Palanca entry in progress - A Memoir

R-L: Louie, my brother, me as Rabittus, Jeng, Joan, Lyks, my way cooler cousins

Glimpse to the ending of this memoir

Pink slippers this year. After two hours of tossing and turning on our thirty-year old katre, I finally made up my mind. It was the only item missing from my list. Grandma made the perfect mixture of tepid water. Five in the morning and I could hear the kettle blowing, the signal to take a bath. I never really needed that alarm, I was waiting for this day like Christmas.

Summer vacation was nothing but a vicious cycle of hanging and folding clothes, suffocating dragonflies in matchboxes and make-believe games. I almost wanted to drink the Kool Aid we made out of atsuete that I bought using my one trillion peso cigarette foils. Little Miss Philippines pageant would have broken the summer monotony but grandma said I will not qualify because of the scars on my legs from running around too much, not to mention my crooked teeth.

What I despised most about summer were the chores. Grandma managed to keep us busy by adding more to the usual cleaning up and dishes. She had our coconut trees pruned to engage us in the drab, cyclic task of making broomsticks. One by one, we had to remove the leaves, using a knife to get the midribs. Approximately four hundred pieces for a single broomstick. My boredom multiplied four hundred fold.

We did not have a telephone so we wrote a letter to grandpa every week. I would be sitting by the dresser at three in the afternoon with a pad of yellow paper while Grandma is in bed telling me what to write, almost like talking to grandpa.

My grandpa liked my handwriting but told me to be more consistent.  He noticed the change in my stroke and increasing erasures towards the end of the letter. This task I enjoyed because I can write the things I wanted secretly. P.S. Anais Anais perfume, Trolls, Target corned beef. Send to King Wilkinson Saudi Arabia Ltd.

During Holy Week, grandma would wake us up at five in the morning to clean the church. When she starts getting busy talking to the other women, I would sleep in on a far away pew. I could not wait for my cousins’ rescue to invite me to stay at their house for a week or two. They had cable TV and a VCR rental place inside the village. We would stay up till two in the morning watching My Stepmother is an Alien or play Miss Universe and no one will pester us to go to sleep.

LA Lopez

Lim’s School Supplies is about thirty square meters big. You do not get a cart or a basket. You simply had to hand your list over to the saleslady who will get everything for you in a matter of seconds. The shelves are packed with Manila paper, long and short envelopes, folders, scented erasers, all pens imaginable. She just knew exactly where every item was.

This was my candy store. I would have been so happy with the plain blue ones that come with a plastic cover or the Corona brand that my cousins had. They would then cover them with magazine clips of Benetton models and I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. But one of those notebooks is equivalent to two of those dreadful cheap notebooks that grandma got for us every year – thin, almost translucent paper, smudged lines. To top it all off, LA Lopez on the cover with his infamous two thumbs up pose. Mr. Lim masterfully calculates items manually using the rule of tens in Addition. I watched closely, year after year, answering those damn window cards had never been the same. Right across was the dry market. I got my pink slippers with a Snoopy strap.

I hurry to my room and start wrapping the notebooks with colored paper. I need to cover LA Lopez’ face and I have to do it quick. The inception of my aesthetics.

Regime

Lubao Central Elementary School (LCES), a public school in San Nicolas 1st, Lubao Pampanga, alma mater of former president Diosdado Macapagal,  actor Rogelio Dela Rosa, dad, my grandmas
and grandpas, aunts and uncles. The legacy had to go on. We did not have to buy books, did not have to pay for any tuition except for a one time sixty-peso Parent-Teacher Association fee.
The word “Central” always denoted better than the rest, better than the other schools without the world “Central” like Sta. Monica Elementary School, Sta. Lucia Elementary School, Sta. Barbara Elementary School. Expectations were simply higher. I was in third grade when Diosdado Macapagal
celebrated his birthday and had a motorcade around town. We were lined up outside the school, holding banners that we had to wave when his convoy arrived.

Leaning against the metal fence, with the putrid, lingering scent of the sewage in front of me, I told myself that I will be the next Philippine president from LCES. This is my first memory of a dream, first memory of a goal. I mentioned this to grandpa and he supported the idea. After a few months, the dream changed and I wanted to be a poet. He said poets are broke so I changed that to journalist. My uncle said you had to be really pretty to be a journalist so I changed that to Psychologist. “The table is now open for nominations for President”. It’s time to straighten up my back and adjust my barrett because I knew I would be nominated and I would have to take over till we elect all the officers all the way up to class muse.

I have memorized the class election script and procedure by heart. I took the role seriously for six years. I had a
separate notebook for my collectibles – 25 cents for every Tagalog or Kampampangan word spoken, 25 cents for Noisy, 25 cents for Loitering or Standing without permission, 25 cents Littering. I kept on writing them up especially when the teacher stepped out.

I was not comfortable remitting a small amount to my teacher at the end of the week. So sometimes, I would get two or three pesos from my allowance and write additional, imaginary offenses to make it all add up. Three pesos from my ten-peso allowance that grandma religiously leaves on top of our betamax, two pesos for the jeepney ride.  

We started off our day with a “health inspection”. One by one, we had to check our classmates’ fingernails, ears,
clothes, hair and then report our findings in class. If everyone was “clean”, you had to say “I am glad to inform you that everyone in Row 1 is clean today”. Class applauds. If there were adverse findings, you had to say “I am sorry to inform you that one of us in Row 1 is not clean today”. The class is then compelled to say “Who?!” in unison and the reporter had to divulge who that person was and say something like “Mitzie has earwax today”

I was a regular at Quiz Bees except Math and the best part of that was being excused from all my afternoon classes for tutorials. I would have access to materials that were advanced for my grade and that made me feel invincible. Annual rings tell you how old a tree was. A meteorologist is the discipline and study of weather and the atmosphere, not meteors. Grandma will include every Quiz Bee in the litany. We prayed the
everyday at six in the afternoon. Towards the fifth mystery, I would start getting sleepy, my responses almost faint. I would then feel a quick,stinging pinch on my belly and my responses are louder than ever. Consistency,
consistency.

For a poster making contest, Sir Arthur made sure that my lines had consistent depth and thickness. The lightest color always in between. I loved his Industrial Arts class. Using graphing paper forperspective drawing made me feel like a grown-up. I would attend every graduation ceremony that was the same day they awarded honor students. The weekend before that, we would dye grandma’s hair with Bigen using an old toothbrush. She
looked forward to these days.

As soon as they announce the honor roll, we will write a letter to grandpa to ask for my reward for being first in class. The fruits of my labor included a brick game, a family computer and a huge two-storey doll house. This doll house was pretty special. Its room was at the center of the second floor. It had glass doors that opened to a porch. I rearranged the tiny furniture almost every day. I ruled the world.

Every year, we heard the Valedictorian’s speech. It was the same old, four-page speech that they made each First Honor pupil memorize. I knew someday I would be reciting this speech on my Graduation Day. I have secretly practiced the opening part where you had to acknowledge the guests, teachers, graduates, the nods, the hand gestures, the smile. This was all predictable so I paid more attention to the guest speaker. A guest
speaker made her own speech.

Before class, we had to sweep the lawn in front of the campus until about eight in the morning. After burning the dried leaves and trash, we had to draw horizontal lines in the areas devoid of grass using a stick broom.

I was chatting with my classmate for about three minutes to rest my arms. The broomsticks gave me calusses. Before I knew it, my teacher was behind me and when I turned around, she started at me for a second then said “You are a no good leader”.

There was a lump in my throat the whole day from holding back my tears. We walked back to the classroom by the periphery so we won’t make footprints and ruin the horizontal lines. The words echoed endlessly and from then on I swept as if someone was always watching me, with
purple eye shadow.

Homework

I can only wish that my teacher will extend today’s class, or that the jeepney breaks down on the way home. I can imagine grandma waiting by the door step, feeling the stinging pinches from her long-red nails with a white lunula perfectly arched by Ate Yolly. I stole the almost one-foot long guava tree that she has been taking care of for a few months now. The Bangkok type that bears gargantuan fruit that I had to sacrifice for the sake of Science. We had to prove that lack of sunlight or oxygen is detrimental to plants.

Chickens petrify me. We had chickens bredand trained for cockfighting. They were aggressive and would put up a good damn fight even with that dummy made out of rags and sticks. I made sure I did not create any noise while I snuck out of bed at five in the morning, headed to the kitchen to get a nice, sturdy plastic and opened the door slowly, almost lifting it so that the base does not screech against the floor.

I was eye to eye with the chicken now, contemplating on a plan to shoo it away from its triangle coop. I threw a
pebble at it, the absolute worst idea in the world.

Cockadoodle doo says my animal story book and I knew this was a big, fat lie. The sound is
a boisterous, contagious bucuuuuuck. In less than a minute, there was a chaotic symphony of buckuuucks around the house. I had to dig through the pile of chicken poop under the coop and put it in my plastic quick. I ran outside the gate and kept it there so I can pick it up before riding the jeepney. They cannot find out that I was the orchestrator of the untimely alarm so I went straight to the bathroom to shower. My uncles are paranoid now, thinking someone was trying to break in and steal the animals for the upcoming three-cock derby. My dad started sleeping in the living room since then.

At school, all the fertilizers are all in one area now. Highest points went to the moist, dark cow dung. My dry, loose chicken poop went to the trash can. We are now ready to make our plots for Chinese cabbage seedlings. I always made sure that I got the hoe first, the garden hoe was as tall as I was, making me look extra
hardworking for purple eyeshadow.

Once a month, we would have to polish the classroom wooden floor using candle wax balls. This was our assignment for All Saints’ Day. Right after the family rosary by my great grandparents’ tomb, I would start collecting dripping candle wax, shape and mold them into balls. I would intentionally apply thick wax to make it harder for the boys to scrub it off with coconut husk. The transformation of wax lines to a gleaming, dark wooden
floor after the scrubbing was a sight to behold.


Home remedies and pageantry

Making her way thru our red rusty gate in high waist slim jeans, Ate Vangie is our ever-reliable, resident beautician. She is a relative, just as we are relatives with almost practically everyone in
Sta. Monica. I have been pleasantly surprised many times when I did not have to pay for the one peso jeepney drive because the driver was my dad’s friend or classmate, grandma’s godson or our labandera’s husband. Six degrees of separation incarnate. One peso extra that I can put to the Noisy, Standing,
Speaking fund. Dad said Ate Vangie’s father used to submerge him in a drum of water when he was a kid, hoping that would straighten him up and stop him from playing dolls. All the women in our family have donned the
telephone-cord curls hairstyle. To achieve the look, you would have to put up with that rancid setting lotion, the small pink curlers with the rubber band and half a can of Aquanet to hold it together. I would lose about twenty
percent of my hair in the process and contribute a decimal percentage to ozone depletion from all the hairspray I have used.

Grandma had the perfect remedy. Once a month, she would massage my scalp with sabila (Aloe Vera). This was the day when I would not dare go out and play because I smelled like a walking, sweaty
armpit. She would also clean my wounds everyday with scalding boiled guava leaves and apply sebo de macho to make the scars lighter.

Ms Spain, United Nations Day (1990). Ate Vangie envisioned an elite Espanyola look for me. She made a cardboard cut-out of a tiarra, wrapped it in aluminum foil and placed the black, lace veil that my grandma used in church. She pulled my hair in a tight half-bun that made my eyes almost chinky. As a finishing touch, she gave me these long, fake lashes using Caimito sap as glue. I was a seven-year old drag queen.

My escort, Carlos was wearing a vested white suit with a butterfly collar. The huge, black, velvet wide-brimmed hat was hard to ignore. We were instructed to not smile too much. That was not so hard to do because of the scorching heat, a two-hour parade and a throbbing scalp from about twenty bobby pins. I thought Carlos looked more like a magician.

Miss Mousie (1990) was the lead role for a school play and we had to compete against five other schools from our town. I had a five-page script but there was this one particular scene that we had to rehearse for about half a day

Mr. Frog: Miss Mousie, will you marry me?
Miss Mousie: Way down yonder in the hollow tree

I had to say that line in a proud, overbearing fashion. I did not know what it meant till now but I just know
exactly what to say when someone proposes to me. We had to repeat this scene
till it was perfect, this was the key moment of the play. I continued rehearsing at home because I had
to impress everyone, especially Mr. Frog. How I loved those days when my teacher would ask me to go to their classroom and everyone in his class would go “yiheeeee!” I would be standing by the door, nonchalant. This feeling gave birth for what I call the perfume-wearing phase of dating.

Ms. Junior Escoda (1994). Josefa Llanes Escoda founded the Girl Scout of the Philippines and is often confused with Melchora Aquino in the one thousand peso bill. Annually, every class would have one representative. The girl who sells the most number of tickets will be crowned Ms. Escoda. I sold 1500 pesos worth of tickets courtesy of our neighbors, aunts and uncles. Grandma hated any activity that required us to spend.

Wearing an ill-fitted white sequined gown I borrowed from my cousin, I paused awkwardly with Harry for pictures. He was class salutatorian. The teachers would always partner us up in school activities and make us an item of some sort because they think it’s cute but we both knew that our competition is cut-throat.

I must admit that he was better in Math. Anyone was better than me in Math. I knew Harry would be observing me during those oral group exercises, trying to lip read to see if I had the right answers. Mr. Lim never had to convert fractions into decimals nor did he have to answer questions like “In three more years Ben's grandfather will be six
times as old as Ben was last year. When Ben's present age is added to his grandfather's present age, the total is 68. How old is each one now? These types of questions make me want to cry.

School band majorette (1994-1996) I have always been fascinated by the senior girls who led the school band during parades. So when my teacher asked me to be one, I said yes without bothering to ask for grandma’s permission. I knew she would scold me for this especially because we would have to get my costume and boots made. The boots alone would cost two thousand pesos to be custom-made at Romy’s Shoes – knee-high white
leather with yellow fringes.

I was not paying attention during the grueling one hour castigation with grandma, all I had in mind was the
xylophone. Majorettes were allowed to take xylophones home to practice. I placed it near the couch so I can take an occasional glance while grandma was talking.

A few minutes after, I was happily playing Mary Had a Little Lamb. The arts make life more bearable, practice it no matter how well or badly said Kurt Vonnegut. Harold and Maude cheered me up.
ending in progress..