SKIRMISHER

“Trouvère at night, grammarian in the morning,

ruefully architecturing syllables…” –

Nick Joaquín, Six P.M.

I wake up at six or seven P.M. I leave the house for work at around eight. I arrive at nine, getting ready to speak with em’ yankees overseas, preparing to dish out my fake Texan accent so that they won’t recognize that a “useless eater” from thirdieworldielandia is handling their prescription accounts. ‘Coz if they find out, the possibility of them unleashing some of the most heart-piercing racist remarks that could eventually force Martin Luther King, Jr. outta his grave is endless.

Nine P.M. Time for some grueling eight-hour, stressful, caffeine-filled conference with almost a hundred callers from the most powerful country in the world (”O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly we hail’d, as a dumb blonde’s last g-string…”).

I am a call center agent (Thank you for calling Medco! My name is Joe. May I please have your ID number?), taking advantage of the so-called “sunshine industry,” a local economic goldrush of some sort for a very few Filipino pobres who were lucky enough to learn some English, thanks to a neocolonized (mis)education.

Awake at night, in deep slumber during the day. I live the lifestyle of a vampire. No, I don’t suck blood — it’s my blood that gets sucked by this favorite word of street activists: the system.

Aaah, the system! Down with the system! Fuck the system! To hell with the system!

Oh yeah?

***

I remember a few years back when JB Lazarte and I were on a useless online debate about something that I already forgot. He once asked me, during one of my me-against-the-whole-fucked-up-world rantings, about the system that I was yapping about, what system was I referring to, and how do I define a system. I was caught offhanded, but I did reply to him. I could no longer remember exactly what I told him, but I still remember what’s on my mind back then that influenced my answer –

– that this system, this horrid society I’m referring to, is where I soggily thrive in night and day. It’s what I see, hear, smell, taste, and feel every day. It’s what I presently know about it — then realized later on that it should not be that way. It’s all about the lies and hypocrisy and hearsay. It’s all about the social cliché. It’s all about people who lie, cheat, steal, then pray. It’s all about the masses (“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”), the powers that be, the opportunistic media, the lonely whore, the pusbags and bullies, starlets and faggots, the office worker who inadvertently left his underwear after a surreptitious sexcapade with a superior or officemate, the cheesy young poet, Mystica, local (f)rock band Cliché, Ang Dating Daan vs Ang Tamang Daan vs Ang Aking Daan (?), gay smut, April Boy musick, the flannelmouthed politician, idiot-friendly guide books, murdered cultures, folkways and mores, the elite, the stinking’ R&B nigga wannabe skwatings, the Lapu-lapu monument in Rizal Park, the beggar, the capitalist, moon-surfaced highways, predator and prey…

Aaah, the system. OK, fine. Dontcha wish yer system is hot like mine? Oh, yeah, AM I HOT, swee’ li’l Clementine…

HOT with something which I think is rage, burning defiantly inside, a conflagration of hate and loathing that perhaps only Poe’s Montresor would be able to fathom it. This is the sentiment in my own bodily system which was influenced by the status quo, this… this urbanity we have to dance with every waking day of our squalid lives. Oh, shucks, we’re bead-eyed hamsters on a treadmill.

Perhaps ol’ JB didn’t get it. Or maybe he knew that I was wrong. But whatever opinion we all might have, the bottomline is that society and culture is the total way of life shared by ultracute people like you and me — members of this who-are-the-freakos-in-yer-neighborhood society. As long as a people are in the same boat, i.e., all the socially learned behaviors, belief systems, traditions, sentiments, language, values, and showbiz idols crying on live TV (sniff) are inherent within a certain group of people, then that’s how you get to have this social structure I refer to as a, well, system. Tee, hee! Each individual, bestowed with freewill, has or can make an impact on the course of that metaphorical boat, whether they want it to sail smoothly or not.

But have some marauding pirate ship rock that boat. Whaddaya get?

Psychoship, baby. Just like what we have now. We were, and are still being, marauded.

***

And so I work in a call center, putting my best face on everyone. I smile a lot. I still dream of a desirable lot for my family — the only attachment I have with reality. I still yearn for a much peaceful state of mind. But how can I do it? I have to dream it first. When? During sleep, or whenever these creepy eyes are wide shut? But are dreams just that — dreams?

And so I work in a call center, putting my best face on everyone. I smile a lot. I still dream of a desirable lot for my family — the only attachment I have with reality. I still yearn for a much peaceful state of mind. But how can I do it? I have to dream it first. When? During sleep, or whenever these creepy eyes are wide shut? But are dreams just that — dreams?

They’re not even there anymore. Can’t perceive them. Not even the lucid ones. I can only dream at night. No dreams during daysleep (“¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí. ¿Qué es la vida? Una ilusión, una sombra, una ficción, y el mayor bien es pequeño; que toda la vida es sueño, y los sueños, sueños son”). But at night, I take in calls from the States in some secluded Alabang call center. I couldn’t pursue my craft anymore, which is something that keeps awake the truth in my mind.

All of us — not only the peeps from call centers, but everyone in the workplace — pursue our personal crafts, our talents, our joys. However, we are but puppets and slaves to those who were able to decipher the secret codes of how a society works and behaves, thus they are able to conquer us.

“Therefore, I call upon y’all! Let the ruling classes tremble at a working class revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. We have a world to win! Call center agents, as well as the caboodle of workingmen from all countries… DEAL, OR NO DEAL?! Join me! We’ve got 26K bitches in ABS-CBN to screw! But save Numbah 13 for me, puh-LEAZE! I don’t want Kris; she’s got this YUCKY viral stuff from a former Parañaque Mayor who thinks of nothing but boobies and ass. Anyway, all youse readin’ this… UNITE!!!” — The Pepe Alas Manifesto

Halt. I’m just kidding. I mean, I have to, ladies and genitalias. Otherwise, I would have allowed this burning hate engulf me from the inside. Say, y’know what? Could this very well explain spontaneous combustions?

***

Six A.M. I clock out from work. Have a word or two with some officemates, exchange light moments and banters with them, they who I want to consider as my friends so that I’d not be left out; so as not to totally alienate me from this reality I dislike. This also keeps me from being sober.

I go home. The sun has just risen from the earth. The people on the road — in the marketplace, inside jeepneys, traversing the mocking highways — with blank faces, nameless all, preparing to work, walking hither and thither, searching for grub to nourish themselves and their loved ones in order for them to survive a pointless existence. There is hope — NO, there is desperation in their faces. But if some of them have the Faith of Steel, they won’t regard existence as pointless (but that’s another story).

My mind, my body (not to mention my throat), all drained of energy. I go home to a beautiful, loving family. I Kiss them. Hug them. Pray with them. Eat with them. Play with them. Enjoy the rest of the morning with them. Afterwards, I prepare to retire. I pray. End of another day, er, night. Have to replenish my bodily systems with energy for another night of calls and quality customer service (wow). I lie down, sleepless, restless. I know that in a few minutes, perhaps, sleep will descend. And when I sleep, the system outside continues its synergy. Without me. Fuck, what am I to it?! It can go on without me.

But within my flames of bitterness, there lies some quixotic conquistador, awaiting an opportune time to unleash its vulgar display of power (”Five Minutes Alone!!!”).

We all have this conquistador inside to fight the system-gone-wrong. Wake it up. Tap into it. Follow me.

But for now, the conquistador is but a mite, and I’d be clock-puncher tonight.

Stumble it!