This is another post from my old Myspace blog, Ao Vivo. A friend was teaching English in China at the time and shared some of his adventures with me and his adventures reminded me of some of my adventures. This is, as they say in the movies, based on real events. The loveliness of this particular blog post is that I know exactly when I posted it, but the question remains: what was I doing up so early in the morning?
Subject The Breath of Nostalgia...Aaaaaaaah..uhhuck..uhhuck!
Posted Date: Saturday, March 31, 2007 - 6:47 AM
Genghis K just blogged about an adventure he had and it reminded me that adventures come in bunches like grapes.
Yes, nostalgia is rearing its ever so ugly head, and once again I plunge into the misty waters, I mean muddy waters, I mean polluted, sewer-like water that flows somewhere in my poor besotted head.
Today, I had my afternoon tea in a pseudo Russian tea house, quite pleasant except for bad music, in San Francisco. I was seated next to some young people who were busy trying to create a future of wealth and happiness by, I am not kidding, filming yoga classes, and selling them as something called video casting (?) on the internet. Their group was made up of an older (retirement age) woman, a young woman of 34, a blind black man from England, and a young man who was trying to sell them on the idea of video casting. Forgive me if I do not understand this concept.
In the world of the theater and film, casting is what is done to acquire actors for roles. The way this fellow was talking sounded like info-mercials. And he was rather confident that people would swarm in vast enough numbers to this cause that sponsors of one sort or another would be flocking to buy advertisements on, in and around this short video of the young lady teaching yoga. Okay, I don't get it, but that's alright because it wasn't what I was going to tell you about anyway.
This all started because the young lady said her goal was to travel. She taught yoga. But she wanted to travel and that was all. Because of our proximity in the restaurant, and the fact that she had already traveled somewhat, India and Thailand at least, my companion and I, having traveled quite a bit, butted into their conversation (it wasn't really going anywhere anyway because the young lady didn't really understand the concept of video casting either) and the whole group started sharing travel stories. This story I'm going to tell you isn't one of the ones I told.
Years ago, or maybe I should start, once upon a time...no, that won't do. I was in Manila, P.I. That sounds exotic enough, and believe me it was. It was one of those tropic evenings when air temperature and skin temperature and street temperature and clothing temperature are all the same and the humidity is at about 99 percent. Anytime one sweated, the only way to tell was if you touched yourself, given that you do such things, and you slid off. At the time, Manila was under martial law, and the Philipines under Ferdinand Marcos, who was the fellow who imposed martial law. Martial law meant there was a midnight curfew for anyone except, of course, the fellows enforcing the curfew. So every evening, toward 11:30 pm, people scurry off to their homes or hotels or whatever looked to be the most convenient and safest shelter. I do not know where the homeless, and there were many of them, went.
I decided to brave the limits of curfew and taking my walking stick, I am a very toney guy at times, and my camera for possible night photography, I set off to look for the very famous Papagayo's. A Mexican restaurant in the heart of Manila known all over the China Sea as a great place for, well, Mexican food. As I left my lodgings, a comfortable US Naval vessel, and walked toward wherever Papagayo's might be, a man walking along the street in the same direction began to engage me in conversation.
An unusual situation in any place, but in the Philipines, pretty much unheard of because poor Philipinos have little in common with Americans of any stripe. His conversation consisted pretty much of a discussion of the weather and where was I headed and did I know there was a curfew? Being a polite and friendly sort I took in his appearance and thought, hmmmm...awfully friendly. He was wearing what looked like a prototype uniform for UPS. A little brown man in a little brown shirt and little brown pants with little brown shoes. But very friendly.
When I told him I was headed for world famous Papagayo's he said excitedly, "I KNOW WHERE THAT IS!" This seemed to me to be a little over the top, as most people know, at least in Manila, where Papagayo's is to be found. But then he added, "I can take you there if you like!" I thought, my, he IS friendly, and after asking him if he wanted to be paid for the task, since many people who approached you on the street then were actually doing a fancy form of panhandling. To my surprise he said no, it would be his pleasure to guide me to the world famous Papagayo Restaurant. When I said that I really wanted to walk along the waterfront because I was looking for night photos, and if he could just tell me I would be eternally grateful, he replied that there was no time to lose, it was some distance and might be closing soon. So I asked, worried now about the time, how far was it. "Not too far," was his reply. Ah hah! You say. First he says it was some distance and then he says not too far, which is also what I said, out loud.
His confusion was only momentary and he babbled something rather incoherent. Well it was incoherent to me because I do not speak Tagalog. Then he smiled broadly, did not answer the question, at least in English, and said to follow him. Being an adventurous type, I did. And he lead me right to world famous Papagayo Restaurant. Believing that he might have been up to something and finding to the contrary relieved me and I asked him if he would like to join me. This he refused, but he did follow me into the restaurant. I found this odd. The manager of the restaurant also found it odd, but seemed to accept the sight of the two of us as just another odd thing in another odd day.
I repeated my offer of dinner and again he refused, so I offered at least something to drink. After repeating that offer he finally accepted a coca-cola. Yes, they also have a bottling plant in the Philipines. I ordered my dinner, chicken molé and the little brown man sat opposite me talking about how well protected tourists were in the Philipines and had I ever been out to the military cemetery and did I know that Imelda Marcos had built the new civic theater in only three months, etc., etc. His coke had arrived but he just seemed to enjoy talking. At about 9:30 pm I had received the bill and asked the hostess if she could change American money which she assured me she could and went to ring up my total.
While she was gone the little man said, "you know, you can get a much better rate than here." I being the frugal man I am said, oh? "Yes," he told me, "you can get a much much better rate than that." The rate he then suggested was more than triple the "bank" rate. Wow, I would be rolling in little Philipine pesos. But, he informed me I would have to take a short trip outside the restaurant. This sounded like a lot more work but greed won the day and when the hostess returned to my table carrying my bill, I asked her if she would mind if I just slipped out for a little bit because the little man had just told me he could get a very good rate of exchange for me. She looked extremely startled, giving the little man a rather dismissive glance, but said it was all right with her and I thought at the time that her doubtful tone came from a worry that I wouldn't pay. To answer her unspoken question I said I would leave my camera and walking stick and a jacket I had been carrying because I originally thought the night was going to cool off. It didn't.
The little man seemed to be very enthusiastic about my leaving my things in the restaurant because, he said, "they will be sape, in de Pilipines, de tourist is bery sape, because de gobermen is bery strick wid how tourists mus be tritted!" Then for some odd reason, the hostess chimed in her agreement to this, "yes yes de gobermen is bery bery strick..ip you wan to leeb your tings here, dey will be here when you get bahck." I had a sudden thought that perhaps they knew one another, but the look the lady was giving the little man was ferocious. He nodded in agreement and I left my camera sitting on my table with jacket flung over the back of my chair and my walking stick leaning forlornly against the table and giving them what I thought might be a last look, started out the door. The hostess repeated as we left, "dey will be here when you get bahk."
At that point I wasn't even sure why, maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the night, maybe it was the romance, but I was leaving three hundred dollars worth of camera, minus the telephoto lens, the macro lenses, various filters and assorted camera stuff worth three hundred more on a restaurant table in the middle of Marcos' Manila, because I wanted triple twenty dollars worth of Philipine Pesos. This in the days when three pesos bought a haircut, a facial, a manicure and a torso massage in an average barbershop (see my last blog). The walking stick could easily have been replaced, I bought it in Manila, and in that wet, heated moment I wasn't sure I ever wanted to see the jacket again. But nonetheless I was excited by the thought of triple twenty dollars worth of pesos.Turning left out the door the little brown man lead me into the back streets of Manila.
Now when I say "streets" I may be exaggerating a little. Some of the streets weren't big enough to drive on and had probably been there since the Spanish had left. It was like a scene out of Casablanca, only this wasn't a set. Dim streetlights casting strong black shadows into corners where very dimly, I could see things piled up or people standing, talking. It did not occur to me at the time, I was after triple value, but I wonder what they were talking about? Maybe the exchange rate.
Interestingly, even at the time, the little man would stop somewhere and ask me if I knew where Papagayo was, and if I didn't know, always point and say, "it's right ober dere." I thought this most charming and thanked him every time. We stopped in some unusual locations: a cigarette vendor sitting on the street with various brands spread out in front of her, under a moorish arch (I told you it was like Casablanca) where a young man was leaning with an insouciant air, smoking a nasty smelling stogie, a barbershop where the little man wasn't greeted bery politely for some reason, but as it was getting on toward curfew, we hurried on.
Each time we stopped, he would re-orient me to Papagayo then take the twenty dollar bill from me and make his request of whatever person was in line for exchanging money at triple the bank rate. He always conducted business in Tagalog and it seemed everyone seemed either bored or not interested, or in the case of the barbershop even a little hostile (see my last blog). But I was patient, I was going to get triple the going rate. After every unsuccessful try, he would return the twenty to me with a comment about the lack of cooperation or why the person couldn't change the bill just now.
Near 10:30 pm he stopped me across the street from a rather non-descript two storey building with no windows on the street level that seemed to take up the better part of a block and told me once again where world famous Papagayo was from where we were standing, told me he would be right back, this would be slightly more difficult, etc., etc. and just to wait right here. With that he once again acquired the twenty dollars and setting his shoulders looked across the street at the single door and marched through it, closing it behind himself. And there I waited.
The single streetlight was glowing softly with tropical insects circling in its halo. A broken sign was hanging askew, marking the building as the Atlantic Hotel. Atlantic? The street was empty of automobiles. Just over the top of the building I could just see the quarter moon floating. The only sounds were my shoes scraping on the dirty sidewalk and the broken neon of the sign giving off a random buzzing. There were old cooking odors and the smell of spilled tar and burnt wood saturating the mood. And I waited.
At about 10:45 pm I looked at my watch and thought, hmmm. Should I go see how he's doing? He had told me that perhaps this would take more time. So I waited another five minutes. 10:50. I pulled myself together and told myself quietly, "I think I've been had." But just in case I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, I waited another couple of minutes. 10:52.
If you have never been in a country where marshal law is in place, you will not quite realize the rising panic that sets into people as curfew approaches if they are on the street. Curfew means that if you are caught on the street, you will be taken by the police, or the miltary police to some holding cell somewhere. In the Philipines at the time I had heard rumors of people getting taken to some subterranean box below the Malacanang Palace and being permanently lost to public view. This always struck me as unrealistic because Malacanang Palace was where Ferdinand Marcos lived and why would he store curfew breakers there. But then, the thought of people chained to walls directly below all that florid tropical opulence and all those pairs of Imelda Marcos shoes made an interesting juxtaposition. 10:53.
I made a decision to cross the street and enter the Atlantic Hotel, or what was left of it, and attempt to find the little brown man in his brown clothing.
When I passed through the door, I became immediately aware of what had happened. The wall of this building to my left was a two-storey wall and nothing more, extending all the way to the next building. The hotel had probably lost half of its bulk during the world war and minus materials, the residents and owners had left the wall standing, perhaps in the hope that the missing half would be rebuilt. In the meantime, that missing half provided a garage for a few cars which had to enter from an alley which couldn't be seen from where I had waited, the sad remainder of wall of the hotel blocking any view of it. Directly in front of me a wall, a much repaired wall, which still had supports showing from where upper floors had once extended ran at right angles to the street. To my right, parallel to the street a staircase lifted much worn and broken steps to the remaining upper floor. The whole staircase seemed to have settled downward on the side away from the street and where the rail had been were nail holes or supports sticking out from the wall like beckoning fingers. At the very top of the flight of stairs a single bare bulb hung from a wire, any glass covering and fixture long gone.
There was a door at the top of the stairs with a small diamond pane of glass in the center through which light came, more light it seemed than from the dim bulb. Looking at the stairs I hesitated a moment, but then made a nothing ventured-nothing gained decision. Pressing my hand against the wall as a support I picked my way up the stairs and nearing the top could hear a murmur of conversation in Tagalog. Just general conversation and a little laughter floating like someone had told a joke that was mildly humorous. Reaching the top of the steps, I looked through the little window in the door to see a group of people sitting on benches around what appeared to be a kind of make-shift lobby. Men and women engaged in post-prandial talk, some of them still holding plates with the remainders of what looked like adobo.
I thought, should I go in and if I do, what will I say? Phooey, says I to myself, faint heart never won fair lady, and pushing the door open I stepped into the florescent lit room and stopped the conversation dead in its tracks. It was almost as if I had every person's head in the room on a set of strings and pulled them toward me.
"Hi." I said. Everyone stared. "Hi...I'm looking for..." And I stopped in mid-sentence because I knew if I said I was looking for a little Philipino man, any man in the room would fit the description. So I looked for a little brown man in a little brown shirt and pants and little brown shoes.
"Do you want a room?" the man behind the desk said with a great deal of composure.
"Ah...I..was looking for....a guy......that might have come in... here...maybe. He was wearing....well...a brown...he was wearing brown..."
Patiently the desk clerk asked again, "do you want a room?" And then he smiled...in a sort of friendly desk clerk way.
No....I was looking...for....a bathroom." A bathroom? I didn't need to use the bathroom. I just needed to leave that lobby. The little brown man wasn't there and I just needed to leave. These people were here because some of them I suppose lived there and others were there because it was off the street and away from the brown-shirts who could and did shoot people on sight. It was almost curfew.
The desk clerk calmly said, "down that hall on the left," pointing me across the lobby. It was rather like running the gauntlet. The stair was behind me, in front of me a crowd of people who looked like customers in a comedy club who had just been treated to a performance of Coriolanus when they had expected Robin Williams. But I crossed the room creating a wake of stares.
The corridor ran away from the lobby and toward a wall, which hadn't been completely sealed after the missing half of the building went missing. From the broken end of the corridor, I could look out over the make-shift garage. From that perspective I could see how the little brown man had just walked through the street door and continued right through into the alley without even a pause. Wow, I thought. He sure knows his way around!
I suddenly realized that I DID have to use the toilet and turning to my left, I spied "the restroom". It probably had been at one time a broom or linen closet but with most of one side blown off, like the corridor, it had been boarded up on the garage side and turned into a toilet...sort of. Another partition had divided the former closet in approximately equal halves and bed sheet curtains hung on the corridor side which somewhat concealed the individual's business from the rest of the world. On the war and water damaged floor stood a tin bucket in each half. There was no light at all except what came from another bare bulb down the hall through the curtains or leaked in through the incomplete wall on the garage side. I wondered where they dumped the buckets? I suddenly did not have to use the hotel facilities any longer and hastily backed out and returned to the lobby.
With as much aplomb as I could muster, I thanked the desk clerk and waved a cheery goodbye to everyone sitting on the benches around the room. The desk clerk politely said, "if you want a room come anytime." The rest of the crowd was non-responsive. I had a little difficulty opening the door to the stairs and a woman sitting near the door reached over without standing and unlatched it. I smiled at her. There wasn't even a moment of acknowledgement, she just turned back to her companion.
Closing the door behind me and beginning my descent of the stairs, I heard a burst of talking and some loud laughter and then a comment and another wave of laughter. Back in the street, before I stepped into the street, I checked my watch again and took a deep breath to make my way back to world famous Papagayo. It was now 10:59 pm.
Almost magically, I was back in the restaurant where my camera, walking stick and jacket were the only customers. The hostess was more than just happy to see me. She was effusive. It was like I had returned from the dead. It was 11:07 pm. She told me then that in the Philipines there was only one legal rate of exchange. Now she tells me, I thought.
She kept going on about how I could have been killed for my money, didn't I know that Manila at night was dangerous because anyone out after curfew could be shot and by the way she had a niece that needed a husband. Let me give you her address. No, let me give you my address. You write to me and tell me everything. I gave her a twenty at last and she exchanged it at the official rate giving me some of those colorful notes with Jose Rizal's picture. Then she talked some more after I promised to write and I collected my things from my table.
It was now 11:27 pm. I did not have time to get back to the ship. So I ran to the edge of Rizal Park and into the lobby of the nearest tourist hotel and made my speedy way to the desk and requested a room.
We only have one room left." I was informed. "It's da Presssidensheeal Swit." How much I asked. The figure was about sixty American. Remember this was when barbers were cheaper (see my last blog). I gasped a little and asked how long it was till curfew. "Fibe minutes." Not enough time to even sprint the distance to the ship. What could I do besides the Presidential Suite? "Well...you could slip in da lobby! Dere are many many piple dat slip in da lobby at curpew." I really don't want to be one of them, so I said give me the presidential suite and handed over the money.
Just then a compadre from the ship ran in the door panting from running, and seeing me ran straight up and asked me, "did you get a room?" "Yes, I did." And without waiting any longer turned rather breathlessly to the clerk and told him he would also like a room. Primly the desk clerk told him I had just bought the last room. "Shit!" said my friend. "Now what am I going to do?" The desk clerk asked me if I knew the gentleman and when I indicated the affirmative, he told me the presidential suite was quite large and would probably accommodate my friend as well as myself if I was willing to share.
"Yeah, that's a great idea!" my friend said. I noticed he hadn't asked me first and to me that is rather like reaching across to someone's plate to take food without asking.
"Is it?" I asked rather archly.
"Yessir," the desk clerk misunderstanding my tone offered, " de pressidenshial swit is bery large and comportable. I tink dere might ebem be two bets."
"Come on, man! Two beds! That's great!"
"Perhaps you could share de cos wit de gennelman, sir?" Now that was a great idea!
"Well," said my friend, "how much was it?"
"Sixty." I told him rather flatly.
"That would be like twenty bucks!" Apparently he had failed arithmetic.
"No," I replied flatly, "that would be like thirty bucks." My friend's already pale complexion blanched even more and he suddenly got very serious.
"I can't afford thirty, man. I've only got twenty...twenty-two something." He counted every coin. "Twenty-two...ha ha ha...thirty-one."
I struggled with demons. "Give me the twenty, then." I thought that was more than fair.
"But, I'm supposed to go to blah blah blah and blah blah blah tomorrow." he whined.
"Really? And what is keeping you from enjoying one of those lovely sofas in the lobby and saving us all this debate?"
"You're kidding?" he asked like he had just been handed a turd.
"Why would I be kidding? This room cost sixty dollars and you want to share it. Half of sixty is thirty. What did you think was fair?" I am not really much of a haggler, but I think I was trying to see how far my demons would push me, especially after my adventure in currency exchange.
My friend thought a moment and said, "if I had just got a room and it was the last room, I'd share it with you." What did that mean, I wondered, and left him in silence to explain himself. "I'd share a room with you," he repeated. Rather snipingly, I told him he would never have paid sixty dollars for anything, much less a presidential suite.
"Well, no, but whatever I got I'd share with you."
This really was over the top; he wasn't even that good a friend. This was a guy who would collect people together to hum the Battle Hymn of the Republic behind him, while dramatically reading naval history stories. Come to think of it, that was almost worth the price of admission.
"OOOh alright, ya little piker." I relented. I am such a soft touch.
"Dose dis min da gennelman will be staying in da pressidensheeal swit?" the desk clerk asked.
"Yes," I said.
"Bery well, may I hab da front take you bahgs?"
"No," I said feeling rather sleazy, "this is just a one night stand."
Without even cracking a smile, the clerk answered, "bery well, sir...da front will take you to your room." Docilely I followed the bellboy and docilely following me, my friend. We all mounted the elevator to the penthouse Presidential Suite. Grandly opening the double doors the bellboy opened all the doors and closets showing us what the suite had to offer and then stood patiently waiting for his tip. I looked at my friend and said, "pay the man."
My friend blanched again, "I don't know how much?"
"You have got to be kidding? A couple of bucks will do." When he started to whine, I handed the boy five dollars. I think I did it just to make my friend feel bad.
When the bellboy left, my friend started dancing around the room girlishly gushing, "this is great!! This is great!!!" Tiresome. Just tiresome.
And then I remembered something. The little brown man had never even touched his coke.
