Home: Part 1

What follows is a work of fiction. Nothing here is either true or relevant. Read at your own risk. Do not expect anything, and that's exactly what you'll get. Oh: This could go on for awhile.

July 1974

There are things you should know.

In 1974 I was in the Philippines. The country was under Martial Law at the time, and for the most part nobody was allowed outside between midnight and six in the morning. You could be in a bar, or even in the front room of your house with your windows wide open. But you couldn't be outside. I wasn't. I was in a hotel room after a long night of drinking San Miguel. Narcie, the short Filipina I'd bought out of a bar a few hours earlier, was asleep and snoring beside me in the bed. I liked how her skin felt against mine. She'd fallen asleep as soon as she lay down, so feeling her skin like that was the culmination of our experience together.

Earlier that afternoon I'd found myself with a group of U.S. sailors and marines, which I thought odd not because they were there, but because they were together. The sailors generally got drunk and stupid, while the marines got drunk and edgy. The groups usually didn't mix well, but for some reason they'd put aside their differences and found commonality in the beer I was buying them. We'd started out in Olongapo, in a bar called the Brown Fox not far from the main gate that separated the U.S. Navy from the Philippines itself. At some point we'd all climbed into a jeepney and made our way to Subic City. That's where I met Narcie and decided that I'd rather spend the night with her than with the sailors and marines. I'd like to think that those men remained cordial after I stopped buying beer and led Narcie outside, where she took the lead and guided me to the hotel, but I couldn't guarantee that things worked out nicely.

Narcie woke up just before dawn. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me. "I need to go to church."

"Church?" At the time I found it odd that so many prostitutes could be so consistently religious. Maybe, like a lot of other people, they thought that God would forgive them if they just showed up and prayed on Sunday morning. In the decades since, though, I've come to think that those women were no worse than anyone else, and that when it comes to feeding the family, the table truly is full of options.

Narcie was getting dressed. "I'll come back, okay? Two hours."

"You don't need to," I told her.

"I'll come back," she said again.