"The bad thing is that we cannot take the vases on the bus. What. Shall we take the plane? The vases are quite heavy, it will be too expensive. And I'm afraid of boats."

"It is the sharks that bite. We are carrying very dark and very mysterious and very dangerous vases, and the sea too would be quite dangerous in the night. I cannot swim."

"If we take the plane it is the same. We will pass over the sea."

"It is different from you being right on the sea."

"The plane will be right above the sea. It is almost the same."

"Above the sea, above the sea. It is different."

"Being in the air all the time is also different? You cannot swim, Mano Federico, but can you fly? You certainly cannot."

"Okay! Anyway, we cannot afford the plane. It is best we take the bus. We must find a way not to break the vases, then."

"Why don't we find a way to see money for the plane?"

"I am not a robber, Simeon. I am an antiques agent. We shall take what we can get."

"You are an agent of an antiques agency that wants to take much from your service without giving you the right allowance. You are so simple, that's what."

"Hah. You are so clever, huh? Well, I can afford hamburgers. I can buy you empanadas, for example. You see? It is happy living."

"I know, Uncle, but---"

"Please; please? You do not call me uncle in public places!"

"Yes, sir. But you have the money only for food, you do not have the money for taking the vases. Wah! It is a very nice agency. It takes care of the old agents, it doesn't care for the old items! I am very puzzled."

"It also cares, dummy, it cares also. I have only been spending too much on softdrinks. For you! For your satisfaction. I am too old for softdrinks, you know. Now I will have to pay for the overspending. But don't worry. This is still all happy living, Simeon, if you come with me more you will see. You can help me with finding more!"

"Hah. In very dangerous country?"

"All places have danger, Simeon. Oh . . . here comes the waiter. Uh, an additional spaghetti for me please. You make it fast, okay? You."

"No more, Uncle---"

"Hm?"

"No more, Mano Federico. Oh, mango juice. Yeah, yeah, just mango juice. So we will take the boat, then?"

"Why?"

"Oh, Mano Federico, all transportation are dangerous. Or shall we take the luxurious plane?"

"You say that the agency cannot afford it."

"I did not say that. You said we cannot be living happy with the expensive plane. It is a bad thing, you say."

"Your memory is very good. I did not say it."

"So, we will take the plane?"

"Haha; you are fast. We will take the vases on the plane. I will telegram. We will take the bus."

"It is happy living on a plane."

"You cannot eat a plane. Spaghetti you can. Here."

"You cannot be happy on a bus with the zigzag. No, Mano, thank you."

"All transportation are the same, Simeon. Ah. You know, this seems all like work, this choosing of transportation. Part of the work, it is. Very taxing. Because, for example, I cannot feel happy on a plane. My ears bubble. It reminds me of the ocean, it reminds me I cannot swim. And even if I could I cannot anymore, not possibly. All right, then. That has all been terrible. But, Simeon, after the work, . . . after the work it is happy living. See? Ah, you will see. . . . For the meantime, we shall take the bus."

"All right, all right, no quarrel."

"I do not know why the bus cannot issue any more tickets. There are more buses than boats."

"There are more seats in a boat than in a single bus."

"But there is not a single bus. There are hundreds!"

"The boat still has more seats."

"They do not give you seats in a boat. It is all big seats to ever make them small and numerous like a bus'. It is all cots here," he said, philosophically.

I wanted to say, "but the cots are joined together, there is still more here", but I did not. He could have simply replied, "the seats in the bus join your knees, so the buses still have more."

"Do not worry, Mano Federico. Tonight, you will not be able to sleep. Therefore, you can sit on your cot if you want."

"Why do you speak to me like that. I am your uncle. I am very much older. And why do you not call me in a nickname?"

"Yes, yes. But I only want that you would sleep good, which you cannot do on the bus. I will save you from the sharks, Mano. I am a good swimmer."

"Hah! Swimming does not make you an angel. The sharks swim faster."

"Yes, but the boat will not sink, Mano Fred!"

"It will not sink but it will explode maybe."

"Yes. Then we will not have to swim from the sharks anymore. It will be a blessing."

"Blessing? Blessing! An explosion will be a blessing, very good. Stupid! A bus would be a blessing if one comes to fetch us! But poor us. Poor us, Simeon, the Lord does not want me and you to have the bus anymore. The Lord wants us to die with the sharks."

"Oh, Mano Federico, how many times a year do you have to travel on boats? Mano Federico, the Lord does not want us to die. That is why he gave us the boat! If he wants us to die already he will give us a tidal wave without a boat."

"Yes, that's correct. Or a tidal wave with a large boat will come and smack the boat on your head hahahahahahaha," the soldier, whose companion had gone back to his cot, said.

"Hahahahahaha, please don't laugh at my uncle," I said to the soldier.

"Do you know how to swim, Colonel?" said Mano Federico, addressing the sergeant.

"Me? How can I swim? I am on a cot hahahahahahaha."

"You are in the cot of my daughter," the fat woman, whose daughter had gone somewhere, said to the soldier.

"What can I do, madam. I have Number 42 on my ticket. Do you think this is lucky? It is hot on this side, it is where the sun can get in. You are lucky. My buddy over there is lucky. Unless that boat goes off. Then the sun would get you too."

"When that boat goes away the sun would already be on the other side," she said.

"Where is your daughter, madam," my uncle asked.

"My daughter? She is there. Across the deck, that is her with the fan. The pretty one talking with another girl who looks like a dead actress."

"Ah! Well. How does a dead actress look like, madam," my uncle asked.

"How can she know," the soldier said, trying to be funny again, becoming unsuccessful this time, "the dead hide in their coffins hahahahahaha."

"That girl looks like a dead actress. She looks very pale, though she is beautiful. But . . . when I die, I shall look like a dead actress who has been dead. You know, her pictures will still appear in the magazines."

"Wooo-ooo, hahaha!" the soldier said. "I like that hahahah. Yes, I like that."

My uncle, the antiques agent, didn't like any of it.

"Why do you think it is funny to die?" my uncle asked them this time. I used to singularly bear this question.

I tried to apologize for uncle, but I addressed him instead:

"Uncle, dying is no big deal. It is only when you leave for another solar system."

The soldier seemed very interested. The fat woman became bored.

"You don't teach me religion, grandfather," my uncle said.

"Ah. You should not call me grandfather in public places. The public will think you senile."

The soldier laughed. The fat woman lied down. Uncle seemed pleased. Maybe what I said struck him as witty, or maybe he was smiling at the very idea of senility itself.

"What are you going to Manila for?" the fat woman asked from her pillow.

"Manila is where I come from," Uncle said. "I am going back."

"Haha. You shouldn't tell people you are from there, old man, good thing it is only to this woman you told it. They will think you moneyed. Mm. Then, they will rob you."

"How do you know?" the old man said, suspicious.

"It is my job. I am a soldier. I take extortionists by the collar."

"What if he doesn't have a collar?" the fat woman said, trying to be funny.

"Then I shall throw him in the sea."

"Soldiers do that?" my uncle asked, a Manila man speaking in Waray, disbelieving.

"No, sodiers do not do that," said the soldier, "I do that. I am more than a soldier. I am a missionary. I have, you see, a feeling of responsibility for the nation and that is why. I'd throw you in the sea if you misbehave," he said, not convincingly.

My uncle trembled a little at the threat of the soldier.

"What if the extortionist has a collar and it is already old, and you pick him by it and you get the collar without him?" I asked, trying to be funny.

"Then I shall throw it to the sea and let him watch the sharks go for it hahahahahaha."

"Do you travel alone with the vases?" the daughter asked my uncle (oblivious of me, she only talked to him). "Isn't it too trusting of the agency?"

My uncle didn't feel insulted with the second question, but took the chance to lecture slowly upon the girl issues of antiques business reality. He talked slow, but confidently. I loved him for that.

"No, I am sent to do not examinations on the vases that have already been checked by a better agent, an expert, good-looking people," he said, smiling. He went on this way, talking lengthily about the industry with the periods far from each other. "It's really just, you know, final checking, whether there are any defects, or something like that . . . in the objects. That's really just what I do. Uhh, well, also if they are maybe fit for travel. Then I pick them up. Otherwise I call homebase for them to send our special van, all depending on the quantity and location. And when I pick them up myself, somebody just meets me at the airport. Or the pier. Our van, usually. And it's really not hard work because often I have a buddy. Except this time, since I was to pick up a few from my own childhood town. And it was my sister's 40th day post-burial prayers. Now, this is here my future partner, my own nephew, my sister's son---"

She was quite attentive at all my uncle's explanations, believed even the bluff ending.

"So you are sent to actually just fetch the vases. Kind of like a fetcher."

My uncle didn't feel insulted. He was very interested in teaching the girl how simple the complex world really is.

"Ye-es, yes. But of course you also have to display authority. You must not let the person know you are just a fetcher, and you have to know airport procedures and know how to demand things. As you know, this is a tough world. So you're actually not going to be what you'd call a mere fetcher. You are actually also a security agent who has to show some talent. That's what the agency pays you for, the talent. That's what the job needs."

"Is it a government agency?"

"Well, . . . we have connections with government agencies about our dealings, but this is entirely privately run. On the other hand, we deal with the government agencies because ours is also an export business."

"Do you work in Manila, Miss?" I asked.

"I thought it was a semi-government agency, because these are historical items," she continued. "Am I right? I mean, I really don't know about these things, but . . . I only see anteks when the family I work for visits the museums. Though they also have their own anteks," she explained.

"No---" I tried to say something. She was actually going in a dangerous direction. Next, she might say history is the president's invention. Or worse, she might say only St. Peter can know the real truths in history. It seems she has this respect for her own silly conjectures and cannot acknowledge the reality of her ignorance.

"No, no, it is not always old old items we deal in, only museums have the authority to deal with those things, I think," uncle said. "What we have are sometimes things like electric fans from the 1940's, really pretty things. Or sunglasses from World War II, pipes, . . . I have here in the duffel bag even a tiny wooden bucket from a World's Fair in the United States, 1920's my boss said, would you like to see it but it's deep in the bag."

"Oh it must be cute things you have in there, but---"

"Shh. You mustn't---" the soldier wanted to say something, now suddenly with us again.

"Isn't it rather expensive that you have to travel to the provinces and they pay for your tickets for fetching such small items, small vases and things like that?" asked the girl.

"You mustn't let people know you carry valuable things with you," the soldier said to my uncle.

"He's not talking to a robber," I said. "And you are not one, I hope," I added, smiling.

"Haha, it is robbers I rob from, and I give everything to the colonel. Hahaha."

There was more informative conversation going on between uncle and the fat woman's daughter, so the soldier and I stopped our talking and listened.

"---so, in that way, my travel is really a small thing compared to these real expensive ones if not assured of an escort like me," my uncle was saying.

"But why just you and a partner?" the girl asked.

"It's just a small agency. We just started, barely two years."

"Do you carry a gun?" the soldier asked.

"Actually, the people selling the antiques provide me with the vehicle to the airport or the pier. So it's really safe here. Besides, nobody cares for antiques here, really."

"Um'hm," the girl agreed.

"And it is only from antiques dealers collectors buy from, so they could have someone they could sue. In case the antiques turn out to be fakes, or in case the items turn out to be younger than claimed."

"Ah. So the dealers have to be sure, too," said the girl.

"Yes."

"Do you work in Manila?" I asked the girl.

"No. I work in Hong Kong. I'm a babysitter. Excuse me, everybody," and she ran away, crying 'ohhhh-ho-ho' towards the dead actress who was carrying now a newly-awakened baby.

Inside the boat, the whole vessel seemed asleep although some were simply lying down on their cots using their bags for pillows. Some of these passengers wished they could fall asleep, looking at the roof of the deck. On this third deck, however, which was our deck, which was the topmost deck next to the roof deck, the air smelled of many things---orange peels, bananas, grease, hair gel and pomade, cheap cologne, shoes, baby milk, dust, efficascent oil, as you walked along the rows, that I sometimes wondered how people could sleep, though I am not a rich kid but just being sensitive. Anyway, the middle beds were double-deckers, and, sometimes, when you didn't look where you were going, your head rams into a pair of feet with socks protruding from a top bed or another. Yes, sir, it was quite a literary deck. There were these many things you might love to describe, non-living things and living, including the babies and children who couldn't sleep, only sitting there smiling at their irritated mothers as the fathers snored with open mouths.

Her name was Vina. And her friend actress was already tired and now sleeping across the deck with her baby, there visible across, seen through the gaps of the double deckers. From our position we could only see the baby, actually also the bags barring it from rolling into the railing gaps and into the sea. Vina and I chatted on the empty cot beside her mother's cot. It was not really an empty cot but only bags slept in it. And it was this cot which divided us from the group of noisy students who always talked in restrained voices to one another, in Tagalog mixed with English, who were now all sleeping. Vina's mother slept lying face to face with my old man uncle. Therefore, Vina and I were talking at the back of her mother's dreaming head.

"Are you rich?" she asked.

"No. My uncle has some money. He has lots of tricks to try find money anywhere. He's not a criminal, though. A very straight chap, that's my uncle. And he also doesn't feel rich, you know what I mean, even if he could start a business himself already. He just enjoys servicing other people, I think. An employee forever. Always. That's where he's most comfortable."

"Oh. I like my work. At least my Chinese employers are good to me. Sometimes I am embarrassed by their offers. What do you do?"

"I was a student of political science, first year," I said. That embarrassed me, so I added as an apology: "I too have a craving for knowledge like you (I liked the way you interrogated my uncle). That's for a progressive life, I guess, wanting to know more."

"Oh yeah---. So you are with them?" she pointed at the sleeping row of Tagalog/English-speakers.

"N-no. I dropped out---. Don't you want to study anymore? You're 18, aren't you?"

"No, I'm nineteen. Well, n-no, high school is enough. I'm tired of school. Besides, I'm happy where I am. I like your shirt. It's expensive in Hong Kong, that kind. U.S.?"

"Ah, this? Uncle's friend gave it to me. He's a pilot."

"Oh---. Why didn't you take the plane, by the way? At least the plane's hum is better than the ship's chug-a-chug and see-saw-ing here with the waves."

"Uncle is thrifty. What about you?"

"I'm saving my money, myself---. So what do you do now?"

"I plan to be a writer. Books. Someday. Uncle thinks it's silly. Especially since I write in English, the more nobody would want to read any of that crap. But really, it's just the same as writing a comics story. I saw you reading a comics magazine yesterday, when we boarded. I might start writing for an English comics magazine, I have a friend who works at the small factory that makes them. They're for export."

"Ah, you mean the comics magazine I was reading yesterday? Ah-haha. That was just something somebody left. It was rather lewd. Though there were love stories. But all the stories were unfinished, series-types."

"Actually we wanted to take the bus, but it was all a matter of language that we finally settled for the boat. It didn't matter to me what we took. Except the plane would be really comfortable, unless the clouds are going to be thick. It would have been my third time on a plane. Ah! you, good for you; you've ridden on these big planes for international waters, huh. Well. Anyway, uncle and I got into an argument about the sea, and then I argued it's the same with the bus. We'd have to take the ferry to cross the strait, I said, one hour ride across. My uncle is afraid of sharks. Then, . . . we went to the bus station and found no more tickets. So we ended up with the boat."

She laughed. "She's more frightening than a shark, I think, haha. So why should he be afraid of sharks? Haha."

"Shh. Don't joke like that, he'd take it seriously. He's sensitive. Why did you say that, heh, you naughty girl?"

"Oh no, don't get me wrong," she said, recovering, trying to catch her breath, "I think he's very nice. Yes. Yes! I swear. I think he's quite nice. Only," then she laughed again. "Only, . . . haha! his face reminds me of that movie I saw, I don't remember the title---"

"Ah, but don't believe in producers and the actors they put in a role, my sweet. Because, can't a lanky figure also be heroic? Or a fat man be Superman without becoming comic? My uncle, for instance, he's old and looks tough, but he's really very soft like a boy. He's taking care of me now that my mother has gone. He has lots of friends. I might find employment with some of them. Though he prefers to have me with the antiques agency, as his partner. Oh hey, he gave me this tape recorder. It's quite new."

"Yeah, I noticed, 'my sweet'. Why don't you play music with it, are you recording?"

"Yeah, I'm recording our conversation. It's sensitive. Oh, I'm sorry. I was trying to hide it from you. It's not that this is very new to me that I'm playing with it like this---"

"Yeah, it's okay. Anyway, I thought you were recording. I'll listen to it afterwards. Ah, you shouldn't have told me! Now it's not a mystery anymore. Now I'm getting conscious of what I'm going to say next."

"Well, I just do recordings of conversations, actually, with these extra cassettes. Uncle uses these for his interviews with potential sellers. By the way, even my arguments with uncle I record. Then I would translate the conversations into English. Uncle is hard to translate into English, though, when I write it all down. Of course the parts where he talks in English I do not translate back into Waray. And, finally, I polish the talk for art. I wish I can become a screenwriter someday, actually."

"Yeah? Yes! that's good. Yeah. Well, you know . . . what you said, about the translated, I also saw that in Hong Kong, with the little Chinese I learned there. My sister is in Tokyo, too, by the way. She's a waitress. She's sixteen yet but---"

"Uh-huh. You mean the arrangement of words. They are different?"

"Yeah, yeah. Really, I didn't think you were a student. I was listening to your uncle this afternoon. He talked about experts in the checking. I thought you were one of them. I didn't know you were a nephew. That's why I didn't want to talk to you, even when he began to introduce you as his nephew. I wouldn't believe it. You rather look like a white-collar worker, office employee. I thought you were always smiling at the people. So, really, I felt insulted. I'm sorry. Okay? I didn't know you were actually nice."

"I'm glad you said that. And I'm glad also we took the boat. Then, I'm glad I saved you from a dangling foot with layers of socks. You almost got to eat it, hahaha. Do you eat socks?"

"Shh---"

"Otherwise we wouldn't have been like this. I thought you had a crush on me that's why you didn't want to talk to me, even at the boat store and then coming back here. Anyway, thanks to the dangling socks. They were delicious?"

"Hmm. You are so clever. You are so fast. You shouldn't be like that. I don't have a crush on you! But, of course you have a handsome face and you dress well, even when you changed into that shirt without sleeves, . . . but I don't want to get married. Well, at least not yet. And not to a lanky figure like you."

"It's okay. I won't have to marry you, then."

"Haha. Please don't joke about such things, will you? It's not funny."

"Yeah? You're smiling, yourself."

"I am not. I am serious."

"Your dimples shine when you're serious---" I said.

They were journalism majors.

"Here. Have a piece of empanada," uncle said in one of the six tapes. "Stop crying. You're twenty-six, you still cry like a baby. And stop talking like a six-year-old. Be glad we have here found a new collection. It's new wealth for us, eh, Simeon? Even with small percentage commission."

"The strange thing, uncle, is that I do not want the money anymore. I only want to find her, it seems. And then find the people who raped her mother, and th- . . . She just lay there, can you believe that! Like a dead actress, naked! Can you believe that?"

"She's gone, Simeon. They're both gone. Try not to think about them anymore, though it's hard. The police, we hope, shall be taking care of everything. It is the police that take care of the crime. Here. Have some empanadas. Try not to think about kidnappings today, they happen everyday. Your sweetheart, we suspect she has been sold as a courtesan or as a cheap one. But that is life. Life is cruel, boy. Best thing to do is not to believe it. Yes?"

"Where do you think she might have been sold, wise old man, here?" I gently asked. "In Manila? Sold to Hong Kong people? To Thailand? California, uncle, huh? She disappeared here, uncle, here! In Manila! Not in Hong Kong, in Manila! In goddam Manila! I can't believe it! I think I'll go crazy. Oh, shit. Our only consolation is to think that she might have become a communist, though that is far from possible in this situation."

"Hush, hush. How can she become a communist overnight? And why would they kill her mother? A communist! You're funny. She was happy with her job, why would she think of politics? Maybe she just got tired of your and her mother's visiting her at Pasay City, so she hid from you, escaped from her mother's eyes too while shopping, and then some gang robbed her mother, or something like that. . . . Or, another possibility, she might still be in Manila Bay, floating naked too, . . . But why do I keep talking serious with you, with that tape recorder always around and all your money spent on tapes, maybe you only want to create dramas and that's all you really care about. Jesus, lord. Maybe you do not really mean what you tell your dialogue partners."

"Uncle, . . . I think I do not want to sell vases anymore. I'll work in a factory, that's better. I'll be happy with many other workers there. I do not need your modest riches, I just don't want to be alone, you see, like one floating in space now, . . . I don't want to be friendless now, without a community to be in communion with---"

"C'mon, Simeon, Simeon. It is not the riches I want, either. It is your happiness. That is what I promised your mother. You know that. So, please. I want you to continue with your education. I'll send you back to college now, then. That is also community, heh, college?"

"You are good to me, uncle. But, . . . I think I just want to die."

"Hey, hey. Dying, dying! You talk about dying! It is not easy. . . . It is frightening."

"It is all the same. We all die, anyway."

"Yes. But what if Vina comes back. What will she see of you? Green liquid. Worms all over your skeleton, hah! Your intestines all melting, green, pungent, will she like you still?"

"Uncle, stop. Why do you talk about dying like that? It is all easy, this dying. You die and your soul meets some angels, riding comets. They are all very beautiful. The female angels will share their beds with you, uncle. Haha. You will like it there. Antiques all over the place. Many ages. Many countries."

"Good. I like you to smile. But. You talk like it is all astrognomy and science vection. Heaven is not just another solar system, and it is not a brothel."

"It is. You die and you just transfer to another galaxy."

"Why, that is all nonsense you learn in college. Maybe I will not send you back. You speak like it is all right to die now in a suicide."

"No, uncle, it is not all right, did I say that? I said only, dying is not frightening, that was what I said. Okay. I will wait to die. But I want to die now. Okay? Dying will decide for me, okay? It will say when I am ready for the other experience. All right. Okay. Now, I'll watch for more vases we can have. Maybe it is also good here, heh, uncle? We can be contented."

"Good. Because what if this boat now sinks. Then you will not save yourself? Huh, philosopher?"

"Of course I will save myself from dying, wise old man. I have many more to learn. I have to gather many more stories to tell the other people in the other solar system, heh? I cannot be shameful to them, heh, uncle?"

"Hah! Are you kidding me? You make it sound like you are gathering antiques to sell there."

"Yes! It will please them. It is good to please other people. Other planets, haha. Then I will become a hero."

"You are really funny. Is it why you want to be a writer? Hah. Why not a showman? People will worship the showman."

"Uncle, if I die, will you keep the tape?"

"Of course. But what if we are swept now by a tidal wave, will you not save yourself? I do not want to worry."

"I will. It will be good to tell how many times you escaped the shark. Besides, I want to save other people from the tidal wave. It will be good. The other solar system will make me a president. Will they worship me if I become president?"

"Haha, you--- . . . Let's go down to our deck before the rain falls." Quite exact. It was cut right there on Side B.

It is both happy and not-happy living, this business of living, Uncle. But I think you know that, now. No; you did not want me to treat you like you were old. But you were. And myself, now, am also getting old, you see. But Uncle, the tapes. The tapes! They are still good. I wish they would last. But they will not.

Anyway, I wish to dedicate this writing to you, Mother, and to you, Uncle (even if I'm only beginning, a child at 27, writing only from tapes---but I am humble). And also to you Vina, though you may still be alive---a slave in China. I'll submit this lousy story soon to a magazine, though it doesn't pay well; help me dead people, if you can, to prove to the world me and my Uncle are not guilty of anything to do with the "kidnapping"---you can all ask St. Peter, my mother, and all the other dead! . . . . P.S. to you Vina, . . . I will take care of your sister, Trixia, who decided to stay. Now she is apprentice typesetter at the office where I work; I junked school, by the way. And you know, it is during vacant hours that I teach Trixia poetry, though she writes in Tagalog: "So the sun shines fat like ripe mango in the morning,/ the green trees stand bristling like/ the new lumber of our black crosses" (my translation). I'm also teaching her to work the computer. But she trembles at the keyboards, I shall have to teach her how to be calm.

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