Blood is Thicker when Summer Falls

The night before summer ended, we were appalled because a murder took place in town. The killer escaped, but we thought he was just roaming around and looking for another victim. The police didn’t arrive at the crime scene until the brother of the victim took him to the town hospital, a facility with limited medical supplies and equipment. The victim didn’t make it. We thronged outside the hospital. Through the stained window glass, we stared at the corpse lying on a stretcher, blood with little sweat streaming out from the right chest and stomach where the double-blade knife had cut through. Some kids, who were usually home at that time of the night, had sneaked out to witness a real corpse. It looked like a butchered hog, the one we usually see during fiestas. But the adults didn’t let them see. They frightened the kids by telling them that the killer was still free.

It was also the night when Gabz and Anton finished their friendship. We were schoolmates and playmates since elementary days. Gabz lived five houses from the street corner where Anton lived. Our parents were friends and, perhaps, distant relatives. Well, most of the people in town were relatives and friends and acquaintances. Everyone knew everybody. If you didn’t know somebody’s name, for sure, you would still recognize the face. People who didn’t know the name of the person would baptize that person with a funny name, like the fat guy in Real Street or the girl with a big mole on her chin, or the ugly gossiper on the next corner. But Gabz and Anton? They knew each other. They belonged to the same flock. In our generation, men who considered themselves studs would bully those effeminate boys like Gabz and Anton. They would make them feel that they didn’t belong to a society, wherein only two genders exist. Even their fathers would feel embarrassed when their drinking buddies teased them about their sons.

On that unfortunate last day of summer, we were invited to a picnic on the beach by some friends and a Manila boy about our age. Jerry was the name of the boy. By the color of his skin and the kind of clothes he wore, you could decipher that he came from a rich family. He was not that handsome, but because he was new in town and was from an industrialized and a bit westernized city, he looked handsome to the teenage girls and to both Gabz and Anton who were also with us at that picnic. We knew that the only reason why they accepted the invitation was Jerry. Hadn’t they gone to the picnic, the murder in town would have not happened.

“Father, Gabz and I will go to the beach today. We have a picnic with our friends,” Anton said to Ronel.

As usual, Ronel gave him a sharp look. “What will you do at the picnic? Practicing to wear your mother’s clothes with Gabriel?” He would always make Anton feel that a boy wearing a girl’s dress was wrong and that he should not do it. “Junrey knows about Gabz’s secret and he will not let him go to a picnic. He is grounded. So, you better stay here and clean the house!”

I knew Anton. If his heart knew how to complain about the pricks it got from his father’s insults, it would have done it. But he wouldn’t dare to open his mouth, because he didn’t want to be hit again. He looked down and dragged his feet to the kitchen.

While washing the dishes, he took a peep at the living room where his father was sitting and finishing his cigarette. He washed slowly, so he could also wait for his father to go out to his gambling. Just in time, when Ronel went away, Gabz arrived at Anton’s house. A pebble was thrown at the window. Anton smiled and hurried out.

“Father told me your father had caught you already,” Anton said, while they rode on a tricycle going to the beach.

Gabz didn’t say a word, because something was forming in his throat. He blinked his eyes a few times and rubbed them with his forearm.

Anton touched his back. “It’s okay.” He pulled him closer. “They never understand us.”

The tricycle driver glanced at them. He knew them in town, but he didn’t know they were gay. Had he known it, he would have frowned at them, or worse, bullied them.

Upon arriving at the entrance of the beach, Gabz looked into Anton’s eyes. He held his hands. “You and me, best friends forever,” he whispered.

“Yes, best friends forever,” Anton said.

At the beach, we enjoyed swimming, talking nonsense, gossiping about weird people in town, and, of course, discussing preparation for the upcoming opening of classes. Gabz grinned when Anton said that he wouldn’t always see him. Gabz was an incoming Sophomore, while Anton was a Senior.

“We will always see each other every day,” Anton said. “I will always drop by your classroom and you go home with me.”

The smiles on their faces didn’t fade the whole time we were on the beach. The warm touches on the shoulders, arms, and back, and the holding of hands didn’t stop. Not until dusk loomed in and we had to bid adieu to our guest, Jerry, and other friends. And not until the murder happened.

***

A witness said that before nightfall, Ronel came out of the house with a double-blade knife tucked at his back. He had been drunk. He went to Gabz’s house and called Junrey to go out. “Junrey, come out now!” Ronel shouted. “My son is not like your son! He’s a man, just like his father. Come out now, I’m going to show it to you.” He held the bamboo gate and tried to yank it down.

According to another witness, Gabz’s mother walked to the gates, eyebrows meeting down the forehead. “You’re drunk, Mano Ronel,” she said with stress in the word Mano. It means big brother. A word used to respect a man older than the one who is calling him. “Please, Mano Ronel, go home and take a rest. Junrey is sleeping now.”

Ronel didn’t talk. He walked away but didn’t go back home. He waited in the corner.

Vic, a thin guy, who lived in the next block, passed by Ronel in the corner. He was one of the people in town who was fond of bullying gays and lesbians whenever he saw them in the street. He would even bully me with my Chinese eyes.

According to Vic’s testimony, Ronel blocked his way. “What are you looking at?” Ronel said.

Vic stopped as if he could fight him. “Nothing, Mano Ronel,” he said.

Ronel collared him. “I can do whatever I want now,” he said in a tone Vic felt from a devil. “I can kill you now.” And then, he pushed him so hard that he fell to the ground. “Leave or I’ll kill you!”

Vic’s spirit bolted like an African runner and his body followed.

Ronel didn’t take his eyes off the gates of Junrey’s house. Junrey’s wife would usually go out to gossip, even at night, with her friends in the next block of houses. She indeed moved out and headed to where her friends were waiting for her. Ronel rushed back to Junrey’s house and crossed the bamboo gate. He stood by the front yard at the part where the lights couldn’t get through, gripping the double-blade knife in his hand. People in town knew that Ronel didn’t feel any fear. He had done this several times before in Manila, only that he had never been caught by authority. He had done it for money, but this time he would do it for dignity if you call it dignity.

Junrey had also been drunk with Ronel earlier. Witnesses said that they had a heated argument over the gender identity of their sons and Junrey had blamed Ronel for letting Anton influence Gabz. Your son is abnormal and he is the reason why my son has become like him, a f**king gay. That statement might have rung like a bell in Ronel’s ears. He had wanted to fight Junrey at that very moment, but other people who were there restrained him.

The door creaked open. When Junrey stepped out, Ronel jumped at him. The blade plunged into Junrey’s stomach. He pushed Ronel off. He lifted his body and crawled to the bamboo gate. When he was about to stand up, the blade cut through his back. He continued to stand and he hit the bamboo gate. He dropped to the ground with it. Ronel dived at him. They rolled on the ground. Junrey was bigger than Ronel, but he was fatally wounded. When he was above Ronel, he quickly rose and ran to the corner of the street. At that time of the night, there was nobody on the street. But witnesses were there peeping through the gaps of their houses. Junrey ended up in front of an abandoned house. Ronel ran after him, his double-blade knife swinging in the air, lights from the post flashing at it. He jumped at Junrey.

“Please, Mano, don’t kill me. Please have mercy on me,” Junrey begged in between laborious breathing.

“It’s time for you to rest in peace,” Ronel said firmly.

There was a sound of water coming out from a tiny burrow, but there was no burrow there except for wounds where blood and air coming out. When the flow of blood stopped, the night was silent, save for the breathing of the residents behind the wooden walls of the house next to the abandoned one. They had heard them and even seen Ronel walk away as though nothing happened. They immediately sent someone to fetch Junrey’s brother, who was gambling at the gambling house owned by the mayor. They also sent someone to the police station, which was a kilometer away from the crime scene.

***

When we turned up at the town's proper entrance, even at night like that and without enough light posts, we noticed the street leading to the hospital was crowded. We could hear the murmurs of lamentation like “Why it was him? He was a good person” or “He doesn’t deserve this” or “He helped me once.” Statements that, for me, were not really true, but pure hypocrisy. People knew what kind of person Junrey was. We didn’t mind the commotion, so we kept walking home. But along the way, someone recognized us and told us that Gabz’s father had been stabbed and taken to the hospital.

Gabz ran to the hospital and made his way through the crowd. Anton followed him. We followed them. Before entering the hospital, Gabz stopped and gaped at a lifeless body on the stretcher, blood had stained the blue cover. His uncle was there, standing by the stretcher, crying and shaking his head and gritting his teeth hard as if his head was about to explode in fury. Across from his uncle was his mother, Lydia, sitting on the floor, soaked with tears and blood in her clothes. He rushed to his dead father and cried. He was stomping his feet on the floor as if to knock on God’s door so He would give his father back to him. We knew that he wanted to embrace his father, but his father’s face was no longer his face. Death had devoured it.

Gabz, Lydia, and Junrey’s brother didn’t sleep that night. They stayed in the hospital, probably waiting for someone to tell them who had done it. But nobody approached them. Nobody told somebody that it was Ronel who killed Junrey. Although some people knew it was him, nobody dared to speak. Merely because Ronel was out there and the gossip about a devil possessing him had already flown around town. Who would dare speak about it when you feel and think that Ronel was just hiding from somewhere and, at any given time, would slash your heart the way he had done it to Junrey? Even the policemen didn’t come out that night.

We knew Anton also cried, but he didn’t go near Gabz to console him. Maybe, he understood that there is no consolation for a father’s death. We didn’t stay long and didn’t tell Gabz that we would go home. We gave them privacy, especially at such a time of absolute grief.

We took Anton to his house. It was completely dark. When he held the doorknob, it was locked. He moved to the backyard. The kitchen door was slightly open as if someone had just entered. He pushed it slowly. We saw a silhouette of a woman standing by the window.

“Come inside,” whispered the woman in a husky voice. It was his mother.

And, we left Anton and went on our separate ways.

***

The next morning, summer ended, but there was little sunshine covered with clouds from above the horizon. There was the sun, but the surrounding was dreary. The weather seemed to sympathize with what had happened last night. It seemed to commiserate with Gabz who had fallen asleep on the waiting couch of the hospital.

After Gabz’s uncle attended to take the corpse to the morgue for embalming, the policemen took them to the municipal police station to document their testimonies. Reaching the station’s door, they saw Anton and his mother sitting across from the police inspector. Gabz might have thought Anton was there for support. But he wasn’t. We already knew what Anton and his mother had said to the police.

Anton didn’t look at him. He couldn’t look into his eyes. It was not his fault, but the feeling of accountability for a murder done by a father would always be felt by his son. Moreso, he had known that he was the reason why Ronel had become furious at Junrey and at Gabz, whom he believed was the sole influencer of him becoming a gay.

Upon entering, Gabz went near Anton, who was looking down to the floor, unstirred. Gabz tapped him on the shoulder, but he was motionless.

Anton’s mother rose and faced Gabz's mother. “I’m sorry, Lydia,” she said, her lips trembling. If it was not Ronel who had killed Junrey, she would have touched Lydia and hugged her.

Lydia didn’t respond. She gave her a questioning look.

The policemen led them to their chairs. Upon sitting down, the inspector stood and gestured to his men to be ready to prevent the family of the departed from hurting the family of the suspect. “Sorry for your loss, Mrs. Briones,” he said. “Mrs. Cruz and his son are here, because…” he paused to look at Anton and his mother. “They have confessed that Ronel Cruz killed your husband.”

We knew that Gabz’s fallen world was now crushed. It was like a crumpled paper being stepped on. He took a glimpse at Anton, who was still motionless. He looked at us outside through the jalousie window. He looked through the door, stood, and slowly walked out.

The summer had fallen, just like how Gabz’s and Anton’s friendship stopped. It fell to the abyss of fury and lamentation. They had put a period in the last sentence of their friendship’s journey.

So many summers had passed in town, but Gabz and Anton hadn’t reconciled. They both had fled to other places and gone back home. Perhaps, reconciliation had long gone in their dictionary. Perhaps, there was a chance for forgiveness. But it was hard because blood is thicker than water.