Francisco Jose - The Samsons - Two Novels

“I don’t follow you.”

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Ben said impatiently. “Why should the man commit suicide? Everything was laid out for him — the future, all the money and the comforts he wanted. And most of all, you should have seen his wife then. She’s slimmer now — this breakdown business is simply sapping her vitality. But she’s a knockout, a real beauty. Tell him, Nena.”

Mrs. De Jesus smiled. “She had a wonderful figure. She’s thin now, but she’s still lovely. Why, I think she is one of the loveliest girls in the country. I never could understand how she fell for Tony Samson, his being Ilocano and all that.”

He did not want the couple to accompany him to his hotel, but they insisted. There was nothing more they could talk about. Nena tried to point out some of the impressive houses in the Park, but they seemed shapeless and anonymous, and so were the names of the residents she rattled off, names she tried to impress upon him as important. To her prattle Bitfogel could only reply with polite, meaningless grunts. It was only much later that he understood why Ben had wanted very much to take him to Pobres Park. It was not only to show him the accoutrements of the De Jesus residence, but also to point out with an almost personal pride that this Park was the epitome of gracious living and could compare with the richest neighborhoods in the United States. In the two weeks that he was in the Philippines, he was to see the Park again in the daytime — its fire trees in bloom, the whitewashed fences and sprawling residences almost uniform in their ostentatious bigness, so uniform in fact that even after he had left the Philippines he could not recall what the houses in Pobres Park looked like, although he could readily bring to mind the poetry of the nipa huts and the shell-adorned windows of the frail wooden houses that lined the main streets of the small towns.

They were now driving out of the Park and were crossing an expanse of open country that separated it from the less affluent suburbs of the city, and it was on this highway, away from the cozy security of high fences and armed guards, that a rear tire of the de Jesus limousine blew out.

They got out of the car, shaken by the explosion, which had sounded ominously loud in the night, and Larry could sense the urgency in Ben’s voice: “We cannot stay here at a time like this!” To the driver he said, “Hurry up. Do something!”

Larry looked at his luminous watch. It was already three o’clock and the sky above them arched immensely black and wonderful with its millions of stars. The air was sharp, and above the smell of the asphalt he could make out the familiar odor of grass and living earth. “I don’t think you should worry,” he said lightly. “If it’s only a tire, I can help.”

The driver had already opened the rear compartment of the car and was heaving the spare tire out. “Of all things,” Nena could not hide her apprehension, “here on this road. Do you know, Dr. Bitfogel, that robberies have been committed here?”

“Well, you can always give the robbers what they want,” Lawrence Bitfogel said lightly. “We can also walk back to the Park. It’s so near. Or we can flag down a car. Do you think a car will stop?”

Ben de Jesus answered with a meaningless grumble and, with his wife, moved toward the narrow shoulder of the road. The driver fumbled in the dark, and when he could not see what he was doing, he would strike a match and the little flame would cast light on his shadowed, anonymous face and the apprehensive faces of Ben de Jesus and his wife.

In a while two bright headlights appeared and came streaking toward them. The vehicle screeched to a stop behind them. A babble of voices — young, high-pitched, and raucous — followed, and Larry soon recognized the vehicle as one of those converted jeeps that crowded the city streets. From it there poured out more than a dozen men.

It was around him, standing on the asphalt, that they crowded. “Whatsa trouble, Joe?” one of them asked.

“A flat tire,” Larry said, trying to make out the faces before him. He was surprised to find that they were all youngsters. The jeep engine was running, its headlights on. Orientals always look younger than Occidentals, and he roughly placed their ages at eighteen and below. One carried a guitar and another a ukelele. All of them wore some sort of uniform — white shirts with frilled cuffs and dark pants that sank into what looked like cowboy boots.

“We can help, Joe,” the fellow who held the guitar said. The guitarist gave orders to the rest of the boys, and the uniforms took the names of Rod, Clem, Roger, Sam, and what else. A flashlight materialized and Larry joined them, watching their young enthusiasm translated into swift, sure movements, into gawking at the car and its fine finish, while all the time, on the narrow shoulder of the road, Ben and his wife stood motionless and silent.

“I see that you are wearing a uniform,” Larry said to no one in particular. All the bolts of the flat tire were already loosened and two of the boys were helping the driver to pull the tire off.

“Yes, Joe,” the guitarist replied. “We are called the Gay Blades.”

“What’s that?” He did not understand.

One of the boys brought from the jeepney what looked like a bass fiddle. The only difference was that it had only one string and at the other end of the silly-looking contraption was an empty gasoline container — the rectangular kind that usually went in the rear of an old U.S. Army jeep as a reserve gas or water tank. On this container was painted in bold, unerring red, The Gay Blades.

“We do many things — play basketball, sing. We’re the Gay Blades, Joe. You have something in the States like we have here, Joe?”

“My name’s not Joe,” Larry said, a bit annoyed.

“Sorry, Joe,” the guitarist went on. “We just came from a contest, you know. Good luck for us. We won second prize. We will beat the Roving Troubadors, yet. Just watch us, Joe.”

From the shadows, Ben de Jesus and his wife finally emerged and joined the group. The last bolt was being tightened and some of the boys — the one who carried the improvised bass fiddle and the one with the ukulele — went back to the jeepney.

Then the driver stood up. A look of triumph brightened his face and the faces of the youngsters who had helped him.

“Well, Joe,” the guitarist said, moving toward Larry with an extended hand. Lawrence took the hand and shook it. “We better roll now.”

It was only then that Ben spoke. “No, wait,” he said. He went to the youth and thrust out a bill. “Here — here, take this.”

They spoke in the vernacular and argued a bit and, from the drift and tone of the young men’s voices, Larry knew that the payment was being refused. “It’s Christmas — it’s Christmas anyway,” Ben was saying.

Some discussion had started in the jeep now and then they poured out — the bass fiddle and the ukuleles and a pair of bongo drums — and there in the open highway, under the stars, Larry heard the Gay Blades and the song they had adapted, the song they spiced with bongos, ukuleles, and the silly-looking bass fiddle — a medley of “White Christmas” and “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”—and while the boys sang, two cars slowed down, then zoomed on, and in the glare of the headlights he saw them clearly, fully: the lean, young faces, the alert eyes, the shiny black boots and the blue pants, the immaculate white silk shirts. But most of all, he relished hearing them, the clear voices welded as one, and in the end, after the final flourish of instruments and voices, the guitarist stepped forward. And having received the money from Ben, he shook Larry’s hand again.