|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
|
|
|||
| Home
|
Folly Parade |
|||
|
|
She was thinking about it when her mother came and placed the plate of rice on their table. The kitchen was dark, lighted only by a candle’s flickering light. They were not able to pay on time the electricity bill, hence the inevitable disconnection. But it was all right; they had grown inured to the darkness. “It isn’t asking too much,
is it, Nay?” Maria said. “I don’t
really want a party. I know it’s very
expensive.” Her mother smiled faintly; for the
past weeks, her daughter had been nagging her about it. At first, it was subtle—Maria
would not mention the actual “C” word. Only recently did Maria become bolder,
even deftly talking her way into tying her wish to have a mobile phone with the fact that
she’d very soon be celebrating her 18th birthday. “They’d be disappointed.
Your friends.” “Oh, I never told them about my
birthday. No one would miss it.” “But you only become eighteen
once, Maria.” “I only want a phone, Nay,” Maria said in-between mouthfuls of
steaming rice and smoked fish. “Nothing else. I promise if I’d get one, I would
be better. Besides, I’d have my debut party when I’m twenty-one.” Maria
gave a youthful laugh. Her mother smiled and ate quietly,
staring at the candle’s flicker, wondering about how she and her husband would be
able to grant their daughter’s little wish. # The conference room of Baldacci and
Cojones Advertising Agency was crammed with the typical mahogany and leather ensemble.
Around the glazed round table fidgeted typical ad agency people: incendiary, passionate,
their hands and eyes rapidly expressing the intensity of the moment. “The ad has to be ultra-hip and
cool,” Tintin Gallardo said, a thirtyish woman with an unlikely braid. She rapidly
leafed through a sheaf of documents and arranged them on the table: a smattering of random
interviews, newspaper clippings of the lifestyle of the young, survey results, personal
anecdotes. “These are what the youngsters want. To be in, to be part of something, to be recognized as an
individual. It’s no secret, anyway.” The others pounced on the papers and
scanned them quickly. “I guess we have to make it a little funny, then,” Arnold
said, tapping the glazed table with a plastic pen. “Or something artsy-fartsy. You
know, let’s ride the confusion and transform it into an art.” “Oh, that won’t hold.
Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty,” said another younger woman, who seemed
fresh from college—and enthusiastic. “They want to be with friends, right? They
want to chat all the time. Gossip, love life, exams, the works. So they’d need cell
phones in order to be always connected.” “Remember, these kids can’t
afford it.” “Their parents can,” Tintin
said. “That’s why we’re including them, the parents, in the ad. Something
like the teener asks her mother to buy her a cellphone.” “Focus on the fun factor,”
Arnold said. “When did you say this campaign
would start?” “Next month,” Tintin said,
standing to write something on the white board. “FART Communications is pouring in 50
million pesos for the whole campaign, covering the print and broadcast media. The tv ads
themselves will carry the bulk of that amount. They’re introducing a new batch of
state-of-the-art cellphones. Plus mobile services. It’s going to cost them a lot.
That’s why we have to assure them we don’t fuck this up.” The others solemnly nodded. “Now,” Tintin Gallardo
said, pulling the cap off a whiteboard marker. “Let’s decide on the ad’s
story.” # Maria’s father was peering
through the glass panel, behind of which rows of cellphones were arranged in tiers, their
price tags dangling from colorful strings. A simple man who never finished grade school,
he never really understood the dynamics of these contraptions, which intimidated him. His
sunburnt face and callused hands seemed unworthy to romance the classy curves of these
little devices, which he had not dreamed of buying, anyway. Around them, people milled
about, their faces heavy with the same whimsical longing. Beside him, Maria gloated and
fidgeted. After a while, he shrugged. “Oh,
well. What was I thinking? I know you’ve already chosen.” “Yes, Tay,” Maria said, smiling. She blushed as she
awkwardly held a finger at a Nokia 3210. “Can we have that, Tay?” Her father looked at the phone’s
price tag, and made quick mental calculations. He felt the wad of money in his pocket. He
sighed; in a few moments, he’d be parting with it. For the past few months, Maria had
been pleading him for a phone. And no amount of telling her that they could not afford it
would dissuade her. She was such a sweet girl, and it had been breaking his heart not
being able to give her what she wanted. After all, she rarely asked for anything. So he
painstakingly saved something from his salary. He would often just walk the distance from
his house to the oil depot, or avoid little vices like smoking cigarettes and the
occasional gin. And after a few months, he
managed to save something like six thousand pesos—a feat he had never thought
possible, given the kind of salary he gets and the circumstances. And Maria had been very excited about
it. She woke up early this morning, helped her mother clean the house and cook their meal.
It was a Sunday, supposedly her 18th birthday, but instead of a party, they
just contented themselves with the spaghetti that swam in ersatz tomato sauce her mother
managed to cook for them. Today was the day, and
Maria knew they wouldn’t frustrate her. The phone Maria was eagerly pointing
at costs almost six thousand pesos. In one easy sweep, the precious money he had painfully
saved for the past months would finally change hands. But he really didn’t mind. He
looked at his daughter, ran an admiring fingertip on her cheek. “Yes, Maria. You can
have that.” The girl embraced him and said,
“Thanks a lot, Tay.” Maria’s eyes
glittered with delight. # Concept: A pimply teener approaches his mother
in the living room of an upper middle class home. He makes a joke about the
“need” to be always connected, pulling out of his pocket a long list of his
friends’ cellphone numbers. The mother looks at her son, amused. Tintin Gallardo shook her head.
“It sounds like the competitor’s ad. I want something more original.” “Then let’s make it a girl,
and her Dad,” Arnold said carelessly. “And let the girl do something funnier, so
that it instantly grabs the viewer’s attention.” “Let’s play with accents to
make it memorable,” another said. “The Visayan accent is good. People find it
funny. Let’s use it." “Then it ceases to be Gen
X,” Tintin said. “Let’s go back.” The group was silently uneasy for a
few moments. “Think about the culture of the
middle class,” Tintin said. “What do they want? What are the things they hold
dear?" “They only eat, work, shit and
sleep. Eat, work, shit and sleep.” “Okay,” Arnold said.
“I think suburbia, I think a girl, I think an important celebration where the
cellphone will play a major role.” “A girl’s 18th
birthday,” another said, beaming in the belief that she was contributing an important
morsel of idea. “It’s her birthday, but in the haste of all the preparation,
nobody was notified. Then the father presents her a precious gift: a tiny,
state-of-the-art cellphone. Then the phone rings, and voila! All her friends were singing from the
phone. It makes the girl very happy.” “It sounds ridiculous,”
someone remarked. “It’s an ad. The more
ridiculous it is, the more it becomes memorable. Think about the brand recall.” “We should have someone compose
a birthday song for her. Have Gary Granada do it. Something that already tells the
ad.” “Okay,” Tintin said,
looking at their faces, aware that creative juices were really beginning to flow.
“Let’s build on that. Any more suggestion?” # As soon as they got home, Maria went
to her room and browsed the phone’s manual. She then spent a few hours encoding all
her friends’ phone numbers, then texting them. She giggled as she read the responses;
she’s in now, she’s part of them, of
the world. “How do you operate that?”
her mother asked, sitting on the bed’s edge. Maria frowned. “It might be hard
for you, Nay. The keys are too small for your
fingers.” “Well, let’s see.”
Maria’s mother fumbled with the phone’s keys, error messages setting off
continuously. The girl laughed and took the phone
back. “You have to be careful, Nay,”
she said. “You might break it. This is expensive.” Her mother smiled, amused at her
daughter’s possessiveness. They had just painstakingly fulfilled her wish. It would
soon pass, she knew, but for the moment, they would enjoy it—as any parent would. # FART Communications approved the
first ad study presented by Baldacci and Cojones Ad Agency. The story was a take from any
young girl’s life, a bit warped to accommodate the imperatives of modern commerce.
The ad would be the first in a long series, presenting facets of a young girl’s life,
all revolving around the use of her cellular phone. It would be like a protracted
adventure. It would be cool—and very effective. It would inevitably rake in money. During a congratulatory dinner,
Tintin Gallardo told her little group about a new set of social values people like them
help create. Every new product, she said, needs the proper mindset, the right
conditioning. People create products, and products re-create people. It’s a cycle
that, apparently, profits everyone. There was a lot of champagne and
there was an acute, heady sense of triumph. And when the night ended, they slept soundly
in their beds. # As dawn cracked, Manuel slid open
their shanty’s makeshift door and watched the bluish glow lap the sleeping faces of
his little brothers. He abhorred waking them up; last night, they slept without eating,
and he knew how terrible their hunger pangs must be. They were squealing little brutes
when they’re awake, always confused about their fate, always failing to understand
why they were always had nothing to eat. Manuel was only in his mid-twenties,
but his gaunt, pale face and long hair made him look much older. He used to be a
contractual worker at a construction company, but economic troubles forced it to slow down
and issue pink slips to a lot of people. And he was among the hapless; apparently, he was
a faceless, expendable drone, and realizing it always made him deeply resentful. The air reeked of the stench from the
nearby estero. There was mud, flies everywhere,
already visible in the twilight glow. A puto
vendor hopped on broken blocks of bricks on the road, avoiding the mud. One of Manuel’s brothers stirred
in his sleep, the child’s wiry arms over his head. The early morning’s somber
hues depressed him profoundly. He gently ran his fingers through the child’s hair and
kissed him on the forehead. Then Manuel stood up, tucking a newly-sharpened ice pick in a
fold of his shirt. He would go to Plaza Santa Cruz, wait for a jeep, look for some money,
wait for the right fool. # Maria was pretty in her new school
uniform. This morning, she wore a certain patina of happiness; she was beaming, her hair
still wet, her smile impeccable. “Look at you,” her mother
observed. “You’re already a woman now.” Maria gave her a sweet smile as she
combed her hair before a mirror. “Don’t use your phone while
you’re walking,” her mother reminded her. “Of course, I won’t, Nay,” Maria said. “I’ve already
spent all my load.” “I’ve heard about thieves
preying on—“ “Nay, don’t worry,” Maria kissed her on
the cheek. “I’ll take care of myself.” Her mother stared at her as she
walked off, Maria’s figure growing smaller in the distance. She thought of how Maria
used to be so small, who would tug her hand just to get her attention. Now Maria had a
certain air of independence about her, and she felt she was losing her daughter. But
that’s how it has always been, she thought, and the most they could do was to take
comfort in memory. # Manuel had been sitting uneasily in
his seat. His heart had been throbbing like hell, sensing he might botch this up, this
plan, and he might end up in jail. Then what happens to his brothers? They would have no
idea where to find him. They would rot in that God-forsaken hovel. He cursed his fate
through his teeth and stared around, looking for a prey among the yawning passengers,
whose faces seemed cast in interminable boredom. The jeep’s driver upped the volume
of the radio, and the blare throbbed from speakers under the seats. Colloids of dust, of
dark car exhaust, curled in translucent presence about them. Manuel scratched his nose
nervously, felt the cold length of his ice pick tucked in a fold of his shirt. His guts
were starting to burn in hunger. He thought about his brothers, who would wake up
squealing moments from now. They would look for him, crawl toward the doorstep and sit
there for hours, blankly staring out, probably wondering whether they were destined to
always sit in the morning pallor like this, the world’s middle-class complacencies
alienating them. They would ask him why. And he, in desperation, would tell them
lies—lies that would only be effective until the next pang, until the next curtain
call. When the pretty girl boarded the
jeep, he forced himself to calm down. She sat beside him. He caught a whiff of her
scent—it smelled like jasmine or some cologne. He threw her furtive sideward glances;
she looked naive, easy to frighten, and she seemed to have something important in her
bag—she was clutching it as though afraid somebody would snatch it from her. A faint,
distinct beep, and he was sure she had a cellphone inside it. He looked at the other
passengers, who happened to be deep in their own universes, and waited for the right
moment. # Maria felt a pointed thing poking at
her side. Then the man beside him whispered, through his teeth, “Don’t speak a
damned thing, or I’ll bury this through your bone.” She looked down and caught a brief
glimpse of the spike. He began tugging at the bag. “Let it go,” he commanded,
still in a whisper. She glanced at the other passengers, but no one noticed. “Please, no,” she pleaded
in a broken whisper. She wanted to say a million things; she wanted to tell him how
important the bag’s contents was for her, how much her parents had sacrificed to buy
her a phone, how much she loved them and how much she’d hate to make them sad if
she’d lose it all just like this—just like this, a stranger telling her to give
it up, to forsake it, to let it go? In a flash, she recalled those long months of dreaming
about it, of finally getting it just the day before, and now what? But in a frenzy all her
thoughts collapsed, and all she was able to say was, “Please, no...” Maria hugged her bag, holding it
tighter to her body. “No please,” she begged, not looking at him. “No,
please, no, please, no, please...” She felt the pointed thing poking at
her rib. She closed her eyes, and held the bag even more tightly, wishing the man would
stop and walk away, thinking about losing her textmates, of the time she spent encoding
all her friends’ numbers. She said, “Please, no...” # “Let it go,” he hissed, but
the girl clung to her bag even more. He was frightened now—and suddenly
annoyed—and he didn’t know what to do. “Let it go,” he hissed, and
when the jeep jolted at a deep rut, followed by the deafening blare of horns, he suddenly
pushed the entire length of the ice pick into the space between her ribs, quickly pulled
it out, then pushed it again, pulled it out, then pushed it again, then pulled it
out—all in a matter of a few seconds. The ice pick’s peculiar spike left no
trace of blood, as it closed the wound when you pulled it out. He felt her body make quick
spasms, her eyes looking at him in shock and disbelief. The arms that hugged the bag went
limp, sliding on her lap. The cellphone inside the bag was beeping. He snatched it. He glanced at her face for the last
time, realized she was quietly dying, then bolted out of the jeep as it stopped at the
next intersection. The other passengers didn’t
notice; they yawned and cursed the traffic, thinking about the few precious minutes
they’d be late for the bundy clock, and the few precious pesos that would be deducted
from their salaries. # Seen from the 29th floor,
Ayala Avenue seemed artificial, like a plastic diorama. You could clearly see our
smallness from this distance; you could even choke with that fact—there, below her,
were tiny boxes of concrete in which people spend their whole lives, cooped in some tiny
cubicle sapping talent after talent for—for what? She didn’t have the answer. A
little beyond was the foggy, mist-covered Manila Bay, which from this distance seemed
surreal, like what Roberto dela Grivva must have seen from the gunwale of the Daphne: a
fragment of a dream that, after spending hours nibbling at its sweetness, begins to cloy. Tintin Gallardo was staring out the
glass window sipping her coffee. It was one of those lulls during a brainstorming session
when you’d want to take a breather from thinking and you’d want some space. But
thinking had become an incurable habit and even as she tried to relax, her neurons
squabbled among themselves to churn out thought after inane thought. Down there, she
thought, young people in suits and dark blazers would stand at their building’s
entrance and puff out smoke as though they knew the real workings of the world.
They’d chat about the latest business deal and talk about that stupid necktie that
strangles and ill-matches the shirt of that pathetic passerby. After all, we own the
world, don’t we? We own our time. We know exactly what to do with it. We thumb on our
mobile phones with a smug, deliberate detachment, confident with the fact that a salary
raise was inevitable. But at an altitude of a few thousand feet, with this view from the
29th floor, such values begin to vanish. Human lives become gray shades to a blotchy
image. Look at them down there, Tintin Gallardo thought, they lead crappy lives but they
don’t even know it. Or they know it but they have little else to do about it. What,
rage against how the world is? She was not part of it, she thought. She was on top of the
food chain. She created, not begged. She tugged at the strings that indirectly controlled
other people’s lives. She was helping to shape a brave new world. She walked
back toward the group slouching around the glazed round table. They were about to decide
on the story of the second installment ad, just one in a long series of a multi-million
peso campaign—one that would try to change the way little people think, one that
would attempt to create a new set of values that the world would eventually, inevitably
live by. -
END –
|
