This is what my life is like:
Everyday is a Jollibee day. Extended meat, watered-down Coke and gravy that tastes like semen. Waitresses that look at you like you’re not even human, like you’re not even really there. You’re just number 47, number 29, number 17. You’re surrounded by people as generic as the food they eat. Old people with canes, young people with hats, parents and construction workers, cab drivers and salesladies. High school students with their backpacks slung over chairs. College students with their textbooks on the floor. Middle-aged women from the marketplace on the other side of the street feeding their dirty children.
We’re in Jollibee like clockwork every day at 6:30. The traffic is bad outside, just because. Sometimes, it’s because there’s a cop directing, making things worse. Sometimes, there’s an accident and three whole lanes are closed. Sometimes, there’s a bit of construction going on.
But we watch all this from the inside. The honking and the screeching of tires and the slamming of doors are all muted. Neutered. They’re not very scary from in here. 6:45, we’re usually at our table by the window. One of those square ones, for two. It takes us fifteen minutes to order, even with the six cashiers working side by side. The line of people usually extend to the door. People clamoring for extended meat, and watered-down Coke. (”Jollibee food is people!” screams Charlton Heston.)
This Jollibee has exactly two cassette tapes of prerecorded music, which are played over and over from six in the morning to closing time. Tonight is Club Mixes night.
“Where the streets have no name… I can’t take my eyes off of you …”
Pet Shop Boys and M People and Lightning Seeds. A lot of songs I have heard before but can’t name. I hear something that could be from the Mission Impossible soundtrack. I have heard this group of songs so many times that I know what the next song is even before it plays. This means that tomorrow will be Pop-slash-R & B day. We will eat and drink with Aaliyah and Lauryn Hill and Jennifer Lopez and Mariah Carey in the background.
“Where the streets have no name …”
Grace is singing that one line, because it is the only one she knows”
I can’t take my eyes off of you …”.
She cannot remember the rest of the song because she is stupid. She has fair skin and large eyes and shoulder-length hair and she is very stupid. I can’t convince her to take an IQ test to prove this. She says she is a tri-athlete and I believe her with all my heart.”
Please stop singing that.”
“Why?” she answers. Her eyes are so beautiful and blank that it’s almost unfair. “I like this song. It’s really … nice.” She actually strains to come up with an appropriate adjective. I have been trying to get her to have sex with me for three weeks, but so far, none of my advances have been acknowledged (or even recognized).
“I know that. But I have a headache. Please stop.”
“Fine,” she shrugs. She is eating a Cheezy Bacon Mushroom sandwich, because she does not realize that it’s just Cheez Whiz and Aga Muhlach was paid to say he liked it. Grace believes that cable TV is the source of all knowledge. Celebrities really do like the food they endorse. Bangkok pills really work. Smoking makes you cool.
I am having the chicken and spaghetti value meal. The spaghetti sauce is predictably of the fiesta variety. There is an urban legend that saying “Spaghetti extra-extra” at any McDonald’s will get you piles of extra spaghetti sauce on your noodles. Unfortunately, McDonald’s spaghetti is also of the fiesta variety. Grace is squeezing mayonnaise on to a piece of tissue paper. She mixes it with catsup, stirring the red and white swirls with a french fry. She does this all with the an almost religious look on her face. Grace sees God in her condiments.
I am so depressed by this that I pull out a cigarette. “You can’t smoke in here,” she tells me, wagging her finger ferociously. I actually have to fight the urge to bite it off. “It’s bawal.”
I look at her for a long time, then light up anyway. “Whatever,” I say, blowing smoke in her direction. I glance around, waiting for someone to approach me. A waiter, maybe a security guard.
I’m actually half-done before somebody takes notice. A waitress — my age, but Grace’s height - comes up to our table, nervously. “Sir, I’m s-sorry … but smoking is … is, uh …”
“Bawal!” Grace says triumphantly. “Told you!” Her breasts shake. A host of angels sigh.
“I heard what you said,” then to the waitress, “I apologize. Do you mind if I just finish this stick? I’m more than half-done anyway.”
She actually hesitates here. We both know what the rules here are, but I wait anyway. “Sir, the other customers might complain …” she says finally.
I think about it for awhile, before finally putting the stick out. “Fine. It’s ok.”
Grace is ecstatic. I wonder now if it would be at all possible for me to have sex with her tonight, since she is in such a good mood. “Sabi ko sa yo eh!” she says, on the edge of orgasm.
I am thinking:
If God made woman to be man’s companion then why are dogs man’s best friend?
“Ayaw mo maniwala eh!” Grace says, droning on. Ruff ruff. “Kulit kasi!”
Woof woof. “Forget it, Grace. Let’s go. I’m finished here.”
“Ay, pikon!” Sit, Grace. “Why are you so pikon?”
“I’m not, but if we don’t go soon your Dad will get mad again.” Roll over.
She deflates considerably. “Sige na nga.”
Play dead.
___________________
Later, at her home, I watch her unlock the door to her attic room. Her Dad’s left side is paralyzed, so he can’t get up here.
Grace brings all her male friends up here. I walk in very slowly, looking for cum stains. I spot a small yellowish patch on her pillow but that could be anything. She is unnaturally tidy. Her CDs are categorized by genre, her clothes by occasion, her magazines by subject. I notice that there are no real books anywhere, and nod.
I watch her trying to decide how best to place her bag on her desk. It takes her a good two minutes to remember that I’m here with her. “I was right kanina,” she says, looking right at me for the first time.
It takes me a while to realize that she was still hung up on that. I choose my words carefully. “Yes, you were right, Grace. I was wrong to have done that.”
She nods. “OK,” she says, unbuttoning her blouse. Her breasts strain against her bra. Heaven sings her praises. “Let’s fuck.”
“… OK.”
Woof woof.