Orange

Miko’s clues were November 1 and Halloween.

Philip almost immediately came up with the right answer, Orange.

We were playing Taboo at the Rjay and Leslie’s place. We just had a casual dinner of Shakey’s pizza and chicken. The nominal reason for the get-together was a send-off for my trip to Jakarta. To be honest, we never really needed a reason, but just a quick invitation and the time and place. An occasion only meant that one or more were free from paying the bill.

Jay A mentioned to me once, about ten years ago, that he was looking forward to the time when we could just have dinner together with our girlfriends.

That last part was important. Hardly anything new about us guys hanging out together.

While playing the game, I had this feeling of stability. Looking around the room, I thought that we could do this for years more.

It was like I felt that we've all really grown up together, and I don't think it's only because we're all closer to or just at thirty.

The previous weekend, a bunch of us attended a mass in the high school chapel. Originally intended for Woowoo, we also included in our prayers other schoolmates who are critically ill or have passed away.

There were about a dozen of us guys and a girl at the service.

There was a cocky but eloquent priest, who said he was once the toughest math teacher around and that we were lucky that we weren’t around to be his students. I have no idea how he came to that conclusion by just looking at us, but he was probably right.

Rhochie was the one who hooked us up with the priest. When Rjay and I asked Rhochie how he came to know the guy, Rhochie replied “Tatay ni Mickey.”

After exchanging a confused glance with Rjay, our collective answer was “Ano?”

“Kakilala ng tatay ni Mickey sa prayer group niya. Bakit?” said Rhochie.

I clarified “Ah, akala namin na iba na yung pagka-Maria Clara ni Mickey.”

“Ang labo niyong dalawa.”

Rjay and I just exchanged another look and apologized for being slow.

The priest wasn’t bad, as it turned out. He set up the high point of the mass by giving our lector TC a chalice of wine to finish off. His sour expression at the podium was enough to reduce Sonny to strumming his guitar to the rhythm of our laughter.

With the guitar, there was singing, liturgical songs voiced with much more passion than melody. Almost all of us sounded like we had three chalices each or more ourselves. Philip held up the songbook after and remarked “Hindi na natin kailangan ng Song Hits habang umiinom. Ito na lang.”

No, he didn’t take the book with him. He put it back down and left it in the chapel.

Afterwards, we took a walk around the school. There were a lot of people, mostly students. At the covered court stage, there was a class recitation rehearsal going on. There was basketball being played, and we played a quick game ourselves. Jim was an animal underneath. Sandy didn’t want to shoot the ball. Philip was playing in bare feet.

Rjay was happy passing the ball, though.

The ball went out of bounds just as the rehearsing class broke for lunch and was on its way to the cafeteria. The ball went towards one hapless kid, who, through no fault of his own, received a mixed chorus of “Hoy!” and “Amin na iyan!” He didn’t even look our way and neither did his classmates.

We would’ve been surprised if we did get a look, considering that they probably haven’t yet been born when we were students there ourselves.

"Ang gulo niyo", commented Leslie. I said that it was because we were home.

We had lunch at Shakey’s, certainly a place to continue our trip through our memories. That included the food, thin-crust garlic and cheese, and pitchers of root beer. Sonny and Sandy even produced a reality show out of who was the better student, AA or Tini? They went through our subjects, English, Religion, Filipino, and even had some time-out interviews with the two contestants. Ching kept butting in to everything so we ended up voting him the winner.

We didn’t just keep it in the past, though. Sandy introduced us to the Shakey’s self-serve ice cream sundae bar. He, Jay T, and Ching came back with a glass filled with a few hundred grams of candy and what looked to be a liter of ice cream. Between spoonfuls of ice cream, Miko asked Sandy “Pwede mo ba i-bangko si Tenorio?” A tough question, Sandy looked down and thought a moment before answering “Oo, kaya ko gawin iyon, pero ako naman yung tatanggalin pagkatapos.”

We went on to the cemetery to visit Woowoo’s grave. We said hi and a few words then just hung out by our cars for a while. None of us planned to linger, but then Rjay said “Sinong umalis, isang taon siya ang pangit.” That kept us together for several minutes more, till Sara gave up on us being mature enough to just go on and leave. I had the unfortunate task of raising my hand and saying “Sige, una na kami.” That was answered with goodbyes of “Sige, pangit, ingat,” or “Kita tayo ulit, pangit.”

With that out of the way, everyone left pretty quickly.

And the next weekend, during the party and during the game, it was the same. Home.

During a pause in the game, Philip asked for a lighter.
Tini got up, "Tara!" and moved towards the balcony himself.
Philip graciously replied "Sabi ko sindi, hindi kasama."

It's so easy to see that we're all older.

We certainly haven’t gone in the same pace or path. For the past decade, we've been successes, husbands, fathers, lovers, seducers, liars, cowards, victims, and failures, quite a range of human experience.

While there are so many things that we do not have in common, we do have to acknowledge a shared beginning. This acknowledgement maintains a certain respect for one another, whatever our opinions. To deny this respect would be to deny a part of ourselves.

It can be a real wonder, or a definite struggle, to hear and comprehend stories of how each of us has gotten to where he has. But because we know where we all began, we can easily see in each other, for better or worse, where we can go.

That's why we can get that Varsity, Event, and Nine quite simply refer to Decathlon.