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Jay�s Literature Page
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| Last updated: 05 Sep 2006 |
(2001-2003)
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Commotion with the Newly Weds
When it dawned on us, Fredericko and me, at the exact moment of left-turn on the corner of Fairfax and Ahmir Streets, in the semi-exclusive village where we lived in the early years of our marriage, that we were being followed, we didn't immediately bother ourselves wondering where the suspected stalker had started following us. Fredericko's first impulse, as I remember clearly even after many years afterwards, was to step on it and attempt to lose the potential evil-doer. This decision, however, didn't prove to be all that wise, for aside from the strict 10-kph limit being implemented in that area, that left turn on the corner of Fairfax and Ahmir Streets was the last turn before reaching our house, not more than two hundred meters away. If there was any immediate good this abrupt acceleration did at all, it was to bring us to the gate of our house some ten seconds earlier than it would otherwise have. Nevertheless, given the circumstances, a ten-second head start from possible harm was not bad at all. We hurried out the car. No more the chivalrous young-husband-opening-the-car-door-for-his-young-wife as we often see on Tagalog films of the 80's; I threw open the door as soon as the car had come to a stop. I ran to the gate, and was already unbolting it when I heard Fredericko alight. I turned to him once, more to gleam whether he was in a state of panic or not, than to be accusatory of his having neglected to grease the gate's bolt for two consecutive Sundays already. This made the opening of our gate not only squeaky, but also cumbersome. What I saw could have been the worst expression of helplessness I had seen in my husband in all the years of knowing him. Fredericko's face was beaded with sweat, his lips were gently trembling, and his nostrils were flaring with every breath. He almost went and knocked the gate open when he reached me--he grabbed the handle from my hold, and in one great exertion, was able to unlock it for us. He was still gentlemanly enough to let me in first, though--an action that was at the same time smart; while it allowed me, the one with the door key, to open the front door for us, it left him at the gate, which he could lock back with his much stronger hands. Inserting the key thus to the lock in our heavy oak front door, I began to look for any justification at all for someone's going out of his or her way to follow me and my husband in our place of dwelling, and create all that excitement. Was it an enemy? Could it have been someone either or both of Fredericko and I had recently, unwittingly offended? A professional/business rival? Someone we had unknowingly wronged, like overtaken at the grocery counter perhaps? It didn't make sense to me--and it wouldn't for a long time--why someone would go through all the trouble terrorizing us, especially that my husband and I were two very peaceable people. We didn't have any enemies. We were on friendly--genuinely friendly--terms with almost everybody we came across with in each of our respective professions. We dealt fairly and honestly with those who did business with us, taking only profits that were but prescribed by Law for us to take. We never even had issues with our in-laws; like us, the families we both came from were peace-loving and never had a history of violence. In my inability to justify the motives of someone attempting to hurt us, warm tears of shock and frustration fell on my face. What has this world come to, I remember asking myself, where people won't even let you come home in peace? Just then, I felt my husband behind me, his palms cold on my shoulders. "That open yet?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. Tears now rolling down my cheeks, I nodded, as I stepped inside the house before him. It was at that moment when we heard the loud crash of the car following us smashing against our own car. Quickly, Fredericko followed. We locked the front door immediately after that, foolishly hoping that whoever was following us would be discouraged by the sight of a locked door. We were not two seconds, however, from enjoying the security of being in our own home when we heard our squeaky gate being opened. One look out the window showed us that we were actually being pursued not by one, but by two men of evil intent. "Call the police!" Fredericko said, as he rummaged our shoe closet with whatever he could use to defend us should the evil men successfully enter our house. In any case, we were pretty secure behind the locked front door. It was a big, heavy door, with strong hinges and locks. Anyone wishing to force their way in would have to use a battering ram, like what they have on them movies. I ran to the phone, flipping over pages of the year's phone directory for the emergency numbers: I didn't have them memorized. Meanwhile, the sound of our gate being opened ceased, and I knew any minute they would be forcing open our front door. This they did, almost at the exact moment I had anticipated them to. The body of one of the men thudded against the solid door, then the next. They tried it about eight times each, before finally they, along with my husband and myself, realized that they couldn't get to us inside our house. In frustration, one of them hit our window with his arm, which, unfortunately for him, had an iron grilling exactly for purposes of protecting us against evil people. I almost found myself laughing in relief. I was standing there, the phone in my hand, the phonebook already turned to the page where the emergency numbers were, and I was half crying in panic, half laughing in triumphant relief. Those who wanted to bring us harm couldn't. Fredericko had the same expression of relief himself. Yes, there were obviously people having ill intents towards us, but without actually, physically being close to us, how could they do to us the evil that they wanted? My husband and I were in the safety and security of our own home. It may not be as expensive a home as we would have some five, ten years from that night, but it was enough to provide us with the safety of being out of harm's reach. We were inside, and the bad people were out. With this in mind, and in the foolishness of my young years then, as a wife of only a little over twenty years, I didn't proceed to call the police, and instead put the phone down and went straight to my husband's arms. If there was anything I wanted to do then, it was to start, with my husband, jeering at the bad people's thwarted attempts to hurt us. The picture I had in mind was my husband and I, laughing at them, our fingers pointed at them through the slits in between the protective grills of our window. I got a brief glance at them beyond the window. They were two failed men who weren't even able to execute what it was they were supposed to execute. They were whispering to each other when I saw them, discussing between themselves, I was sure, how in the world they had failed. All of a sudden, they dispersed, removing themselves from our sight. I thought then that they had given up, and were going away. I had no idea at that time how dreadfully wrong I was. Just as Fredericko and I had a good head start turning the last corner to our house, the bad guys this time had a head start from us, running to our backdoor. In fact, Fredericko and I didn't realize they were heading for the backdoor had we not heard one of the men topple over one of the vases we had on the side of the house. "They're heading for the back door!" Fredericko said. "It's not locked," I said, remembering that it was our habit not to lock the backdoor when we went out, in the event that we lost or forgot the key to the front door. No sooner had the words left my lips that I found Fredericko and I dashing to get to the back door; we could still lock it before the bad guys got there. We were already too late, though. At the exact moment Fredericko reached the back door, the bad guys were pushing it open from the other side. The door hit Fredericko rather violently on the face, giving him a cut in the forehead, which immediately bled. Thankfully he didn't lose consciousness, and he was still able to apply some force against the two evil men pushing on the other side. I shrieked, like a proper wife at the sight of her bleeding husband would, but nonetheless I helped pushing close the backdoor. Already, the bad guys had the advantage of the half-to-an-inch that they had the door open, since they got there first. Fredericko and I, though, we never gave up. Bleeding and all, we pushed and pushed to keep harm literally out of our doors. Obviously, we won that little battle of the backdoor. Had we not, I personally do not know if we would even be here alive today. It's now twenty years afterwards, see--twenty years to the day since that horrible event in our married life. Twenty years... so many things happened to us in twenty years--better cars, better employers, more expensive homes, a daughter (who is now finishing up her last units in a state college in an obscure valley province), some small dangers too, like intrigues in the office, slight misunderstanding with certain relatives, unworthy suitors to our daughter, arthritis. But I can say, though, that if there was something in all our lives that we came closest to harm, it was that day when those men followed us home. For me to be able to tell you how we had managed to win the backdoor for the ultimate safety of indoors, it is essential that I first describe the appearance and general make of our backdoor. It is not as big and strong as our front door, although it was made of thick, solid wood nonetheless. Its locks, too, weren't as strong as those attached to our front door. It had a simple door knob, with two bolts for added support when closed, one on the upper part and one on the lower part. Given that the men had the door a bit open, these locks were of no use to us. Thus I come now to mentioning the final piece of hardware attached to our back door that ultimately gave us the victory: a solid bronze door chain, given to me as a wedding gift by an officemate, Kidd Jugro. And to think that on our wedding day, I thought that Kidd Jugro's door chain was such a strange, ridiculous item to receive! That day, I saw its purpose, and consequently realized that for all the expensive gifts my husband and I received on our wedding day, it was from my old officemate, Kidd Jugro, that we would receive the one that could really, literally, save our lives. I used the door chain, to keep the door open for no more width than it already had. With the door chain securely fastened, I asked Fredericko to let go of the door, to help us gather some strength for our next push. The bad guys on the other side must have thought they'd won when Fredericko and I let go. One of them even stuck his hand in. I could only feel so sorry for him when, as Fredericko and I gave the door one great push, four fingers of that hand got caught. We heard a scream of pain louder than any of the sound of excitement, fear, and hurt heard on that particular evening. But as Fredericko and I weren't as bad people as they were, we allowed that man some time to safely pull his broken fingers back before we finally shut the door locked. It was at that exact moment of victory that we heard police cars parking in front of the house. It was something unexpected, because I hadn't even dialed the emergency number at all, and for awhile, I wondered how the police could have known there were people to arrest in our house. It was made clear to me, later, after they had arrested our stalkers, that the reason they had come to our house at all was to apprehend us for speeding. As we should be aware of, there was a 10-kph speed limit being implemented in the corner of Fairfax and Ahmir Streets. |
| � 2006 Jay Santos |