Chapter 10

5:00 pm, Friday.

The bell rang like a thousand shrilling cicadas. It reminded me of this one time I was in fifth grade. We had this little science homework about the role of cicadas in the world. I had this feeling as a child that all adults knew all sorts of things so I asked nana's help for my homework. She said cicadas are winged telegram. A house visited by cicadas at night would be expecting a visitor. Mrs. Gonzales, our science teacher had a pretty good laugh about it. She told me I'd be better off reading the goddamn science book than be listening to some old superstition. She died a year ago. Poor old Mrs. Gonzales. She was a good teacher. She really was. She told us that books sharpen the mind like a whetstone. I got into reading books because of her. That year she died I read about the role of cicadas in the world. I learned that these little critters hid underground for decades at most. They only come out during summer to fulfill their life's sole purpose; have group sex in trees and die. What a way to go.

"Alright folks! Let's call it a day." Proclaimed Mr. Amparo. He had this habit of removing his binoculars during his lectures whenever he has a point to make. You would know he was getting serious when he did that. You might as well listen very carefully or just pretend you goddamn do lest you want chalk projectiles flying at a hundred miles an hour coming your way. He never missed. He had practiced this craft for so many goddamn years for him to be very good at it. Mr. Amparo was one of the few teachers at Prep who treated teaching like a real deal. He was born to it. Mr. Amparo made teaching young boys at prep his life's mission. Hard-working. Passionate. A good shepherd. Mr. Amparo could easily pass as a St. Bernard. This breed is the philanthropist of the dog world. "Don't forget your homework on the poems of Emily Dickinson, it's due on Monday, and the prelim exams will be Friday next week, you better be prepared for that too. We will discuss the pointers on Monday so you'll have ample time to prepare." His reminder failed to receive a warm response. The guys scoffed and the girls rolled their eyes. Few chairs clattered and the girls chattered about their plans for the weekend which did not include answering homework from the poems of a dead poet or studying for the prelims. I did not mind reading Emily Dickinson. Her poems were sad as hell you felt sorry for her when you read them. Sad poems were my thing, they made me feel less lonely in a weird and convoluted way. I was waiting for Mr. Amparo to get all fired up and start shooting chalk projectiles at a hundred miles an hour but he was not in the mood today much to my disappointment. He removed his binoculars and secured them in his polo's front pocket. The air was filled with excitement for the weekend. Everyone was on their feet hurrying to go home right after the Angel Of God prayer was rendered. 

I stuffed my English book inside my sling bag and prepared to leave. "Nice work on your review of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird, Florante." He was referring to the reaction paper I submitted.

"Thanks."

"You have a taste for good books."

"Thanks."

"You're not a chatty fella aren't you?"

"Guess so." I was really not in the mood for small talk.

"Well, you have a happy weekend son."

"You too, sir."

There was an uncanny silence in the hallway. That sort of silence that got your senses all riled up you could hear the faintest sound of a needle dropped from a mile away. The chains clinked faintly from a distance when Mr. Amparo shut the classroom door. I probed for the keys in my pocket when I reached my locker. Inside, there was a black and white photo of myself that was laid on top of my Geometry book. It was the one Larry took of me when I visited their house three weeks past. He must have found a way to slip it in. I looked around but there was no sign of him anywhere. I held the photo in my hand and stared at it for a while. Larry's photography was poetry on film. I got goosebumps looking at it as though I was reading Sylvia Plath, Emily Dickinson or Tennesse Williams. He was able to capture my emotions so well that day I was inside his room. Growing up, I never had the luxury of watching myself captured on camera. In fact, I had never seen our family album. Nana buried a generation's worth of memories frozen in time along with my dad when he died. She said it was for my own good. I think she's just afraid because dead people in photographs always stares back at you. I flipped the photo and read the notes he'd written in beautiful cursive strokes.

"Smile suits you well."

-Larry

I returned the photo exactly where I picked it and slammed my stuff inside. On my way out, I caught Simon's locker in the periphery. It was half opened and empty as if it was still waiting for him. I remembered the times when Simon was still alive. He had this kind of brightness that followed him everywhere. Another one of those Golden Retrievers. I saw that brightness fade all through the years he spent at prep. This stupid school had dim his light so much and it never stopped until the last flicker. He was a chatty fella. He tried to strike a conversation with me several times when we met at the locker room. I'd always dismissed him with disinterested nods. It's the easiest way to kill a conversation. Just nod and people would have gotten the idea. There were few times when I wanted to ask him about the bruises on his face and if he's up for trouble because if there's one thing I like in the world, it's beating the shit out of high school kids who think they're big shots. I thought about closing his locker because it bothered the hell out of me that it hung in there like it's waiting for his return but I turned away instead and headed home. Closing his empty locker would not make any difference now that he's dead.

"I'm home." I mumbled at the front porch.

Nobody answered.

I presumed Nana went downtown to buy weekly provisions in the market. I climbed upstairs and saw my dad's room open. It had been bolted for years following his death. I peered closer and saw nana's silhouette. She was holding our family album which she said she had buried along with my dad. I saw her carefully retrieved it from a trunk she hid under her bed. At 62, nana was at the twilight of her years. She was strong despite her old age and the youthful vigor of her younger days did not stop shining through her loving eyes. I almost did not recognize her in this light. She appeared frail and defeated against the photo album she was hugging. I wanted to ask her why did she keep the photos away from me? Why did she keep all the sadness to herself? Why couldn't she tell me about the things she saw as she stared at the flames every morning? I wanted answers but I did not have the courage to ask. 

It was getting dark outside and the birds were back from wherever hell they had been during the day. Their synchronized cawing tore through the roof of the house. Shut up! Tug! Tug! Tug! I punched the concrete wall inside my room a lot of times. A searing pain coursed through every single cell in my body. Pain. I liked it. I wanted more of this pain. More! More! Tug! Tug! More! I heaved and cursed under my breath and punched the mother-fucking wall over and over again until my knuckles hurt so much that I ccould no longer feel them.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of ghosts. Ghost of my father. Ghosts of my uncles. Ghost of my mom. I see them everywhere. They formed a huge black hole inside the house and sucked everything in. I thought I could outgrow them. But I never did. They were everywhere, stained in the walls, in my parent's room, the empty chairs in the dining table, in my father's grave in a cold and desolate place above the hills, in what little memories left of my mom inside my head. These ghosts of the dead had put a hole in my chest so big the whole world could fit in.

When my rampage abated, I sat on my bed and stared at the gathering darkness outside the windows and thought of Larry and his smiles. His face that beamed with so much light that I sometimes drown.