Short Story | My Best Friend Asked

By Eddlynn Jennifer Mangaoang

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<Trigger Warning!> <Rape>

    My best friend asked me that one time, “What animal slithers, crawls, walks on four, then walk on two their whole lives?” and I was unprepared to answer because I didn’t consider myself as “animal” but thinking about it now – people are really just an animal; with intelligence, yes, but still an animal.

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    I walked Main Street one early evening when I heard pots and pans thundering the once quiet peace from Jesusa’s house. Curiosity got the best of me and I scaled their three-feet gate to peer from their kitchen window – stealthily, of course. I saw Jesusa on all fours, naked and crying and shouting and in pain as her older brother, Jacob, forced himself on her. 15-year-old Jesusa who was meek and silent and kept to herself in school scratched her throat raw from shouting “No!” and “Ah!!” and “Help!!!”. The neighbors remained inside their homes -blissfully unaware or blissfully does not care.

    Shuddering and a bit scared, I fumbled through my jean pockets and fetched my phone walking away to the streets and hiding behind their three-foot wall by planting myself on the ground. “Hello, 911.” And so the rest of my night went that way – interesting but bustling.

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    I came out the huge door of the Catholic Church found in 15th Street along with a hundred churchgoers. The outside of the church was lively with vendors selling fresh bibingka, a hundred types – it seemed that way to me – of puto, cut fruits and coconut juice, and toys, and religious products – rosaries, idols, prayer books, etc. There’s a beggar on the corner with ragged clothes, a smelly body, and a Ligo sardines tin can (it’s empty). His two legs were amputated above the knee and he used his upper limbs to push himself backward and forward – he had a strong upper body!

    I was busy buying four bags of puto Calasiao when a lady screeched at the old man. “Eew! Eww! Eww!” The teenager stomped her feet angrily and pointed at him with her index, “Don’t you know how expensive this dress is? Daddy! Shoo him away!” The commotion attracted various people and they had the old beggar away by sacristans who came out to see the commotion as well. I looked at my puto and followed. I found the old beggar crying near a trashcan situated near an Acacia trunk.

    A passerby who saw the event moved to help the old man sit on the bench and gave him some fifty before going along. I sat next to him; he flinched away. In the silence, I saw the old man crawl farther away, almost on the edge of the bench. I silently offered him the two bags of puto. He only looked at it, so I opened my own bag and started eating. On my third chew of the sixth puto, he reached out and took the bags, opened it, and began eating. “That teenager didn’t know what I had to lose in order for her to live freely and in peace. They don’t know. They don’t know.” I could only nod.

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    I was eight years old and moneyless. My family went to CSI to grocery shop and we’re in the line to the cashier. There’s a stack of tic tac on the way and I was eyeing it, but I knew my parents would never buy it. They would secretly put it back once I’m not looking. I bit my tongue and tried to be poker-faced (I didn’t know that’s what it was called until much, much later), reached out for one, and put it in my pockets. No one saw. No one except my siblings. Who told my parents. I cried when they lectured me, and they told me to bring it back and return it to where I got it.

    I didn’t want to go. I was ashamed – whether it be for stealing or for getting caught, I don’t know. Maybe both. But my parents told me we’re not going home if I don’t, and we were already in the parking lot. I went. I also think twice about stealing since then.

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    My best friend asked me that one time, “What’s your motto in life?” and I couldn’t remember what I told her at that time. Now I try to abide by two principles – “Honesty is the best policy” and “No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted” by Aesop. They’re hard to follow and easy to forget in certain circumstances, but they’re a guide to follow when my path is curving a little slightly to the right or to the left.