bopis

They tell me it's bound to get ugly. They tell me I still have time to back out, don't rush into these things. Because these things will prove to be one irrevocable decision after another.

Whenever I hear the word ugly I remember Khojee, da man. I remember his long afternoon.

Khojee's not ugly, facewise. But you know how these things go. I'm not allowed to call him pretty. He was earrings and muscles, was bad genie laughter and a bald head. We loved him as far as love can go in the sergeants' circle of the old university. We loved him even if we never saw him coming, and even if he always popped out of nowhere right into the middle of the tambayan, grabbing one of us by the trousers - usually the thin Mosqueda - and shouting: Gang Rape!

Then we would each grab a limb, in earnest, so that he could rub his knee into Mosqui's groin - or that of anyone of us - and we could then chant Children of the Corny: Gang Rape Gang, Gang Rape Gang! And he could then ullulate.

Then we would be satiated and play magic cards or rehash boy bawang jokes or listen to Khojee detail the latest H-wood object of his masturbation ask Mosqui how life was with a penis as broad and as short as a can of Maling. One day, late in the morning, we were bad-mouthing his penis when Mosqueda got so damn piqued that he threatened to unzip. So Khojee signalled Gang Rape Gang though as far as we were concerned he didn't have to, we were already up and grasping, and Mosqui never wore his pants hiphop style ever since the passing of that day.

Khojee wore hiphop himself, wore it long after most of us gave up on the fashion, wore it loose and low even after I warned him that a stupid Manuela mall-rat was posing hip-hop when he busted his head by challenging a yuppie to a fight in the middle of the food court. The yuppie raised his fists, boxer style, and the Manuela hiphopstah delivered a high kick. His own seams were his undoing. The flight of the right leg pulled the low pant-leg up and snatched the left leg off the ground, wham! Went the head.

But Khojee was da man, and I was still thinking of Kierkegaard with his two horses, one heavenward another earthbound. And the man in the chariot getting torn to pieces.

So Khojee was in his hip-hop get-up, his waist superfluous with abs and belts and chains when he popped up one afternoon. Because he found Mosqueda absent, he said we'd postpone the rape although he was so horny because of this new girl he saw in an MTV, a Claire Danes look-a-like and boy would he like to teach that girl the difference between a daisy and a rose.

Rose. Uh-ohs. We asked him if he'd jacked off already. He said of course, oh god why would he pass her up? He's seen the video several times. He heard the song once standing up on the bus and began rubbing his member on the pole, never mind the sidewise glances of the driver! I was about to ask him how many times he saw the video when Mosqui suddenly appeared and asked Khojee: "You know why Taylor Hanson's flat-chested?"

"Because she's a kid, stupid," Khojee said.

"Because he's a boy, like his brothers in the Hanson brothers who are also as boys as brothers go," Mosqueda said.

He chanted Gang Rape Gang, and I'm willing to bet it was the longest afternoon in Khojee's life, and no one in the sergeants' circle ever wore hip-hop style again. And no one kept in touch after graduation.

posted by Dennis Andrew S Aguinaldo  # 11:06 a. m.