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WORKS CONTRIBUTED BY MITCHIE ARCAINA |
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THE CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE
RELATED PAGES |
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LIKE FATHER LIKE SON LIKE CAR Contributed by Mitchie Arcaina The author wrote the following in 2003, when based in Manila after taking up Speech at the University of the Philippines; he is currently applying for scholarships and admission to the University of South Carolina. Bibi's Comment: This work contains a number of American spellings which are shown in the text in red.
A vocabulary list has been added by Mitchie to explain local terms. Links have been added to these words.
ESL NOTE: Mitchie's story generates the following three subjects for debate:-
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LIKE FATHER LIKE SON LIKE CAR My cousin Christian paid rapt attention to my rotund uncle who had a tough time recapping his lecture while he was teaching his son to ride a bicycle. It was a green ten-speed with shocks in the middle making it jerk every time the wheels swept across rough roads. My cousin thought it was a complicated model to start with. He told it to his father nonchalantly. But his father countered, “If you aim for the sky and fly you’ll fall on the roof. Better start planting your feet on ten-speeds, so you’ll manage to drive any bike there is in the future.” My cousin thought otherwise. but he hated polemics so he just did as he was told. He flew to Mexico a fortnight after and in Guadalajara, he endeavored to learn riding tandem bicycles, those that have two seats and a couple of handlebars and pedals. My uncle had proved to be a poor prophet. Christian obtained more bruises and scuffs than his finger can count before he had managed to do a faultless balance with another driver. He drove on for another six months and tried on coaster brakes. He stopped when he got circumcised, dated mulattos and bore chickenpox. He came home a year after very proud with scratches and pockmarks on his nape and all over his back, but he swore never to put his feet again on wheels that didn’t require keys to function. Never again. He often got taunted for his back marks whenever he played basketball half naked. “At least you can tell them you ruled the roost on those tandems and you rode them with Mexicans in sluttish skirts,” his father snapped absently in Spanish. This was very uncle. He had always made an argument visible whenever it’s invisible. One sticky Sunday, after hearing mass, I saw my voluble father in the garage wrapping up one more inch of his Marlboros. He was on the cordless phone with his loud-mouthed younger brother on the other end tendering a weekend proposal to teach my cousin car driving. I was twelve years old then and I can still recall how much I had wanted to drive Candido’s car – Faye – an 8-Valve Mitsubishi 1976 Galant. Canding, as affectionately called by his grandchildren, was a plump man who looked forty at his sixties. His eyes remained fierce at old age and he had always kept an epicurean disposition. He loved kids very much and when his grandchildren asked for illicit favors, he was the adult person to run to. After learning my cousin’s appointment with my father, I immediately bribed Lolo Canding into letting me join the weekend club. I gave him free cigarettes and Sprite and told him how much I wanted to test his car on the front road. I closed a quick deal. I thought six years was just enough hiatus before I acquired my own driver’s license. Christian and I spent what used to be a drab Saturday with mister-don’t-even-think-about-it-son. Dario knew me well. My father memorized my habits and before I even attempt to do some preposterous shots, he’d always be there, the point guard who goal-tends everything. The three of us are in the car all covered in sweat. “If you’re not sure what to step on, just pull up the
hand break and let the machine blackout itself. Don’t even think about
smacking Faye’s nose on that Christmas tree,” father warned Christian
while I’m ensconced on the backseat. That was his first among
many-to-come don’t-even-think-about-its for the day. There was a giant
Christmas tree erected in the middle of the driveway and as far as I knew,
it kept Christian jumpy behind the wheel the whole period of his lesson
with my father. I, being five years younger than my cousin, remained a sitting apprentice pretending I was enjoying my first day of lessons with Father. He told me he should teach Christian first because he was the visitor. My cousin popped in on Saturdays and Sundays to drive Faye and I continued my ephemeral relationship with the caterpillar pillow in the back. While Christian was bound for the gear, I was bound for the cushion until he learned to drive on his own. Deliverance arrived and it was my turn to step on the brakes barefooted. I remember toeing off the dust before I deposited the key in the hole. “Faye is mine for the taking,” I always said before I started up the engine. I felt jealous when Christian came over in my uncle’s 1979 Toyota Corona. He drove on his own now. His license lay quietly in his Seiko. But I was halfway through and there was no reason to envy him except that uncle had allowed Christian to bring his car without his eyes on him. I wasn’t certain if I’d enjoy the same fate he did. I also had my blunders. They were unusual; I cursed when felines blocked my way instead of ramming the horn, I swirled the radio dial in my attempts to increase the music volume and I released the lighter over his thighs when father endeavored to light his Marlboro. If there’s one mistake my father had inadvertently committed, it was teaching me to be overly dependent on the rear mirror. I invaded the bucolic highway with him looking terribly worried on my left. He was bothered I might knock one of the speedy sedans running past us once I swerved my way to the fastest lane. Everything was surreal. I never looked at side mirrors because looking sideward triggered a neck ache. There was still ample time to throw away. No wary cops. I felt independent and liberated. I thought if driver’s licenses were not canon, I could have thieved Faye from my parents everyday. Years passed and a few special laws and some amendments were realized. Those legislators were manna from heaven I thought. Seventeen year olds were allowed to apply for a license only with a parent’s consent. Even if father never allowed to get my derriere on Faye’s driver’s seat without him, I was pretty sure he’d be throwing all out support for my application. He penned a four-sentence letter of consent that went: I, Dario Arcaina, (the undersigned) give permission to
my son, to apply for his NON PROFESSIONAL DRIVER'S LICENSE.
My son knows our savings are not enough to bail him out if in case he
makes one wrong move and that makes me confident he’d be careful behind
the wheels. He learned traffic signs and driving when he was twelve years
old and I was his teacher. Let my son experience the highway. Christian was fagged
off when we left the licensing office.
Yet he continued to share his story about how he got his first license.
From the foyer to the car, he blabbed about how he had memorized
the answers from the reviewer and how he had conned the assessor into
passing him despite his lousy reverse. I, in contrast, told him how I was
frustrated for not getting a perfect 40 in the written exams. I was a
point short. My cousin asked impatiently why I was making such a big deal. I drove home carefully with scoffing eyebrows. I had a tight grip on the steering wheel. Christian’s car was more manageable. It was my first legitimate drive on the highway. “My parents’ savings aren’t enough for my bail so don’t dare make a mistake boy,” I warned myself as I drove past traffic lights. “Faye’s got a poor carburetor and the muddy mechanic thought it was irreplaceable. We’re buying another white,” father announced haughtily when I got home. “I think we really should buy a new one regardless of the carburetor’s condition,” I preached. “We don’t buy a pair of shoes just because the old ones are damaged you know,” I added diffidently. My opinion caught him off guard. “I beg your pardon?” “There’s such a thing as Aesthetics
otherwise everybody would start wearing combat shoes dad,” I answered
self-assuredly. “This is what you call good omens.” Rainstorms have arrived and we sold Faye for only twelve grand. We bought a second-hand Civic 1999 LXI. It wasn’t a limo though but it was good buy, with complete insurance, handsome black leather seats and a CD player. The new white was manual and powered. Becky, as it was christened on the same day it was brought in, came in handy over the next few months. I brought it to school since father didn’t bring it with him to the office. One evening after school hours, I stopped by a gasoline station to get some air for Becky’s front wheels. As I was searching for coins, I saw medicine tablets in the car drawer – the same medical tablets kept in Faye’s and I thought sleuths don’t need further probing to name the legitimate owner of my car. My college friends weren’t sleuths, but they have inimitable instincts to spot whether you own your coupe, or it’s just your father’s. I figured I had better place these drugs in my parents’ room since they won’t be useful to me. And so I did. But the car was still half very Dario and half very me. Driving had become part of my everyday routine. As everyone else in the school ran after jeepneys, I was blissfully nestled in Becky’s driver’s seat. Father had always reminded me that whenever a friend or two need a lift on my way home, it is munificent to offer them a ride especially in ill weathers. When passengers were aboard, I felt like the captain of a real ship. I was the soul and Becky’s just the body. All drivers know this (although some mothers who happen to be seated on your right when you drive them to the grocery store think otherwise). I remember after graduation, I joined my parents in the car on their way to the supermarket. While father loves shortcuts, mother is his living opposite. Although Consuelo is an authentic timesaver, she loathes my father when he does the “unnecessary trips.” The supermarket was thirty minutes away from school and forty from home. That day, father made it barely twenty minutes from school and barely twenty-five from home. Mother was furious. That post-graduation episode made me laugh and understood some similarities Father and I have (or maybe similarities Father, the rest of the drivers and I have). It's something born on the day you learn to drive, not
from the day you get your license. It’s
from the day you are betrothed to your car and vow to be its sole owner
for the rest of its life. Things have already changed. I was just the student twelve years ago. I’m the teacher now. I used to be the ambitious son but time flies too fast and before I knew it, I was the father of a child full of hope and energy. I played with my son and I found myself telling him, “Don’t even think about peeing on your chair you little boy,” or “Don’t even think about giving papa a headache or I won’t change your diapers.” I have my own trunk of don’t-even-think-about-its. I guess they’re father’s first installment of my future inheritance. “Hey, you’re father almost got a perfect score in that driving test buddy,” I always tease my son. He's never understood what I just said. He just chuckles. The happiness I have when I back up my son in his walker has always been so addictive. I’m sure one day he’d be wanting to play in that walker alone. He’d be in that walker without his father’s hands behind him. Oh gee I can’t wait to see my son drive Becky one day. Maybe not Becky. Maybe something else. |
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| I guzzled the waters of sweetness from a teapot My nubile tongue tasted the rapture of the morning drink I nailed my eyes through the wind to marvel at the fleet of gulls far off the quiet sky As the gulls fly away quietly Like the coffee in my shallow cup, we are brewed of blues and bliss, of forgotten music, of saccharine tunes, of resurrected allegories Bittersweet memories have ensnared tales of my vicissitudes Yet they have liberated meaningful dreams I woke up to the beauty that soars above the sea, I looked at them as they fly away quietly What future awaits me that these feathers foretell? What prophesy rests in their gracefulness? The wind blew hard, fast-forwarded a tempest Clouds hovered in fury, wept in grief Drenched my dreams in a torrent It was the most nightmarish seascape, an unexpected call from an incensed visitor, who crept like a silent murderer Thunder ripped my thoughts to pieces, slain my senses To the beauty that once seemed nearby, forever, Until the harsh music of catastrophe played -- a stentorian ring I am now alone, with beauty gone forever Mourning by the shadows of solitude, over the death of an inspiration It is no panoramic metamorphosis; it was sudden, cataclysmic, unwanted Now pain usurps the throne of happiness, a fiendish companion, heavy and sore My heart is broken and the pieces lie in a storm |
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