Whirl

“Oh yeah, we’d snort gasoline, paint thinner, any kind of get high”

At this moment I knew I was in over my head.

We were in Jacob’s crappy little apartment, in a crappy little subdivision, about a three miles from the base.

Jacob, (the guy talking), Sam and I were snorting speed. Well at least they were. I was watching and peppering them with questions.

I’d arrived in the PI about five months ago. By now it was all old hat, my tuition was complete.

Prior to reaching my teens I’d set an absolute, dogmatic rule with regard to drugs, including cigarettes and alcohol–I would never use them. My thinking did not stem from any sort of moral code, instead it came from fear. As a result of this self imposed policy, most of my adolescence was dedicated to finding a middle ground. One where I could keep the friends I had and yet not take on their expanding habits. That worked well until I left home.

When I arrived in Denver for tech school, I found myself isolated. The straight kids were the people whom I seemed to have the least in common. Many of them loved, even craved, power and authority. Their thinking was even more rigid than mine, their sense of humor was crippled, and half of them were jesus freaks.

So after 2 years of self-inflicted solitude, I’d decided to use this new assignment as a chance to re-set my lifestyle; to taste a few forbidden fruits.

At this moment I wasn’t so sure I’d made the right call.

Another friend arrived and we left for the bars. We were a long way from Fields Avenue, and there were no jeepneys around, so we started walking.

The weather was nice that night, not too hot (meaning under 90 degrees) and dry, very dry. It was nearing dusk. The road wound through some pretty bare stretches; places with no street lights; areas where the land was too low and hilly to build. But people lived here, uninvited.

Of the road, down in the gulley’s, you could see candles burning through cracks in the thin walls of several little shacks. These were fairly nice, as squatter’s shacks go. In Manila I’d seen families living under cardboard and garbage bags. These shacks were solid, made of plywood and tin.

The mothers were putting their children to bed. The coal fires, where they had cooked their dinner, were dying off. The men were sitting around them, smoking cigarettes and silently watching us pass.

I could feel their dark eyes on me. I wondered what it must be like to lay on the ground late at night, in a little tin shack with your children on one side of you and your wife on the other. Did every car or motorcycle passing on the road above remind you of what you could not give them? How do you keep them clean and safe? How do you keep them dry and warm when the rains come? How do you give them comfort when they are sick?

A jeepney passed and Sam flagged it down. I was glad to scurry off.

“Why?” I thought, “why did I feel anxious back there.”

I didn’t fear for my safety–I’d walked that road many times in the dark of night—so where did this uneasiness come from?

A few bumpy minutes later we disgorged ourselves from the jeepney in front of the main gate. Children swarmed us begging for money and offering to help us find entertainment for the evening.

In suburban America, kids this age would be in bed. Safe and content in their cartooned underwear, surrounded by plastic accessories. But these boys were on the streets, working hard to scrape up a few coins. Most of them were the children of bar girls, who were also working right now. It didn’t strike me as ironic that I may be chatting up their mother in just a few minutes. This was normalcy in Angeles City.

The four of us wandered into a bar we liked. The place was named Oliver’s at the time, but bar names in Angeles changed from month to month. It was a small dive. Maybe 25 feet wide and 40 deep. The bar ran lengthwise along the room. It looked much like any American bar might have looked in 1980. Dingy and smoke filled. There was a pool table in the back and a few tables towards the front of the place.

We were the only customers. We sat down at the bar and ordered San Miguel. At the time, this was the only brand of beer you could get in the PI. That would change.

As my friends talked, I sat back, nursed my beer, and took in the view. For some reason, all of the bar girls were lined up on the other side. I counted 18 young women. Eighteen of them to four of us; those were pretty good odds.

“Is this were the children in the gulley shacks will end up?” I thought. “Stuck on the wrong side of a ratio, in a dive best known as a good place to buy dope?”

I realized were my earlier discomfort came from.

A few hours ago, I’d walked into a pharmacy, parted with three dollars, and walked out with a few hits of Ionamin. A legal transaction in the eyes of the Philippine government (not the U.S. Air Force) conducted for purely recreational means. By American standards, I was not well off. Yet my disposable income was enough to keep a couple of Filipino families healthy and educated. I could not plead ignorance to that. I witnessed it every day.

Looking back tonight it would be wonderful if I could tell you that this moment of realization led to a major change in my behavior. But that’s not what happened. Instead I chose to turn back to the bar and order another beer. I chose short term pleasure over long term effect.

It’s easy enough to say this was an individual choice and it was. But despite our cherished individuality, our single choices mold the values held to by our society.

Uncle Sam was the most powerful nation on earth in 1980, maybe we still are today. We could have done so much with what we had. But the choices our nation made in that decade were not much different than the small moral choice I made that evening.

We chose to pour several hundred million dollars a year into the pockets of Ferdinand Marcos and his cronies. All so we could hold to a pair of military bases we really didn’t need. So our young airmen could strut their stuff on dusty streets, never bothering to look beneath their heels.

All so we could shoot the heady drug of imperialism into our leathered veins.

Any kind of get high.

© 2008 by Rodney Gleghorn. All rights reserved.

I boarded the bus this morning in a pissed off state. It’s not really worth elaboration—let’s just say it involved a 30 minute walk, a rising thermometer, a closed service counter, and an unlucky guy on the other side who really couldn’t do anything but wither beneath my angry stare.

So, back at the bus stop I darted off a quick rant to my wife; boarded the bus with my last bit of change; whipped out a book, and settled into my seat. Twenty minutes later I stepped off of that same bus feeling good. I’m starting my day in a relaxed mode—feeling better informed and much, much, more tolerant of my fellow citizens.

Here’s the point: had I stepped into my car this morning it is likely I’d have arrived at work ready to rip off some heads (this is why I’m not allowed to drive on the weekends).

Thus the joy of the slow ride. Read, relax, and take in the view. Even from a bus, the view is fine.

© 2007 by Rodney Gleghorn. All rights reserved.