It is 10:00am in Manila and the sun weighs heavy heat upon everything it touches. The echolalia of the metropolis. It buzzes its way into Marites’s cochlea. She is cognizant of claustrophobia. All sweaty bodies press against each other like canned sardines.
This multitude is here for one reason and one reason alone.
Wil is showering thousand-peso bills to thousands of faithful fans waiting outside his 80-story condominium. It is his 60th birthday today. Wil has decided to bless the world by redistributing his wealth to the audience member who can cry the hardest, and whose story is the cruelest. Viewers back home would love that! Filipinos LOVE drama. Filipinos LOVE when the poor girl has the rags to riches story. Inside the television screen, this fantasy of a better life could be fulfilled and it is Wil’s job to make that happen during the afternoon prime time, when housewives are at home, tweezing out tiny strands of white hair from the top of their head. Wil’s choreographed smile, calculated to reach his eyes, like a muscle, has been trained for melodrama. It knows how to enrapture a room full of sweaty wrinkly elderly bodies. The spotlight eclipses his existence.
From below, the phallus of concrete makes Marites wet. This empire, like every other empire, is built on money. And Marites wants some of it. Even the tiny scraps that fell from Wil’s table. A little taste of that filthy million. In the chaos of it all, Marites stands among a crowd with her tarpaulin.
“HAPPY 60TH BDAY, IDOL WIL. WE LOVE YOU! GOD BLESS YOU!”
The sparkly WordArt text screams beside a pixelated picture of Wil who smiles with dead eyes against a starry background. It looks straight-up out of a psychedelic dream. But Marites holds up the technicolor tarpaulin with pride behind the metal barricade that separates her from Wil’s residential building. Her hair is pinned with a brown plastic barrette. Her customized Win With Wil! cap is now drenched in dust and dirt. Sweat mars the armpits of her neon yellow shirt, which reads: WIL YOU MARRY ME?
Marites’s face is red with sweat under the haze of the acetate face shield and her face mask. Marites braved the streets even with Covid-19. The pandemic didn’t stop her from the three-hour commute involving two tricycles, three jeepneys, and ten kilometers of brisk walking from her house to here. She knows every nook and cranny of this metropolis by memory. Andres used to drive her around the city for date nights. This is the luxury of love that she no longer knows. The past decade has been cruel with steps.
With her is Eva, her pimple-faced 20-year-old daughter who came along out of concern—nay, pity—for her mother. In her hand, she holds the deflated Wil balloons her mother bought for the celebration. They left their house at midnight and they have been here since 3:00am, when the streets were filled with ghosts of the busy day, the time before roosters crowed. It is called the devil’s hour for a reason. Eva has been growing invisible devil horns since that ungodly hour, boiling with the heat of hell because she could have stayed at home. She could have laid on her bed watching K-Drama from her 10-year-old laptop. She could have done anything except hang out with her mom. But even the spicy drama of her Facebook timeline can no longer pacify her boredom.
“Let’s go home, Ma.”
“He’ll come out any time now. I’m telling you.”
“You’ve been saying that since we got here.”
The two sit among a crowd of four thousand other avid fans who are also waiting for the venerated television idol to come down from his high-rise tower.
A group of female senior citizens sits beside their crutches while waving their Jesus of Nazarene folding fans. Mothers with shirts lifted. Breastfeeding their infants near the entrance of the air-conditioned convenience store. Cooling themselves with the air that escaped the gaps of the transparent glass door. There are overdressed teenagers. Yelling expletives at each other. Fighting for their own place under the cool waiting shade. On the other side of the street, the policemen watch amused. Sitting in the shade with an electric fan pointed in their direction. After arresting five men earlier that day who fought with fists to see Wil, the cops’ job is done now. Now, they can rest in peace.
Wil was worshiped. Marites’s noontime ritual involved watching the variety show Win With Wil! because something was entertaining about him showering old women with cash while he danced around and lip-synced to his multi-platinum hits beside twenty female dancers who wore nothing but bright pink sequined bikinis. The dizzying synesthesia of the show lights was loud, screaming at her face, saying, “I’m here. I’m here.”
When the camera pointed at every corner, everyone in the show was happy. The cameramen would zoom in and out of the wacky faces of strangers who were living their five minutes of fame on national television. Everyone jiggled their bodies profusely to the loud bass of the drums while some backflipped to get Wil’s attention, who himself gave away wads of cash to those who stood out from the crowd. And because of all the pyrotechnics, balloons, and confetti, Marites has found herself ensorcelled for ten years, two hours every day, laughing and crying maniacally at her TV screen while Eva sat beside her pulling small gray hairs with a tweezer.
Win With Will! gave Marites the adrenaline rush of her youth, when she was stick-thin and glammed up with lipstick and cakey foundation with no C-section scar on her belly. This was the time before the sorrow of widowhood, before their family business declared bankruptcy, before the birth pains of raising an angsty teenage girl alone while barely making enough as a public elementary school teacher.
Ever since she retired from the classroom, everything in her life has become dreary. At least in school, she could entertain herself with the laughter of children, the gossip of colleagues, and the woes of grade-conscious parents. In addition to that, occasionally, there were pupils who stood out from a room of sixty others—like Levi. O, sweet and quiet and little Levi. That shy, quiet boy, who’d spend every recess memorizing the names of plants from a book he brought from home. The other children would tease him for his coke-bottle glasses, but Marites knew he was destined for something else. Once, during a trip to the zoo, while the other students harassed the elephants, Levi shuffled over and tugged on Marites’s pant-cuff.
When she looked down, an injured robin, with its beak gawked open, lay twitching in his open palms. She saw that the boy was crying. They buried the creature together, with napkins from her purse, in the mulch by the picnic tables, and Marites brightened when she saw that Levi had been comforted by the small ceremony of their grief. He had been solaced by the recognition they’d given the bird. Because even a little boy sensed that, when there was nothing else to give, all you could give was respect.
But now, all her anxieties are devoted to the price of things. Pork is expensive. Rice is expensive. Gasoline is expensive. It costs too much to stay alive. But all of that fades when Wil sings Do Do Do Da Da Da. The funky guitars of Wil’s hits remind Marites that she has a body. She has birthing hips to shake.
Despite being an avid diehard fan of the show, Marites never would have imagined herself as lining up to see Wil a decade ago. Eva was just ten. Andres’s bakery was thriving. Andres was still alive and they loved each other dearly. Marites was able to buy #2 pencils, notebooks, and crayons for her students in the class. But a lot can happen in ten years. Life swerves toward the tragic and Marites knows this more than anyone else.
When Marites found out that Andres was cheating with a younger brunette in their own bed, it wasn’t the first time. Marites changed all the locks in the house and placed her husband’s folded clothes in front of their gate. He called the bakery his home before it was gone. Marites remembers how much he begged every night, howling at their gate like a dog. But he took away so many things from Marites. Her dignity. Their business. The car Marites saved up for with her meager earnings as a teacher. Andres left and he took everything with him. Marites raised Eva alone. She paid for her daughter’s tuition with clay-dusted coins harvested from a broken piggy bank. She went to school selling tocino and longganisa to her co-teachers. She was forced into selling cookies, leche flan, and her own blood. Marites built herself from the ground up with what was left of the ruins. But when Andres died in the bakery fire, when the exit signs were nowhere to be found, Marites was back to square one.
And so, ever since Marites saw the Facebook post, she knew that it was the sign that even as the stench of bakery smoke smoldered in the back burner of her mind, and the memory of her mistress’s body defiled her marriage bed, God heard her. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. They will fall from the opened floodgates of heaven, or the floor-to-ceiling windows of Wil’s room on the 84th floor of his condominium. Wil was a messianic philanthropist. In his bank account was the ability to change millions of lives, including Marites’s. Wil’s money beheld his face and everyone begged for a glimpse of him.
Marites looks to the 84th floor of the condominium, imagining Wil lying down in his bed of millions. When the clock strikes three, a generous confetti of ample bills will snow down from the sky.
But today, Marites will go home as a changed woman. Today, she will have enough for once. As she looks up to the sky, she remembers the years she beheld loss face to face, unfazed by death staring her down. She has nothing left to give and nothing left to lose. She might as well just spend her time waiting and waiting and waiting.
A thousand feet above Marites, Wil is waiting as well.
“When will they leave?”
From above, the people below him look like specks of dust that move in small strides. It’s been a year since the pandemic started and now people are sick, not of sickness, but boredom. Elderly women hate nothing but doing nothing. And so, they flocked here like birds, hungry for the crumbs that fell from the master’s table. Wil walks away from his windows to sit down on his custom-made Boca do Lobo luxury sofa that he bought from the US. The price of this couch can buy him about ten human kidneys.
But no one cares.
Wil takes a swig of whiskey. This has been his life for the longest time. He is sixty years old now. Wil has been working as a television host for the past ten years. He knows it is not the most glamorous job in the world, but it pays. But now, Wil wonders if this is all he’ll ever be—a gray-haired, middle-aged bachelor who gets drunk midday to feel alive. He should become more grateful. He is loved and supported by millions around the globe, even Overseas Filipino Workers from the US, London, and Australia. But things, no matter how good they are, lose their charm with age. And now, everything around him is old and dull, including himself.
Wil from Win With Will! is no longer Wilberto the drummer boy who toured and recorded with rock bands in the 80s. He used to have whiplash from getting drunk while playing the drums. He used to have enough money to go home to his studio apartment. He used to walk alone under orange street lights at 3:00am, wasted beyond reason. Wilberto made some stupid decisions then but he was happy. That’s all Wil could ever ask for today.
Looking back, Wil should have killed himself then. At least he did what he loved most and not hugging sweaty strangers who kept asking for pictures wherever he went. He could have escaped lip-syncing cheesy ballads with I-V-IV chord progressions. He could have not drowned in confetti on the daily.
Over the years, Wil has grown to hate the show with a seething passion. The stock laughter. The funky guitar shreds. The dizzying strobe lights. But most of all, he hates the look of desperation from fans who come to him with mechanical tears and snot that fall as if on cue, with stories about their children and spouses dying with every disease one could name. Help. Help us, Wil. Please help us. We are poor. We are hungry. We are dying. Please give us money. We know you’re a good person. Help us etc. etc. Every day, Wil is held at gunpoint on national television. How could he say no?
Being under the spotlight has made him the object of this monstrous panopticon. The people talked about starving to death and not having a job and not being able to commute to their workplaces blah blah blah. Wil feels nothing.
Is it bad that Wil no longer feels anything when he hears their strife? He, too, was unemployed once! And it was the happiest years of his life. He was tethered to nothing. He could get wasted without the paparazzi chasing him down for a story. All his worries were devoted to making the snare sound tighter. He wanted his daughter and his wife to be proud.
Then the hosting gig. Girls. Gambling. No daughter. No wife.
Wil knows that the people just want to take home the jackpot money, the brand new car, and the house-and-lot in a gentrified subdivision on the outskirts of Manila. Wilberto, his past self, had it so much easier. Even when he didn’t have enough, at least he didn’t have that guilt weighing down on him.
The only good thing about being rich is Wil can absolve his guilt by giving away wads of money. Wil is good but Wil is not a good man. The tabloids are right. He had everything he could ever ask or dream about and it made him immovable. Ten years ago, he landed the TV hosting job. And now, no one can fill in his shoes—not even himself.
“Sir Wil, the camera will start in three minutes,” his manager says under her mask.
“I want to kill myself.”
“Sir Wil, we need to touch up your makeup first.”
Wil sits down and lets his makeup artist take away the shine from his face using a setting powder. When the camera turns on, he will no longer be the sad mopey Wilberto who hates money. He will become Wil who wants to share his blessings and make people happy even at the cost of his own happiness. In the background, the C-major chord strikes.
Showtime.
Wil is on top of the world. And he is there, alone.
Down in the streets, the sardined people stand six feet apart. Because of the heat, some of them have bared their faces to breathe. It’s better to die of lung disease than shortness of breath. But it’s 1:00pm. The cops have been shouting through megaphone speakers for the past hour. They’ve been complaining about how Filipinos are born to be stubborn. It runs in their blood! This also means Marites won’t give up without a fight. Her husband was killed. She raised a teenager alone. Marites has the power to demand what she needs. She borrowed money from her neighbor to pay for the fare to be here. The least she could ask for was a few coins from Wil for her ride home.
When Marites receives the money from Wil, she’ll buy tocino, longganisa, and leche flan and start an online food business with Eva. She’ll buy a car and drive herself around the city. She’ll go on dates with Eva and put on makeup again. She will dress up and let her hair down again. But before Marites can even continue daydreaming about what she’ll be using the money for, Eva holds up the tiny screen of her phone to her mother’s.
“Ma, I think we were scammed.”
Wil released a video on Facebook about the money that was supposed to be given away. How it turned out to be fake news. How the studio can’t hand out cash because of the pandemic’s restrictions. The money carried the virus or something.
In a few minutes, everyone in the crowd holds up their phones to their faces as apologies are thrown out. Elderly women faint. Teenagers yell more expletives at the cops. Men walk home. Wil knows this and he can’t do anything about it but watch their angry faces on his 98-inch flat-screen 8K TV. He sees the tears welling up their bloodshot eyes and proceeds to pour himself another drink. Tonight will be a long night for everyone.
Hour by hour, the crowd thins out. Wil remembers that he is alone.
Marites rolls up her tarpaulin and puts it in her bag. Eva holds in her hand the strings of the Wil balloons her mother bought earlier today. She lets go of them out of disappointment and they float into the blue-black sky, levitating into smallness, making their way up the 84th floor of Wil’s condominium. To be that weightless is all that Marites longs for, to be untethered to gravity, to be light.
But before the balloons can even rise to see Wil, they collide with the electricity lines in front of the building. After five seconds of melodrama, they light up the night with fire suspended twenty feet mid-air. And in that split second, Marites remembers the fire that burned down the bakery. How Andres was there. How Eva looked so much like him. How her daughter remains to be the only remnant of their love. Wil was Marites’s only hope for a better future for Eva and herself; one without ten-kilometer walks and sweaty Win With Wil merchandise. But the pixelated being on the screen has failed her.
“Let’s go home.”
The night is crepuscular in its beauty and underneath it Marites and Eva walk home. The two women plod to the jeepney stop with footsteps heavier than the earth, even when their stomachs are empty from the 22-hour-long excursion. Eva doesn’t even complain. She trails behind her mother in silence.
Marites has resolved that she will live poor and die poor. Because she decided that her husband didn’t deserve another chance to be loved. Because a rich man on TV couldn’t give her money. Because her daughter is still in school. Because Marites was not paid enough as a school teacher. Because she’s neck-deep in debt and for most of her life she’s been keeping her head above water. Because even though she knew in her heart that God wasn’t punishing her out of spite, she will not have financial security in this life. Maybe in the next. But what good is that when she’s dead?
“Ma’am Tes?”
A man’s voice snaps Marites out of her reverie. He looks at her as if he knows her from her previous life. Levi.
All those years Marites thought that this was all that life had to offer her. She will descend into the grave without an inch of respect left for herself. That’s what poor people do. They die in silence. The poor cannot pay enough money to be remembered. Marites does not have the luxury of Wil’s love, who will die with a stadium of mourners, with a reef of bouquets that scalpeled love on a sky of diamonds. At the end of his life, all of his wealth could buy him all this love.
But right now, Marites is remembered by Levi. And in that moment of recognition, she’s no longer another bullwhipped teacher under the puppet strings of the institution, gallivanting on a minimum wage salary to keep herself and her daughter alive.
This is all that life has to offer her—scraps of a life that she can no longer have—but Marites is happy for once, all because of a student’s saccharine remembrance. Here. Here is her place.
“How are you, Ma’am?”
