‘Confessions of a Scammer’

Katie Pippel is a resident of the Pacific Northwest and is an English Language Arts teacher, writer, and dancer. She began embroidering at her mother's side in 1996. This meditative piece is a reflection on the adversities of life. The proliferating knots evoke her experience with chronic pain from endometriosis and the way traumas and victories blend together. We are inherently a composite of experiences and relationships knotted together, helplessly entangled in our interconnected lives.

Confessions of a Scammer

I came to Manila in 2016 by the urging of my mother, having just graduated from college a year before that and having spent a good part of that year being in a rut in our house just playing video games. My mother—I can understand her—felt like she had wasted all her money and effort in my education only for it to be as fruitless and hollow as a bad coconut, its tree only waiting to be rid of it because it has no use. My mother too wanted to be rid of me, if only in secret, because we didn’t really talk much even as we ate dinner, we just let this silence grow in on us, fueling the hate in her of me, and the anxiety in me of becoming like the person she had always expected of me to be, a person who does not amount to much, exacerbated as a response. 

And so, one evening, I found myself at the doorstep of my uncle in the slums of Manila, away from the province I grew up in, away from my mother. Their house stood beside a road where a lot of vehicles were parked—tricycles mainly where most families in the area’s source of income came from. They busied the side of the road so that a large vehicle such as a car could not freely move through the road without the smaller vehicles making space to some extent. Not to mention, there were always people on the side of the road, talking or selling something, and children flipping coins on the only concrete they could find. It was a close-knit neighborhood, everybody knew each other, but at the same time, they were also used to strangers passing through so that when I first stepped here, I had not attracted all eyes, or if I had, it was because of the number of bags I was holding (three)—I had brought all my clothes; my mother was not expecting me to go back any sooner, or I looked like a wet kitten, shivering from the anticipation that I was going to live in a shanty of some sort, sleeping on hard bed, all the comforts I had known left in the bygone era of the past.

But I was greeted with a warm welcome. My aunt, my mother’s sister-in-law, immediately dispatched for her pre-teen daughter to buy her cousin some snacks. A bottle of coke and some biscuits. And it was as warm a welcome that you could give to an unemployed nothing. (They did not know that of course. I looked like someone respectable in their eyes because I had graduated college. But at this point in my life, I had already anticipated everything. And I knew what I was going to turn out.)

The inside of their house looked as I had expected of an average-income household. There were bamboo chairs and a table. An off-brand flat-screen TV by the wall in their sala. And their sala too and the kitchen were not separate. — I don’t know how to describe it. Just imagine a cube and you have to cram the sala, kitchen, CR, and a bed in it, the bed being on the loft above us. 

They were renting the house, I noticed, not just because I imagined they weren’t happy with the small space and that they could’ve chosen differently had they got the money, but because the exterior of the house looked similar as the other ones beside it, as if they were owned by one man, a mogul, who was here before everybody else and built all these houses to rent them (and he built them all identically for convenience).

My aunt made me sit down at the sala and entertain myself with the TV while we waited for my uncle, who was going home from his IT job. She said he would be here any sooner and that he was stuck in traffic. She was also cooking “bulalo,” a type of soup with beef and vegetables in it. Her back was to me as she was cooking, a woman with a small frame. She was in her late-thirties—she and my uncle.

“Gosh, I didn’t know you would arrive this early,” she said, stirring the pot. “Your mother said you would arrive later in the night. Now you are a witness to our filth.” Then she ordered her daughter, Niña, to put her uniform and skirt, which presently lay on a chair, to the laundry basket upstairs.

I felt complicit somehow with Niña, as if I too were being ordered, and I imagined being ordered like that someday because I would be living here and was scared by the idea.

Niña picked her clothes and went upstairs, all while her head was glued to her phone.

“I thought so too, auntie,” I said, chuckling, “but the plane was very quick. It was my first time on a plane too.”

“Oh, really? Me, I haven’t been on a plane. … Was always too scared.”

That was all she said and I thought: we’re off to a good start, though I was still anxious that sooner or later my true nature would be unveiled—that I am lazy—and what my mother found tolerable she would find not only intolerable but disgusting, and no sooner would I be thrown out than die in the streets.

My uncle arrived several minutes later. He was happy to see me. He arrived by motorcycle—his motorcycle—and left it outside before he went in and set his helmet on the table.

“My nephew,” he said as we hugged each other, “you’ve grown. How about we have a drink later, huh?” 

I was smiling. “Of course.”

“Niña, get your cousin’s bags upstairs. He will be sleeping there.”

After dinner, we did drink. We had placed a table outside in front of the house and bought two big bottles of beer. 

At first, I thought there were just the two of us drinking, but then my uncle called a neighbor. This neighbor was about the same age as me, had more or less an attractive face than I had, and was taller than I’d care admit. Because he advantaged me in every respect that I cared most about myself, I found his thinness (he was so thin his neck looked like that of a camel’s) and poverty something that could offset the advantages, that way I could stop myself from showing my hostility towards him, and even regard him with fake-pity. 

We shook hands and introduced ourselves. He said his name was Harold; I said my name was James. After that, we seldom spoke to each other. 

My uncle took most of steering the wheel of our conversation, and drunkenly so. He said he was happy to see me, patting me on the shoulders, and then to Harold (re: me): “You know this motherfucker graduated top of their class.”

“Not top of our class, uncle. I was from the bottom rung.”

“I was only kidding, of course,” he said, laughing.

Harold only looked at me with a well-meaning look of his, not even understanding that he was supposed to be jealous or insecure, or to at least cower from the achievement that was to open a lot of doors for money to come in for me and my family.

It was a one-sided conversation, and only when my uncle had a bathroom break that Harold and I were forced to speak to each other, to break the silence that was encroaching upon us bit by bit. And of course, he was the first to pick at it:

“So, are you like, living here or something?”

“That’s about right.”

It was moments like that: he would ask me a question and I would answer it as meekly as possible, that much pervaded the first night I was there. And my uncle going to the CR every few minutes because of the onset of something in his prostate.

We soon called it a night as we all got drunk, and as much as I would like to continue for reasons I could not yet name, I also became stinking drunk at the point of passing out, and the lights, as me and my uncle went inside the house, hurt my eyes.   

My aunt had to be the one to get the folding table outside while also supporting her husband to not fall, and they were to just sleep at the sala using a cot while I take the bed upstairs. She even asked me if I could manage to walk the steps going upstairs. I said I could, though I wanted nothing more than to continue drinking outside just to see what could happen.

The next several days or so, I helped my aunt sell barbecues at her barbecue stand. It was a way of hers, with Niña being in school and my uncle at work, to pass the time or use it to her benefit. The stand stood just outside the house where people walking on the road might see it, and she said (even though she did not say this, this is just my speculation) that ever since I helped her sell, her sales had increased, as the “newcomer” who’s helping her at the stand is very approachable by women. I did notice that most of the people buying were girls, and often if not always, they were forcing a conversation with me, which I did not like not because I found them ugly, but because I just did not like girls in general. And so, after about a month of doing that, I stopped altogether and retreated to my room upstairs to play video games. 

There was another thing occupying my mind at this time: Harold. There, I confess it. I liked him, and every time he passed by my sight, going inside their house and out, I would not fail to sneak a glance. Their house stood beside my uncle’s and it was my dream to get inside it someday, if only to confirm that it was indeed built similarly as my uncle’s. (I’m lying of course—who wants to check out a house?) 

He's got a mother and a sister. His mother sold “pagpag” and various other goods from a small store jutting out of their house. It was here, sitting on the bench under its forecourt, sipping soda or playing video games, that I hoped he would speak to me about what I found so interesting with the game I was playing, and perhaps that would be the start of a friendship. But I soon gave up with the effort, owing to the fact that I seldom saw him near their house—he was driving my uncle’s tricycle, or renting it, out of mutual dependency that neighbors have with each other, and because my uncle was at work anyway, and this was his way of earning money. 

I soon got the feeling that I was competing for my uncle’s apprenticeship (esteem, reverence) against him, Harold, and I realized that even before the feeling came to me, I had already lost. They’d had years of being dependable with each other and I imagined my uncle treated Harold like his own son too. 

One day, he and my uncle worked on a wreck in my uncle’s motorcycle, and he helped hand him the tools while my uncle did the repairs. I was at the stand at the time so you can imagine the jealousy I was feeling of not being included in their little bonding (I wasn’t). I suppose I’d still be useless even if I was included, but they could’ve at least asked me to bring them water, some small thing that would make me feel like I was doing a man’s job, not at the stand where I was doing what my aunt was supposed to be doing while she watched TV inside. She seemed to be relying on me, on my submission to her and perhaps my own fear of being thrown out of the house and into the streets, to run her store. And so, bit by bit, I stopped helping her. That translated into a false belief among her and my uncle that I hated them, hated the own hand that fed me. But that was not so: I just felt stuck, I was unhappy, with only Harold to save me. 

Accordingly, I felt like a stranger in my own uncle’s house, so much so that I found comfort—too much comfort—in retreating inside my head and into my phone that I was slowly alienating the very family I was depending my own survival onto. And the shame, of still not having found a job after a month (because it’s the reason why I came there in the first place), was just too much to bear. I didn’t even know what to say to a recruiter if he asked me what my strengths and weaknesses are; I didn’t even know what papers were needed (I only bought my birth certificate and diploma). And so, one day, my worst fears finally came true. Lying in bed after waking up one morning, I overheard my aunt and uncle talk about what they were going to do with me, having been established among them already that I was lazy and hopeless. My uncle suggested I work at a car repair shop; he said he knew someone there.

“Cars?” my aunt said. “What does he know about cars? Would you look at him? He looks like a twig; he couldn’t even be bothered to pick up a wheel.”

“Well, what are we going to do with him? We can’t just send him back.”

That very morning too, out of a need to prove myself, I set out to get the papers. I went to an internet café to build a resume, then to a photography studio to get my picture taken. After that, I went to the police station to get a clearance. It was at that evening—I was going home from the internet café—that Harold’s sister, Jacqueline, made a move on me. She had been pestering me for weeks now, flirting with me at the stand, so that I stayed inside the house more. One thing led to another; we had sex, in a weed-ridden plot of land, shaded by banana trees. I didn’t like the sex on my part; it was forced and I did not find her attractive, but I figured it was the only way to get me close to him. — I was content to throw it away too, a person’s first sex and all its pleasure, for the possibility of a second even better, more delectable kind.

One day, Harold talked to us about where he could’ve found me a job. I figured my uncle probably conferred to him that he was fed up with me still not having found one. We had just finished replacing the front wheel of my uncle’s motorcycle and I helped them anchor it so it wouldn’t topple over while they retrofitted the wheel.

“Do you have your papers?” Harold asked.

“Yeah.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“Why not?”

“Just dress yourself so we can go.”

I took a bath to remove the grease out of my hand and put on my uncle’s formal shirt—because I did not have one—and Harold and I went to the job site, which was a run-down, abandoned convenience store that did not look like there were people inside it. Harold told me to get inside and I would meet people there, and to tell them I needed a job. 

“Are you sure there’s people there?” I asked him.

“Pretty sure. And go at the back.”

With my envelope in one hand, I went at the back—because the glass front and the old entrance door were covered in newspapers anyway—and I soon found a door. There was cold air emanating out of it and when I peeked inside, there were indeed people there, hitting keyboards on rows and rows of computers and answering calls. When they looked up to see me, it looked like I had woken a horde of zombies. One woman in a formal attire went up to me and said hi. I said hi back.

“Please follow me.”

I followed her to a glass-enclosed room where we could see all the employees answering calls from their headphones. Then she made me sit down on the seat in front of her desk while she took up the seat behind it. She had a friendly face which I imagined could turn on you without you noticing it.

“What’s your name?”

“I’m James, ma’am. James Balagtas.”

“Is that your credentials?” she asked, noticing the envelope in my hand.

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“Let me see.”

After she had a look at my credentials, she said: “Wow. Impressive.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” was all I could say.

She gave me a long hard look. “Well then, you’re hired,” she said, smiling.

I could hardly conceal my joy; I shook her hand repeatedly.

“You know how to speak English, right?”

“Yes ma’am.”

That night, we celebrated by drinking ourselves to excess. Both of the families also knew of my going to marry Jacqueline in the future and it was also a cause to celebrate. I recounted them my feat that was the world’s fastest hiring of an employee ever and they enjoyed every second of it.

“You know I didn’t even have to go through all that ‘what’s your strengths and weaknesses’ kind of questions,” I told them. “She just hired me on the spot.”

“Wait, what job is it again?” asked my uncle.

“Call center.”

“Wow, baby,” said Jacky.

“I thought at first she was going to make me eat her pussy because of how fast she hired me…”

“I’m glad you did not, baby.”

That night too, I got to eat dinner with the three of them—Harold, Jacqueline, and their mother. I was a part of their family now; I was Jacqueline’s husband. And even much later that evening, I was on the cot beside the three of them, trying to sleep, a wide grin on my face.

For the next month or so, I worked night shift at my job answering calls from foreigners. The callers were mostly old people—elderly—and I was instructed to “fool” them into giving me the money they had in their gift cards. One caller, Bessie, from America, called to ask how to repair her “Microsoft.” I tell her: give me your security number; she obeys. One of us even swindled 500 dollars from a man named “Frank” in Chicago, but our boss says we do not work by commission. 

I dress up at 9, 9:30, because work begins at 10, then Harold drives me there in my uncle’s tricycle and I work until 6 in the morning, after which, he drives me home again. Jacqueline goes with us in these excursions, and I wished she wouldn’t do that as often so he and I could have a chance to talk. She would always say how proud she was of me and would kiss me goodbye before I went to work. It was tiring; my mother had suddenly contacted me to ask for money and my aunt was trying to get close to me only at the last second to beg for a loan. I could not refuse her, lest she would turn it on me the time that I was living with them, eating with them, and call me ungrateful. I had without realizing gotten myself in a position in which there was no possibility of getting out in sight.

One night, noticing me tired, Harold offered me a cigarette—or at least that’s what it looked like at first until when I held it in my hand and realized it was marijuana. I hit it and that jolted me awake. I soon made the connection: 

“Oh, that’s how you found me the job! You sell marijuana to these people!”

“Yep.”

We sat there at the curb outside the office for a long time not saying anything; I’d asked for a bathroom break but had instead gone there and Harold seemed to not want to go home and go to sleep. It was an exhilarating feeling: the marijuana and just being with him. And I did not want it to end. 

Eventually, I asked him (I had to): “What other attractions does this city have? I’m tired of going to the same place.”

“I know one.” 

“Will you show me?” I said, hoping to god he would say yes.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

We left work as it was hopeless anyway and it wasn’t worth the effort of doing it for so small a salary. We drove using my uncle’s motorcycle to this hill overlooking the city and it was amazing. There was a bay next to the city and it was my first time, ever since I left the province, seeing a body of water that was not a puddle or a ditch. 

From the hilltop, the city sprawled before us like something from a movie. There was the cold night air, fresh, but not biting in its coldness. We sat on the grass, passing a joint, and left the motorcycle just behind us, parked in a level piece of land so it wouldn’t slide down the slope. 

“Wow, this is amazing,” I said. “Do you come here often?”

“Not so much lately but if I wanna hit a joint, then yes.”

“Alone? At night?”

“No. I can’t borrow your uncle’s motorcycle whenever it suits me, can I?”

“That makes sense. … Well, how’d you find this place?”

“I didn’t. This place is pretty well-known. So many people camp here; they have sex there. You see that small area there? The one with the bush? That’s where they do it.”

“Ah…” 

We sat in silence; I passed him the joint. He rubbed his arms, clearly cold. I offered him my jacket. “No thanks.” We sat in silence for more.

 I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking, that both of us were not what we were pretending to be and that we were both longing for each other’s arms. And besides, if the question were to be asked, the question of whether he liked me or not, there was my handsomeness to answer for, and it’s not like people had an apparent reason not to like me, not even him. As we sat there, my heart was pounding.

Finally, I broke it; I broke the silence: I did not care if, once he knew who I was, who I really was, he was going to make it known with everybody. I’d just change places.

“You know I’m gay, right,” I said, “and that I like you?”

A smile crossed his face. “I didn’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. You just don’t look like it.”

“Fair enough. How about you?”

Without looking at me, he nodded; took a puff, then exhaled. It was all I needed to hear—or see—from him; my heart burst with joy. I kissed him, and no sooner were we sprawling on the ground than were tearing off each other’s clothes. 

“I love you,” I said, feeling his skin at last.

“I love you too,” came his answer.

We had spent the night on a different spot away from where we had first planted the seeds of our love. Once we woke up, I teased him: 

“I knew you were gay once I met you. How could a handsome guy like you not have a girl?”

“Please don’t say that word.”

“Which word?”

“You know which. Don’t let me hear you say that word again.”

“Okay.”

The sun was coming up from the horizon; we brushed the dirt off our clothes. Then we got on our motorcycle. But as soon as Harold kick started it, it wouldn’t start. Then he tried kicking it again, to no avail. “Ah, shit.” 

It was already close to noon when we got home. We had left the motorcycle to a repair shop and just walked home. My uncle too just commuted to work, seeing as his motorcycle was in disrepair again.

In the days following since, we tried to keep our affair between ourselves. We would only meet after work, at the top of the hill, then relieve each other of our desires. It did not occur to us to despair on our situation, having only a sliver of a time between work and home to ourselves. If it dawned on us that we were stuck having to do that forever, with no freedom in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel, the pleasure we had shared with each other and would share for more days to come gave us the strength to continue walking in the dark, and we deemed ourselves victorious. We had created a world on top of the hill, one in which all our troubles could never catch ahold us. 

But, as was the fashion of most love stories of that era, our relationship was not smooth-sailing. There was Jacqueline to mind for, for one. We were still together. And when, after dinner, all of us were gathered in the sala watching TV, she would hint, by a poke to the side of my belly, that she wanted to have sex upstairs while her brother and mother were immersing themselves. Of course, on our climbing upstairs, Harold would catch notice of this, but all I could do was swallow my spit and let it get over with. Harold understood this; if he was jealous, he never spoke of it.

There were instances when it seemed there were only the two of us in a room, and before I could hold his hand or pretend to hump him, Jacqueline or his mother would barge in and we would pretend to be doing something other than show affection. Those were the moments that gave us such a fright.  

One day, having lunch at an eatery, Jacqueline and I talked about Harold. We had just a stroll around the city, and I bought her a new pair of sandals.

“Why don’t you like my brother?” she asked.

“Who says I don’t like your brother?” I said.

“You. I mean I could tell it by your actions.”

“What do you mean you could tell it by my actions?”

“Well, for one, I haven’t seen you talk to each other. You don’t talk to each other. It’s like you secretly hate each other.”

“I don’t hate him,” I said. “I really don’t. And besides, we talk. Yes, we do. You just haven’t seen it.”

“Promise you don’t hate him?”

“I promise,” I said, holding her hand.

She smiled; went on eating.

Later that night, before work, Harold and I talked about it. 

“Jacky says we secretly hate each other,” I told him.

“What do you mean?”

“That because she hasn’t seen us talk to each other, that means we secretly hate each other.”

“Well, what did you say?”

“That we don’t. Still she does not believe it.”

“What do you propose we do?”

“You have to talk to me. You have to talk to me first.”

“Why I gotta talk to you first?”

“Because it’s natural. Because you’re older than me.”

“I’m not older than you.”

“Yes, you are.”

“When were you born?”

“December 1997. You?”

“January. … Fair enough. … Well, what are we going to talk about?”

“About work or something. Ask me about work.”

“About work? What am I, your father?”

“Well, what do you propose we talk about? Basketball?”

“Even better.”

“Well, I don’t watch basketball. How about we just talk about this game I’m playing on my phone?”

“I don’t know anything about it.”

“You have to play it first. You have to install it on your phone.”

“Okay.”

At dinner the next day, we talked about the game we were always playing on our phones. We talked about which heroes were stronger than which heroes, or I told him I played better than him. We kept it subtle; we never made a show. And even afterwards, outside the house, we played an actual match and even enjoyed it.

We had kept our relationship low-profile for a while and successfully so. It was also during this time that the city was implementing crackdowns on drug abuse among its citizens. I told Harold to stop peddling the thing and gain some weight. He said he had, but you couldn’t trust the motherfucker especially when you barely saw him during the day.

I was now many months in the city and I had come to share its cynicism. I constantly had dark circles under my eyes and my aunt no longer tried to borrow money from me, sorry as she was that whatever ounce of innocence had I brought with me when I first arrived here, it was already gone. I had also come to learn how the gears inside her were turning as she faked a smile all those times that she was borrowing money from me.

I was only myself when I was with him, on top of that hill, and it was our little refuge from all the hustle and bustle and turning of the world around us. I loved every inch of his skin, and it was my dream that we leave the city behind and start a new life somewhere, near the sea or deep in the woods, just me and him, indulging every second in the fruit of our love.

I tried to communicate to him my idea; he met it with apathy:

“What do you mean we leave? Where do we go? Do we even have the money?”

I confess he was more realistic than me at these daytime reveries and so I trusted his judgement. We put it on the back burner for a while and just continued to live as properly as we could. Still, there was, in the back of my mind, a nagging suspicion that he only refused because he did not fully perceive the extent of my struggle; that he did not have to work at night and sleep by day; that he did not have to pretend to love a girl just to prove he’s not of a certain sexuality.

It became even more difficult when we found out that Jacqueline was a few weeks pregnant. She had started retching and avoided certain foods which had a strong smell. 

I explained to Harold that we had always used protection, and at times we could not, I would always pull out.

“Then why did she get pregnant?” he asked. “How do you explain it?”

As absurd as the question might be, there was only one explanation, and I tried to remember when I could have failed to pull it out. It did not matter now. The deed had been done; a baby was coming. It gave us such a headache, and our solution was to lay off for a while in fucking each other, fearing that we might reveal ourselves at so bad a time. 

As for the baby, I kept nagging Jacqueline to abort it, but she was against it. And I suspected her mother had something to do with her decision, as she always kept saying at the dinner table:

“Why do you want to abort the baby? It’s a blessing that you two must raise each other.”

I liked her; she had been nothing to me but kind. She had always agreed of me marrying Jacqueline. But in her own old-fashioned way she could be dumb and dangerous. 

I worked neatly and with dispassion at my job, only looking forward to the day I get paid and have a tub of ice cream to myself. Then soon, if the pain I was feeling still wasn’t enough, Harold started seeing someone, a girl, jealous as he was that I was having a baby and in need to compensate for his own lack of masculinity. His girl was a pretty girl too; I got to eat with her at dinner one time, when Harold introduced her to us. Somehow also, they had the regard of my uncle: whenever Harold wanted to take the girl to places, my uncle did not once hesitate to lend him his motorcycle. Contrast that with his disdain at me, sneering at me whenever he met my eyes, for having made a girl pregnant at so young an age. 

I did not have to imagine where Harold was taking the girl. I hated him, okay. And I wished the motorcycle they were riding skidded off the road and they both die. I did not mean that of course, and anyway, that wish sort of came true:

It was just a normal day for all of us. It was a Sunday. I was outside at the time, sitting in front my mother-in-law’s store under the forecourt, playing a video game. My aunt was at her stand, grilling barbecues, talking to people. Jacqueline was inside, watching TV and resting. Her mother too was with her, in case she felt sick and nauseous and needed to go to the CR. I didn’t know where my uncle was at the time, but I did know that Niña was inside, using her phone as always. 

At the road in front our house just a few feet away from me was Harold, sitting on the driver’s seat of my uncle’s tricycle, waiting for passengers. 

It was a mildly hot day. The sky all morning was sunny, then it was overcast by noon. It was afternoon now, but it was still overcast. We had just had a big lunch. Pig’s blood stew, sun-dried fish, and rice. We were all groggy, tired, and sweating. 

A crowd had formed in front of my aunt’s barbecue stand, a group of middle-aged women. They were probably talking about us, me and Jacky, being the newest pregnancy in town. There was also a group of teenage boys at the store on the opposite side of the road, playing the same hit video game I was playing on my phone. It was a busy neighborhood, the people were busy with buzz, busy with rumors; the road was busy with people walking and tricycles passing. There was the constant noise of vehicle engine, murmur of people, TV show audiences clapping and cheering, and from afar, someone singing at a karaoke. It was a normal day for us all; nobody could have expected a tragedy to happen, no word such as “tragedy” in our minds.

I kept looking up my phone to see if I could meet Harold’s eyes, because then at least I’d know that whatever had gone on between us, it wasn’t all for naught, that he remembered, if not wittingly then instinctively, everything that happened; as if I had left him something, a taste on the lips, a handkerchief, that he needed to return, that he would want to return, and ultimately, to be in my arms again. 

But he wasn’t looking. He wasn’t looking. Not even a glimpse, a side-glance, a peep, a quick-look. 

I muttered a “fuck you too” to myself; thought: If you don’t want my dick, then I hope you can stand it, before returning to my phone. Until, without warning, I just heard a gunshot. It rang inside my ears then was gone. And who should I see when I looked up: Harold! He was clutching his neck as if he was being choked. And blood was coming out of his hands. 

The first, second, seventh cries reverberated from people. Some were running away, some stood on their places, ducking. 

It was the two people on a motorcycle wearing ski masks, one driving and one holding the gun, who shot him. We saw them rev up their motorcycle, speed away, and disappear at the distance. 

Harold got off the tricycle and staggered towards me. His eyes were bulging, pooling as they were with blood; the muscles of his face were twitching. He had a look of horror on his face, as if it was his end and he knew it. He was about to fall when I caught him, but he was heavy so I laid him on the ground with me, placing his head on my thighs. 

I might have shouted to call an ambulance; I must have cried. I must have frozen in shock. Then Jacqueline and his mother got out and on seeing Harold, screamed the most piercing cry I have ever heard in my life. 

They kept calling his name, tried waking him up. They kept telling everybody to call an ambulance. But it soon proved to be futile. He was losing—had lost—so much blood. The ambulance arrived several minutes later, at which point Harold was already gone, dead.

The next day, there was set up, in front of our house, a canopy to accommodate people who would want to view Harold’s body or to gamble. Many people came to visit us and some of them held a vigil in front of the casket. There were talks among them as to who could have killed Harold, or that they said his death was inevitable, if not deserved, because he had been peddling drugs. His mother—and I had come to call her my mother also—emptied all her life savings and I went penniless too. She was crying for many days that there was nothing we could do to console her. 

We buried Harold on the 12th of July, nine days after his death, on a cemetery outside town. And when we got home and all the people had left, there was a kind of painful silence about the house. My uncle was the one who drove me to work that night and he had also come to learn that my job was not legitimate, but I didn’t care. I was also thinking of leaving, of getting away.

I didn’t care about Jacqueline; I didn’t care about the baby. The only person I cared about was dead, gone, never to be seen again. I had no reason to be there, to be in that city, to live.

It’s funny: before I met him, I’d kind of given up on living but also didn’t want to die. I was just a piece of garbage floating in the river, just letting life take me by its current. If a bus had rammed me while crossing the road, I would have been ready to end it all there, I would have said to the person trying to get me into an ambulance: “No, I’m fine. I’m okay. Just leave me alone,” as my blood rushes to the pavement. And now that I found myself in the exact same position, I kind of surprisingly wanted to live. I wanted to get away, maybe love someone like him again.

Instead of going to work that night, I walked the highway towards the hill. I had packed a few clothes on my bag and was ready to take the midnight bus. But first, I wanted to see the hill.

The night was cold as big trucks carrying canned sardines passed by me. I had a few bills on my pocket, and would just ask some money from my mother the second I’d reach my destination, preferably a town I knew nothing about with people who did not know me. 

I walked for about twenty-five minutes before I reached the foot of the hill, at which there were no houses but a big acacia tree near the entrance of it. 

I had not trekked it before; Harold and I always drove uphill using a motorcycle. So a minute on at the slope, I was heaving for breath. 

Halfway through, I realized how dumb it was what I was doing trying to climb it I almost cried. I did cry, but not for that reason. 

Thankfully, the moon was bright enough to lit up my path.

When I was close to the summit, I noticed a motorcycle being parked on the spot where Harold had always parked ours. I thought I was hallucinating for a second and imagined Harold was waiting for me at the top. 

He wasn’t there. Instead, a girl and a boy less than a few years my age looked up from their kissing and was a bit surprised to see me come out from the shadows. 

I muttered a sorry and walked back down the slope again. 

I spent the night at a bus terminal, slept on the seat trying to wait for the bus. It did not come. I had missed it. 

When I woke up it was already 3 a.m. and I asked the officer there if there was another bus coming. He said there wasn’t. Then I walked back home again.

When I reached the house, it was already five; the sun hadn’t come up yet. My mother, though, was up and at the kitchen trying to get this big sack of leftover meat and bones into a large pot. 

“You’re home already?” she asked when she saw me.

“Uh, yeah, our boss made us go home early,” I lied. 

I noticed she gave up in trying to pour the bones all at once and just grabbed what she could by her hands and putting them in piecemeal. “You need help with that?” I asked her.

“No, no,” she refused, “you might stain your jacket.”

“I’m okay with that.”

I grabbed the sack which was not so heavy and poured the bones in while she held the handle of the pot to steady it. 

“You’re a good kid,” she said. “You’re going to become a great father.”

“Thanks,” was all I could say.

Derek Go