Stories told of my father
He loves listening to stories told by storefront groups. But
he rarely contributes to the discussion. A most quiet and kind man when sober,
he was something else entirely when inebriated.
But there is more to my father than what people usually remember him
for.
He was the second among four boys and the fourth among eighth
siblings. I never got to meet my grandfather and grandmother; they both died
even before my father met Mama. What I know is that my grandfather was a school
teacher in San Manuel, Pangasinan and was an alcoholic himself. Maestro
Leon
was his name. I got to visit his grave only once, in 2000, with my father and my new bride then. My fathered poured a bottle of gin around his grave when we finally found it after a long search.
When my father and siblings had a reunion in 1998, they went to the
field where they hid and where their father found them when Japanese planes
bombed San Manuel in 1941. They cried and laughed that day in 1998 as they
cried and laughed in 1941.
That was when I thought there must be a story about my father
worth telling.
Maestro Leon died after the war. My grandmother was forced to relocate her younger children
to San Jose,
Nueva Ecija where she had a sister who was well off at the time. By then, her
two eldest daughters were already married with children of their own. Her
younger children, including my father, slept in the kitchen of a big wooden
house while their cousins had big beds upstairs with clean and crisp linen to
sleep on. A son died of some illness. She herself died thereafter.
My father and his siblings had to pay for their keep through
hard work. Early in the morning, it was his responsibility to wake up before
dawn breaks and open his aunt’s marketplace store. Then he got ready for school
in nearby Central Luzon State
University, then Central Luzon Agricultural College,
where he took up the school’s banner course Agriculture. After class, he
cleaned the store up and closed it down when night falls. After which, he
fetched his cousins and nephews from the drinking holes and billiard halls
before it got too dark. He did not drink then and he had no vice.
Often, my father and his two brothers Eduardo and Benjamin
hopped from one town to another in Cagayan Valley to sell wares at the plaza during fiestas. My mother told me Papa used to cry
after Uncle Doding (Eduardo) gambled away their earnings. My Uncle Ben narrated
to us that my father once joined a singing contest and won. My father needed
the prize money, he said. Soon after, the siblings then decided to just send
the youngest, Uncle Ben, to live with Auntie Oling and her family in Cavite City.
After sometime, Uncle Doding’s application to the US Navy got through. Auntie
Nena relocated with her own family to Manila,
Auntie Baby married her soldier-suitor and Auntie Hilda was studying to be a
nurse in Manila.
She soon became a nurse in New York.
My father remained in Nueva Ecija to finish college and strike out on his own.
After graduation, my father became a charter employee of
the PACD, the precursor of the Department of Interior and Local Government. His
first posting was the island of Mindoro. He was
transferred to Isabela where he met my mother who was then a school teacher in Santa Maria. By then, my
father already began drinking. He had to, I was told much later. He was in
charge of overseeing how the municipal government was run, along with the
police and the firefighters. If anything, all of them were drinkers. He had to
blend in; he had to drink.
That was one thing that I remember about my father, his alcoholism.
But it was not so bad when we were very young. I remember our
family going to Sunday masses, trips to the local ice cream and donut store and
to the movie houses in Tuguegarao, swimming in the river, and the father-son
bonding time planting trees on my maternal grandmother’s homestead.
He was hard working. He grew a fine boar that he rented to farmers
who wanted their pigs to be sired by one of a good breed. It was then that I
learned that boars have ten-minute orgasms and I thought how lucky pigs were. I
scoured the fields after school to find plants my father could cook as pig
chow. It tore my heart when he cut his finger badly while doing this one night.
That finger remained crooked to this day. I remember both of us being
dragged across the barrio by the beast that was much bigger than us put
together. He pioneered raising broiler chickens in our barrio and he allowed me
to keep the largest cull to be my pet. He bought a rundown sidecar for his
motorcycle and picked up passengers to and from work. He painted it blue and he
lettered his and my mother’s names prominently in front: “Noble-Lily.” His name
is Novelieto. He collapsed his children’s name Raymund, Julie and Karen into
“Rayjukar” and painted it on the sidecar as well. It was cute until we got
ribbed to much for it.
But the drinking got heavier just as we were growing up. My
mother’s strong personality and my grandmother’s critical attitude of her son
in law did not help him either. Fights became regular. We even moved out of our
grandmother’s house for some years because of a big fight. But I was allowed to
sleep in my grandmother’s house to keep her company at night. I heard once that
my mother had to beg to the landowner to allow us to build a small hut on his
lot. I was deeply embarrassed when I learned of it. I was embarrassed too when
the roof of our little convenience store collapsed when we were hit by a
tropical cyclone.
When I was in high school I dreaded lunch and dinner times the
most. That was usually when my father would be drunk in the corner store and I
had to fetch him. Then I had to bring him home with the two of us weaving an
uncertain path home while we pass by neighbors wearing knowing smiles. Or he
roars by our school with his motorcycle on low gear because he was too drunk to
actually drive. At times, he was too drunk to come home. The next day, I would
be sent looking for him in the different towns of our district until I locate
him and then I bring him home to my angry mother. I remember once when we can
not locate him for days. He went home after four days his head wrapped like a
mummy. He said he was thrown off his bike and he ate gravel after two racing
trucks forced him off the road. Once, he drove his motorcycle for seven
kilometers with his sidecar wheel elevated through several twists and turns and
street corners.
Our former barangay captain, who was an alcoholic and motorcycle rider
himself, recalled one time when my father scared him to death. They came from
the provincial capitol where they of course got drunk. He said my father kept
taking his hands off the handle bar to show him how well and true his
motorcycle was running. He also tailed big trucks and cars to show his
passenger how fast he can ride. Somewhere between our barrio and sure death,
the barangay captain feigned a full bladder. They got off and the official
waited until my father was already shooting piss then he zipped his fly and
just allowed his own urine to run down his pants as he jumped into the bike and
prevailed on my father that he’d do the driving.
We were tested heavily when my dad hit a man with his motorcycle.
The details of the accident were kept from us as we were young. But for many
years, the man’s wife and father kept going back to our house to ask for money.
My parents struggled hard to give them what we could afford. One early morning
many years later, my father hit an old woman who suddenly crossed the road
without looking. I was in college then. I knew it was not my father’s fault.
This much was affirmed by the then mayor who the woman worked for. But I saw my
father cry for the first and last time.
My father had a special relationship with his motorcycle.
He cleaned its engine and innards himself. Despite their many spills and
accidents, it kept running. He could fit us five on it when the three of us
children were young (and I was thin), along with stuff from the market. It took
him to places of work and it had been with him even in times of peril. It had
been rusting away since a few year back because it got flooded one year both my
parents were here in
Manila
. Recently, I heard that a neighbor insisted on buying it. If I were asked, I would insist on keeping it. And if I had money, I would have it restored.
My father was one of DILG’s oldest employees. But he never got to
finish his graduate degree because Saturday classes always ended up as drinking
sessions. My mother forbade him to go out on Saturdays. Most of his underlings
went on to occupy higher positions in the department, becoming directors and
heads. My mom too suffered for this. She never got to be a master teacher or a
principal because she always thought she had to go home early to take care of
my father who by then was drunk almost everyday.
One thing about my father—he was always sent to serve in towns
where the mayors were warlords, cold-blooded killers and downright
thieves. To his colleagues’ amazement, he got along fine with all of
them—something no one else in the entire province could do.
It was said that as the DILG officer at the town hall, my father
could have taken a cut every time he signed his name. He could have retired as
a millionaire if he wanted to. In a government when even a lowly barangay
councilor is on the take, he could have bought his own house and a car long
before. Instead, my parents had to resort to loaning to tide us over when
enrolment periods came. My irrepressible maternal grandmother once asked a
government functionary at the municipal government to “give ‘Nobling’ a little”
for every project he approves, for which the official answered, “It is his own
fault for not asking.” When my mother noticed that another barangay captain was
just selling off bags of cement allotted to the barangay council, she asked my
father if he could get some for her. My father told her off by saying “I will
buy you your cement. I will not get it from there.”
When my father retired, he was given a send off party by his provincial
DILG colleagues. Some remembered his nice relations with the politicians and
his colleagues. Some remembered his infamous drunkenness. Some remembered how
well he danced the boogie, the cha-cha and the tango. Some remembered how well
he carried a tune. And all remembered his kindness.
My father’s retirement pay was just enough to buy us a small house and a
second-hand vehicle. After a few more turns, the money he earned in more than
30 years was gone.
My father has since suffered two strokes in the past three years.
He walks painfully slow and his speech is now slurred. He has stopped drinking
and smoking but he still loves fatty and salty foods to the consternation of my
nurse-sister. He loses at neighborhood card games all the time and his
precocious granddaughter mimics the way he walks to his amusement. He quarrels
with the child on which TV programs to see. He worries over us when we are not
yet home when it is already late.
In these last years of my father’s life, he loves us enough to let
us enjoy the quiet and kind man he was and truly is once again. We lost him for
some time but our noble man has returned to us. #
= = = = = = = =
Photo: (left to right) Uncle Imong [Auntie Baby's widower], Papa, Auntie Nena, and Uncle Ben at Auntie Baby's internment.
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