from Los Vegas sat in the chair for her two front crowns, I remind him.

  I upset the Seven Eleven lady today.

  The note was too big and she made it known to me that I was an asswipe.

  'So you don't want my business,' I said. And by the way, where can I give feedback? Better still, who is your manager?

  Her crab 'drag-me-down' ways changed.

  I got online and made a complaint. My phone couldn't reach the hotline.

  I was feeling charitable.

  I made another comment to my complaint, 'understaffed, need two cashiers, and she's stressed.'

  Customer service is everything, I tell Dr. John.

  Eventually, he just threw me out.

  I like your forthrightness, I said as I picked myself up off the dirty street.

  I said being nice to people never wins you any fans.

  'Now fuck off prick,' he said.

  You are learning, I said, saying I'd pop in tomorrow for another free coffee and chat.

  The walk was like no other. None of them are ever the same.