Trobol

Bulagting was having his usual dose of the Markang Demonyo* in a small karehan* just a hundred meters away from the main gate of the Aquinas University Campus. He's been drinking since nine o'clock in the morning, passing the time by wrestling with the stainless bottles’ spirit for quite a long time now while waiting for his buddies to emerge from their afternoon classes. Education was never his strongest suit, that's why you will always find him almost everyday, sitting alone in a corner of Betty’s Drinking Parlor and spending his week' s allowance on his favorite poison while quietly listening to the loud rock music of the band Quiet Riot blaring from an ancient jukebox while his bosom buddies were inside the campus studying their butts out on Algebra and Political Science.

“Come on feel the noise…Girls rock your voice!”

Unbeknownst to him, a group of three drunken Navy men, fresh from a month of sea duty from a nearby naval base were eyeing him from across the table for almost half an hour now. They kinda want to have some fun, you can tell it in their eyes and smiles and they zeroed in on the hapless-looking drunk drinking all by his lonesome in the corner of the restaurant cum drinking parlor. But Bulagting can smell trouble like a rat and is not oblivious of their plans. Call it natural instinct or whatever you may want to call it; he has a knack for spotting something out of the ordinary. He called out the big-bosomed waitress and ordered a six-pack of San Miguel beer in cans and put them inside his Jansport imitation knapsack and bid his time while keeping his eyes low and open under the haze of the smoke coming from the flickering Marlboro in his mouth.

True enough, the two drunken sailor stood up and went to Bulagting to confront him on something imagined and made up transgressions while the other one remained seated in his chair with an amused expression on his unshaven, acne-scarred, weather-beaten face, watching the spectacle unfolding right before his very eyes, expecting to see a real show.

Filipinos are notorious for provoking fights out of the blue for no reason at all. One might even get killed just because you happened to stare into somebody's eyes longer than the usual. In Bicol, we call it kinursunada*. Bulagting feigned drunkenness while being questioned as he casually lowered his right hand, grabbed and tightened his grip on the strap of the knapsack in his hand and waited…

All of a sudden, one of the men lunged at him with a beer bottle in hand but Bulagting, expecting the worst was ready and was quick to the draw and was able to duck and parried the first blow. Then in a blink of an eye, he countered by swinging the knapsack into the face of his attacker, knocking him out cold to the ground as he turned to hammer his way into the other man. He hit him with the knapsack with all the strength that he could muster that turned the hapless sailor into a bloody pulp. The fight happened so fast that he caught the third man literally on his pants as he smacked a nasty left straight right into the kisser of the stunned fellow as he fell to the floor on his butt. He then followed it up with a vicious kick to the side of the head and watched him as he crumbled to the ground in slow motion, grimacing and writhing in pain. The bystanders and other customers were still in shocked by the swift turn of the event, when he made a dash for the door and hailed the first tricycle that caught his sight. He gave the driver fifty pesos and told him to head for the bus station in order to catch the day's last trip to his hometown of Tiwi where he would cool his heels off for a week while waiting for his victims to head back to the sea for another tour of duty.

JUETENG GAME

Bolat was a born hustler and a real gambler, his father being the designated collector or kuryador of Jueteng, the illegal numbers game in that part of Basag made quite a big influence in him. At a young age he learned the ropes of the trade and was considered by his peers and the constant observers as a young man who’s in a hurry to climb the illegal numbers game’s ladder. He "made his bones" early and became the youngest trusted hand of Tisoy, the half- Greek, half- Filipino gambling lord who runs his business with an iron hand. He earned his keep by reviewing and overseeing the daily take and seeing the smooth operations of the numbers game in the town as well as the flushing out of cheats within the small group of hardened men that they employed. In this kind of business, honesty is always the best policy and the only virtue that is asked among its members.

He accomplished his duties and responsibilities with great sense of fairness, respect and efficiency in wheeling and dealing with the different characters that he encountered in the business and in return, he earned their trust, mutual respect and admiration quite surprisingly for a young man his age.

He was having the time of his life and on top of the world when tragedy struck. Tisoy, the big Boss was treacherously gunned down in broad daylight in a daring ambush perpetrated by known henchmen of the incumbent Congressman with strong ties to the communist outlaws, whom he had a falling out over the running and operations of the numbers game in a masterful show of force and defiance of authority just a stone’s throw away from the town’s Police Station. To add insult to injury, the gunmen were never apprehended despite pressures from the local media and other concerned organizations to solve the killing and apprehend the suspects.

Now, Bolat is in limbo, once the fair-haired boy of the gambling community he finds himself slowly being eased out of the picture. Rather than work for the new operators in a minor role and risked losing his face in the town, he decided to seek refuge in the concrete jungle of Metro Manila taking with him just enough cash that he was able to save from his involvement in the numbers game that could make him last a week or two in the city. He found himself staying in one of his distant relative's house on the mother side in that stretch of dilapidated apartments at the corner of Vicente G. Cruz and Dapitan Streets in Sampaloc, Manila where he cooled his heels doing nothing but sleep until his money ran out and decided to venture again into the only thing that he was good at, the world of small and big time gambling, his real world. The die is cast for Bolat and there is no turning back now. It was just a matter of time when he will be reunited with his buddies from Basag as they embarked on a roller coaster journey in the Philippines’ capital city.

Email: basaganforce@gmail.com

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