Tales from Manila Ave.

People often disappeared from our apartment building on Manila Ave. At least that’s what Kuya Jem used to tell us. He wasn’t really our brother. That’s just what everyone in our building called him—Kuya. He did a lot of things for us and the other tenants. In the morning, he tended to the halaman planted in pots along the front of our building. We woke up to his singing, his karaoke rendition of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” while the early birds chirped along. When we waited for the school bus to arrive, we watched him talk to the plants. “You just need a little more sun,” Kuya Jem said to a budding bunch of tulips. He gradually moved its pot farther out towards the sidewalk, where the perfect amount of light hit, abiding by the sun’s hourly procession. When we boarded the bus, he waved after us, saying, “Study hard, hah! Make your parents proud!” That was a nice way to start the day. We did our best.

During the day, Kuya Jem went from gardener to handyman. The landlord was almost never around, so Kuya Jem took maintenance requests straight from the residents. He didn’t mind. He was friendly that way, and everyone in the building knew he could be trusted. He had one of those faces, almost forever young. He had a round face and a wide smile that brought out his dimples. He couldn’t have been older than thirty, but he carried himself like an elder, a veteran resident of Manila Ave. There was something of the countryman in him, as if his love for plants and gardening grew out of a childhood on a farm. Whenever he knocked on a tenant’s door, he was received warmly. He took up their hand and raised it to his forehead and said, “Mano po.” We usually only received blessings from people older than us—aunts, uncles, friends of our parents. But Kuya Jem was well-blessed by everyone, even by some of the younger residents, newer ones who moved in for the easy commute into the city. The Filipino residents took it as a custom, and those who weren’t Filipino were endeared. Everyone knew Kuya Jem, and he knew just about everyone.

We always looked forward to Friday nights, when our little barangay on Manila Ave. gathered in the backyard of our building and Kuya Jem would tell us his stories. Many of the tenants would plan an end-of-the-week potluck. Most were Filipino dishes, which meant many of our fried favorites: lumpia, lechon kawali, turon. We delighted in anything golden brown that crunched in our mouths. That also applied to the other tenants’ dishes. One family brought empanadas of many kinds—beef, pulled pork, guava and cheese—all their greasy fillings dripping down our chins. Another family brought fried chicken wings, which we were warned were spicy and not made for our delicate taste buds. But we were stubborn little kids with no inhibitions. Afterward, we doused our tongues in buko juice.

After each family had their fill, our parents sat around in lawn chairs. Our fathers with beer bottles in hand, our mothers with indignant stares. They discussed the neighborhood tsismis—the new young couple who moved into the first floor whom they suspected were runaway high school sweethearts; the rumors of Hank’s Deli, on the corner, closing down due to a rat infestation; and of course, the latest disappearance on Manila Ave. And while their stories could have been more accurate, we had no care for nor sense of the absolute truth. Back then, all that mattered to us was Kuya Jem’s version of the truth, the way he bent it towards magic.

He’d sit on a tree stump and beckon us all to some small patch of grass. We followed, asking for his blessing—“mano po”—and sat cross legged knee-to-knee, more well-behaved than we were in school.

It would still be light out, the sunset a little less than an hour away. But already the fireflies were out and about. It was the perfect setting for the storyteller. Maybe it was the lower light, the way the strong shadows struck his plump, round face revealing new angles, but Kuya Jem no longer resembled the morning gardener who wished us well before we got on the bus. To us, on those Friday evenings huddled in the grass, Kuya Jem was a preacher reading gospel. He would always begin with a question.

*

“Has anyone seen Manong Manuel lately?” Kuya Jem asked.

Whispers spread among us, heads shaking, Have you? No, have you?

We all knew who he was. Manong Manuel lived on the fourth floor, but he was also a math teacher at the high school, and so we didn’t look forward to high school. We were scared of him. He was balding beyond repair, a few combed-over strands feathering his scalp. Whenever he blinked, his right eye lagged behind his left, so we never looked at him up close, careful not to be struck by his odd, asymmetrical stare. He also walked with a cane that helped him with his limp. Some of us who were older had heard from the high school students that Manong Manuel—Mr. Burgos as he was known at the school—was one of the strictest teachers they had. He would fail any student who tried to look him straight in the eyes. He was a boogeyman living in our apartment building. We would have never thought that Manong Manuel was anything otherwise.

I heard he ate squirrels for breakfast! one of us said. He gave my brother detention in a dungeon one time, another one said.

“No, no, no,” Kuya Jem said with authority, dispelling our own little tales about Manong Manuel. “Manong Manuel didn’t do any of those things.”

He read the confusion on our faces.

“Hm, pues,” he continued. “Does anyone know what an OFW is?”

Those younger tried to sound it out as if the acronym were a full word, while the rest of us waited for the answer.

“OFW stands for Ogre-Fighting-Warrior. Now I’m sure you all know what an ogre is.”

A monster! That one we knew. A monster from the swamp!

“Yes!” He began to change his face, forcing his eyes open like bullseyes, mangling his mouth, inhaling one cheek so half his face looked lifeless. He stood up, brought his back forward into a hunch, and curled his fingers into claws. He let out a gurgling sound under his breath, then pretended to lunge at one of us in the front row. We screamed with genuine fear, then—as Kuya Jem returned to his tree stump, the storyteller once again—began to laugh at one another’s squeamishness. “Ogres are monsters that live in swamps. They’re some of the most terrifying aswangs around. But sometimes…they leave the swamp. Sometimes…they find you.”

“I met Manong Manuel before any of you were born,” he began. “I knew him when he was a young man in the Philippines. I was one of his first math students, and I also called him ‘Mr. Burgos.’ Back then, he walked perfectly fine, and his eyesight was as sharp as a shooter. Like you, we were scared to have him as a teacher. He was strict and wanted us to behave. Really, none of us liked math very much. But we did our best. Mr. Burgos made sure of it. A lot of us stayed after school for his tutoring, especially after a test we all failed. Of course, our parents made us go too. But we didn’t mind staying after school. What happens in school when the school day ends? We wanted to know. And one day, we got what we asked for.

“It was a stormy afternoon. The sky rumbled, the thunder roared. Stay away from the windows, Mr. Burgos warned. The rainwater was spilling over the roof and over the glass. We thought it was a typhoon. What we didn’t know was that it was during storms like this when ogres left their swamps and found their way into our neighborhoods.”

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. Kuya Jem stomped his foot against the dry dirt. We felt the ground tremble against his work boot, each step landing with the strength of an ogre, flecks of soil flying through the air.

“The ogre’s footsteps echoed through the hallways. They were louder than the thunder. But Mr. Burgos told us not to worry. Ogres are my specialty, he told us. Hah! He was so cool back then—astig na astig. He told us to crouch under our desks and stay put until he got back. He opened the door and peered into the hallway. We shook as we heard the loud moaning of the ogre. Mr. Burgos addressed us one more time—I’ll be right back—then walked out into the hallway and shut the door.

BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. “We heard the ogre walk towards Mr. Burgos. Its footsteps grew faster and louder.” BOOMBOOMBOOMBOOM. “Like a stampede of carabao. But just before we thought it would get to Mr. Burgos, the ogre’s steps went silent. We heard Mr. Burgos shout, Ya!, followed by a whimpering. Then, a loud thud. We were still curled up beneath our desks, still so afraid, when Mr. Burgos came back for us. Come, he said, Come and see. So, we followed him out to the hallway.

“The ogre was ten feet in height,” Kuya Jem said, standing on top of the tree stump for scale. “Its skin was green as the grass, its teeth sharp as a dog’s. But it was dead. Mr. Burgos—Manong Manuel—had killed it with merely his fists. On the ogre’s forehead was a giant, swollen lump.” Still standing tall, Kuya Jem mimicked a boxer’s pose, then jabbed the air in front of him in a swift motion. “In one punch, Mr. Burgos defeated the ogre. He was the Manny Pacquiao of Ogre-Fighting-Warriors!”

Kuya Jem concluded the story with how Mr. Burgos became Manong Manuel. After years and years of fighting ogres in the Philippines, Mr. Burgos came to fight American ogres. He was still the best OFW around, but his fights began taking their toll on his body. After so many brawls, his eyesight began to wane. He suffered a number of injuries, which led to his use of a cane. But when Kuya Jem eventually moved to America and found out that Mr. Burgos was still fighting ogres, he convinced the old man to stop. “He was a great teacher after all,” Kuya Jem explained, “and there were still many students who needed him. I called him Manong because he was like an older brother to me and others. He was our hero. But now he’s also getting very old to teach, and he misses home. When he arrives back in the Philippines, he’ll have a hero’s welcome!”

All this time we thought Manong Manuel was the monster, hunched over on a cane with disgruntled eyes. We had no idea we were in the presence of a hero.

After Kuya Jem finished his tale, we joined the adults for a toast. They held up their beers while we held up our cans of buko juice. “To Manong Manuel,” our parents shouted. To Manong Manuel, we echoed. Later, we asked our parents whether he was really an OFW. “Yes, he is,” they assured us. “But he’s retired back in the Philippines.”

So, we believed Kuya Jem’s story. We regretted not having known before, but then we began to celebrate the acclaimed OFW in our own way. Some of us pretended to be ogres, running around the backyard. One of us would play the role of Manong Manuel, chasing ogres until not one of us was left untagged. That’s how it was for all of Kuya Jem’s stories. They became a part of our lives as the children of Manila Ave. We let our imaginations run wild on our little block. It was like that until the Percivals arrived and moved into our building.

*

Martin Percival appeared one morning as we waited for the school bus. It was Kuya Jem who introduced us to Manila Ave.’s newest resident. He was Filipino, like many of us, but different. Just by the way he dressed, we knew. While we wore simple jeans and t-shirts, Martin had on a white polo tucked into khaki pants. He had on a uniform because, unlike us, he went to St. Anthony’s, the Catholic private school where the better-off kids went. That explained why he was waiting by himself some distance away from us. But Kuya Jem took a break from his morning gardening routine to call him over to us. “Martin,” he said. “Come meet some friends.” Martin hesitated, but after Kuya Jem’s insistence—and our awkward, prying stares—he joined us.

“Mga kaibigan,” he called us. “This is Martin Percival. He and his father just moved into the top floor. Everyone say hi to Martin.”

Hi, Martin, we said.

“He goes to school at St. Anthony’s, isn’t that right, Martin?”

“Opo,” Martin said.

“But that doesn’t make him any different from me or you guys. So make sure to treat him like one of us.”

Yes, Kuya Jem. We looked at one another and nodded. One of us took Martin by his hand. You can wait here with us, too!

“Good, good,” Kuya Jem said.

Martin looked uncomfortable. We had only just met him, yet we were already eager to have him join us. We all knew what it was like being the new kid at school, so we made sure that the new kids like Martin weren’t so new for too long. It was easier for the Filipino boys and girls—their parents practically forced us to become friends. We ended up calling each other’s parents titos and titas, not bonded by blood but by homeland instead. For those of us who weren’t Filipino, it was a little harder. But they eventually warmed up to us—their parents, though not Filipino, also came from countries elsewhere. We all had that in common, immigrant families looking for a sense of community in an American city. We made Manila Ave. that community, our own little world. And at its center was Kuya Jem.

“And Martin,” he added, “make sure to tell your tatay that we’ll be having a party in the backyard this Friday. It’s a big party with lots of food and games.”

And stories! we exclaimed. Kuya Jem tells the best stories!

“Stories?” Martin asked. “What kind of stories?”

“You’ll just have to come to the party to find out,” Kuya Jem said with a warm smile. Then, he returned to his singing—ABBA’s “Chiquitita”—and his tulips.

Martin’s ride came first. To our surprise, it wasn’t a school bus that picked him up and brought him to school. It was a sleek, black luxury car with a driver. Some of us gasped as we watched Martin walk to the car. But Kuya Jem was unphased. He gave Martin the same instructions as he always gave us. “Study hard, Martin! And make your father proud!” We watched the car speed off of Manila Ave. and we waited for our own school bus to arrive.

*

That Friday, everyone gathered in the backyard for the potluck party. It was still too early for the festivities to begin. The adults were setting up the picnic tables and chairs, carrying around their steaming trays of pancit and rice, pernil and fried plantains, and even lasagna–though it had a layer of tuna in it. To keep us away from the food, our parents encouraged us to go play in the grass. We were in the middle of playing Manong versus Ogres when Martin sauntered over.

Come play with us, we called. Do you want to be Manong Manuel?

“Manong Manuel?”

Kuya Jem told us about him. He’s an Ogre-Fighting-Warrior!

“My dad says not to listen to Kuya Jem,” Martin said. “My dad says to stay away from him.” This confused us. We stopped chasing each other and gathered around Martin.

What do you mean?

“My dad says Kuya Jem is an alien. He says he doesn’t belong here. That he got here the wrong way and he didn’t do it the right way like we did.”

Kuya Jem isn’t an alien! We looked at each other and found the same puzzled expressions. We didn’t know what Martin was talking about, but we did know Kuya Jem. Kuya Jem is cool! Kuya Jem is the best! He’s our friend!

“Hoy!” Kuya Jem said as he ran towards us. “What’s going on here?”

We had started yelling at Martin, whose eyes began to water. Kuya Jem approached him, but the boy backed away from him and the rest of us. We kept silent.

“Itigil nyo na, okay? That’s enough.” He looked at us. We nodded. He looked at Martin, who also nodded. “The food is ready anyway. Kain na!”

We followed Kuya Jem to the food tables, but he gestured for us to wait. He called Martin over to the front of the line.

“Where’s your father?” he whispered.

“Still at work,” Martin said.

“Hm…well, because you’re our newest resident, you can have the first plate.”

We watched as Martin piled each dish onto his plate, as if he had never eaten before. From the lumpia to the empanadas, lasagna to pancit, his plate was stacked with all things crispy, juicy, and saucy. “Alright, now everybody can eat!” Kuya Jem announced. We cheered and followed Martin’s example—each plate a culinary Tower of Babel. We took our plates to Kuya Jem’s stage, the patches of grass around his storytelling tree stump. Martin sat all the way behind us, content with his plate yet still wary of the so-called alien seated in front of us. After a few more bites, our stomachs almost at capacity, Kuya Jem began his new tale.

*

“Has anyone seen Miss Guadalupe lately?”

No, we said, not one of us recalling the last time we saw her. Miss Guadalupe was a beautiful woman who lived on the first floor. She had been one of the newer residents, though she made herself comfortable in the building and among the others. It was her pancit that everyone craved; no one dared rival hers with their own recipe. But she remained humble. She was still young, addressing the rest of the tenants as “sir,” “mam,” and “po.” She worked as a day nanny in the city, taking care of rich people’s children while they made rich people money. But she enjoyed her job. Her bright, rosy cheeks greeted us every time she passed by. “Are you listening to your parents?” she’d ask. Yes, po. “Are you listening to Kuya Jem?” she followed up. Yes, po. We loved her, everyone did. She woke up earlier than the other residents, only second to Kuya Jem who began his maintenance duties just before dawn. There were rumors that the two of them were lovers. We had rooted for the couple. But if they were together, neither made it obvious. Only in their occasional glances passing through the halls of our apartment building on Manila Ave.

Is she gone? We started to panic. Why did she leave? She was so nice to us!

“She isn’t gone,” Kuya Jem said. “But she has left,” he admitted, a frown flashed on his face.

“Miss Guadalupe has fallen in love!” he explained. “Miss Guadalupe has fallen in love with a Canadian prince.”

Canadian? We were enthralled by this prince. To our naive ears, Canadian sounded fancy. We had never heard of Canada at that age, or at the very least, confused Canada for some faraway fairytale land rather than our northern neighbor. Does that make her a Canadian princess? we asked.

“Yes,” Kuya Jem said. “Princesa Guadalupe Barbeau, beautiful wife to Prince Bob Barbeau, and heiress to the Canadian throne. But she almost didn’t become a princess. Prince Barbeau had a rival to Miss Guadalupe’s hand in marriage. Prince Jerome of Pampanga!” He stood up on his tree stump, one hand on his hip and the other gripping an imaginary sword, ready to duel. We clapped and cheered for Prince Jerome. “Hear, hear! Give it up for the Prinsipe of Pampanga!” Hear, hear! Hear, hear! we shouted. He clutched his hands on top of another, conjuring a trumpet out of thin air, DAH DATATAH!

“It is I who will win Miss Guadalupe’s heart,” Kuya Jem, as Jerome, said. “Siya ang aking pagibig!”

He turned his body the other way, reversing his knightly stance.

“No, no,” Kuya Jem said, this time with an attempt at a Canadian accent, which was more like French. “I am Prince Bob Barbeau, heir to the kingdom of Canada, and the true heir to Lady Guadalupe’s heart!”

He flipped his body again, returning to his part as Prince Jerome.

“Then let us fight!” And the duel commenced. Kuya Jem took turns being Jerome and Bob Barbeau, shifting his body in odd angles for our entertainment. He swung high, then ducked low. He jabbed forward, then jumped backwards. We continued to cheer and even gasped at the drama, the tragic tale of romance and jealousy. “YAH!” the Pampangan prince shouted. “Take that!” the Canadian prince rebutted. Kuya Jem did all this on his single tree stump, and while he had done well to keep his balance during the performance, he finally lost his footing and fell to the ground. Oh no! we exclaimed. “If this is over,” he continued, “then at least I would have died for love.” Though we knew who was the victor, we held onto our breaths, guessing at which part he was playing, which prince had fallen. Still on the ground, Kuya Jem shouted to the heavens, “Miss Guadalupe! You will always be my…mahal.” With his last word of love, Prince Jerome of Pampanga laid still in the dirt, his eyes closed, and his heart broken.

*

“Get away from my son!” a stranger shouted behind us.

Kuya Jem ended his performance and was starting to get back up.

“I said get away from my son,” the stranger said. “Martin, come here now! I told you to keep away from him.”

We knew then that the man was Martin’s father, Mr. Percival. He wore a navy-blue suit, shirt and tie and all. His hair was slicked back with a greasy gel, and a moustache grazed his upper lip. His thick eyebrows pointed in diagonals, the wrinkles on his forehead squished together. This was the same man who had told Martin that Kuya Jem was an alien.

“Mr. Percival, sir.” Kuya Jem put his hand out to greet him. It was still covered in dirt from the fall he took as Prince Jerome.

Mr. Percival refused the greeting by slapping Kuya Jem’s hand away.

“Stay away from me and my son,” he shouted. “Stay away or I’ll make you disappear! You and the rest of them!” He took Martin by the hand and led him back into the apartment building. We heard Mr. Percival’s footsteps through the hallway and up the stairs, even as we were still outside, shaken by the scene. Our parents put down their drinks and ceased gossiping. Their eyes darted between each other until they finally looked towards Kuya Jem. He kept a still, stoic countenance, unmoved by Mr. Percival’s harsh words. We could hear Martin crying in between his pleas, “I’m sorry, Dad. I’m sorry.” After a few minutes, the Percivals reached their apartment and neither of them were heard anymore—only the chirping of the nighttime bugs signaling the day’s end.

“It’s getting late,” Kuya Jem said, breaking the silence. After Mr. Percival’s tirade, the party was clearly over. Our parents wrapped up the party trays of food, others took whatever leftovers they could fit onto paper plates. “Magandang gabi, everyone,” Kuya Jem said, then began to help the other adults fold up the picnic chairs and tables. It was an abrupt, somber end to our Friday night.

That night, before we had fallen asleep, the thought of Mr. Percival’s threat kept our minds running. What did it mean that he’d send Kuya Jem away? How could he do such a thing? We knew how people from Manila Ave. often disappeared. But we never thought Kuya Jem could be one of them. It was his duty to tell us about the disappearances, not to disappear himself, not to become one of his own stories and leave no one else to tell it.

*

The morning Kuya Jem disappeared began like any other day, though young Martin Percival was nowhere to be seen. Kuya Jem was whistling and singing to the tulips, this time with a rendition of Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York.” The birds chirped along as always—even they didn’t know it would be his last song sung on Manila Ave.

When we waited outside for the school bus to arrive, Kuya Jem held up a hand for some high-fives. “Apir!” he said. He held up his hand slightly higher than our reach, but we all jumped for it and made it. “Yes! Yes! And Yes! The higher you jump, the taller you’ll grow. Just like these flowers, you should all reach for the sun.” We believed him. We continued to take turns jumping for his hand, one apir after the other, thinking we’d grow to great heights, tall enough to face off with any ogre, monster, or alien. The school bus eventually arrived, and we had to leave Kuya Jem to tend to the rest of his plants. He waved goodbye, his palm now red from our high-fives. Still, he smiled, dimple to dimple. Still, he told us, “Study hard, hah! Make your parents proud!”

When we came back at the end of our school day, Kuya Jem was nowhere to be found. The residents were in a panic. Surely, they knew more about his disappearance than we did. Though it wasn’t a Friday, no potluck to plan and set up, the adults gathered out back and let us play around that evening. But we were in no mood to play—we also wanted to know what had happened to Kuya Jem. Even without his presence, our little barangay came together because of him.

“It was Mr. Percival.” We overheard one of our parents say. “He put in the call, and they came after him during the day.”

“Walang hiya siya,” another parent said in frustration.

We were surprised to see that the landlord—his bald head dripping in sweat, his eyes refusing to meet anyone else’s—had joined them too, perhaps to give some sort of explanation. We heard Mr. Percival’s name repeated, even Martin came up in their heated conversation. “I can’t do anything about it,” the landlord concluded. “And I’ve already sold the building to him. He’ll be in charge in just a few weeks.” He brushed his palms together as if to wash them clean, then threw them into the air. But our parents continued to berate him.

Meanwhile, we had our own debates. Was Martin right? Is Kuya Jem an alien? we asked one another. Maybe he went back to the others like him. We mulled over the theory but weren’t satisfied. He isn’t an alien. He’s just like us! There was no point in arguing. We all agreed Kuya Jem had more in common with us than some green, googly-eyed extraterrestrial. What does Martin know about Kuya Jem? We’ve known him longer. Kuya Jem had been family to us—the eccentric uncle with eccentric stories to tell. Nothing could have shaken our faith in him and our belief in his stories; we clung to them for a couple more years after his disappearance.

*

We didn’t see Martin Percival much in the weeks after Kuya Jem left. His father must have kept him cooped up in their top floor apartment, away from the rest of us who helped shelter an apparent alien. We knew Martin was still around, that he still went to St. Anthony’s Catholic school. From our apartment windows, we watched the same black, luxury car and chauffeur pick him up in the morning. Martin came out in his white polo and khakis, alone. Because Kuya Jem was no longer there to wait with us, no longer there to sing to his halaman, we stayed in our apartments until we saw the school bus pull up outside. We still tried to study hard, just as Kuya Jem told us. We tried to make our parents proud. But it was harder without him.

Mr. Percival, who became the new property owner, began making some long overdue renovations. A new laundry room, a smoother elevator ride. Everyone knew the upgrades weren’t necessarily for us but for the potential new residents that Mr. Percival wanted. We watched these strangers pass through the lobby, families with bright smiles and auras. Are we getting new neighbors? we asked our parents. But they merely groaned and rolled their eyes. Still, we looked forward to some new friends to join us, new players in our game of Manong Manuel versus Ogres. When some prospective families brought their children to an open house, we’d huddle behind the lobby desk and watch them eagerly. We waved to them, and once they noticed us, they often smiled back. But when Mr. Percival saw us, he’d rush over and tell us to go back to our apartments. “Or I’ll make you disappear like Kuya Jem,” he threatened. That scared us enough.

But we still had our Friday night gatherings. Not even Mr. Percival could stop us. He would occasionally come out of his top floor apartment to reprimand the adults for having the music too loud. “Some neighbors have been complaining,” he asserted, putting on some professional bravado in his navy-blue suit. No one believed him. Just about every resident of Manila Ave. had made their way to our potluck throughout the years, and they knew that the only resident complaining was Mr. Percival himself. They laughed behind his back as soon as he retreated into the building. Then the singing recommenced, the gossip spilled, the concert of our little barangay broadcast throughout the city. “Tagay!” they exclaimed, beer bottles in hand. Tagay, we echoed with our cans of buko juice.

During one of our gatherings, Martin came out of the building and surprised us outside. “I’m sorry about Kuya Jem,” he said. Do you know what happened to him? we asked. “He went back to the Philippines where he belongs,” he responded, though in our minds we knew those were Mr. Percival’s words. We asked if he wanted to join us, to stay around for food and play around in our games. Though his eyes perked up at our offer, his frown displayed his restraint. “My Dad will be back soon,” he explained. “I have to go.” We watched him dart away with his head hung low. We wanted to chase after him, but feared his father just as much as he did. Years later, when some of us would reminisce about our time on Manila Ave., we’d bring up Martin Percival and wonder what had happened to him, whether he eventually escaped his father and his ivory tower. We never blamed him for Kuya Jem’s disappearance; there was no ill will, only sympathy.

Did Kuya Jem go back to the Philippines? we later asked our parents.

“Yes,” they answered. “At least he’s back home.”

Knowing he was there comforted us in the meantime. Maybe he was spending time with Manong Manuel, living out the heroic stories he used to tell us. Maybe he was just happy to be back home, where many of our own families were from.

Mr. Percival hired a new maintenance man for our building, but he had no care for singing, focused on his work rather than people, and showed no affinity for storytelling. He was merely Nick the maintenance man. If Kuya Jem were around, he would have conjured a story for him. We couldn’t have lived up to his talents, so we didn’t bother telling our own tales about him, or anyone for that matter. So Nick was merely Nick, and we were left to play and reenact the same stories, the ones Kuya Jem left us with. Though, as time went on, details changed. Instead of Manong Manuel fighting ogres, he fought vampires. Instead of Miss Guadalupe marrying a Canadian Prince, she was kidnapped by a Scandinavian pirate. We mixed and matched heroes and monsters, myths and legends. Kuya Jem gave us the tools, but we weren’t master builders like him, capable of spontaneous creation. We did our best.

Eventually, when we got older and our imaginations were stifled by the facts of life and growing up, we left that apartment building on Manila Ave. One by one, we said our goodbyes. We became teenagers in high school, and the older ones left for college. Some of us moved out of state, others remained in various neighborhoods of the city. As our Friday potlucks got smaller, the tulips out front grew limp. Then the rent got too expensive, and more and more families like the Percivals moved in. The neighborhood was changing, and we couldn’t keep up. It was as if, without Kuya Jem, Manila Ave. fell apart. Perhaps, when he had asked the residents “mano po,” it was he who was blessing them, and us, and our community. He kept us together along with his stories. Now there were no more stories to tell.

Except for the story of Kuya Jem. We told it no matter where he went. Study hard. Reach for the sun. Pay attention to how someone acts, not how they look. These were the lessons we strived to teach our own children. When our children reached the age we had been, all those years ago, we told them about Kuya Jem and his tales from Manila Ave.—how he inspired us to do our best, how he filled us with a sense of belonging where we might not have belonged, how he taught us what it meant to be good and kind. We told them the tale of Kuya Jem, the master storyteller who kept magic alive for the children of parents in search of a dream.

 

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