When boredom struck me, I would go to the canteen in a nearby building. While sipping coffee one afternoon I noticed an announcement. Dakaldakal, a college publication, was now accepting applicants to fill the editorial staff.
I went back to the dormitory and asked a roommate for a copy of Dakaldakal. Inside our room we opened the cabinet in which he had stuck some back issues of all sorts of magazines and journals. In between compilations, I read. Anthony Losaria was the editor in chief. He had been a fellow at a writer’s workshop I had been to.
In the middle of the night while I was trying to sleep I groped for my poetry notebook. I remembered how Anthony Losaria, skinny and longhaired, had critiqued my work in that same notebook.
It was one o’clock in the morning when I slept. I lay on a bed scattered with papers. When I woke up at eight the small of my back ached due to discomfort and the disorder of my bed. Anthony was on my mind. And I tried to recall his appearance.
As a transfer second-year student, I made a try for Dakaldakal. Unnoticeably, I was in front of the Administration building. I went up the stairs. The office was very quiet. I knocked, then pushed the door open.
“–Applicant?” a student asked. “Come in.”
“Should I personally hand this application to the adviser?”
“What’s your course?” he looked at me. He was Anthony.
“Fisheries–where’s the adviser?”
“Just sit here. She’s a visitor as yet.”
“Are you Anthony Losaria?” I asked him. He was no longer skinny and long-haired. He looked handsomer than before.
“Do you know me?” he asked me while trying to recall my face. “Francis!”
I sat and we talked. At his table the newly released copies of the delayed summer issue of Dakaldakal were sorted out for distribution, he told me. I borrowed one and read the editorial. Near to end I paused and went to the adviser’s cubicle as her visitor pulled the door open, on his way out.
After a month of waiting I read my name in an announcement on Dakaldakal’s bulletin board. Immediately I proceeded to the office and we had a meeting the following day. The adviser informed us of our respective position and assignment. The folio would have to be due for publication by next month.
Anthony Losaria was the editor in chief. The nine of us were members of the editorial staff. When Anthony asked us about the theme of the folio, I suggested feminism. Anthony hinted about politics and impoverishment. Others’ suggestions were gays, sex, religion and Filipino language.
After considering the importance of every topic the group decided to come up with a folio focused on gay writing, for there had been no attempts on this before. Anthony objected to work on this topic but he had to, as the editor in chief.
I was chosen issue editor. I rejected the position for I had to learn more writing. I had walls in my writing which I had not passed through yet. But the adviser trusted me. Perhaps I was challenged by their expectations as I willingly accepted the editorship.
In my room, I read a lot–my resort to invite the Muse– for there were no ideas coming to my mind. Suddenly I remembered Anthony’s suggestion to buy a copy of Ladlad, an anthology of Philippine gay writing from the National Bookstore. Anthony was a wide reader and that was the reason he could write and talk about anything–from vegetables to basketball.
Last year he too had been chosen editor in chief. He was tall, fair-skinned, and handsome. He did not look scholarly but was like a matinee idol.
I liked Anthony’s company. When we were together, he enjoyed talking about literature. No other things. Sometimes he would visit me at the dormitory and invite me for booze at Tiko’s Bar and Restaurant. He would carry a rough draft of an unfinished short story. However, never did he show it to me. He had had a bad experience of showing his work to a friend. His work had been blue-penciled for the friend had thought it was a mere draft.
Tiko’s Bar and Restaurant was just a tricycle ride away. It was made of nipa and bamboo. The moon was lucid through the window screen and we were like shadows. The dama de noches were in bloom. I often went to Tiko’s. I liked its garden of exotic plants and flowers: the purple cogon and petunia. There were plenty of bromeliads by the pathway. I also liked the tables and chairs made of beach-combed wood.
I was a little bit drunk. I told Anthony it was time to go home. He ordered another bottle. He was a bit of a boozer. Nevertheless, he wrote finer pieces when he drank.
“I hate gays. But you, Francis Belgira, are different from them,” he told me.
“Perhaps because we are both writers,” I replied.
“Do you think so?” he looked at the ceiling.
“Why? Is there another reason–?” I looked him straight in the eye. There was silence between us for a moment.
“No,” he muttered. A waiter brought his order.“ –That is the last,” he looked at the beer bottle being served.
“Help me, Francis. I have a problem,” he wiped the mouth of the bottle clean with his hand. I knew he wanted to divert my question.
He had deep problems. Only he knew how to handle them. One time I had read his poem in Home Life. It was about a martyr mother. In Panorama–about a father who left home. He never told me his problems but I knew.
He laughed like crazy. I was surprised by his actuation. I didn’t know how to react.
“Excuse me, Anthony.” I told him. “Are you crazy?”
“No.”
“Why did you laugh like that?”
“I’m just happy.”
“Happy? Laughing like that for you is an -- expression of being happy? Oh, C’mon.”
“I’m sorry. By the way did you receive my poetry submission?”
“Yes,” I answered. But I didn’t tell him I hadn’t read it yet.
In my mind I was composing poetry. My mind was out of Tiko’s for the moment. I liked the moon and the celestial diamonds. Then the dama de noches–it seemed–had been gracing us both at Tiko’s. Only the two of us were left drinking when I glanced around.
“Just write and write,” he advised me.
“Do you think I will write for long?” I asked him, to know how he considered me as a member of Dakaldakal.
“ I believe so. I read your poems in a literary anthology,” he told me. No wonder he had read me; he was a bookworm.
“This is the last,” he took the bottle from the waiter.
“How many last bottles are those? I need to go now,” I glanced at my watch. “The matron of the dormitory is strict. You know that. You told me you had stayed at the dormitory before,” I reminded him.
He listened to me. He stood up and signaled the waiter for our bill.
“Thank you. You’re a friend,” he whispered to me but I didn’t bother to ask what a friend meant to him.
“Where will you go from here? To your boardinghouse?” I asked him.
“Okay,” he stood up and I followed. “We’ll hire a tricycle.”
When we left the nipa house I signaled the driver to start the tricycle.
“I’ll drop you at the dormitory. I’m sure your matron will be angry with you. Did you ask permission from her? You can sleep with me in my boardinghouse.” He was worried for me.
“Don’t worry. Eddie, my roommate knows about this,” I assured him.
Our room was brightly lit still. It was very quiet that evening.
“See you tomorrow,” I told him in a low tone. I felt lonely when I alighted from the tricycle.
“Okay, take care.”
Dakaldakal didn’t call a meeting for weeks. I didn’t see Anthony on campus. Usually from the gate I could casually see him sitting on the bench under the talisay trees. A neighbor of Anthony informed me that he had caught dengue fever. He was home in Lambunao.
I made up my mind to go to Lambunao and was absent from school in the afternoon. I arrived at Anthony’s house without his knowing. He was recuperating. At the living room he was fastening an empty bottle of Tanduay and a spoon to a cracked plate. I was amazed by his art. As I sat on the sofa thinking over what he was doing I began to appreciate his work and like him. He offered me banana cake he had baked by himself and a can of Pepsi.
I stayed for the night. I slept in Anthony’s room. It was air-conditioned. But his books were scattered on the floor. The old computer was beside his bed and there was an organ in a corner. I saw a roach while I was sipping a cup of native coffee his mother had prepared. I pretended I hadn’t seen the insect. I was sitting on the books on the floor.
“Why don’t you change your computer? Yours is very obsolete,” I suggested, while smelling the strong aroma of kape barako.
“I like my computer. It is lucky for me. I have won prizes in poetry with it.”
“You have many books here.” I changed the topic.
I picked up a book in science. Anthony collected all kinds of books. In my case I collected books on limited topics. Only literature.
“I collect the books of Saul Bellow, Kurt Vonnegut, and William Carlos Williams,” he told me while I was crawling for the scattered books.
I never said anything.
“I also collect the books of John Updike,” he continued.
“I have Rabbit, at Rest but it’s part of my collection.”
“Really! I would have the complete set if you sell it to me.”
“It’s my collection. But for the sake of our friendship I will barter it to you with your book here.”
“Which one? Ah, the book of Ricardo de Ungria. I acquired it from the UP National Writers Workshop.”
“You have a copy of Ladlad here. Can I borrow this? I’ll bring you Rabbit, at Rest in school.”
“I’ll swap that with you and de Ungria’s A Passionate Patience.”
I was supposed to sleep in another room; however, I decided to sleep in Anthony’s. His mother brought me bedding and I spread it on the floors. I placed the books under his bed.
Anthony was an insomniac. The whole night long we conversed about literature. I told him to sleep but it was very difficult to dominate him–even his mother could not. His father, a doctor had left them when they had been young. His mother, who was also a doctor, was a martyr. She had stopped her work to tend her family. Her children were drug addicts. Anthony too had been rehabilitated before. He had been a medical student in a university but was kicked out. Now, he was an English major, my friend, and our editor in chief. And I was no longer shocked by his unusual reaction to certain things under normal conditions.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” I asked him.
“No. I don’t like girls,” he replied.
“You stole my line,” I smiled gamely.
“I just want to write.”
“Write?”
“Writing is my girlfriend.”
“Why–couldn’t you write when you have one?” I frankly asked him.
“I’m weird, Francis. I am afraid a girl will not understand me. There are times, you know that I want to be lonely. And girls are jealous,” he reasoned out.
“How about a gayfriend. Someone who will understand you–like a girlfriend.” I asked him. I felt pity perhaps. Or I didn’t know. It seemed I was falling in love with Anthony. Or his art.
“I hate gays.”
“Which means you hate me?” I looked at him.
“No, you’re different.” Then he paused. “Yes. I hate you, Francis. Are you really a poet?” he asked me bleakly.
“I can’t understand you.” I stood up. “Is there something you hate in my being a poet? I can’t understand you, Anthony.”
When Anthony woke up in the morning, I had already taken a bath. I went back immediately to the college. And on the bus it lingered on my mind that Anthony was homophobic. He went with me and I was a friend to him because I didn’t wear a dress and makeup. I was decent looking.
He was mysterious and my feelings toward him were inexplicable. Did I feel pity, love, hate, lust, obsession, what?
At the office, one morning when I opened the lower compartment of our steel cabinet, there were brown envelopes addressed to me. I never got to read them when I received them from a staff member. So many submissions flooded my table.
Anthony’s voice reverberated on my mind, “ Are you really a poet?” I opened one of the envelopes. I read:
“A Visit
Visit me in my room/
If ever you have time./
My room is dark/
And we can/
Play hide-/
And-seek./
Or you can turn on/
The light and I/
Will bring you to my/
World.
Then you’d/
Sculpt me into David/
As if you were/
Michelangelo.
–Anthony Losaria”
It was Anthony’s submission. I had been so busy that I hadn’t been able to read it.
After a month, I went to his boardinghouse. The house was airy. A poet like me could perhaps write volumes of poetry there. It seemed the Muse was always there. So much that Anthony was very prolific.
He was in the balcony. He looked serious.
“Anthony,” I called out to him. He opened the gate. “Are you alone here?” I asked him. I was curious whether he had other companions in the house. It was far from other houses in the village and it was difficult to ask for help in case of emergency.
He opened the main door, “The other room is occupied by my two friends. They are from Bacolod,” then he looked back at me smiling. He took the key from his pocket. “Just stay here. I will change my shirt.”
I sat on the sofa and skimmed through some magazines and books scattered on the table.
“Can I get inside your room?” I asked him curiously.
“Just stay there.”
“I know. But I want to see your room.”
There was silence for a moment. I didn’t assert my intention. I continued reading.
“ Where did you buy Amina, Among Angels by Merlie M. Alunan? UP Press?”
“ Come in here,” he shouted.
“ Is it okay with you?” I asked him.
I went to the room slowly. I grasped the doorknob then twisted it open. The room was dark. As I entered he turned on the dim lamp. I found him. He was lying in bed. I didn’t know what came into his mind. Naked he invited me to sculpt his torso as though I were an artist.
He looked so naïve and I felt such a thrill while I was doing my masterpiece. I touched his dimple tenderly.
“I love you, Frans,” he whispered and started to sculpt me, too. We were Michelangelos. Also Davids.
When I rode the tricycle on my way to the dormitory I could not reconcile my experience with Anthony. It was a real visit.
By the room window overlooking the sugarcane field I put my pen to paper, this time for fiction. The Muse had been swaying together with the blades of sugarcane over there and my submission for Dakaldakal folio was almost done.
'A Visit' first saw print in The Sunday Times magazine on 22 June 2003.
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