ROGELIO GOT HIS WOMAN

At eleven running to twelve years old, my awakening to the desires of the flesh began, and my exposure took place right in Gatub. At this time, beginning my first year in high school in Kumalarang I got transfered by my parents to live in the home of Dr. Boy Duhaylunsod who, my father said, was my distant cousin. He was the official town doctor and dwelled in a large house. Pastor Damaso Vios did not want me in their place anymore because he judged that I was already a grown up to play with his wife's sister named Leonora. Leonora was 16 years old and she loved to hang out and played with me even in the deep of the night. With us being alone inside a room and our giggles waking up Pastor Vios was not nice to a very religious man's ears. Almost twelve years old, I felt something excited within me when Leonora's hard body pressed against mine. And because we would sleep together in a small bed I was tempted to play with her private parts. I thought that she probably had liked it because she never complained even when I knew that she was awake. It must have been out of inquisitiveness, or, plainly, a boy's thing that I was getting naughty.

Doctor Duhaylunsod had a truly beautiful wife named Annie. She was tall and slim and only in her late twenties, she had a face of a movie star and silky and smooth white skin like a porcelain. She admired me for my voice when I would sing the song of Patsy Cline "Crazy" to put her daughter Armi to sleep on a cradle. "Kokoy," this was the nickname she baptized me with, "why do you sing so very lovely? I would never get tired of hearing you sing," she told me. I just smiled coyly. And something inside me start to feel abnormal. I would look at her face and admired her. And I would look at her body too, and saw that she was truly a goddess of beauty. I could not yet explain what was happening with me, but now I know that I was becoming a teen and it was just the nature of the flesh of a man to act like it.

In school, a young Muslim girl took notice of me when I had several singing performance on the stage. She was fourteen years old and in third year high school. She liked to walk with me after school going home and this irritated the Muslim boys. Abubakar was one of them. The following week Abubakar stopped me as I was going up the steps to enter my classroom. "Juanito," his voice was stern, "we do not want you to be seen again walking alone with Sonya. We like you and we do not want to harm you. This is a warning." Since that time I would find a way to get away from Sonya because I thought she was not really worth the trouble of being mauled by the Muslim boys who were constantly eyeing me. Erlinda, who was an Ilocana, also older than me, liked me and I ended up hanging out with her after school.

In Gatub on weekends, I joined boxing. Since I liked to fight this would be a perfect sport. I boxed with Alex and Florante among others. They were taller and older and very fast. I ended up getting hit so many times in the face and I would quit when my nose started running with blood. My brother Rogelio, who was the twin of Virgilio, trained me. He was all muscle and really strong, he worked as a copra hauler. I learned how to box and later entered the amateur boxers group, and I was allowed to fight inside the ring on a three rounder. Regelio, nicknamed, Oming, was always hanging out at Cita Dulugin's house because he worked as a trucker for them, loading sacks of copra and corn. He also like the girl Lita who was Cita's maid. Unlike Eng-eng, Oming was extremely shy, he did not know how to begin to say his words when he liked a girl. Eng-eng was taunting him how that he was very timid when it came to his love for Lita.

We were resting in front of the store of Cita Dulugin after a boxing practice when three men each carrying a sack walked toward us. They were dropped off by an owner jeep which parked a little distance from the house. These men were strangers, and we never saw them before. Suddenly, they all stopped and reached into their own individual sack and pulled each of them a shiny revolver and they all pointed the guns at us. "Dapa!" one of them shouted. Dapa is a tagalog word for drop down. Since we were Visayans, we could not figure out what was being said. One of them kicked my friend in the face and we all bolted out of there. Thankfully, they did not shoot. Realizing that it was a robbery in the making, the store clerk screamed, and Cita, quite a heavy set woman came out. From a distance we took cover but we could see what was happening. The man herded Cita inside the house and the gun was poke on her face. The neighbors closed their windows and locked their doors. It was getting dark but the lights in the houses were put out. We saw two people outside holding armalite guns, while the two went inside the house and collected their loot.

Oming and Lita were inside the house when the robbers shoved in Cita's body. Oming and Lita took off, looking for the door. But there was no time for the door, the robbers could shoot them. They jumped out of the window and hurled their bodies down stony ground. They took off into the dark without direction. They hid in a bush and stayed there the whole evening. Of course, out of fear Lita gave in to Oming. At daylight they came back to Cita's house. Cita was unharmed, but all the money in their savings were gone. Cita, who was Lita's aunt, determined that something took place during the night with Oming and Lita. "Did anything happen between the two of you?" Cita asked. The two responded in chorus, "Yes."

Oming and Lita got married soon afterward.