rally, where Christ is the answer to unanswerable Boolean questions. If you look closely, there’s Reverend Martin onstage, in his metallic double-breasted suit and happy-colored tie: a man of God and man of the people whose faith earned him financial security and a mansion in a gated subdivision.
Modern Manila. She who once was the Pearl of the Orient isnow a worn dowager, complete with the hump, the bunions, the memories of the Charleston stepped to the imported and flawlessly imitated melodies of King Oliver, the caked-on makeup and the lipstick smeared in thick stripes beyond the thin, pursed lips. She, the trusting daughter of East and West, lay down and was de stroyed, her beauty carpet-bombed by her liberators, cautious of their own casualties, her ravishment making her kindred to Hiroshima, Stalingrad, Warsaw. And yet, from the air you think her peaceful and unflustered. On the ground is a place tangled with good intentions and a tyrannical will to live. Life works with the Lord’s benevolence and a generous application of duct tape and Filipino ingenuity. Five hundred years ago Spanish conquistadors sailed their wooden ships into the world’s most perfect harbor to begin their mission of, as historians say, God, gold, and guns; their walled fortress is still there, as is their religion and blood, but the gold they, and others, took with them, or apportioned among their few native deputies. Manila has changed much since. It’s changed so little. If you know where to look, this is the most exciting city in the world.
The airplane’s wheels touch down. The passengers clap.
*
The spectators watch the action eagerly. At the intersection, stranded cars block Antonio’s way. Our hero slows. Eagle-eyes search for Dominador. There he is! He’s abandoned his Jet Ski and is running up the stairs of the pedestrian overpass. “Santa Banana,” Antonio mutters. “If he gets through, he’ll make it into the shopping arcade, and I’ll never find him in that crowd.” Antonio revs his Jet Ski ferociously. It speeds across the water, between buses, between taxis, their occupants blinking at what they’re witnessing. Antonio builds velocity, his black leather jacket flapping like a cape. He jerks his vehicle to the right, heading straight for a half-submerged car. The Jet Ski slides over its hood, up its windshield, and flies through the air, Antonio hunched over the handlebars. Man and machine arc higher and higher, the engine screaming like a banshee in heat. He lands on the pedestrian overpass, the Jet Ski’s underside trailing sparks as it slides over the cement. The fleeing Dominador looks behind him, wide-eyed and stupid-looking. The Jet Ski closes in. Antonio leaps over his handlebars, like a gazelle through the air, and tackles Dominador. They tumbletogether. Antonio whispers in his ear, “If you don’t mind, I really prefer being on top.”
—from
Manila Noir
(page 57), by Crispin Salvador
*
A woman cries out from the rear of the plane, silencing the applause. Seat belts click, click, click. Passengers rush to the windows on the right. Over someone’s head I can see, beyond the gleaming new terminal, rain clouds, dark and heavy. Two pillars of evil black smoke, clambering up in the distance, seem to hold the heavens up. At their feet, fire.
2
These are the broad themes: enigmas, dreams, mythologies, the tyranny of absence, the shortcomings of language, deciduous memories, endings as beginnings.
—from
Autoplagiarist
(page 188), by Crispin Salvador
*
That part about my seatmate in the plane and his wad of falling money didn’t happen exactly as I recounted. That last bit about his coming home for his children, that wasn’t accurate, either. If I had spoken to him, I reckon that’s what he’d have said. In a way, I wrote that part for him. He became more than the guy beside me with annoying manners. What I said that he said to me, I could see that in him. But no, I didn’t talk to him. When he
Modern Manila. She who once was the Pearl of the Orient isnow a worn dowager, complete with the hump, the bunions, the memories of the Charleston stepped to the imported and flawlessly imitated melodies of King Oliver, the caked-on makeup and the lipstick smeared in thick stripes beyond the thin, pursed lips. She, the trusting daughter of East and West, lay down and was de stroyed, her beauty carpet-bombed by her liberators, cautious of their own casualties, her ravishment making her kindred to Hiroshima, Stalingrad, Warsaw. And yet, from the air you think her peaceful and unflustered. On the ground is a place tangled with good intentions and a tyrannical will to live. Life works with the Lord’s benevolence and a generous application of duct tape and Filipino ingenuity. Five hundred years ago Spanish conquistadors sailed their wooden ships into the world’s most perfect harbor to begin their mission of, as historians say, God, gold, and guns; their walled fortress is still there, as is their religion and blood, but the gold they, and others, took with them, or apportioned among their few native deputies. Manila has changed much since. It’s changed so little. If you know where to look, this is the most exciting city in the world.
The airplane’s wheels touch down. The passengers clap.
*
The spectators watch the action eagerly. At the intersection, stranded cars block Antonio’s way. Our hero slows. Eagle-eyes search for Dominador. There he is! He’s abandoned his Jet Ski and is running up the stairs of the pedestrian overpass. “Santa Banana,” Antonio mutters. “If he gets through, he’ll make it into the shopping arcade, and I’ll never find him in that crowd.” Antonio revs his Jet Ski ferociously. It speeds across the water, between buses, between taxis, their occupants blinking at what they’re witnessing. Antonio builds velocity, his black leather jacket flapping like a cape. He jerks his vehicle to the right, heading straight for a half-submerged car. The Jet Ski slides over its hood, up its windshield, and flies through the air, Antonio hunched over the handlebars. Man and machine arc higher and higher, the engine screaming like a banshee in heat. He lands on the pedestrian overpass, the Jet Ski’s underside trailing sparks as it slides over the cement. The fleeing Dominador looks behind him, wide-eyed and stupid-looking. The Jet Ski closes in. Antonio leaps over his handlebars, like a gazelle through the air, and tackles Dominador. They tumbletogether. Antonio whispers in his ear, “If you don’t mind, I really prefer being on top.”
—from
Manila Noir
(page 57), by Crispin Salvador
*
A woman cries out from the rear of the plane, silencing the applause. Seat belts click, click, click. Passengers rush to the windows on the right. Over someone’s head I can see, beyond the gleaming new terminal, rain clouds, dark and heavy. Two pillars of evil black smoke, clambering up in the distance, seem to hold the heavens up. At their feet, fire.
2
These are the broad themes: enigmas, dreams, mythologies, the tyranny of absence, the shortcomings of language, deciduous memories, endings as beginnings.
—from
Autoplagiarist
(page 188), by Crispin Salvador
*
That part about my seatmate in the plane and his wad of falling money didn’t happen exactly as I recounted. That last bit about his coming home for his children, that wasn’t accurate, either. If I had spoken to him, I reckon that’s what he’d have said. In a way, I wrote that part for him. He became more than the guy beside me with annoying manners. What I said that he said to me, I could see that in him. But no, I didn’t talk to him. When he
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