Death by Degrees

A Story by Jofer Serapio

It was a hot day that I could only describe as Halle Berry-hot. Everything was scorching. Our neighbor’s dogs were sticking extra tongues out, some homeless guy was actually frying an egg on the sidewalk, and Jay was wearing his stupid windmill hat. Don’t get me wrong. Whoever came up with the windmill hat was a marketing genius. It was a hat, a cap to be more precise, with some fan-like contraption on its front for “self-cooling” purposes. Every hot day, I see more and more of them littered on the streets, on the heads of a gazillion kids starting a trend. Just not on a 28 year old guy’s head.

“Travis!” Jay waved at me. He was smiling like a little kid, like he actually enjoyed the horrific temperature. There were no kids, no one else, but Jay and the neighbor’s poor dogs on that sidewalk. I waved back, a frown on my face and a little pissed off.

The insane temperature was getting on my nerves. I wasn’t a patient man and every time the weather gets this hot, my short fuse just seems to get shorter. As impossible as that may seem, it was true.

It was 3 in the afternoon. I had my Literature class at 4 every Tuesday and Thursday. This was a Tuesday. As pissed off and as tired as I was, I had to drag my sorry carcass from my little office, which was also my room. My short auburn hair was kept unkempt. I just woke up from a quick nap, which started some three hours ago, and was still a little dazed when I mustered enough courage to sit up but being the elitist that I was, I was quick to notice the tiny specks that littered both the lens of my ZARA spectacles after I donned them. Being quite dazed, nevertheless, my initial reaction was to flick them all off one by one.

“Wakey, wakey, Travis!” Gwen sat next to me, pushing my already open door with much ease. She smelled like lavender in that matching white sleeveless tee, with lavender prints, and purple cycling shorts. I looked like I was hung-over and I smelled like Led Zeppelin after a concert in Vegas.

She hung her right arm across my shoulders and gave my slouched form a gentle hug.

“Are you okay?” I shook my head in instinct.

“Are you still dazed?” I whimpered yes.

“Oh… My widdle man needs a day-off…” She rested her head on my shoulder before she split.

“Well, it’s not your day off so get moving, lazy a*s."

I was complaining the whole time, whining, while I got dressed for my students. It was a gig to support my writing. If mom and dad hadn’t kicked me out, I would have been riding that Porsche to the Aklan Catholic College right now. Instead, I was living with an old high school buddy of mine, his retarded cousin, and my cousin’s cousin, in an apartment that would make Boston Public look like a five star hotel.

Philip was never around during the day. He was like a clerk/bag boy in the highest paid mall in town, Gaisano Capital. That’s his fifth job this month. The first one didn’t work out because apparently, washing cars isn’t tedious enough. Then he quit being an LBC, a courier service, delivery boy because it was too fast-paced. He also yellowed out from becoming a Kodak, a photo hut, cashier and a babysitter for five different families. I am actually hoping he’d stay with the whole bag boy/clerk thing from now on.

Then there was Jay, or Jael by birthright. He wasn’t actually a real retard but he was close to being one. He would make simple things complicated and complicated things seem simple. He smokes pot and reads dirty magazines in the living room, a lot. He quit college to fulfill his dream of becoming a rock star. Now, if he could only sing or play an instrument, that would make everything easier for the guy. But I actually like him. He’s brave enough to do everything for what he believes in and that makes him quite admirable in my view point. Although, he often ends up in jail for stupid reasons and he pisses me off every time he reasons out his idiosyncrasies. He has already broken three of my previous laptops.

I would have been insane by now if not for Gwen. Gwen is my cousin’s first cousin, which makes us not related to each other, right? She’s this hot sweet girl who’d be perfect for me. She can cook, she can make me laugh, she kind of understands me, she even understands Jay, and she is into a lot of things I’m into like Pokemon. For some strange reason, she actually can stand Jay reading dirty magazines in front of her. The only problem with her is that rumors have already spread about her having sex with another guy in college, the supposed reason why she was left here in Kalibo while her family stayed in Manila. I have never asked her if the rumors were true and, judging by the tilt of my pelvis, I probably won’t even try.

The funny thing about waiting for a tricycle, every place in the world has taxi cabs but we have a three wheeled vehicle composed of a one-wheeled side car and a motorcycle, is the fact that you get enough time to think about stuff. Everything that had happened to you the last few months, every failure, every success, every memory of Gwen sleeping in my room with me, comes back to me in a sort of flashback sequence.

It had been two years since my parents kicked me out of our house in New Buswang. My sister was studying at a cooking class in France so I had no way of telling if she was also in favor of booting the no-job brother out of the old shack. It hurt like hell at first but what could I do? I cried and it all went away. I haven’t talked with any of them since.

A week later, I met up with Philip who was working at a fast food shop, Jollibee. I had survived one week living in a newspaper office atop a computer shop, the Aklan Computer Center, where I was considered God. I was a heck of a PC gaming legend back then and the owner of the franchise still remembered me. The editor of the local newspaper, The Guardian, also remembered me and agreed to let me stay in their office for a while.

Anyways, I ran into Philip while trying to look for an apartment. I was already becoming a bit shameful of staying at the old office so I thought I could go and look for somewhere else to stay. I had a bad half day start so I got ready for lunch at the fast food chain. Philip was quick to notice me so I presented my problem to him. In no longer than a few minutes, he hooked me up. He was staying at an apartment a block away from Kalibo Pilot Elementary School, where I studied grade school, with his cousin so he said I could crash in with them. “It would help with us paying the bills.” He snickered.

For 7 months, I endured staying with them. Philip wasn’t a bad roommate but Jay was a pig: literally. He wouldn’t clean up after himself and he mostly lied around drinking soda, eating chips and watching TV. I was still trying to think of the topic of my destined novel, much like today, but I was only working as a paperboy then and teaching at the Aklan Catholic College didn’t happen anytime soon. Philip was rummaging through classified ads, much like these days, and Jay was, well, he was being a rock star.

After those 7 months, Gwen suddenly showed up at our doorstep and gave me a huge surprise. No, she didn’t come to fly me to Peru because she won 1,000,000 dollars in playing Street Smarts. She was moving in with us. I told her it was unbecoming since we were three guys and she was just one female. Something bad might happen to her. But she said she was okay with everything and she needed some place to say. Despite my best efforts to warn her, she still pleaded to stay, and Philip and I could do nothing. Jay, on that specific scene, was in his room drunk.

And months turned to 2 years. All four of us have learned to coexist. Gwen got a job as a Gaisano Capital saleslady; I was caught between my novel and my teaching duties as a Literature Professor at Aklan Catholic College; Philip was still surfing classified ads but now at a faster rate; and Jay was still a rock star without the rock.

The driver sped past Royal Supermarket, a real conglomerate when I was a kid. Now it just looks like a local run of the mill grocery store.

I saw a former high school classmate of mine, Emerald something, walking along the mall’s front towards their family van. She was holding her boyfriend’s hand as he walked her to her seat, keys in the other hand. I only caught a glimpse of her but it seemed like I had been looking at her for an eternity. Our eyes met, I was sure of it. She never gave an approving nod. It seemed she had forgotten about me. For something like that to happen to someone like me, an arrogant elitist puritan, it was morally crushing. All those years I believed I stood out. I was a top notch journalist, our high school’s Editor-in-Chief per se, who had been winning a lot of journalistic competitions throughout the town and the neighboring towns. Yet it seemed it was easily forgotten.

I felt a pang but only for a moment. I soon realized people may have forgotten about me since I moved back here in college. That wasn’t a bad thing. I had a lot of squabbles with many people and most of whom I knew expected a lot from me. If they had forgotten about me and their expectations of me, that would also mean I would no longer have any burden to carry.

My heart was swollen with pride. I felt a reassuring feeling that I might finally be successful with this writing thing. If all those people who took me too seriously would forget about me, then I would be left alone with those who truly care about me for who I was. Maybe, if ever I died before them, I would be lying peacefully on my coffin without anyone screaming, “I told you! I told you so! You should have stuck to being a nurse! I effin’ told you so, you worthless piece of crap!”

Believe me, the shouting wouldn’t end there.

“You son of a b***h! You should have stayed in Iloilo with me!”

“I knew I should have tried to talk some sense into you. Writing a novel isn’t a job, it’s a fantasy.”

“Well, there goes our dream of becoming rich nurses, you b*****d.”

“I hate you! You should have been there for me when I needed you most, not back here in Kalibo trying to hide from everyone else.”

“Why did I tell you to follow your dream? Why? Why?”

“I’ve been soiling my pants overseas just so you could be successful. And you choose to die a poor man in paper and ink? What kind of a nephew are you?!”

“All my life, I’ve been bragging about how smart, hic, you are and yet you die as a writer, an impoverished writer, and not a, hic, effin’ holy priest? I see, hic, I made a mistake. Hic.”

“You were my idol. I just realized you were just trash.”

“I believed in you, Travis. I guess I put too much of my faith in you.”

“You don’t deserve that tuxedo you’re wearing. I’m going to steal that when everybody else turns their head.”

“Hey, Travis, wake up. Guess what Jay did?”

“I told them not to do it, bro.”

“I peed in the punch bowl!”

“Noooooo!!!” And then I’ll snap, reach for the ceiling in bed, and die again.

~~~

END