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SERIALIZATION
The Traveler and the Gate Checkers, by Ted Lerner
Part 2: Famous last words
 Part
1: Elusive Miss Belgium
 The
calesa pulled up to the Arranque Market, a huge outdoor wet and dry market
where on one corner sits the animal market. Like everything else in Chinatown,
the animal market spills right on to the sidewalk. And, as befitting a good
Chinatown market, it was quickly obvious that you could get just about anything
you wanted here-and didn't want-with emphasis on the word anything.
The scene set before my eyes was one of complete anarchy, both animal and
human. The entire block was filled with wire and wood cages sitting piled on
top of one another. The cages were stuffed with an incredible array of birds
and animals; rabbits big and small, chicks, pigeons, birds of every shape and
size, white albino rats, mice, turkeys, several puppy dogs. The mild smell of
crap and the dirty animals wallowing in it wafted through the warm afternoon
air. Bird, animal and human noises cascaded about. People moved back and forth
on the sidewalk, others sat around tending their creatures.
I climbed down from the calesa right next to a shirtless young guy squatting
over a small plastic bucket filled with red water. He was washing a dead
rabbit. Just two minutes before, he had yanked it out of one of the nearby
cages, slit its throat and skinned it right on the bustling sidewalk.
"Magkano? (How much?)" I asked.
"400 pesos" said another shirtless kid behind me. He walked over to one of the
cages and pulled out a large gray rabbit. He held it up by the neck.
"Hey Joe, you eat rabbit?" he said with a smile.
"Nahhh. Who eats that?"
"Chinese," he said. Order is a forgotten word when it comes to the display
here. The cage of chicks sat on top of the cage of rabbits, which sat on top of
the cage of mice, which sat on top of the cage of tired puppies. Over by the
curb I spotted a wooden crate. On the bottom about two dozen turtles crawled
over one another. I also noticed several large snakes corralled in a net. The
lady attending the turtles informed me that they were sea turtles.
"What's that for?" I asked her. "Pets or you eat them?"
"No, you eat them," she said. "Turtle soup."
"Who eats that stuff?"
"Chinese," she said.
"How about the snakes?"
"Chinese." Next to the crate of sea turtles, a man watched over a crate of
chickens under which sat a crate of colorful baby chicks. The chicks had been
painted different bright neon colors. There was a neon blue chick, a pink
chick, a yellow chick, a green chick, a red chick, available for 20 pesos (80
cents) each. I walked a few steps down and started talking to a friendly woman
tending her stall.
"This is like a zoo," she said smiling. "But at the zoo you cannot buy the
animals. Here this is a market. You can buy the animals." I pointed to the
piles of cages where various sized rabbits crawled on top of one another.
"Are these for pets or for eating?"
"Some people buy them for pets," she said. "Some eat them. You can also raise
them then eat them. The Chinese like rabbits to eat." I began to get the
feeling that the Chinese like just about anything to eat and, no doubt, for the
strangest of reasons. Rabbit meat probably cures arthritis. Rooster balls are
perhaps an aphrodisiac. Monkey brains must bring good luck.
The sidewalk was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg in the Arranque. I
wandered inside through the dimly lit narrow corridors. It felt like I was
walking into a cave, or an old dusty library, but instead of shelves of old
books, the place was filled with a maze of old and dusty rag tag coops stuffed
with every kind of bird imaginable from floor to ceiling. A fat old woman in an
apron sat in one section, surrounded by flying feathers, the stench of bird
shit and bird noises. At one stall a man sat amidst hundreds of pigeons in
cages. I inquired as to what was the purpose of the pigeons.
"Racing," he said. He stood up and showed me a piece of paper hanging on the
wall. "These are pigeon races," he said pointing to a schedule of races in the
provinces of Iloilo, Bacolod and Batangas where people race pigeons for money.
"Can you eat these pigeons?" I asked him. He nodded yes. "How do they taste?"
"Masarap," (delicious) he said. I found my way to the other sidewalk, passing
more pigeons, turkeys, chickens and handfuls of unusual, rare looking birds. On
the sidewalk a young guy attended to tubs of snakes, a box of iguanas and four
emerald doves. In one cage I spotted an unusual looking animal with a long tail
and black fur.
"What's that?" I asked.
"A bear cat," he said. "From Palawan. 8,000 pesos." I didn't bother asking if
the Chinese eat bear cats because I didn't want to hear the answer. Back around
by the calesa a man held up a small wooden cage containing a monkey, which he
said sold for 4,000 pesos. I'd heard the Chinese liked to eat monkey brains so
I just smiled and said, "No thanks." I climbed back into the waiting calesa.
"Boss, no more tour," I told the driver. "Let's go to Quiapo already. Photo
shops."
"Right boss," he said. "Quiapo. Photo shops." After twenty minutes of
negotiating busy streets packed with cars and people he pulled over to the curb
and pointed across the street.
"Quiapo boss," he said. "Many photo shops." I paid him and walked across the
street. The street was lined with dozens of photo shops. I walked past the
first few stores and each had beautiful color pictures posted in their front
windows of Miss Universe contestants in their swimsuits. The enigmatic,
voluptuous Miss Belgium would soon be mine.
"Yes, what can I do for you?" asked the middle aged lady behind the counter.
"Yes, I noticed you had pictures of the Miss Universe contestants in the
window," I said. "By any chance are you selling any of those pictures?"
"Yes," she said, "We have plenty." She walked down the counter, opened up a
drawer and pulled out a large brown envelope. She walked back, placed the
envelope on the countertop and pulled out a small stack of photos, all shots of
the Miss Universe contestants posing in their swimsuits.
"Actually," I said, "I'm looking for one contestant in particular. Would you
happen to have any shots of..."
"Miss Belgium?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"We get people in here all the time asking to buy her photos. She's the biggest
thing in Manila. She's very maganda. You know what is maganda?"
"Yes, she's very beautiful."
"Yes she is." The lady then sorted through some of the photos until she came
upon several shots of Miss Belgium. I didn't find Miss Belgium particularly
pretty. Her face seemed too young and that sumptuous body Filipinos loved
seemed more like baby fat. But I wasn't there to judge. I was there to try and
finish my story. I looked through the photos and chose five different shots of
this mysterious Belgian babe.
"How much for these?" I asked. The lady said they were 20 pesos each. I gave
her a 500 peso note.
"So why are you so interested in Miss Belgium?" she said as she placed my
change on the counter. "We don't get many foreigners down here in Quiapo."
"Actually I'm a journalist," I said. "I was covering the Miss Universe pageant
and now I'm writing a story. I had all these other photos, but I didn't have
any of Miss Belgium." I then reached into my backpack and pulled out my own
brown envelope, which was full of pictures I had taken or bought during the
contest. I put the envelope on the counter and pulled out the photos. "You'll
probably like these."
That turned out to be the understatement of the year. The lady's eyes widened
and a huge smile graced her face. "Really, you're a journalist?" she said as
she scanned various shots. Immediately several other store employees came over
to look at the photos. Then several customers leaned in to have a look. Within
thirty seconds a crowd of at least ten people had gathered around me, all
reaching in and grabbing one or two photos.
Although the store had plenty of their own shots of the contestants, their
pictures were all the standard swimsuit shots taken during the special press
day of the pageant. A Filipino photographer had probably sold the store a roll.
My pictures, though, consisted of more candid shots of the contestants, as well
as photos from the actual pageant. This, combined with the fact that this
foreigner in the store had actually been at the Miss Universe pageant and may
have met some of the contestants, including Miss Belgium, seemed to add to
their delight.
"Did you meet Miss Belgium?" asked another female employee. "What was she
like?"
"No, I never got to meet her," I said. "They had strict controls on the girls.
But I did meet the winner, Miss India. She was nice."
"Oh, I didn't like her," said the first lady. For several minutes people
continued to ask me questions about the pageant. Some held the photos like they
were valuable mementos from an ancient civilization. All the while I had been
noticing that in the back of the store, through an open door, several men
sitting around in a room talking and laughing. Several of the ubiquitous brown
bottles of San Miguel beer were scattered around the table. At one point one of
the men, who appeared to be in his late fifties, looked my way and flashed me a
smile.
"Hey, Joe, how are you?" he yelled from the room with a wave.
"Fine, thank you," I said waving back. A moment later the lady who'd been
helping me took several of my photos, walked back to the room and showed them
to the man. While he looked at the photos and he smiled again, I saw the lady
explaining something to him. He stood up, walked out of the room and came over
to the counter where I stood, all the while holding the two photos.
"Yes, these are very nice shots you have here," he said. I had no idea who he
was or what his position was at the store, but he had the air of somebody of
importance, in this store anyway.
"Thank you sir," I said. "Here I have many more." The small crowd parted so he
could get closer to the counter. "Here look at this one." It was a shot of two
African contestants being interviewed by other journalists. He smiled broadly.
"Ahhh yes," he said looking at the photo. "Black beauties." I picked up another
picture off the counter and handed it to him, this one of four Asian
contestants posing together. Again he smiled. "That's what I call Asian
assets," he said, putting emphasis on the "ass." This made everybody laugh.
"I heard you were a journalist," he said. I said yes. "Very nice, very nice."
We then introduced ourselves. He told me his name was Fidel.
"Ted, why don't you join us," he said pointing towards the back room. "Let's
have a beer."
"A beer?" I said. "Really?" I hesitated for a moment and then started asking
Fidel if he had seen the pageant and then telling him about the story I was
writing as well as other things I had written about. All the while as we talked
I went over in my mind exactly what might happen if I took him up on his offer
of one beer.
My initial reaction was that I should simply say no and make up some excuse
that I had to be somewhere in twenty minutes. Filipinos are known for their
hospitality and can be extremely friendly and forthcoming with strangers,
especially foreigners. I knew by the way I was being treated after only a few
minutes in the store that if I chose to go to the back room, there was
absolutely no chance that I could have just one beer. In the Philippines that
just wasn't possible. One cold San Miguel always meant at least eleven cold San
Miguels. In the Philippines any foreign guest at a party or even small get
together constantly finds himself surrounded by at least two freshly cracked
beers, one for each hand. As soon as you're down to sipping on only one beer,
someone places a fresh one on the table in front of you. And besides, you
invariably have to have "just one more" for the road. And in the Philippines
there were always many, many roads on the way home. Once I took that first sip
of San Miguel, it was anybody's guess where this night would lead.
I admit to also being slightly nervous about saying yes to Fidel's offer. While
most Filipinos are truly friendly to a fault, I thought about the notorious
gangs that operate throughout Manila who approach unsuspecting foreigners with
friendly smiles and offers of a drink. The drink of the foreigner is then
spiked with a drug that knocks him out cold. He wakes up the next day lying in
the bushes by the side of a road, his head pounding and his wallet completely
empty. Or he simply never wakes up at all.
This was a real concern. I wasn't exactly in territory common to foreigners in
Manila. The tourist district where I was staying was only about five kilometers
from the shop but it might as well have been 500 kilometers. I hadn't seen a
foreigner anywhere that afternoon. But I realized too that there were
differences between my current situation and the one of the unsuspecting
foreigner who gets slipped a mickey. Those who get into those kinds of
situations are always approached by the assailant out of nowhere. The foreigner
may be walking down the street or in the park when he is approached by a man or
a woman who talks to him in an extremely friendly manner, instantly gaining the
foreigner's confidence. The assailant is on the prowl, looking for unsuspecting
prey. Anyone who walks off with this kind of person is literally asking for
trouble.
In my instance I realized that I would more than likely be OK because I was the
one who walked into their store. They hadn't been out looking for someone to
pounce on. But, of course, I truly didn't know. And so after babbling on for
several minutes with Fidel while I quietly worked out my options in my brain, I
packed up the photos, put them in my backpack and turned back towards Fidel.
"OK, why not," I said. "I'll have one beer."
TOMORROW, Part 3: They did karaoke their way
(For more information about Ted Lerner's latest book, The Traveler and the Gate
Checkers, visit www.hey-joe.net or email Ted Lerner at
ted@hey-joe.net.) Published by Book of Dreams, Verlag,
Germany, 2003
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