Patron Saints of Nothing, page 23
I nod, slide into the back pew, and then read the texts I received while we were on our way here. They’re all from Mia, mostly asking if we arrived safely and what else I found out about Jun. I slip my phone back into my pocket without answering them. I know it’s immature, but I can’t help it since I’m still annoyed she never replied to any of my messages from the other day.
A few moments later, Tito Danilo appears from a hallway off to the opposite side of the altar from where Grace went. He’s larger than I remember, and now sporting an impressive beard for a Filipino. He doesn’t notice me at first because he’s reading a book and wearing a large pair of noise-canceling headphones over his ears. But then he spots me out of the corner of his eye and stops short. He slips his headphones down so they hang around his neck and offers a confused smile.
“Jason?”
“Hey, Tito.”
He closes the book, walks over with a puzzled expression, and hugs me. “It is good to see you . . . but what are you doing here?”
This, of course, requires a long-ass answer. So instead, I cut to the heart of the matter. “I need to talk to you. About Jun.”
His smile falters, and I swear his face pales. “I don’t—”
“There you are,” Grace says, returning to the sanctuary. She makes her way over to where we are, hugs Tito Danilo, and then sits down next to me.
Tito Danilo slides into the next pew, turned around so he’s facing us. He tries making small talk, but I’m not here for niceties.
“Tito Maning insists the police killed Jun because he was selling drugs,” I say. “But that’s a lie. He was only spreading the word about all the people that were being killed.”
Tito Danilo is speechless. We go ahead and tell him everything, from the moment Grace sent me those DMs to how we snuck out this morning, leaving out only the specifics about the Reyna situation to honor her request. Our voices echo throughout the empty chapel, and judging by his reactions, it seems like most—but not all—of what we reveal is new to him. It takes a long time, and when we finish, Tito looks up at the cross. Then he closes his eyes and lets his gaze fall to the floor. A new sadness seems to settle upon his shoulders.
He lets out a long sigh. He doesn’t explain how much he already knew about what we’ve shared with him about Jun. Instead he says, “What’s done is done. It was a tragedy, but there’s nothing more to say.”
“There’s the truth,” I say.
“Tito, we need you to come back with us and tell everyone that Tatay is a liar,” Grace adds.
He’s silent for a long, long time. So long that I start to think it didn’t work, that this information, this story, will not serve as the catalyst I hoped it would, will not inject him with the courage to stand up to his big brother.
But then he picks up his head, opens his eyes, and starts to speak.
“It is a shame what is happening in this country. And it is a shame that the Church has been so quiet. That all of us have been so quiet. That the world has been so quiet.”
We wait for him to say more.
He goes on. “Manoy Maning called me a few months before Jun’s death. He told me that his men had informed him Jun was in Legazpi.”
“You serious?” I ask.
He nods.
“What did he want you to do?” Grace asks.
“To find him . . . to save him.”
I sit up, disbelieving that my uncle still cared about Jun at that point. “Maning called to ask you to save Jun from the police—the police that Maning was in charge of, that he could’ve ordered to fall back at any time?”
“No,” Tito Danilo says. “He had already bribed someone once to remove Jun’s name from the list. But he found his way back onto it. He wanted me to save Jun from himself . . . from the drugs.”
Grace and I exchange a look and then I say, “But Jun didn’t use them, and he wasn’t a pusher. That was their excuse for murdering him.”
Tito Danilo is quiet for a long time again. Then he continues his story instead of responding to what I said. “I searched the streets for weeks, but I couldn’t find him. I carried his picture with me everywhere I went and asked everyone I came across. But nobody had seen him. Or, at least, nobody was willing to tell me they had. Three months passed before I gave up hope, even as I continued carrying his picture.”
I say, “He probably wasn’t even in Legazpi, Tito. That must have been another lie.”
Tito Danilo’s face takes on an even more sorrowful expression. He goes on. “And then one day, Jun came into the church. ‘Is it you?’ I asked, because he looked so different. ‘It is,’ he said, then we embraced. I was so happy, even though it was painful to see him like that.”
Grace clutches my hand. “See him like what, Tito?”
“He had become small. Skinny as a stick. And he couldn’t stop rocking back and forth. His voice was shaky and . . . broken. He was broken.”
Grace doesn’t say anything to this.
“What did he say?” I ask.
“That he wanted to go for a walk,” Tito Danilo says. “To speak.”
“About what?”
Tito Danilo is quiet for a long time. A very long time. Rain begins to patter against the stained-glass windows. A breeze stirs the air, blowing out a few of the candles on the altar burning no more for lost souls.
Then, he says, “I tried to convince him to go back home. To come stay with me, at least. But then he grew angry. He wanted me to listen, he said. That nobody ever listened. That all they ever did was try to tell everyone else what to do.”
“Tito,” Grace says, “what did Kuya Jun tell you?”
He sighs and bows his head. “He did all that you think he did not do.”
My heart skips a beat.
“No,” Grace says, shaking her head as tears well in her eyes. She squeezes my hand harder.
Danilo sighs. “It is true. He told me as much himself.”
I shake my head. “He was on the list because of GISING NA PH! Not because of drugs . . . That’s why he left the woman he loved—so she wouldn’t be in danger.”
“That may have gotten him onto the watch list, but he told me that he ran away from her because he had started using. He did not want to drag her into that life.”
I don’t say anything. I was so close to feeling like I had Jun’s story nailed down. But no. That’s not how stories work, is it? They are shifting things that re-form with each new telling, transform with each new teller. Less a solid, and more a liquid taking the shape of its container.
Tito Danilo continues. “And later, he started selling.”
“But why?” Grace asks, desperate.
“Shabu is a hunger suppressant. You see, it is cheaper than food, so many of the poor start for this reason, and then they become addicted. As for why he started selling? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe to make money to keep feeding his addiction.”
I close my eyes, as if doing so will rewind the story, erasing everything Tito Danilo has just told us. As if it will stop the warping truth. I can’t reconcile this version of Jun with the one I had come to know, to love, to admire. Even as I sit still, I feel like I’m falling.
I try to pull my hand away from Grace, but she tightens her grip.
Tito Danilo steeples his fingers and touches the tips to his lips as if in prayer. “Nephew. Niece. I am sorry to be the one to tell you this. But it is all true. I know you cannot believe Manoy Maning because of his position, but you must believe me when I say I have nothing to gain by telling you all of this.”
Grace stays silent.
I shake my head.
“I again offered for him to stay with me,” Tito Danilo continues. “He refused. He promised that he would return, that we would talk more. But then a few days later, he was dead.”
My heart thrums. My hands tremble. My uncle’s words are like waves, only I don’t know if they’re pulling me to shore or carrying me out to sea.
“No,” I say, closing my eyes. I think of GISING NA PH!.
Tito Danilo must be wrong.
Jun wouldn’t live that life in a million years.
I lift my eyes to Tito Danilo, and he looks at me as if for the first time since I’ve arrived. His expression is filled with sorrow as deep as the ocean. And in that instant, I know he’s telling the truth.
My heart breaks for what feels like the hundredth time in two weeks. I look away.
I search for an excuse on Jun’s behalf, desperate to justify, to exonerate. “Maybe he was using the money to help people,” I suggest. “Maybe he . . .” I trail off.
Nobody says anything.
“Who killed him?” Grace asks, breaking the long silence.
“Does it matter?” he asks.
“Yes,” Grace answers.
“Why?” Tito Danilo asks gently. “What will you do?”
Neither of us answer.
“It doesn’t matter who killed him,” Tito Danilo says. “Jun is already dead. You can’t save him anymore. And his murderer is one more poor soul trying to make a few pesos to feed his family. If he did not pull the trigger, someone else would have eventually.” He hesitates and then adds, “But if you must know, I was told it was a vigilante.”
“A vigilante?” I ask.
“Someone who kills drug pushers of their own accord.”
“Was this ‘vigilante’ arrested?”
“He was paid,” Tito Danilo says. “For making the city ‘safer.’ In most people’s eyes, Jun’s death meant one less drug pusher on the streets.”
“And everyone here is okay with the fact there are people running around and killing whoever they want? Without a warrant, without due process?” And I know my tone’s disrespectful, but I can’t help myself.
“If they are pushing drugs, then yes,” Tito Danilo says. “This isn’t America.”
“Don’t people care about all of these lives being taken?”
“Did you?” he asks. “Before Jun?”
I look down, burning with shame. Then I deflect. “Why doesn’t the Church do anything? Whatever happened to ‘Thou shalt not kill’?” I let out a sarcastic laugh. “It’s been a while since my Catechism classes, but I don’t remember an ‘unless’ tacked onto the end of that commandment.”
He considers this for a moment. “The Church tends to souls. Not the affairs of the state.”
Great.
Tito Danilo thinks it’s not the church’s job. Tita Chato believes there’s nothing to be done. Tito Maning actively assists in these murders. And Dad doesn’t care.
All of the adults are failing us.
Tito Danilo lets out a heavy sigh and then stands. “I’m going to go call the family and let them know you’re here. Then we will take breakfast together, and I’ll drive you back.”
He leaves Grace and me alone in the sanctuary. We sit in the silence together, crying quietly. There’s the familiar pain, but there’s a fresh hurt, too. In losing the story we had told ourselves about Jun, we’ve lost him all over again, in a new way.
“I’m not hungry,” I say eventually.
“Me neither,” Grace says.
A few beats of silence pass.
“I can’t believe it,” I say. “I can’t believe that he used . . . that he sold . . .”
“It isn’t right,” Grace says.
“Which part?”
“Any of it.”
I nod and let my graze drift upward. A bird flits across the rafters to a nest high in the corner. It reminds me of when I heard the baby birds chirping outside the window the day that the puppy died in my hands. What was it Mom told me in that moment? Something about death making way for new life. But what new life has come from Jun’s death? I don’t know.
I imagine souls trapped overhead, bouncing against the steepled ceiling like invisible balloons whose strings have slipped from careless hands.
HEADFIRST ACROSS THE MUDDY GRASS
The last time I came to the Philippines, Jun and I spent one entire day in the open field by the church a few blocks away from Lolo and Lola’s house. We started out trying to play soccer with Chris and Em, using palm trees at either end to mark goalposts. I say “trying” because it rained the night before, leaving the field a muddy mess. We played barefoot so we wouldn’t ruin our shoes, but we kept sliding all over the place. I also say “trying” because while Chris and Em both played in competitive leagues back home, Jun and I had no idea what we were doing. Still, he insisted that we be on the same team.
My brother and sister clobbered us, of course. And it wasn’t long before they lost interest and returned to the house. Jun and I kept playing, though, transitioning to a pathetic one-on-one game. I don’t remember keeping score. I only remember laughing until I was out of breath, smiling until my cheeks hurt, and staying outside under the sun until I held my forearm next to Jun’s and we were almost the same shade of brown.
Eventually, a bunch of kids started to gather around to watch. Not just a handful, but maybe a couple dozen ranging in age from five or six to fifteen or sixteen. Jun invited them all to play because that’s how he was. That’s how I want to remember him. We began a new game with these massive, uncoordinated teams. Since nobody understood positions, it was basically just twenty-something kids chasing the ball at the same time.
But everyone had fun. Nobody cared who won, and the older kids made sure to let the little ones kick around the ball for a while every now and then. Teams became meaningless.
Eventually, the clouds covered the sun, and it started to rain again. Most of the kids wandered home at that point, and I picked up the ball to leave. But Jun popped it out of my grip and began kicking it around the field in the opposite direction. I chased him down through the rain and when I was about to steal it, he slid headfirst across the muddy grass to knock the ball out of the way. My foot swung through the air, and I slipped onto my back. When we stood up, we were covered in so much muck we both looked like Swamp Thing. We stayed out another hour or so, running around and sliding in the mud before heading back to Lolo and Lola’s house. But when we returned, they wouldn’t let us into the house since we were so dirty. Instead, Lola brought out soap and shampoo and then Jun and I showered outside in the rain, laughing.
TO RESURRECT
In the car with Tito Danilo and Grace on the way back to Lolo and Lola’s, I think about how there’s a new grief in remembering Jun now, knowing what eventually happened, knowing that he was more than my idea of him in ways I do not like, knowing that there’s probably so much more I’ll never know.
I was determined to find the truth. And I did—at least a piece of it.
But was it worth it? What do I even do now?
This didn’t play out how I thought it would.
I expected the truth to illuminate, to resurrect.
Not to ruin.
HOW TO LIVE WITHOUT HIM
When we arrive at the house, our family is gathered out front. Most everyone seems relieved that we’ve returned safely, and there are a lot of hugs when we step out of the car. But Tito Maning stands on the porch with his arms crossed and a smug look on his face, probably because he knows he’s been vindicated by what Tito Danilo told us. As we enter the house, Grace and I walk right past him without a word.
I’m retreating to my room and Grace to hers when I stop. I turn to her in the hallway before she disappears.
“Are you okay, Grace?” I ask.
She stops, hand on the doorknob. Then she turns, leans back against the doorframe, and bites her lower lip like she doesn’t know what to say. Outside, the rest of our family is still talking on the porch.
“I keep thinking about the last time I saw him . . . I keep trying to remember if there were any signs I missed . . . if there was anything I might have done for him.”
I think of the weed Tito Maning found in Jun’s room all those years ago. I was quick to dismiss it, but was there something unnamed going on with Jun even then? Maybe all of this didn’t begin later in the slums—maybe it was always there, lurking under the surface with a tentacle already wrapped around his ankle.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. “People are good at hiding things from one another. Especially in our family.”
She sighs. “I know. But I still wonder.” Then she asks, “How are you, Kuya Jay?”
I hesitate. “Honestly? I have no idea.”
“What are you feeling?”
“Confused.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know what to think anymore, Grace,” I say, then I fall quiet for a few beats. “Do you regret sending me those DMs? Do you wish that I never came?”
She tilts her head. “Why would you say that, Kuya?”
I shrug. “If I didn’t come, if I didn’t push to find out what happened, we wouldn’t have learned about that part of Jun’s life. We could have held on to our own versions of him. But now it feels like his memory is . . . I don’t know . . . tainted?”
“Tainted how?”
“Like we got him wrong.”
“Just because we didn’t know everything about him doesn’t change what we did know about him, Kuya. What Tito Danilo told us—it made me question what I could have done to help, but it did not change how I feel about my brother.”
“Even though he was guilty?”
“He was human,” she says without hesitation. “He was struggling. Just because he was a user, a pusher, it doesn’t mean that his life was worthless. It doesn’t mean that there wasn’t good in him.”
I don’t say anything, but I feel ashamed. How much of my life have I spent believing deep down exactly what she’s challenging?
She goes on. “Jun and I sometimes talked about what our government was doing with the drug war. He always said that the administration was not trying to solve the problem, but only trying to make it seem like they were solving the problem. They used the poor to do this because the poor could not or did not know how to fight back. He told me that if the administration truly wanted to fix the drug problem, they knew what needed to be done.”
