Philippine Speculative Fiction 9 Read online

  “John Joe is inside.”

  “Why isn’t he coming out?”

  “I told you—something happened to him.”

  “Bale pud,” she remarked. “If he doesn’t like me anymore, it’s okay.”

  “Pastilan, Lia, it’s not like that.”

  But they continued waiting—finally they glimpsed a figure padding out from behind the house: crouching, it seemed to be crawling from the darkness, as though it were a bedtime monster forced to appear in the daytime. And then they saw that it was John Joe (in soiled clothes), shuffling toward them on all fours, his snout aimed at the floor, his footsteps slow and hesitant—from his neck dangled a leash, its length cut messily as though it had been bitten through. Lia’s eyes popped out of their sockets and her mouth fell from her well-formed jaw: her companion simply shook his head.

  John Joe reached the gate: upon seeing Lia close-up, he bayed.

  “Hala!” Lia exclaimed.

  “That’s why your boyfriend hasn’t called you.”

  The girl stepped back, pinched her nose, and avoided looking at John.

  “What’s wrong with him—eww, why is he like that?”

  John slumped down on the ground and stared longingly at his girlfriend. He whined endlessly, trying to get her to come back to the gate, but she kept herself at a distance, locked in conversation with his friend: we don’t know what happened, the guy said, it happened suddenly—and then John Joe approached the gate, clawed at the bars, and when that didn’t work, he began to bite the steel—the friend reprimanded him.

  “Eww,” Lia complained.

  John whined some more and slumped back down.

  Turning to her, the companion said: “Come on, don’t be like that.”

  “But—I can’t go near him—bale o, what do you want me to do?”

  “Just talk to him, ataya.”

  Lia shrugged her shoulders and huffed: “Fine, okay?”

  And then she gingerly stepped toward the gate and reached a hand out to John Joe—he met her and immediately started to lick her fingers. Reflexively, she drew her hand back and shook her head vigorously: let’s just go, she demanded, I can’t take this—I’ll come back when he’s okay. The friend sighed and apologized to John on her behalf.

  John Joe growled as they left his place—walking side-by-side.

  Returning home, the parents were befuddled when they saw a flock of people milling about their front gate—they cut through the crowd and were utterly flabbergasted at what they saw: John Joe lying on his stomach just inside their gate, occasionally licking his stretched arms. For a good long moment, the two parents joined the herd in gawking at the dog-man spectacle, letting the air ring with absurd remarks about the equally absurd display. A couple of the spectators had noticed the parents and asked them what had happened to John Joe—did he go crazy, was he on drugs, was he sick—and the poor folks simply shook them off and ordered them to go away: I will call the police, pesteng Yawa, the father railed.

  He raised his fist at the crowd to emphasize his command.

  Still, it took some time for the pedestrians to disperse. Most of them left the scene, although they swung their heads back at the gate’s direction every three steps or so. The rest of them did not heed the warning—at least for a while—and continued to watch John rolling around on the ground, scratching his back: it was only when John’s father collared one boy in tattered clothes, threatened him, and then punched him in the face—a couple of tiny teeth flew off the boy’s mouth: he yowled and ran away—that the residual audience realized that the man had in fact meant business and subsequently retreated.

  The man waved his fist and bellowed: “Yawa, don’t come back here!”

  Meanwhile his wife stood behind him and sobbed into her hands.

  He embraced her and stroked her smooth, shoulder-length hair.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked.

  “Our son will be okay.”

  Clutching her special handkerchief, she said: “It didn’t work.”

  The bald husband gently led the wife in front of the gate so they could obstruct the other people’s view of their unfortunate son. He cast a sidelong glance at John Joe, knitted his brows, wrinkled up his lips into a wickedly deformed shape, flared up his nostrils to the point where one could almost see into his brain: John Joe grew scared at the sight, whined and stepped back, and then immediately bolted to the back of the house.

  John’s father asked: “Do you want to call Iyo Goryo again?”

  The mother broke away from his embrace and shook her head.

  And then she asked: “Do you really believe John will be cured?”

  “Alang-alang,” the husband replied. “He is sick, so he will be cured.”

  “Before Iyo Goryo came by yesterday, I offered a Mass for John.”

  The man said nothing: he unlocked the gate and led his wife into the front yard and then into the house—they found John Joe on the floor near the front door, panting. Seeing this, the father told the mother to stay in the sala: I am going to do something, he said—she asked: what are you going to do? Just stay quiet, he commanded her—she did as she was told—and then ducked inside their storage shed for a while. Soon he returned, brandishing a thick and rusted chain. John Joe practically wilted at the hulking figure of his father towering over him—he balled himself up on the floor, whimpering endlessly—and he fell lifelessly limp while his father tied the chain onto his collar. The man yanked his own son by the chain—he cried out in pain—all the way to the backyard. There he tethered John Joe to their chico tree.

  John gave an almost humanlike cry—his father glared at him and left.

  This new development ushered in a new system in the house: secured on their chico tree, John Joe was fed by his father, bringing him generous helpings of breakfast and lunch and dinner (mashed together in a dog’s tray). His mother managed bath-time—she sprayed John using their garden hose, soaped him down, shampooed him, and then slipped him into fresh clothes (he had inevitably pissed and crapped himself, due to the complications of the zipper). Invariably, the chain never went off John Joe’s neck: you’re really like a dog now, the father joked—we’ll be back to normal soon, the mother sniffled. They ignored the swirling gossip the incident had spawned.

  Soon enough, the first Saturday since the transformation came along.

  The patriarch had finished feeding his son at the backyard, and the mother had begun washing the dishes at the sink. They were bathed in the hopping and lively music of Showtime—coming in from the yard, the husband grunted, placed the tray on the sink for washing, and then plopped himself down on the rattan rocking chair. He changed the channel from the noontime show to a random cockfighting program. Comfortable now, he fished for his cigarettes and lighter from his shorts pocket, pulled one out of the pack, and lit it: he started rocking slowly, rhythmically.

  And then he heard someone ringing the doorbell.

  He hollered at his wife to answer it—she cut her task short and padded to the gate, soapy hands and all. It turned out to be John Joe’s barkada, all decked out in polo shirts and jeans and sneakers, as though they were visiting for a special occasion. The trio greeted John’s mother politely and asked her if they could come and see their friend—to this she gamely bade them to come in and said they most definitely could see John Joe.

  Upon entering the house, they came face to face with John’s father.

  He squinted at them and asked: “Did you come here last Wednesday?”

  “No, ‘kol,” they answered—though one reply sounded cracked.

  John’s father caught it and bore down some more: “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, ‘kol,” they all replied—still, the choir was uneven.

  “Okay,” the father said, “sit down.”

  They sat—fidgeting—on the sofa. The patriarch watched his wife walking tentatively toward the kitchen to resume her dishwashing, and then he put out his cigarette on the ashtray sitting on the coffee
table: flicking his lighter on and off, he began to tell them about what had happened that Wednesday—the dirty and smelly John Joe at the gate, the people around him, the punch heard around the block—and then he sat back, gauging their reactions: two of them listened attentively—the last one twiddled his thumbs.

  “I thought I told you to keep this a secret,” the father barked.

  “I’m very sorry, ‘kol,” he said—his face began to sweat.

  He slammed his lighter on the coffee table—he groaned: “Yawa.”

  The offender cleared his throat and explained the Lia business: she needed to see him, ‘kol, he said, it’s very unfair to her if, kuan, she didn’t know what happened to her boyfriend—John Joe needed to see her, too.

  “Ay, peste—you and that girl gave us terrible kunsumisyon.”

  Bowing his head, the guilty party apologized and apologized.

  “Dong, you never trust girlfriends at a time like this,” the father said.

  And then he pulled out another cigarette and lit up again.

  I told you so, amaw, one of John’s mates whispered to his friend while they headed to the backyard—right at the door, he qualified the statement: I told you Lia was a bitch, he said. The other two said nothing and continued to walk until they opened the door: they saw John Joe flat on his stomach, staring absently at the wall and yawning—they sighed and shook their heads, until they noticed the chain running from his neck to the tree trunk. This made them jump: what the hell, one of them said.

  The creature’s mother—who was doing the laundry nearby—dashed toward them and explained the situation. John’s bud—the one admonished by the father earlier—drooped his head and said that this was all his fault, that he never should have done what he had done: oh no, don’t worry, the woman said, there was nothing else we could have done. John perked his ears up and followed a bird hopping around on the ground with his eyes. And when the bird flew away, he looked at the humans around him and examined them—he slumped back down a minute later.

  “I understand,” the friend said to the dog-man’s mother.

  “Things will return to normal soon,” she said.

  This time the barkada answered: “We hope so, ‘te.”

  And then she excused herself to attend to her laundry.

  When she had left, they all bent down to pet John Joe and stroke his back, but he only looked at them and stayed silent. To get him to react more actively, they tried telling him a bunch of funny stories—this guy puked his guts out last week when we drank, my father was caught in the CR with no tissue, my cousin slipped and fell from our mango tree—but no, John Joe didn’t so much as snort. They gave up, and decided to sit there and watch him, chained like a real dog—until one of them asked the repentant friend what happened when he’d taken Lia home that day.

  John Joe turned to look at him.

  He frowned and said nothing—he looked constipated, sitting there.

  It was John Joe’s unrelenting stare and his friend’s repeated prodding that eventually got him to talk: I took her home on my motorcycle, the young man said, she didn’t say anything, she even stopped asking me about John Joe, ambot, I don’t know why, so I didn’t say anything, too—we got to her apartment, kuan, not talking to each other.

  John Joe’s eyes told him that he wanted to hear some more.

  And so he added: “Something weird was going on at Lia’s house.”

  “What?” their friend asked.

  “I saw some other guy at her apartment.”

  At this, the creature’s eyes widened, almost regaining their human aspect: the other guys said nothing, simply scratching their heads or rubbing their chins—sighing deeply, the storyteller continued: he was standing outside the gate, like he was waiting for Lia, of course I didn’t know him, but the guy was sputing, like he was going to church—I stayed outside, watched her walk up to the guy, and then I left—I mean I made it look like I was leaving, but I just hid at the end of the alley—and then I saw them fucking kissing there, on the street.

  One of his listeners piped up: “Madahan—what a fucking bitch.”

  And then they noticed John Joe glaring at them, growling harshly.

  That night, the barkada went back to John Joe’s house: they had decided after leaving earlier that evening to free him and let him see if the story about Lia and her lover really did check out—also, they wanted him to exact revenge on the bitch who had screwed their friend over like the goddamn slut that they had discovered she was. (One of the troop’s members had coerced the rest into the operation—this was not a good idea, the rest had said, what will we do if something goes wrong—saying that this was their job as John’s friends: he’ll do the same thing for us, the guy swore.)

  And so the outfit snuck back to the house late in the night.

  They had parked their multi-cab some meters off John’s house, at the other side of the road (fortunately for them, Dumaguete streets are practically deserted at night), and then slithered toward his gate. Armed with a long piece of wire, they picked the gate’s padlock (after five or so tries) and snaked past the garden gnomes and the motorcycle to reach John Joe at the backyard. From time to time they looked around to check whether people had noticed them, and when no alarm had been sounded, they returned to their task: the friends released John Joe from his chain, led him outside, and lifted him to the back of the multi-cab—the creature himself was meek and acquiescent, as though he had already known why they had visited him and where they had planned to take him.

  Inside the vehicle, they discussed their next destination.

  The driver asked: “Bay, did you text Lia already?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So, where is she?”

  “She hasn’t replied yet.”

  “Pastilan, she must still be fucking that guy.”

  They said nothing.

  Leaning into the front window, the guy in back said: “I wonder, bay.”

  “What?”

  “You know—if John Joe ever fucked Lia like this, like a dog.”

  “There’s the dog-style already, right?”

  “Sure, but I mean when John is like this, bale pud.”

  “Ah,” the driver said, smiling. “Well, it would be very fitting.”

  Here the guy on the passenger seat laughed.

  And then—after a few seconds—the guy behind laughed, too.

  Even John Joe himself seemed to smile at the remark.

  This laughter continued for a while, until the guy in front alerted them that Lia had finally replied: she says she’s still at her apartment, he informed the group, she’s asking why, again—without further ado, the driver started the engine and zoomed straight to the girl’s house over at Piapi: it was located past the alleyway fronting the road from the Neva’s restaurant and pizzeria. The guy in back shielded John Joe from the eyes of the people—who did happen to be out late—and for his part, John let only his head peek out of the multi-cab’s flat bed.

  Occasionally, John would turn to look at his friend.

  “Don’t worry, bay, we’ll just look,” the guy said.

  Along the highway near the turn to Canday-ong, John Joe quickly ducked when he saw the City Pound rounding up a bunch of howling dogs.

  Soon enough they reached the alleyway. They parked at the lot in front of a liquor store, between the watering hole Firehouse and the Acuña veterinary clinic—they alighted, scanned the surroundings for any passerby, hauled John Joe out of the vehicle, and then snuck into the dimly lit alleyway: the ground was dry and dusty, the houses were old and (almost) decrepit, the motorcycles in one repair shop were rusted and scratched. The rocky road forked into multiple directions. Finally they got to the gate of Lia’s apartment—wallowing in disrepair itself—and rang the doorbell. John Joe hid behind his friends, who had lined up as though they were in a firing squad.

  No one answered—they rang again: once more silence met them.

  And so they rang again—and then called her ou
t as well. In the distance they heard loud howling and yelping and barking noises: John Joe quivered in his feet when he saw the familiar red truck of the City Pound collect the mangy dogs scattering along the street—he started whining and tried to bury himself in the ground when he thought some guy from the Pound saw him, and he continued to whine even when the Pound worker turned away. The barkada looked at one another and eventually decided that no one’s going to harm John Joe, especially when he still looked like a person.

  They were about to buzz Lia again, when she opened the creaky gate and then asked them what they wanted—she glared at one of the members: I told you I’ll see John again when he’s okay, she declared, I’m going back to sleep now, so do you mind? The barkada stood their ground and told her what their friend had seen after he had brought her home that Wednesday—they put her on the spot: who was that guy, Lia? In turn, the girl bit her lip and denied everything, saying that the guy was her cousin.

  “You were kissing him right here,” the witness pressed on.

  Fidgeting there, she said: “We’re very close.”

  The canine noises from the street returned with full force.

  “On the lips? Really?”

  “Bale pud uy—you’re such a square!”

  Here the sounds grew louder, as though seeking out other sounds.

  “Just because John Joe became like that, you—”

  Lia crossed her arms and retorted: “Ay, ambot uy.”

  “Tell the truth, already, Lia, so there’s no problem, ataya.”

  “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

  “Don’t be a bitch.”

  “Hoy—bay, fuck you.”

  Now, the sounds dissipated and then replaced by human noises.

  John Joe cowered, stepped back—Lia glimpsed the tips of his heels.

  “Ay!” she screamed: shocked, John Joe was forced to show himself to her, and they were frozen there, confusion and surprise strangling them both. The friends were nailed to the spot, too: they saw the City Pound—in their red jumpsuits, armed with air guns and nets—dashing toward them, with a well-built man leading the charge. John Joe—now thoroughly horrified—let loose a deep and pained howl, and then sprinted away from the threat.