Roman à clef (cont'd)

The vigorous activity at the apartment complex had dwindled to a whimper at eleven in the evening, after the fraternity brothers downstairs received a stiff warning from the landlady for their revelry. The cool evening breeze and the starry sky greeted the departing guests of the birthday party as the crowd of men stepped outside, taking leave of their host. The majority of the other residents had already turned in for the night, closing their doors to muffle the stiff bass from the music, which had plagued either their sleep or their studies that night.

Barring that of the birthday celebrant’s rooms, only one other apartment in the complex remained open that night. Its gaping doorway exposed the illuminated lodgings within, set behind the silhouettes of two men standing beneath the doorframe itself. A nearby wall propped up the remnants of a dilapidated door, battered from months of abusive kicks, as it stood to the side of the two conversing men.

“You sure you wanna do this, Rey?” asked Trevor Alunan, the quieter inhabitant of the door-less apartment. He lifted the door from its resting place and then slid it across the floor towards the doorframe. Instead of answering the question, the other man, Trevor’s roommate, remained silent, and then helped Trevor align the repositioned hinges against the side, the place where they had disengaged from the woodwork that afternoon.

Holding the door in place, Trevor watched his friend bend down to reach the plastic bag that served as their apartment’s makeshift toolkit. After a few moments, Rey reappeared, with a small screw and a screwdriver in his hands. The shadows accenting the grim determination in his features, Rey raised his arms, reaching up to set the first hinge flap on the door, and then held the point of the screw against the wood through the uppermost eye of the hinge.

“You know, the Palace has released photos of the rogue senator with the generals in the Makati mutiny. God, what are they thinking?” Trevor shook his head at what he considered as yet another effort to eliminate the senators from the opposition party by the current administration. “I bet it’s a complete fabrication to discredit the opposition. It’s a witch hunt, I tell you. The poor senator’s innocent, for crying out loud.” The only reply to his comment on politics came in the form of intermittent squeaks from the turning of his roommate’s screwdriver against the stubborn screw.

“Silent bastard tonight, aren’t we?” Trevor teased his uncommunicative friend. He had noted his friend’s sudden take of reserve ever since Rey returned to the apartment after his dinner with his classmate, Lyn Pascual. Failing to draw a response, he offered to help with his friend’s apparent ignorance of basic carpentry.

Rey snapped at Trevor’s offer of assistance. “Look, I know what I’m doing, okay? You may be the better writer, but don’t give me that crap about using a hammer. A hammer’s used for nails, dude, not for screws.” For a moment, Rey stopped his exertions and held the screwdriver to Trevor’s face. “They don’t call this a screwdriver for nothing, you know. Hell, you don’t know jack squat about woodworking, and I’ve done this a million times already. So don’t tell me what to do, okay?”

“She really got to you, didn’t she? William Sydney Porter comes to mind. Cherchez la femme. Find the woman behind every man.” Trevor’s lips curved into a smile while Rey continued to force the screw into breaking the surface of the wood. His tight-lipped smile grew even wider when a misapplied push sent the screw tumbling to the floor from Rey’s inept hands. “At least you’re no longer acting like an insufferable asshole as usual, Rey. What miracle drug did that slut feed you back there?”

Trevor did not flinch, even when Rey finally broke his silence after bringing up the screwdriver against Trevor’s neck in a most threatening manner. “Take that back, you bastard son-of-a-whore! She’s not a slut, and she was never a slut. Let me ask you: how the hell could you say that she’s a slut? You don’t even know her the way I do; hell, I had to listen to her life story for over an hour. That woman’s a frikking angel!” he retorted, livid with rage and trembling in exhaustion. Trevor’s reply only angered him further, and he could barely control his fevered emotions when he brandished the tip of the screwdriver in front of his friend’s unperturbed and listless face.

“You say that she was practically melting in your arms. I say that you got it the other way around. Remember, sluts use their bodies to get what they want. Miss Pascual used her beauty to have her way with you, and she got what she wanted. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“I hope you burn in hell, asshole. No, wait, I’d rather bury this screwdriver in your carotid artery if you don’t take it back.”

Trevor made no attempt to move away from the menacing screwdriver as he held on to his smile, unruffled by Rey’s murderous expression. “Use your brains, for once. You two were virtual strangers for the entire semester, and yet she just had to narrate her condensed autobiography to someone whom she barely knew.”

“She probably made up her whole life story to get at you,” Trevor continued. “Besides, why would a smart girl like her let a bastard like you feel her up as if she were your flavor of the month? Just face it: she didn’t cry into your shirt because you charmed her. She cried into your shirt because she wanted to use her feminine charms on you. Voila! Instant and willing editor; just add hot water.”

Rey cringed and turned away upon hearing Trevor’s mordant analysis. Trevor’s composed, impassive visage betrayed neither relief nor pride in victory after Rey lowered the pointed weapon and let his hands drop to their sides in defeat.

“I really, really hate you, Trevor.” Rey sighed, his emotions wreaking their havoc in his heart. His roommate’s merciless reasoning came as a shock to him, jolting him out of a rage that his feeble mind could not have checked in time. He couldn’t believe it, he wouldn’t believe it, but he knew that Trevor, for all his mild-mannered and tolerant nature, had the cold heart of a cynic, which nurtured a talent for turning the most innocent gesture into the vilest deed.

The cool midnight breeze, unobstructed due to the absence of a door, had wafted in through the room. In the process, it released some of the humidity from Rey’s sweat-soaked shirt, and some of the tension in Rey’s face. With an apologetic look, he bent down to get another screw from the toolkit. “She’s not a slut, and that’s it. She’s just under some weird delusion.” There is danger for him who taketh the tiger cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman, Trevor thought, remembering an old quote from Hafiz.

Rey went on. “The girl really thinks that I could do it. Makes me sick, to tell you the truth.” The melancholy faded from Rey’s face as his brow furrowed in tension yet again. “Just edit it for me, okay? I simply don’t want that girl to fail, that’s all.”

“She won’t fail. Miss Bea’s not that cold-hearted to deny her graduation. She just won’t get her cum laude, that’s all.”

“But she deserves nothing less than a cum laude! She didn’t do anything wrong, dude. Damn it; I feel so frikking powerless,” Rey barked, as he looked up at Trevor’s vacant stare. With bated breath, he awaited Trevor’s words of wisdom, secretly dreading what he had recognized, upon his journey home from dinner, as the more obvious, yet more difficult, strategy.

Trevor confirmed Rey’s fears. “The dragon lady likes you, doesn’t she? So why don’t you go and talk with her, instead of Lyn? She might not listen to poor, unfortunate Lyn, but there’s no way that she’ll ignore you. If you do have that wondrous way with women, you just might convince Miss Bea to give Lyn a higher grade than a three. How much grade does Lyn need to make the cut, anyway?”

“Woah, wait a minute!” Rey rebuffed Trevor’s simple proposal in exasperation by grabbing a screw by the head and holding it up determinedly in front of his roommate’s face. “Screw you, man! You already know that there’s absolutely no way that I’m going to grovel in front of a teacher for a grade.”

Trevor shrugged with half-lidded eyes, too sleepy to pursue the quarrel right away. So deceiving one’s instructors is okay, Trevor argued in his thoughts, but grading through personal politics is not. He was about to comment on this observation, when Rey cut him off.

“If she asks me to edit her essay for her, I’d gladly do it, no sweat. But I draw the line at begging like a whimpering dog. There’s no way I’ll do that in front of Miss Bea, just so that she’ll get a better grade.” Having found another screw, Rey resumed his former stance, and started applying pressure against that screw’s head once more.

After another minute of his ineffective labors, Rey complained, “Goddamnit, Trevor, are you sure these are wood screws?” Beads of sweat had formed on Rey’s arms and forehead as the screwdriver carried on with its frenzied yet fruitless turning. Rey whined “Aren’t these screws supposed to drill the holes by themselves? That’s why they’re called wood screws! But they’re not even making a scratch on this thing!”

With one arm akimbo, and both eyes gleaming with amusement, Trevor watched his roommate’s protracted difficulties with the relatively simple task. As if in payback for Rey’s frequent maltreatment of the door, the woodwork had rejected all attempts of penetration from the screw, leaving Rey without the additional bores needed for the hinges’ new and more secure positions. Rey took a moment to wipe away the sweat on his brow, before dropping the screwdriver and then rummaging through the toolkit again.

“What are you doing?” Trevor asked in puzzlement, only to stare in alarm as Rey rose from the toolkit holding a screw and a large hammer. “Rey, don’t tell me that you’re going to…”

The shark-like grin returned to Rey’s face when he explained his brilliant plan to foil the obstinacy of the wooden frame. “You see this, Trevs?” He held up the screw in front of Trevor’s anxious eyes for a second time. “This is either a wood screw that’s too broken to do its job, or just a nail with some thread wrapped around it. Right now, I’m inclined to think of it as the latter.” Setting the screw in position with a renewed vigor, Rey drew back his fist, which held the hammer’s arm in a tight grip.

“No, you idiot!” Trevor’s warning came too late, however, as the hammer’s head came into full contact with that of the screw. He squirmed upon hearing the thunderous noise from the impact, which broke through the stillness of the otherwise peaceful night. His friend then continued the relentless pounding, with each beat sending tremors through the concrete walls across the entire apartment complex. Unable to contain his disgust over his friend’s stupidity, Trevor caught Rey’s wrist before the hammer could do further damage.

“Hey, dumbass! Do you want to get us evicted?” Trevor hissed through his gritted teeth. “It’s one in the morning, Rey! Everybody’s asleep. Besides, if you hammer in the screw like that, the screw’s threads will destroy the doorframe.”

Rey shrugged nonchalantly at Trevor’s consternation as he set the hammer aside. “Hey, I just had to get the screw in part of the way, see?” He then took the screwdriver and started forcing the screw into the woodwork with ease. “Look, now that the threads start kicking in, it’s a piece of cake. I have the carpenter’s blood in my veins; trust me!” Having shrugged off his previous airs of agitation and somberness, Rey now felt proud of having unlocked an arcane and esoteric art that carpenters had kept secret from ordinary mortals like him, despite both his earlier difficulties and the fact that he had no previous carpentry experience. With a firmest grip that he could muster, he secured the screw with a final turn.

“Now that I’ve got the hang of it, I can finish the other eight screws in no time.” Rey said, as he stepped back to admire his latest work. Beaming in delight at the triumphant conclusion of a long and drawn out battle with a stubborn wood screw, he failed to notice Trevor reach down into the toolkit. Only when Trevor took his place in front of open doorway did Rey observe the rusty nail and the heavy hammer in Trevor’s hands. The thought of Trevor securing the hinges with simple nails brought out a chuckle from Rey, and he stepped back in order to see how Trevor would fare against the challenge of the door hinges, with what Rey considered to be inappropriate tools.

With no other sound save for a weary yawn, Trevor placed the point of the nail against the second hole in the hinge flap, and set his hammer only an inch or two above the nail’s head. Trevor’s technique took only a few quick but powerful taps from the hammer to insert the nail halfway through the woodwork, reminiscent of an accomplished sculptor smoothing out a carving with a mallet and chisel. The gentle knocks on the doorframe quickly faded into the darkness outside, barely noticeable compared to Rey’s violent hammering.

After pulling out the partly entrenched nail, Trevor planted the wood screw into the hole which was left in the nail’s place, and then took the screwdriver from Rey’s hand. Rey stood speechless at Trevor’s fast yet unhurried progress, as he continued to watch the silent and orderly methods that unfolded before him. The look of amazement and wonder in Rey’s face grew as Trevor fixed the hinge in place with a last strong turn.

“Woah, that was fast! Sweet!” With the interest of a child enthralled by the manual dexterity of a magician, Rey picked up the nail, the one that Trevor had used, off the floor, and then examined it under the dim light of the lone incandescent. “Hey, can you do that? I didn’t know you could do that. Cool.”

Trevor took his seat on the couch, and slowly sank back against the cushions into a reclining position. “Of course you didn’t, brainless. You don’t know how to write, you don’t know how to treat people with respect, and you don’t know how to fix a door. You’re such a jackass.” The sight of frustration and anger on his roommate’s face made Trevor heave a sigh of satisfaction, as he added another piece of unsolicited advice. “You really should think twice before making promises to such women next time.”

As he watched his friend apply the third screw in imitation of his method, Trevor mulled over Rey’s latest flame, and what good would probably come out of it in the end. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas, he thought, Pascal’s quote about one of the most powerful driving forces in the universe, the same driving force that had taken hold of his roommate’s otherwise pathetic life. I pity you, you poor, unfortunate dumbass, Trevor addressed his friend in his thoughts. I really pity you.

"Roman à clef", part four

Roman à clef (cont'd)

Related Links