fiction

from Pasquinades
by Adrian Cristobal

Pleasures of the Street

ZISA SHOWED UP with a half bottle of vodka just as we were having our last drink for the night. She had that pensive look which said she wanted to talk. Aldo, the sensitive poet, obliged by asking whether anything was bothering her.

Nothing much, she said, except that old habit of you men of urinating in public.

There was an instant chorus of protest from everyone present. No one in the company had done it after growing into manhood.

Nevertheless, it persists, Zisa said. Why, just tonight, my own customer, who is supposedly an educated man, did it. I was so disgusted I left him to his canine pleasure.

I take it, Lakan said, that he relieved himself on the boulevard?

Yes, right on the wall.

You didn't used to be upset by such things, as I recall, observed Emong who was called the Attorney for being in and out of the police precinct.

I was young then. In fact, I used to amuse myself by approaching a public urinator to ask for directions. You should have seen their faces!

I did my apprenticeship with such men, said Emong. I waited for the big flush and then picked their pockets while they were intent on doing it right. They couldn't very well run after me.

I suppose that's one way of curing them of the obnoxious habit.

There aren't that many light-fingered, fleet boys like the young Emong, said Aldo.

In any case, where did our countrymen get the habit, that's what I want to know, asked Mongha.

I doubt if there is a single explanation, said Lakan. It could be an imported provincial habit. Once, the colorful Mayor Lacson, the one called Arsenic, said that most of the urinators came from a certain province in the South. But he was being nasty, of course. The habit is not regional but national.

Aldo couldn't recall any mention of the habit in Pigafetta's description of our ancestors. Since no one else knew anything about Pigafetta, he was greeted with silence.

Maybe the origins are lost in time, Lakan resumed. The Chinese habit of spitting and blowing their noses in public, for example, must have had a religious significance. I understand that this has been stopped in Hong Kong and Singapore for the most part. Why can't we do the same here?

By Gad, we were three centuries under the Spaniards and fifty years under the Americans. Why was nothing done about it along with all that Christianization and plumbing? Aldo asked.

We don't know that nothing was done about it, Emong said. Few men do that sort of thing these days.

Few perhaps, but it's done everyday.

Zisa's right, Emong. I think we have gotten so used to it that we no longer remark on it.

Yes, Aldo, agreed Lakan. It has become so natural that it's now part of our landscape. Now and then people like Zisa complain.

Do you think, Zisa said, that it's lack of education or being lower class?

I have seen the rich and educated do it.

Perhaps, in an emergency.

It is always an emergency! I believe that that's what's wrong with us. We cannot cope with emergency?

Much less anticipate it, said Emong. That's the secret of my success. I can tell a pushover after two minutes of talking to him. I talk fast, arouse his interest and boggle his mind and then make the sting. It always works.

The criminal mind, said Lakan, takes advantage of our frailties.

It's an avoidable frailty just the same, said Zisa. You men don't know the inconveniences women have to put up with just to be proper. Is it because Filipino men are soft and undisciplined despite all that bluster?

You should know. You are with them all the time. I don't mean that as an insult.

I know what you mean, Aldo. But I like to believe that I meet them when they are out to unwind after a hard day's work. They show their vulnerability for the purpose of having a good time. I expect them to be different at other hours and outside of the club.

Tell me, Zisa, said Lakan. Why are you quite upset about this so-called Filipino habit? Are you sure you are not upset by something else?

I don't know that I am.

And would you like this habit to disappear?

Very much so, Lakan. I feel for my country and my countrymen. And I hate it when foreigners mention the habit to me, which is quite often.

Do you think they will respect us more if this habit disappeared?

I know it's a small thing, no pun intended. But here we are trying to attract foreigners to invest in our country, at least that's what the government says. And yet we cannot even provide conveniences for those who cannot seem to control their bladders. You are the wise men. Tell me the connection.

There must be some connection, Lakan. Isn't it from small things that one judges character? At least, my mother used to tell me.

I agree with you, Emong. If we can't respect others?and urinating in public is a sign of disrespect?how can we respect others and expect others to respect us? Isn't that so, Lakan?

You have a point there, Zisa. Are you saying, then, that if we start with this habit, we can go on to bigger things?

That seems obvious to me, Lakan. I think the habit is connected with littering, jaywalking, shoplifting and all anti-social behavior. And you know why? It's because no one is looking, so they think, and even if there are rules, no one is there to enforce them.

But then isn't it a matter of having more enforcers of laws, regulations and rules? That when there is a fine for urinating in public, the habit will be discouraged?

Perhaps. The doggish males might become human if they know they have to pay for it.

You may be right. But just how many enforcers will be employed just for stopping the habit?

The police should have that as an additional duty. They don't do much else, I can tell you.

You may be unjust. They manage the traffic, solve crimes, protect lives and property.

They don't do these things very well. Maybe they will be more successful with public urinators.

It's getting late, said Emong. We have gone from pissing to policing. We shall not get anywhere until the sun rises.

Then Lakan said that he had been so stimulated by the discussion that we should continue it at some future time. Everybody agreed and the Mayhaligue Dialogues were launched.

24 June 1990

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