first-class postage stamp is still necessary, & costs 8 cents. That’s how much it cost the US government to serve John Lennon & Yoko Ono their deportation papers in New York City.
John & Yoko, no one’s going to step all over you. You will live forever. We are not all fucked-up assholes. Trust me.
“We’ve got a few things to learn about the Philippines, lads. First of all is how to get out.”
That’s John Lennon in 1966. The Beatles had a rough time here that year. Lennon said he wanted to drop a hydrogen bomb on it.
But 6 years on, nobody talks about how bad the Beatles had it. Not here. There’s a constant effort to erase memory. No day is connected to the next. No event is caused by another. Everything is taken as it comes.
Bahala na. It is God’s will. This is how everyone survives.
* * *
All through the scorched fields the wind sends a long, inconsolable howling. No ammunition, no dictator, can challenge a typhoon. You sit out its rage for as long as it takes. You stay still while the entire world spends its fury. You respect what is stronger than you.
The typhoon’s trampled everything in the vegetable plots. The guy with the Uzi brings our food, a muck of rice & salted fish dumped in a pail, from which we scoop our share. We drink tap water brought in a plastic bucket. Flies float on the water. Eddie can endure anything, but not this kind of shit. They beat the crap out of him until he simmers down. Eddie’s tantrums always work. After he calms down the guy with the Uzi shares some of their food. Eddie gobbles it greedily, & with his cheeks stuffed with food he mumbles, We’re not dogs, we’re people just like you.
* * *
Bobby Fischer has defeated Boris Spassky for the world chess title. Remember this.
Pink Floyd has started recording their 8th album. It’s going to be called The Dark Side of the Moon.
Apollo 16 has brought back rock samples from the Descartes Highlands.
Remember, remember.
Because no winds blow on the moon, the tracks left by Apollo 16 are going to be visible for another million years.
* * *
Eddie doesn’t know that his people fought us at the turn of the century. All he knows is that we liberated them from the Japanese, & that Americans have lots of money.
The student tries to educate him. We share the same space, at least for now, but we’re still divided by our histories, our countries’ politics, everything that would have divided us even as free men. It’s no use.
Eddie picks up a few big words from the student but he has no idea what they mean. He tells me, candidly: It’s good to know even imperialists can be jailed by our president. What do you know, Americans aren’t so special after all.
* * *
It’s not always hostile. The student wants to know what I’m doing here, where I come from. He wants to know what kids are really doing in America. If people really like Nixon. If we really think we’re going to win the war in Vietnam. He wants to know what I’m scribbling all day & all night in my notebook, what I say about them. For all his suspicion & vitriol against me & what I represent, he’s still concerned that what I say about them doesn’t make them look bad.
* * *
May 1970, demonstration to protest the draft, 4 students killed at Kent State University.
June 1970, the US sets voting age at 18.
End of June 1970, I arrive in Manila. I’ve just turned 18.
Soon after, a typhoon hits the country, flooding rice paddies & villages & killing thousands of residents. Aid is sluggish & slowed by government corruption. Hundreds die of hunger & disease. Students storm the president’s palace. Police arrest demonstrators during riots in Manila. Things get so fucked Marcos & his family are forced to flee in a helicopter, only to come back when the army finally gets everybody out of the way.
If things go well around here, credit is given to God. If things go bad, a lot of people get blamed, but lately it’s us Americans. They don’t really say it to your face, & even the Communists follow certain rules of courtesy. Americans are an abstract concept, like God. But I’ve learned one thing living here for the last 2 years. Everything I say has to be sugarcoated, a form of flattery. Anything less will be too American, therefore offensive.
So this is what I tell Eddie & the student. What we the youth in the US failed to do, the students in Manila are about to achieve. This country is on the brink of a full-scale revolution.
The student stops bugging me after I say that. My words have created a temporary truce.
When I think about it now, I think I really meant it. Only Eddie, who doesn’t give a damn, remains unimpressed.
* * *
I’m standing naked in the middle of the room. The lieutenant’s sitting at a table, sucking on a cigar. He’s had this one cigar for weeks, but he doesn’t ever light it. He just sucks on it. He has this beady stare, a junkyard dog stare.
The guy with the Uzi’s inspecting my jeans, T-shirt, sneakers. There’s a long, uneasy quiet as he scrutinizes every inch of my clothing.
The lieutenant puts his booted feet up on the table. Finally, he lights the cigar. He blows the smoke out in one steady stream, his lips puckered, his eyes shut to savor the sensation. He’s got a large dark face & his skin is tough & greasy, like the skin of roast pork. He looks at me in a way that seems both bored & snide. I’m one more in a list of endless chores.
You, Yankee boy, touch your cock.
I don’t understand what he says. So he says it again. Show us how big it can get. Americans have big dicks, right? You proud of that, right? Go on, touch it, masturbate.
You a homo? I ask him.
The lieutenant’s face turns red. His eyes bulge. He looks like he’s going to explode. He glances at the guy with the Uzi, who looks away. But he tries to help the lieutenant save face. He says, There’s plenty of time to deal with that, he’s not going anywhere.
The lieutenant isn’t letting it go. He’s decided they’re keeping my clothes. Then some kind of argument begins. They fight over who keeps the jeans, who takes the T-shirt, who gets the sneakers.
The lieutenant takes his feet off the table, unlaces his boots, & yanks them off. Then he stands up & takes his T-shirt off. There’s a tattoo of a crown of thorns on his chest, right over his heart. He pulls his fatigue pants down. He throws the T-shirt & pants at me. They stink like shit.
We like Americans, he says. You & us, we’re friends for life. No matter how much you fuck us, we still like you.
I put his T-shirt & fatigues on & the guy with the Uzi leads me out of the room.
As I leave, the lieutenant says, In this country, revolution is a bad word. You say it again & you’re going to get really fucked.
