Thirty years or so ago in New Manila--

I digress and beg my reader’s indulgence -- Someone so very dear to me, all of 18, my son has just discovered the feeling of being with someone who makes him feel special. In his eyes I see a twinkle, his attention is now riveted and I no longer hold the special position as the woman he first loved. He said what they have is "exclusive but temporary." This essay is a nod to that similar special time in my life --

The 70s-
I philosophized like a grown-up and behaved like a child. I was dealing with my own issues and angst. My sense of self-esteem was precariously hinged on my being accepted to attend the state university and to the disappearance of pesky acne. Although I was relatively popular in high-school, there were a lot of things I was insecure about. Then I shot up to an impressive height at 15. I took great photos but I walked with a slight gait. I spoke English well but at times I was full of shit. I also changed my religion. I was articulate, an active student leader, and I was surrounded by a group of smart friends. We were called the “intellectual snobs” in high school. We spoke English and practiced saying ‘choclet’ versus “choco-late”; we spoke in Taglish rather than Tagalog. I was a teen-age beauty queen. I once had the bragging rights of being the prom date of a UP Prep School valedictorian.

The mirror told me something else though—I was breaking out and I was very conscious of my skin. In a country where the standard of beauty was and still is to a great extent measured by how fair skin is I was called “morena,” neither ebony nor ivory. I rebelled by slathering my skin with suntan oil and Coca-cola, and spending hours at the pool to get my skin much darker. I looked like a cocoa bean. I mooned the male students from Marian College who unashamedly use their binoculars to check me and my friends out at the YWCA pool. It was on a month of June in the 70s that I started to be addressed as “Miss…” I was a college student. It was the beginning of a four- year exploration, academically and otherwise.

I was not a straight A student in college. I did not see myself in the future as a brilliant lawyer, professor, or a corporate head. I could not make up my mind what I wanted to be. I did not plan my future. I was living by the moment. I decided to become a journalist. At that time, for me, college was the end in itself. In college, I blossomed; the acne went away, leaving ugly scars on my cheeks. I became the girl everyone became friends with. I was a college theater actress, I was fun to be with, I was tall and I was easy on the eyes, pretty in fact, despite the acne scars.

There was a dividing line between rich and poor in Manila. I was in the middle of a vast gap. Although my family was not poor, we were not part of the privileged few. I knew that it was just a matter of time that I would be going the USA. It was my firm goal as a young woman. This was encouraged by the fact that my Dad lived in the USA and my sisters and a brother did too. It was in the plan. But until I got there, I hated the US for its imperialism. So I was shouting slogans in the streets of Mendiola while wearing Levi‘s and getting deeply tanned by the pool using Coppertone. I was denouncing the US while I was eating Baby Ruth bars and listening to my very own Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band LP at home. It was four years full of irony in my young life.

One day, after lunch, I was sitting on the day’s newspaper on the steps of Vinzon Hall in the Diliman campus of the U of the Philippines. As I looked down, I noticed that I could read text on the paper from between my legs, and I saw an ad that read, “Wanted, female DJ between 18-23 years old. Bonanza Country Club Disco...” It was a very popular disco club during that time. I tore the ad and went to the club before I went home that evening. There were about thirty hopefuls waiting for their turn outside the club. Most of the girls were college students of mass communications; you can tell the “divide” between university coeds and colegialas. (all-girls colleges) The coeds seemed more mature and independent. The colegialas, on the other hand, were standoffish. Most of them wore false eyelashes. The interview was well underway when I got there.

I looked like fish out of water. I was wearing a pair of very casual boy shoes without socks; I had on a checkered red and white shirt under a very short grey jumper. My earrings were huge hoops made of a pair of thin bangles I cut and wore as earrings. I took the jeepney to get to the Club. I was not a privileged Mass Comm princess whose daddy bought her a car for her 18th birthday. Each of the girls got a few minutes of interview with Howard Medina, aka Long Tall Howard at the radio station DWKW. Don’t ask me how I remember; I have a photographic memory, selective, but photographic. I will remember to Google him just in case….We were all told to wait. I was the last applicant. My turn finally came.

He asked me what I did in school, what I did for fun, what music I liked, almost like we were just “hanging out.” We laughed at some silly joke and he asked what I have learned in broadcasting and I told him that I learned to say “Ito ang Inyong….Tiya Dely” or “Lundagin mo Baby!” He and his assistant showed me the DJ booth and showed me how the lights and sound board worked. I asked a few questions like may I “can” the music so I could dance in the booth sometimes? Okay, nothing ventured, nothing gained. But then he said, “Wel, will you be our DJ?” I was so happy I yelled, “Yeba! Yeba!” "You are hired!” He took me outside and announced to the other applicants that he made his decision. To this day, I can hear the grumbling from the others. One of them, dressed in a tight long skirt with a slit up to her hip approached, batted her false eyelashes and said, “Why did you not choose me? I think you chose the wrong girl!” Then he was surrounded by the other girls, whining in protest that he should not decide on the spot. However, Howard was steadfast in his decision. So, the job went to the girl wearing boy's shoes.

Howard was a gentleman and a mentor. On my first day on the job, he took me to his office. I was wearing a clean pair of jeans and a Crispa (think Hanes) tee-shirt. He said, “Now, repeat to me what you saw on the ad.” “Wanted female DJ, 18-23 years old.” “Female, right?” “Right” “Okay, so starting tomorrow, I want you to look female.” “Huh? What’s wrong with me?” “Well you look like a boy.” “A what?” “A boy who does not wear high heels and socks…” “Do you have shoes with heels?” “Yes but I do not like wearing them.” “Okay, sometimes you need to wear some shoes and clothes that will make you look like a girl.”

One day, I wore heels and a pair of slacks, a blouse that showed my midriff and he looked me over and said, “Now that you look like a female, stay away from the men.” He told me that my job was to play music for four hours and I was not expected to socialize with any patron. I was going to be paid P750 a month, about $210 a month, a lucrative pay for a rising 19-year old. I had free drinks and a free dinner. I was at the professional level, which meant that I could eat whatever I like from the club’s menu vs. the employee kitchen, I was entitled to three mixed drinks, and any soft drink I wanted. I was discouraged to be friends with the hospitality girls but that if I befriended them, I was to avoid being identified with them. He told me that I was not a hospitality girl, I was a DJ and those are two very different jobs. I was all of 19, I was eager to please my boss but I was also curious about the hospitality girls (HG).

I befriended Helen. She was supporting her parents and two younger siblings. She was the main breadwinner. She was a nice and pretty young woman, tall and svelte but heavily made-up with false eyelashes. She had the build of a model. Then there was Liza, who ignored me for the most part. She liked to talk about the self-pampering trips she made to the spa with her upcoming starlet friend, always carried on like some colegiala telling her exploits to her yayas. There was also Mirna and her sister Beatriz; both coeds and pretty with skin, white as alabaster. They were lively and the younger girl Mirna, looked very uncomfortable when she was working. I learned from Helen that they worked on commission. This was how the hospitality girls worked. They asked men who came to the Club without a date if they would like some company. If the man agreed, the HG would sit on the man’s table and order a drink. The girls get ½ of the price of the liquor plus any tips the men gave them. The more they drank, the more money they made. Helen told me that the men sometimes took them out on dates. She also told me that I should eat dinner with her in the “house.” When Howard learned that I ate at the employee kitchen, I was appropriately lectured. He told me that I should never do that again; that my job was above that of a HG. It was part of the great divide; like a caste system dictating who should be socializing with whom. I was DJ, Helen was HG. Two different abbreviations, two different implications. One is noble than the other depending on who is making the distinction.

"Long Tall" checked regularly if my shoes were clean. It was not unusual for my shoes to be smeared with mud from walking. He would sometimes tease me, “O, ano, are we a boy today?” He would share bits and pieces of his home life with me. I admired him. He was unusual in the Filipino husband paradigm. He was faithful to his wife and he loved her and his children. We had a technician named Noel and both he and Howard were very supportive of me at the Club. It was the time of the Doobie Brothers, the Isley Brothers, Smokey Robinson, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, Roberta Flack, and many others. Life could never be better for a young college kid who had a great gig.

One day, I asked Howard why he hired me over the other girls and his response resonates up to the present. “Because you’re “viva” [full of life], “totoo ka” [you are real], and because you do not wear false eyelashes.”

When the Philippine's premier asshole Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, a curfew was set. My shift ended at about 11pm, leaving me an hour to get home. I did not own a car; I took a taxi or bus or jeepney to get home. It was during one of those stressful times that a car filled with young men my age stopped and asked me if they could take me home. The young men were at the Club earlier and they recognized me as the DJ. We introduced ourselves to one another. One of them also went to the same university I did. We were definitely not going to make the curfew. They invited me to go with them and wait until the curfew was lifted. I agreed. I was a naive young woman without much choice.

We ended up in an apartment where other friends of theirs seemed to be in the middle of a party. They were kids of privilege I was not accustomed to. They were partying on, and they were making out like they were the only people present in the place. I imagined this was what an orgy was like and I have never been to one and I did not plan on being in one either. I was a nerd in their midst. All my young life, despite my bravado, my exploits were very limited and awkward and sometimes disastrous. The young man who owned the car we drove in was nice. He introduced himself as Jake C. He sensed my discomfort. I was clearly not a party girl. He and I started to talk and we hit it off.

Jake and I became inseparable. We socialized with his friends and mine. I was his "it" girl. I wore his ring. He was kind and thoughtful and always sensitive to how I was feeling or what I needed. He wrote me short sweet notes inserted in chocolate boxes. He waited patiently until I was done with my classes and then we would spend time together, listening to music, discussing the wisdom of smoking or not smoking grass. When you’re 19, there’s really not much to share. Life is just beginning.

In the meantime, word got around that I was the DJ at the club. Many Friday nights, I see my friends and their friends at the university in the crowd, a whole class would be there having a good time. I was good for the business. I loved my job!

Almost each night, around 11pm, I would see Jake quietly sitting in the club while I spun records for the patrons. He was gorgeous. Near the end of my shift, I would start spinning slow dance music and I would get down from the DJ booth to dance to our songs with him. I was utterly lost in my young love.

Sometimes, Jake drove me and his friends to his family’s beach house and there we would talk or walk along the shore. The two of us did not discuss the future, we did not declare great love for each other; but we lived in the moment. Love at 19 was not complicated. You laugh, love, fight, and start all over again.

It was New Year’s Eve and the club was full. I spotted Jake’s close friend Tony. He was born and raised from the same place I was so we had a rapport. He was very happy to see me at work that night and he told me that perhaps I should go with him after my shift, he would drive me to Jake’s and I would be his “New Year’s gift to my friend.” I readily agreed. Huge, huge, huge mistake. Jake was livid that I was with Tony. There was an exchange of harsh words. There was apparently something about Tony and Jake’s former girl friends that I did not know and before I knew it, Tony was being handcuffed and jailed for “kidnapping” me, and I was being accused of two-timing Jake. In Manila, privilege had its privileges. Jake was an heir to one of Manila’s wealthy families. He felt betrayed when he saw me and Tony together. The schism between them has come to a head. When you are a teen-ager, you value friendship as you value yesterday’s stale bread. I was caught in the middle of two boys fighting over their toys.

Actually, it was Tony who told me the truth about Jake. He introduced himself to me using his mom’s maiden name. One day, when Tony saw that I was wearing Jake’s ring, he commented that I must be special because none of the other girls wore Jake F’s ring. I asked him what the ‘F’ was in the Jake F. and Tony was surprised that I did not know so he proceeded to tell me that Jake’s last name was such. He was this of that family of that and this background and this and that of that and this. No one could ever know how completely humbling that revelation was to me. My mom warned me about falling in love with rich men’s children. She was disowned herself by my wealthy late grandfather Don Joaquin because she fell in love with my father, a mere mortal. And that is another story.

I explained to him why I was with Tony. I realized I was in the middle of something dark that I was trying to get out of. Tony was “regular people” like I was. But he obviously crossed the line, and since he was regular people, he spent time in jail. Muck was around me; it was dark and putrid and I could not get out of it. My heart was breaking and I cried until I could not cry anymore. I was defending my honor. I was defending my love. At the same time, I was horrified at how shabbily Tony was treated. He was accused wrongly and he did not do anything bad. An injustice was done and I was not equipped to deal with it. I thought Jake overreacted but he told me that it happened before- Tony would cheat with Jake’s girl friend. He would give the girl a ride and become intimate with the girl. That did not happen to me. I was trying to make him understand that through my tears. What about me- was I that type of girl? I obviously was not special after all.

We drove to the beach house and he asked me over and over again why I was with Tony in the car. We talked until the sun came up. He said he believed me, he said he loved me. We loved and we cried and then I never saw him again. It was, to borrow my son's words, "exclusive but temporary."

I worked my shift at the Club, spinning sounds that broke my young heart. I quit the job; I was becoming too unreliable. I left for the U.S. shortly thereafter. I wrote Jake letters. I had a stong need to let him know that I moved on. He never responded.

Years later, a post card came in the mail from him. We briefly saw each other – we were both in our twenties. Some things have changed – we were involved with other people. We were a little older but not the wiser. We talked until we ran out of things to say and we loved and disappeared again from each other’s lives.

Now, thirty some years after, we are both parents of children the same age as when we thought life was all about us. We have reconnected, old friends sharing fun memories, but no longer lovers. We have not had the time to fill each other on what transpired in the last thirty plus years. I have almost forgotten through the years, how profound he was, how elegantly he wrote and how well modulated he spoke, how his smile used to make me happy, how tender he was, how I looked up to him because he was more worldly than I was thirty some years ago. I tell him we are so much older. He tells me our outside appearance have changed but that we are the same people inside.

“Won’t you please read my signs, be a gypsy, tell me what I hope to find deep within me, because you can read my mind, please be with me…” (Please Be With Me, by Eric Clapton)

I no longer wear boy’s shoes. I am no longer insecure about my acne scars - laser has zapped them, I wear much better clothes, my shoes, all 100 pairs or so of them are always clean, I have seen most of the world but deep within me I am still the same – I am real, I love life, and I still do not wear false eyelashes.