Ever held five thousand pesos before? I'm getting much more before this job is

He was right: it was the first time I held, in one lump check, that much money. The printing press I had managed started from scratch and was buried in debt. "Printing won't make you a rich man," he laughed jokingly, and I smiled at his honest

laughter.

The bank was housed in silver-framed paneling of thick glass. The moment we stepped in beyond the electric eye of the door, I felt out of place.

Men wearing executive shirts and thin ties sat smartly behind mahogany desks and counters; the female employees flowered in blue uniforms within glass compartments. Some visitors moved in dark suits; others shimmered in native barongs. I was wearing a t-shirt and denim pants. My father, meanwhile, strode toward a paying window: his coat and tie displayed the confident portrait of an organization man. I sought the refuge of a corner sofa and curled up feeling more alone.

Dressing up smartly was neither my preoccupation not habit. Seeing my father there, I felt at once the separation of our difference. Though short - he reached only up to my ears - he had a manner of prestige and movement of his dignity. He always wore a coat, with a Royal white trubenized shirt inside, and his shoes were sparklingly clean always. In my teens, I remember he was angry with my mother when he saw me come to his office wearing blue majong jeans, and he never forgave me for that. To achieve a younger look, my father also dyed his hair. His fingernails were manicured. He chewed thin black pills to scent his breath. He dabbed his coat lapels and the back of his collar with cologne. With much care, he made himself fit to his calling: a businessman with P5000 to cash at the moment.

Noticing this as if for the first time, I suddenly thought: if I were to become a teacher, I would have to put on an appearance like him, too... And yet I was not ashamed of what I was wearing. I was a printer, I could run an automatic cylinder press, feel the ball on the starter cool under my fingers, and the sound of the motor whir in my eyes, and could give a clear, calculated jerk and the movement is one of life - I could make a manuscript into a book, I was a printer and I didn't care for a coat or a tie.

My father was counting his money now, separating it into folds. He put a separate bulk into his pocket, and another into his wallet. Then he came to me.

"You are now my bodyguard, son," he said.

"Where do we go now?"

"To the Post Office," he said.

On the way to the Post Office, he sat in silence and deep thought. I respected his privacy and looked out of the window. The taxi drove through a thick traffic. I guessed why we were headed towards the Post Office. My father was perhaps thinking of sending his wife in the faraway town a share of his money, by telegraph transfer.

He was sending her a thousand, all right, but he did not get a telegraphic transfer. He was told to come back at two o'clock. He looked irritated, being told to come back but he smiled at me and led me out of the building, momentarily stopping in the hall to watch a woman raise her skirt to adjust a stocking above her knee.

We soon found ourselves standing on a street-island, without destination, hesitating to go home. To one side was the Brewery building, carrying for a façade a time-clock whose hands were missing. Facing us were the Metropolitan Theater ruins; on its roof a huge make- believe kettle poured simulated coffee into a cup that breathed out smoke; a fascinating advertisement. Jeepneys and busses appeared and disappeared.

US.

"Might as sell eat lunch," my father said, sensing the time by a look at the sun above

"Where do you want to eat son?"

"It's up to you, old man," I said. During my stay in the old house. I had started to call my father "old man." "You are the manager.

"Let's see," he was thinking out loud. "We cannot go far because we're coming back to the Post Office... How about that place over there?" He pointed toward the direction of the Metropolitan ruins.

"Is the food all right there? I mean, do you like to eat there?"

"That's where I often eat," he said.

"O.K., then," I said.

"But you may have another suggestion, son," he stopped me.

"That will suit me fine, old man," I said. "As long as there is food, the place doesn't really matter-"

there."

"Let's go, then," and he stepped out of the island.

"Besides," I added, following him towards the Metropolitan ruins, "I have been

Yes, I have been there, not once, but often. It was funny, I thought, how the old man had been there, too. He said he ate there often; was his office nearby? And if he frequented that restaurant, did he by any chance frequent the place behind it, too? That place behind it was a boxing arena. I had been there, too, nights. Nights when the overtime work in the printing shop would drive me out in need of change, of something new that would banish the tiredness or of something noisy that would absorb the loneliness of sleeping alone. I guess the old man never saw the inside of the arena. He wore a tie, an old one. He could never be interested in seeing men busting and punishing each other, in faces knocked out with punches you never saw coming, in wounds that were once human lips. He was a businessman, he never woke up to a nightmare of wheels and motors going wild in his ears.

It was funny, having such thoughts, as we entered the restaurant and found it almost empty of people. But perhaps he remembered - who knows? - perhaps he knew and remembered that I remembered, too, this place was quite clearly, ever from way back in childhood. Could he now remember he's taking my mother and me to this place, when it was not yet in ruins, when it was still a theater? Would he recall the movies, the operas, the dramatic plays? Ah, it was a place of make-believe then; it was a good memory. Now, look at it, underneath its ruins: a restaurant and a boxing arena. It was funny all right.

We sat at a table near a window and waited for a waitress to take our order. She was pretty in the simple fashion of waitresses. My father smiled at her, and like all waitress she smiled back, handling us menu cards. "Give the best food of the place, sweet," the old man flashed his teeth. "My son here, I must give him the best."

The waitress looked at me and I gave an awkward grin. My father always showed off in front of a pretty woman.

After taking our order, the waitress shambled away, my father watching her hips. I smiled at this; my father was not getting any older. He must had realized why I was smiling because he blushed. In a moment he drew his wallet. Sorting things out there with certain pauses of his hands, and then handed me a bill. It amounted to a hundred.

"Here son," he said. "Keep it."

Surprise made me voiceless and I hesitated, looking at him. Then he said, You'll need it. Let me know when you need some more.

"Thanks," I only muttered. For I was still thinking what got into his mind to give me a hundred pesos. Was it a sudden whim? Or was the idea there all the time? What for, all this generosity? But I said again, "Thanks, old man."

"Now you can take your girl out," he kidded.

I shook my head. "I haven't got a girl, old man."

The waitress came back with glasses of water and prepared the table for eating. She hovered close to us.

My father took a sip of water from his glass. Immediately he became quiet and stared into nothing in focus, which means he was looking inward, searching among his thought. When his voice came back, it sounded changed, and serious."

You better take the night train with me next Monday to Ligao." He said. "You need a vacation and you can have a good rest there. The sea will do you good. And my wife will take care of you."

Here he hesitated.

"My wife - Nomera - you haven't seen her yet, have you son? It's about time you see my family, to meet Nomera, the kids. You come with me O.K.?"

It was a question that needed no answer. He was looking inward again, searching, almost fumbling. "What are your plans, son?" he asked, his voice of another one.

"Your brothers-" he hesitated, as if not wanting to go on. But he went on:

"Your brothers should have taken care of you after your mother died. They should have helped you to go on and continue with your studies. I'm disappointed with them, very. I sent them to college hoping they could help you out afterwards - but they got married after your mother... I don't know- My plans went wrong..."

I was quietly listening to him.

"Your mother didn't understand things. I didn't know why she had to cry her heart out for nothing - It was so useless. She had no reason to die."

Yes, she had no reason to die, my thought repeated in a flash, like a sudden forgotten bitterness now remembered. Yes, I saw it that way too - but only for a time. Because I was a man. And in my staying away, I had known men, the things they were, the things they did. Yes: but I wasn't a woman. My mother was. To a woman, weren't there reasons for dying?

"I wish she had known for what I really was to her," my father finally said. The he became quiet again, between those words and the slow raising of his glass to his mouth.