JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Published 28 April 2013

– Sa manga guibo mong milagro, minadolog gabos simo,
cahelangan man o ano, gabos pinagraranga mo.
Manga buta binulong mo na baga entermero.

Vicente aranga cami, an simong ugay halat mi. –

The whole of San Vicente was abuzz with activity. It was the eve of the Barangay Fiesta and the festive air was a fever spreading over everyone and everywhere. Colorful ‘banderitas’ hung from trees and over each street. Pigs were being butchered and roasted into succulent Litson. In every other house, someone was singing “Pusong Bato” with earsplitting loudness on videoke machines.

Inside the quaint barangay chapel overlooking the sea, the devout were busy with their own preparations. Marsya and Coring, two middle-aged housewives, were decorating the ‘karo’ that was to convey the statuette of San Vicente Ferrer during the nightly processions. The statuette itself was newly painted, ready for veneration.

Bins did not plan on venerating the saint’s image.

He was, on the contrary, hell-bent on destroying it.

Bins wasn’t a violent sort of person, and neither was he the type who does things in order to bring attention to himself. He was actually considered by most to be far more decent and well behaved than any other fifteen-year-old boy in their far-flung barrio-by-the-sea. He had never been accused of stealing, he never played truant at school, and he had never gotten any girl pregnant. His aunt and guardian, T’yang Belen, although regularly complained of his laziness, nevertheless considered him indispensable, and thought herself lucky to have such a dutiful helper around the house.

Bins knew what he was about to do might lose him his aunt’s favor, not to mention earn him the reputation of being the blackest rascal there ever was in San Vicente.

But he really didn’t have a choice, not after what Sinta did.

Night was falling and the humid sea breeze clung to his sunburnt skin so that even though it was a cool night, he was soon feeling sticky and sweaty all over. He walked with long, determined steps along the seashore towards where the chapel was. From afar he glimpsed a glow of light; the gleam of a hundred lit candles growing larger as the procession approached him. He could hear them too: the plaintive voices of white-haired and bent-backed old women, clutching the yellowed pages of Novenarios as ancient and decrepit as they were, and the more eager, lilting tones of the younger devotees.

He reached the advancing procession and fell in step with it, walking alongside ‘May Pransya, who handed him a candle and smiled gap-toothedly. He thanked her and smiled back, but his attention was elsewhere.
A few steps ahead of them, San Vicente’s karo rolled along, pushed by a gaggle of giggling teenagers and rowdy children no older than six. Plastic flowers surrounded the foot of the statuette and a single, thick candle illuminated its features. From where he was walking, Bins could see only its white wings and black cape; but he knew that the image had a book clutched in its left hand, a bald pate, and a string of rosary beads on its waist. In fact, Bins had long ago memorized every little detail on that statuette, so often did he see it.

He didn’t actually hate the thing. How could he, after all that it did for him? He owed everything to that little statue.

There was his abusive, alcoholic father. That was where it all started.

He had discovered the trick purely by accident. It was the eve of the saint’s feast day, much like it was now, and he was suffering from the worst beating he ever had in the entire six years of his life. He had crawled under the seat of a pew inside the chapel, having run away from his rampaging father. That was when he saw the statue on top of the altar and a kind of madness seized him.

His broken ribs throbbing, his young mind crazed with fear of being found, he limped towards the image and, touching it, whispered

I want my father to die
I want my father to die
I want my father to die!
Please, please, take him away!

On the day of the fiesta, people from all over their barangay flocked to the chapel to attend the mass, his father included. For San Vicente Ferrer was also the Patron Saint of the sick, and the very statue Bins had touched only the night before was believed to have miraculous healing powers. After the mass, people would gather to the front of the altar and the priest would touch each one with the saint’s image.

His father had kidney stones and no money for an operation.

The priest touched the statue to his father’s head, rubbed his chest and back with it, and asked him to kiss it.

The very next day, they found his cold and stiff body by the seashore. He had a heart attack, or so everyone thought; but Bins knew better.

After his father came Kano. Kano was T’yang Belen’s son with an American soldier, and he had the bluest of eyes. Bins resented his blue eyes and fair looks and the fact that as Belen’s son, he wasn’t given as much chores as Bins was, was fed better food and bought better clothes.

I want Kano to die
I want Kano to die
I want Kano to die!
Please, please, take him away!

He was ten by then, and was half-expecting it not to work.

The food was particularly sumptuous that year, for his aunt had been able to borrow quite a sum of money the week before from the resident Bombay. T’yang’s double-chins quivered and jiggled as she laughed and ate and gossiped the whole day and long into the night. It was dawn before any of them went to bed. By mid-afternoon the next day, Bins awoke to his aunt’s screams.

BINSEEEEEENT
CALL FOR HELP BINSEENT
MICHAEL WON’T WAKE UP
MICHAEEEL
MICHAEL ANAAAK

The third one was Mr. Santos and he died only last year. Mr. Santos was his P.E. teacher who had the bad habit of sliding his hand down Bins’s trousers when no one was looking.

I want Mr. Santos to die
I want Mr. Santos to die
I want Mr. Santos to die!
Please, please, take him away!

On the night of the fiesta, his wife saw a drunk Mr. Santos wade out to the sea to bathe. That was the last time anyone ever saw him.

Everything was perfect. Everything was going well. If only he hadn’t told Sinta!

Bins looked behind him presently, scanning the crowd of faces for one with a broken chin, a pert little nose and wide, expressive eyes. He spotted her on the far end of the procession, walking with her mother.

She was older than him by a year. He only wanted to impress her, to make himself seem dark and mysterious. So when she saw him that time he asked for Mr. Santos’s death and asked him what he was doing, he told her everything. How was he to know she’d later use it against him?

But she did, damn her. She did!

Saaa manga guibo mong milaaagro,
sang the horde of devotees. Bins tried his best to sing along.
Minaaadolog gabos simooo…

She was deliberately avoiding his eye. Sinta was wearing an off-shoulder grey top and dark-blue jeans. Bins could still recall how those shoulders felt like against his mouth, how smooth her long legs were, rubbing against his hips.

Don’t, she had said, her words slurred by the alcohol. Please, stop, I don’t want…

But Bins was already deaf to the world.

She wasn’t there when he woke up and two days passed before he saw her again. Her face had looked blank and calm but in her eyes he saw both fear and anger. He knew, then, what she had done.

I didn’t want to, she told him, I told you to stop, but you didn’t.

You liar, he snarled, you wanted it! You went along!

I was drunk.

That’s no excuse!

I hope you burn in hell, Vincent.

The moment he realized Sinta had asked the statue to kill him, Bins resolved to destroy it. He would take it and throw it into the sea, that way it would look as if someone stole it, and no one need ever trace the deed to him.

But the plan turned out to be not as simple as he thought it would be.

After meeting with Sinta, he had gone straight to the chapel, climbing over the back fence to make sure he wouldn’t be seen. Upon stepping inside the chapel however, he felt a horrible, crippling pain in his stomach. It worsened the farther he went into the chapel. By the time he reached the altar, he was screaming like a madman. People were rushing inside to see what the matter was. Bins was bed-ridden for days and when he could finally get out of bed, the fiesta was only a day away.

It was a desperate but resolute Bins who joined the procession that night. If he couldn’t get to the statue when it was inside the chapel, he would have to destroy it while it was outside. A simple, stealthy push was what it would all take, and San Vicente’s fragile image was sure to come tumbling down. If the ground doesn’t break it, then the karo’s wheels would surely crush it. Who’s to say it wasn’t just an accident?

Bins walked faster, moving forward and joining the ones pushing the karo. He elbowed away a few people until he was positioned as close to the saint’s image as was possible.

The statue was finally within his grasp.

OUCH, he cried suddenly. A drop of melted wax had fallen on the back of his hand.

Sorry po, said the girl whose candle it was that fell on him.

To Bins’s horror, the wax, instead of cooling and drying up, began to burn through his skin. He held up his hand and watched with shocked terror as the spot where the wax fell turned into an angry red welt, popped, and started widening. The wax was eating his skin like acid, spreading to his fingers, and pretty soon the back of his hand was reduced to raw, exposed flesh.

Beeesentee araaaanga caaamee, the crowd sang, an simong ugaaay halaaat mi!

Bins screamed.

Hesusmaryosep! exclaimed a few old women.

Ay! Ka Escandaloso, cried another.

His hand was smoking. His own flesh smelled so astonishingly like barbeque that to his utter revulsion, his stomach rumbled.

With a last, frantic effort, he grabbed San Vicente’s image with his other hand and flung it away as hard as he could.

I did it! thought Bins, exulting.

That was the last thing he ever thought of.

This time, it was the old women in the crowd who screamed as poor Bins suddenly combusted, bursting into flames much brighter than any candle.

May nasusulo, may nasusulo, they shrieked in alarm. Tubig, tubig, tubiiiiig!

Along the seashore, the waves crashed and rolled as the tide began to ebb, washing up pebbles and seashells and all sorts of rubbish in the sand. Clumped together with brown coconut husks, a wad of dirty diaper and a broken glass bottle was the small, newly-painted statuette of San Vicente Ferrer.