Passengers

Early mornings, you'd find me in queue at the FX terminal. Another employee on the way to work. Another commuter battling the challenging world of public transportation. Just another sleepy soul, trapped in the routine of daily life. It would be excessive to say that it is almost like a community, that long queue, because it's not. It's just a group of people whose faces are familiar to each other, but they're not there to make friends. A terse nod when asked if this was the end of the line is the most interaction that can go. Each other's presence is incidental, an irrelevant detail in the travel from point A to point B.

Those days when shuttles take long to arrive and my mind is not preoccupied with my other thoughts, I practice characterization for my fiction writing. You take boredom, a need to stay awake, and the long wait for the next FX -- and you get me, the casual observer. It helps if you have your earphones on. It lends a sense of disinterest in the process of observation. You can stare long at someone without making them feel like their personal space is being intruded. The earphones give you the benefit of the doubt that although your eyes are fixed, your mind is actually elsewhere. I lay a disclaimer here. Don't use my tip for stalking. Please. I have enough of my own guilt to worry about.

There are those students from UA&P. With their youthful and perky outfits and air of their parents' money. Two of them are friends who are freshmen (I can tell by their age and their textbooks). One always comes in late while the other saves a spot on the line for her. I sometimes want to tell them that it's unfair for the ones who arrived earlier, but I let them be. It's too small a thing to worry about. Besides, they get enough piercing stares from the more irritable passengers.

The middle-aged lady who always carries a book with her. For a couple of days, it was a copy of the Sherlock Holmes short stories collection. It amused me since Holmes is one of my most favorite book characters of all time. I wondered if she was enjoying it as much as I did when I first read the stories in high school.

There's that good-looking pair of mid-twenties corporate professionals. Who look like they stepped straight out of a yuppie magazine. Guy's tall dark, and handsome - . Girl looks like a doll with porcelain skin, with hair always made up and clothes that reek of Cosmo. When I see them, I sometimes wonder if I dress too casually for my age and profession. Oh, well.

And there's the old couple. They're probably around sixty years old. The old man is frail looking with hunched shoulders; the woman has a kind face. He carries a leather briefcase and his wife just keeps him company in the queue, she doesn't get on the shuttle. They talk quietly while waiting and sometimes she asks the manongs at the terminal if she could borrow one of the monobloc chairs for her husband to sit on. She just waits with him, stands beside him. And when the shuttle arrives, she straightens his polo, kisses him on the cheek, helps him inside the front seat, and waves him goodbye.

Once, in another seemingly normal morning, I find the old couple in their usual place. But after a few minutes, I discerned some agitation in the crowd. I took off one of my earphone pieces and realized that the old lady was asking for help from those standing nearby. Her husband was apparently feeling ill and they had to call a trike and help him inside and rush him to the hospital.

I honestly did not know how to react, what to think. I was somewhat a long way off from the commotion, but I felt the tension. I feel like I'm having a crash-course of self realization. Here was a real life couple. Apparently, with deep love for one another. How do you find someone you'd be willing to do anything for? How do you never get tired of loving each other? How do you ever get to that time when you're willing to just stand beside someone patiently, talking quietly, until it was time to say goodbye. Until it was time.

I find myself actually trying to listen to the music from my earphones. Consciously. Drown in music these thoughts and questions I have no answers for.

FX Aftereffects

It was already a bad indication when the FX driver ignored the “No U-turn” sign along J. Vargas Avenue. What made it worse was just after he turned; a traffic police who apparently saw him commit the violation pointed at him and motioned him to pull over. Uh-oh.

But the FX driver seemed to be unflustered. He placed his hands on his back languidly – there’s no other way to describe it. And I had the sense of foreboding that this could not be good. True enough, I have another reason to believe that I have psychic ability because the driver did not pull over but sped past the officer. He made a run for it. At this point, I took off my earphones and looked disbelievingly at the driver. You’ve got to be kidding me. He overtook car after car and recklessly swerved in the road to gain distance from the officer who mounted his motorcycle and had started chasing the FX.

I turned to my fellow passengers. Surely, one of them would share my sentiment that this was terribly, terribly wrong. But they seemed to be oblivious to everything. It’s as if they were riding a totally different FX wherein their driver was not snaking his way in full speed along St. Paul road while a traffic police was pathetically trying to keep him in sight. I wonder whether I could have just said that I needed to get off at the nearest corner so I could get off the damned FX and the officer could catch the errant driver. I doubt if that would’ve been a welcome twist to the whole incident, though. For the driver and other passengers.

The chase ended in Meralco Avenue. Mamang Pulis was unable to catch up and was lost somewhere in the turns and Manong Driver even got off the vehicle and looked around during a stop sign to make sure that he was clear. I got off two blocks later. Thankful that I need not be part of that horrific ride anymore.

And that was not the end of my horror commute for the day. On my way home, a pair of men was occupying the front seat of the FX. They were loud and annoying and arrogant. Everyone was forced to hear their conversation. One of them works at a construction project and told his friend of how he miscalculated and cut a cable five meters short than expected. He then continued how he and his coworkers skillfully take supplies from the construction project. They do it regularly and with organization. No remorse whatsoever! They were robbing their employers and they were proud of it because they do it so well! And I thought to myself, an incompetent and a thief. Perfect. Employee of the year.

Not to be outdone, the FX driver displayed his own alarming behavior. He opened his cellphone inbox while waiting for traffic to move (not a very good thing to do, for starters) and made an angry call after reading a message (worse thing).

Here’s how the driver’s phone conversation went almost verbatim (worst thing). Imagine him talking in a VERY loud and angry voice, enough to overpower the incompetent thief in the front seat.

“Di ba sinabi ko sayo na itapon mo na yan?! (Pause) Di mo pa tinatapon? Anak ng tinapay! (Pause) Pagdating ko dyan, wala na dapat yan! (Pause) Anong takot-takot? Sinasasabi ko sa iyo itapon mo na yan!” End call.

Images of a dead body being disposed played in my head. And can you blame me? How else can you interpret that? I discreetly paid my fare to the driver and kept a low profile. Heck, he could be a homicidal maniac, for all I know! Whenever he cursed at a red light or at a slow car in front of him didn’t help in dissuading me otherwise.

Public commuting is such an adventure. Horror adventure.

Boom De Yada!

jeeps sometimes have eccentric decorations personalized by their drivers/conductors. the typical knickknacks usually consist of rosary beads, sampaguita garlands (bought out of guilt), Sto. Niño, small running LED lights, sometimes a TV if the driver's being fancy. i got on this jeep in Cebu that surprisingly had running electronic text, much like the ones in Radio City Music Hall or in Jollibee. not really that impressive right? but to my surprise, the first words that scrolled out were "Boom De Yada!" followed slowly by "I love the oceans". what the what?!? the driver or conductor know of the Discovery Channel ad? i was at the edge of my seat, anticipating a misspelled lyric or a wrong line, but the words came out perfect. what the what?!? i was smiling inwardly the whole time. it was late afternoon on a weekend, the sun was shining but the wind was cool and at that very moment, it felt like everything was right in the world, there was still hope for my country, we weren't so dumb after all (on the average) and we're going to choose the right person to lead us, etc. etc. i imagined that the driver and conductor probably ad libbed while singing the song in their spare time, adding "i love driving and conducting" in place of "i love tornadoes".

after the song ended its run on the marquee, then came the words "brought to you by<ad agency here >. to place an ad, call <ad agency no.>". and just like that, my optimism got zapped into that black hole of capitalist agenda. to top it all off, the driver wanted to go through a shortcut and dropped me a long way away from where i paid to get off while the conductor laughed at my vehement insistence of "nag-ingon lagi nga naa'y asilo!" Boom de yada!

Toys in Traffic

stuck in traffic with nothing else to do and think and daydream about, i looked towards the person to my left just to check out how my potential pickpocket looked like. he was old, maybe around 50 with glasses and had a worn-out duffel bag. like me, he was looking over the guy to his left who turned out to be playing bejeweled with his blurry-screened ipod touch. i immediately thought that ipod-guy must be crazy carelessly brandishing his toy like that, in a jeep, at night. ipod-guy was a yuppie for sure - nike free 7.0 shoes, polo shirt, a black sling bag and his toy. his game was a little sluggish, missing potential points and with a score still at 1000 even though traffic has been at a standstill for almost 5 minutes. just then, i felt a slight movement from old guy as he fished out his fare from his right pocket. he was no longer paying attention to the game and was instead talking to the driver re: details of his ride like where he will get off and where he came from. i suddenly got busy and with the other passengers, kept sticking my head out to try to check what the hell was keeping us from moving. the next thing i know old guy had his 3310 out playing Bantumi. he had the initials CM tattooed on his wrinkly hand in that space between his thumb and forefinger. so then i thought, old guy = badass.