My elementary school burned down the day after my last day of fifth grade. The rumor was that some irate parent set fire to it because his or her kid flunked and had to repeat. My dad woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me to climb a wall of our house. Our town had no big buildings, and I could see something glowing towards the town center. We then jumped onto his motorcycle and drove towards the light.
We didn't have a highly skilled or equipped fire department, or police, for that matter, and I, along with the rest of the crowd was able to stand literally a few feet away from the burning edifice and watch the fire consume it. I bumped into a couple of friends that night. I think Steve Landsteamer and Bertie Sanchez were there, along with one or two more.
It's funny how we didn't really feel bad about it or anything. We just stood there and gazed in shock and awe. The next morning we even went back there and ventured in the ashes. Not once do I remember any of us expressing any mournfulness or joy at the destruction. Kids just don't think too much about that stuff, I guess.
I didn't put much thought into it, either, when my parents decided that I should go to another school in the sixth grade. My oldest brother was attending college at a city about an hour or two away from our town, and they had an elementary and high school there as well. I didn't protest. I didn't think about missing my friends or the neighborhood. Things had already changed at home anyway, because my mom had gone away to work in America near the end of my fourth grade.
I will call that big city The Big City, and I will call the big city school The Big City School. I don't know why. I just don't feel like sharing the real names for some reason. The Big City School had this walkway in it shaped like a crescent, and they named it Half Moon Drive. I like that.
It was exciting. I shared a dorm room with my eldest brother. I thought it was cool living at school. I actually liked the cafeteria food. There were basketball courts by our buildings where we sometimes played until they turned out the lights. There was a soccer field where we once played during a heavy rainstorm.
There was this white kid who lived in the building as well. He was the closest to my age, just a year older than me. Everybody else was in college. I don't know if he was American or European. It's all the same to Filipinos anyway. I think he was British though, based on the spelling of his name, which was Geoffrey. I can't recall an English accent because he grew up in the Philippines and spoke our dialect fluently. He did speak English with his mom whenever she came to visit.
With Geoffrey being white and with me being of darker skin, our dormmates referred to us as Miami Vice, milk and coffee, etc. We didn't actually hang out that much though, having different schedules and interests. I remember sometimes we would walk around together and I would ask him what some words were in English. I asked him what "busog" was, and he said it was "full". So everytime I hear that word, I would remember Geoffrey.
I thought the word full was interesting, because "busog" kind of means more satisfied, or in a lesser sense, simply not hungry. Meanwhile, I thought "full" should have been reserved more for when something is filled up, when there's no longer any room for Jell-O. So I thought that was interesting. But I don't think about it that much now because I live in America now. I'm always full here, really. Except when I'm starving.
Now I just think about how Geoffrey's family ended up relocating to the Philippines, and I ended up here. Not that I'm sure they were from the States anyway. I wish I kept in touch with him.
I made one very good friend in my class. Like most friendships, it was mostly due to proximity because he lived a few blocks from school and would always be around to play. He kind of reminds me now of Milhouse van Houten a little bit, and kind of like a grade school version of Scott Pilgrim a little bit. So my fake name for him is Milhouse van Pilgrim. I don't think he had plenty of close friends at school and seemed eager to be chums with me. I actually had no problem with him, and I also wished I had kept in touch with him. We actually exchanged a couple of letters after I left, but that was it. I don't even remember his real name now.
There was this other kid who lived close to the school. He was like a Nelson Muntz type, which I never really encountered until I went there. He was one of those guys who was kind of like your friend sometimes but also acted like a bully sometimes.
There was this kid in class that I had a running inside joke with. We were next to each other in music class, and somehow we found it funny to make our fingers march. I thought he would become a good friend, but I left The Big City School too soon to actually develop any real friendships.
One last kid that I remember was like the popular one in class. I remember one Saturday finding him by the empty soccer field playing with a remote-controlled car. We sat together and talked. He told me his mom was in Canada, and I told him mine was in America. I just remember having a sort of therapeutic talk with him. I sensed that we both missed our mothers, although we didn't actually say it. He said his mom planned to have him live with her there someday. I wish I kept in touch with him, too.
I went to Manila not more than two months after school started. We went to an interview at the U.S. embassy, and I was approved to come to America. It so happened that a family friend was leaving the country to go back to the States in a few weeks, so all of a sudden we booked a plane ticket for me to travel with her. I was supposed to go back home and pack my clothes, but my town was in a different island. It took two days and one night travelling by ship, which was more affordable than a thirty minute plane ride.
It was August. It was the hurrican season. A couple of ships had been stranded. A couple had sunk. I was so close to coming to America that my dad didn't want me to take a risk. So he went back home alone to pack my clothes. I stayed at my aunt's house in Manila. I didn't get to say goodbye to my friends, the old or the new.
And my dad forgot to take my comic book collection.
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