Taking fiction to a higher realm
I recall a particularly enjoyable literary program at the Silliman University National Writers Workshop some years ago, when John Bengan read a short story of his that had us in stitches. Titled “Manny Pacquiao Speaks to a Butterfly in California,” the obvious parody transcended humor with a fine understanding of human relations—which always makes for a powerful underlay in any narrative. Surreal may be the settings, situations and language, but what ultimately gains appreciation is the subtlety of this benign mix.
By his lonesome, Manny starts his monologue by addressing a butterfly he sees in a park across a Persian Deli. He has given his usual “entorads” the slip, but mentions how his official groupies that pack their hotel quarters can number anywhere from 18 to 27.
“Half of dem I don’t know who really but all of dem are now friends of mine, you know? Ders a guy who cook me, wahs my clohds, clean my room. For dat others say we are crazy. But dey don’t see my entorads is like shield of me.
“They shield of me but I’m very smart today. Dey don’t find me escape to da deli.
“Butterfly, I hope it’s okay wid you what I talk about. It’s about my mader. It’s about my mader olwis.”
He recounts how two months earlier, as a flight back home nears the Davao airport, he notices how everyone is silent, so that he demands why his "entorads” has become strange. Only the “chip-of-stap of da moment” dares speak. Jayke tells him that Madam has not been in the mansion for three days. Upon landing, Manny instructs everyone, including his wife, to proceed home to Gen San while he stays in Davao for a while. Only a driver and Jayke accompany him as they search a shantytown for the residence of Madam’s D.I. (dance instructor).
Manny’s storytelling is equal parts sharp observation and recollection of how he had grown up in such a shantytown. But in his ascent to global success and popularity, he has gained the wisdom of one who had fought his way up, and stayed centered. He never raises his voice as he asks neighbors where the D.I. lives, nor the guy himself groveling for forgiveness when he’s found.
“I walk porward to pull him up, but da door explode, and I stip back.
“Mama fly out of da room like angry bat. Her face sharp and cutting me….
“Mama shout to me. ‘Go home, Manny!’ She say like she commanding me out of da sugarcane pild when I was small boy flying kite in da hot apternoon.”
Manny tries to convince her to come home with him.
“‘Don’t porgit dis, Emmanuel.’ Mama is screaming to me. ‘I am da mader. You are only my son. Don’t porgit dat. I am da mader.’”
He tries to take her arm. “But she speak. ‘Let me go, anak. Lib Mama alone.’”
Manny remembers all the times he’s left his Mama alone, as when he left for Manila at 14 and started boxing against her wishes.
“Da time she pray novena for me to win or jas to live anader day. She pray until her eyes are tired of tears and her mouth dry of whisper. Butterfly, it hit me like a rapid hook in da ear. Mama olwis let me go.
“So I leave her der wid her dance partner. My body light and heavy both in one time, jas when I lose a beautiful fight.”
That Pacquiao story turns out to be among the baker’s dozen in Bengan’s collection, Armor, published by Bughaw of AdMu Press last year. The rest affirm his mastery of the genre. A Davaoeño, he enriches our literature with a virtual saga of extrajudicial murders as social realism.
“Higher Orders” sets the standard for the basic narrative on the Death Squad and customary killings, almost like a procedural, except that its ending introduces an element that is barely anticipated, but also winds up as a parallel running thread in the anthology: queerdom. Clean prose spells fulfillment, from introduction of characters to effective dialogue and structured exposition that in this story is exclusively first-person.
“Silence fell everywhere. All the people disappeared. I thought the gun didn’t fire. Then, like a fierce gulp of thunder, it came to me, staggering, the sound and sensation of my first kill, a moment so pure I thought I too had died, a superb reverberation flowing through my veins, the recoil of a powerful gun, and the muted, awesome sight of a forehead shattering, pale flesh spurting in a stun of red.”
In other stories, parental relations and early camaraderie are deeply affected by old unresolved deaths, “bodies found in empty, grassy lots,” vigilantes closing in on Mintal, as samples of the reality of ordinary criminality. Fleshed-up characters include soft porn starlets, youngsters engaged in phone sex, bayots prepping for a Miss Gay competition, shabu users, pushers, rappers, taxi drivers. And there’s frequent mention of a mayor who “was a brutal man who called for the blood of offenders on TV.
The title story “Armor” superbly details how an aging gay competitor outfits herself for a pageant, as a triumphant last act before her expected mortal elimination. But like the other stories of sheer realism, it takes a turn for the unexpected, veering away from what looks to be predetermined closure to arrive at some other finality, or stay open-ended.
But my favorite, since it takes fiction into a higher realm, is “Slaughter Story,” where the writer prompts readers through an exercise on creative writing options.
“An assassin shoots another man in Davao City. The victim dies, while the assassin escapes on a motorcycle. How do you present this as a work of fiction?”
Options are offered, after main characters are introduced, back stories offered, conflicting possibilities suggested. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure scenario where the guideposts stand like slalom markers that themselves join the action. The writer-impresario serves as puppet master, almost cynically grading whatever narrative route you take, even while hinting at tricks of the trade.
“Endings are difficult when you write them last. One way is to write the ending before the beginning. It all depends on execution.”
And: “Forget about the moral. Compression, not reduction, is our true goal. Trust that the reader is onboard until the last punctuation. The story, if we are lucky, might mean more to someone other than you.”
John Bengan teaches literature and writing at UP Mindanao. A Philippines Free Press and Palanca award winner, he received an MFA in Creative Writing from The New School in New York City, and was appointed as the 2021-22 David T.K. Wong Writing Fellow at University of East Anglia, where he was expected to complete a novel. I look forward to its eventual publication.