Imitation of Life
The boy’s name was Renato and he hated it. He was the fourth and the last Renato in the line of the Tamayo hacienderos that moved to the South during the 1950’s. Renato knew that his name possessed a curse that his grandfather had carried with him from his birthplace.
When his grandfather, Renato Tamayo, Jr. was on a cargo ship, stowing away from Iloilo, he suffered pneumonia. His instincts didn’t serve him well on a large island branded as the Land of Promise. His only luck stuck when he met Blesida and sired a son. He inherited the boy his only noble possession: he named the boy Renato. The old Renato promised to himself that he would give his son the guidance that he needed but didn’t get when he was a young man. But he soon died and Blesida was left to raise their Renato alone.
Renato III grew up lacking the image of a father in his life. He sought refuge on who he considered friends. They spat, they drank, they pricked and they flew. When he met his Blesida, it was not luck. He rather loved her but he loved flying more. They sired a son, also naming him Renato. Renato III promised to himself that he would give his son the father’s love he needed but didn’t get when he was growing up. But he soared higher into the sky and only return to earth to fuel up his flight.
***
The last Renato was a second year student and his class finished early that day. He had been selling cigarettes and candies for an hour now, in a stall where his mother and grandmother had used to sell banana and camote cues near a gasoline station. It was a sweltering day, the concrete on Ponciano Street sweated in disgust with the sun. The heat did not bother Renato, only it bored him to the extent of yawning and tearing.
But the traffic that mid-afternoon made him somehow glad. A long line of large grey boxes stringed the length of Ponciano. They were honking and moving in a pace fit for a snail race. A road accident up ahead must had packed the street. Above the thick sound of horns coming from the jeepneys, he could hear a faint cry of an ambulance. Or was it a fire truck? He searched the city skyline filled with wires and cables for a dark smoke, but only the thin smog was the dark cloud he saw. The air smelled dead with pollution, the stench of a rotting city.
The drivers were patients, the boy knew, unlike the constant rustles and shifts the passengers did. Renato observed with his young teary eyes a nursing student in an almost empty jeepney in front of his stall. She gathered her hair that sticks on her fat neck, wiped her thin brows with a white cotton handkerchief and adjusts her big, dark sunglasses. The driver of the jeepney called on to Renato and bought from him a bottle of cold water. He received the plastic bottle as he fanned himself with a dirty towel. A man in red cap, next to the driver, asked for menthol candy.
When he was about to pass the candy to the man, the man stuck out his head out of the jeepney. The driver crouched behind his windshield as if waiting for the change of traffic lights. The nursing student bended out her head, sweat rose from her fat upper lip. They were looking from where a commotion was coming. Renato, at first, was unaware until voices sprang up from the usual silent pedestrians.
A screech killed the voices and apolice mobile swerved out of the corner of Bonifacio intersection and stops in front of a building. Up in another building, a tiny dot was sitting at the edge of a smiling billboard. It was a man wearing only his underwear, swinging his legs. Everyone in Ponciano looked up to him. Renato could say that it was his father.
Renato left his stall, ran the remaining length of Ponciano, crossed the Bonifacio intersection, passed the mobile, the University of Mindanao building and stood few meters away from the gathered crowd. The boy’s feet throbbed in short sting pains where the rubber straps met his skin. He had run too fast and too abrupt. He heard his heart beat wildly just below his throat. He watched his father laughing at them. Or was he just laughing at him? He pointed his finger at the crowd. A guy in dark sunglasses and checkered polo carried a crackling megaphone started talking to his father.
“Dong, is your name Renato?” cracked the Mayor, saying the cursed name. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Putang ina nimo!” shouted his father back and resumed laughing. He kicked and swung his legs harder into the air. He scratched his crotch and talked to his invisible friend. Renato’s father was again stoned and needed flying.
Renato squeezed his hands until his fingernails burned his palms. He watched through his young teary eyes his father that now stood and wobbled as he searched for his balance. With his hands apart like an albatross, his father tried to place his fingers on his forehead and did what looked like a sign of cross.
Renato closed his eyes hard that orange spots began to flower on a black background behind his eyes. He held his right hand to his face to cover more of the image that illuminated through his closed eyes. Warm tears burst from his eyes and trickled between his fingers. His father was about to jump and fly for the last time. “Putang ina nimo, Renato!” he heard himself whispering. And the cursed name echoed in his silence.
***
Renato grew up to be a fine man. He was then selling banana and camote cues on his stall where he used to sell cigarette and menthol candies. He never met his Blesida and never sired a son. He never passed on the cursed name. His eyes remained young forever.
A young man in red cap walked to his stall and bought ten sticks of banana cues. Renato covered the sticks in a strip of banana leaf and put them inside a red plastic bag. He gave it to the young man. The man smiled and said, “thank you, Regine.”
