The street has one of those mad people who sometimes shouts incoherently. She’s an old woman. More ancient than her years. Some of the tourists back away, afraid. The rest of the cast don’t even bat an eyelid. She’s part of the scenery. Mostly lies on the pavement. Sometimes wanders the street shouting and chuntering. She can manifest quite abruptly.
The Cialis guys are interchangeable. Except they ain’t. They all wear different faces. One of them has a toothless grin. One of them has a broad smiling face, keeping it cheery beneath the sweat and hope. They all peddle the same wares. Yellow pills and blue pills. Monkey glands. All of them calculating the margin on the doable.
“The boys” on the doors, the girls inside the doors, and the girls on the streets. A word to the unwise: some of those girls ain’t. Some of them don’t even look like they might be. The street girls often work in pairs — safety, increased scam/theft potential. Buy one, get 50% off the other. We only come as a pair. Sometimes one of them is pretty.
Curb Elders with thousand-yard stares and eternal cigarettes. The begging girl with the obligatory babe in arms. Street kids with bags of peeled mangoes. Old mammas with fake roses. A flower for the lady. Some dope buys a rose for a street hooker. A thorn by any other name…
The hooker encourages the transaction. The camaraderie of poverty. In the ledger, slights are tallied, but favours are freely given. A flower for the lady, a massage for the man? Massage, baby? Lingam massage? Prostate massage? Long time massage? Step this way…You want a legit massage? Fuck your luck. You came to the wrong fucking street.
A tiny beautiful lame girl touting the drinks list for an off-drag bar. A tiny flame of hope and innocence. Tiny Tim among the hardened pros. God preserve her. This meat grinder will chew her up. This darkness will extinguish her flame. I wish I was alive enough to still want to save her.
The midgets are jazzed up in their fight gear and good to go. Energised. Flyweight. Sports shorts. Sports vests. Red team and blue team. The gloves are off. For the moment.
In the big scheme, the little people have got a small edge. They’ve got a unique selling point. The lame girl can’t parley her difference into an asset. They cluster round the doorway throwing faux punches at passersby. The doormen tower over them like giants.
There are more street kids than usual. Empty paper cups and rubbed bellies. Hungry eyes. No idea why there are more today. Maybe it’s just a wrinkle. Part of the ebb and flow.
And then there’s the punters. Don’t get me started… but I guess the only difference between me and them is less booze, less weight and less clear intent.
Things are warming up. Sweet hookah smoke mingling with the diesel fumes and grilled meat. Patter and banter. Brush-offs and hook-ups. Come inside Boss we got the best girls. Bet you say that to all the guys.
Brash confident girls working the door. Shy province girls shuffling desultorily on the stage. Guess who’s making coin tonight? Guess who’s looking at another night wondering where the dorm fee is coming from?
Managerial level collective bargaining ensures that bar fines are locked across the whole street. We get into a price war we all lose. Capiche? But on a dead night a lot of the mammas will show some quiet discretion.
I prowl the street. No thanks, I don’t drink. I slip the lame girl 50 pesos for “doing a great job”. It ain’t charity — it’s just bookkeeping. I don’t know what I’m seeking. A Cialis dude locksteps me. I try to wave him off. He’s jovially persistent. The merch looks kosher. I tell him I ain’t got no need.
The night is just getting started.
Ten pesos for the street kid. Twenty pesos for the homeless girl who acts as unofficial greeter at the 7-11. Fifty pesos for the lame girl with the drinks list, because she has a flame. One hundred pesos each for “the boys” on the door. Two hundred pesos for the mamma’s cleavage. The reason everybody’s got their hand out is that everybody needs a fucking handout. This street just gets meaner with every passing year.
Nobody tips the shouting woman. Who knows how she fucking survives. Maybe the kindness of strangers. Maybe she’s just “sustained”.
Welcome to P. Burgos. Named for Padre José Apolonio Burgos. Executed by the Spanish for standing up for Filipino rights, dignity and autonomy. It’s the whole world writ small. It’s the whole city in microcosm. Except the high rises and the slums are people’s hopes and failures.
The Padre would be proud.
