Chapter 6

Joshua

It was a two-hour drive. I left the house around ten in the morning, which was also the time I woke up. I had no idea how I got into a suit in the first place, but I knew I needed food.

            Driving with Manong Arturo was like driving with a marble statue, like the one in Times Beach, that replica of Statue of David with his nuts hanging loose for everyone to see. Manong Arturo was stiff, quiet, and chose his words carefully to the point we could only talk about the weather and the names of trees we passed by.

            The morning rays beat on my eyes, which coaxed me to sleep through the whole trip. When I finally came to, Manong Arturo opened the car door. My brown leather satchel was tucked under his armpit.

            I flinched and sighed. I hoped his spicy armpit smell didn't latch onto my satchel.

            I looked at the red, beat up pickup truck we drove in. “What time is it?” I asked.

            “Ten minutes to twelve, sir,” Manong Arturo said.

            I didn't take my satchel from him. I looked around at what seemed to be a town more beat up than our thirteen-year-old truck, which had driven through more curvy roads and rocky terrain than a bus coming from the city to the mountainous range of rural Mindanao.

            I stared at the light blue sky and concentrated my stinging eyes on the yellow ball above. The sun was high up. A relaxing swim seemed to be a good idea.

            “I'm going for a swim,” I said.

            Manong Arturo glanced at me and raised a brow. “A swim? Where on earth will you find a pool to swim in? Sir, we're already late and you want to swim?”

            “Yeah, just tell the school people I'll be there soon,” I shouted over my shoulder.

            I walked around Paki-bato. I inhaled the cold, dusty air, and wondered if mother breathed in the same air and thought it was wonderful. When she was on her stable moods she would talk about this place. If I asked her more about it, she would just look cross and tell me she wasn't talking to me. Then, she would continuously mumble about Paki-bato and the waterfalls, which was her favorite part of the town.

            If I had the courage then, I would have said sorry to her for interrupting her conversation with the wall.

            There were a lot of shacks or tiny huts around, and a terribly constructed chapel. The nails and roof were rusted and could possibly do more harm than good.

            I wandered around, following no direction and just let my feet take me to wherever. If I were to be honest, I would like to find the house mother used to live in. Then, I would investigate the place and look for reasons why she was so disturbed, or clinically insane.

            Dad told me mother was just sad on what happened to her life. He might have been just a bit sad about mine. Seeing your mother blow her head off only merited a one-year visit to the psychiatrist, and maybe some stress debriefing activities.

            I had terrible nightmares for almost a year after what happened to mother. My nightmares were always about her and her bloody hands around my neck. I remembered the psychiatrist telling dad that people cope through life by doing numerous, healthy ways. Two of those ways were writing or painting. I adopted both, and I failed miserably at both. But they had results, and I didn't become suicidal or a psycho killer like Jason and Freddy.

            I stopped right at mother’s favorite waterfalls, and swam in it like a dog. I wasn't the best of swimmers but at least I knew how to do the dog paddle. I left my jacket and shoes to a girl, who kept on calling me Mister Sponsor.

            I swam to the bank and put on my socks and shoes. The insides of my shoes were wet and they made this awful squelching sound.

            The girl beside me clutched my jacket and asked about my school visit. I remembered none of what I said.

            I might have said something about food, though. I was famished! I hadn't eaten anything since this morning. The swim might have cleared my thoughts, but it sure made me hungrier.

            The girl looked at me crossly, a look I hadn't seen since mother died. My gut told me she might just be my mother's mini-me. She looked the part: pretty girl with big, brown eyes and a petite, fragile-looking build.

            “You're an ass!” And she had a crazy dog's bark.

            She was definitely my mother's mini-me.

            She turned and marched away from me, and I followed her. Two reasons why I was following her: one, I didn't know how to get to the school; two, magnetism.

            I couldn't really explain the second reason but that was just it. Magnetism. Probably a better word would be gravitation. Pull? Attraction? Stockholm syndrome?

            The last one was too far-fetched.

            My shoes continued to squelch and her slippers slapped the dry earth. We and everything else were quiet. I hated the quietness. It gave me thoughts mostly about mother.

            “How long have you been living here?” I asked.

            She flinched. “Years,” she grumbled.

            “What's your name?”

            She flinched again. “Ling,” she said, but there was a softness in her voice, like a momentary hesitation.

            I chuckled. “I wasn't expecting that.”

            She stopped on her tracks and glared at me over her shoulder. “Stop it,” she hissed.

            “Stop what?” I shrugged my shoulders.

            “Talking.”