Chapter 1
“Kohav!” a lingering sound filled the air from the distance where my mother Yarah summoned me to go back to our home.
“Kohav, your mother is calling you to go home.” Kachez, an eight-year-old child my age reminded me, counting the number of pogs, round paper-made cards with random images of cartoons and Animes, she won in our card duel.
The vacant cemented lot used to be a basketball area that was occupied by the neighbor children where everyone early morning did their usual morning routines, washing clothes near the Purok faucets while empty pails and containers of water lined up.
My sight followed the pair of pogs projected higher in the sky and landed in different directions.
“Head!” screamed Polta, one of my strongest pogs contenders, checking his card lay open while mine was lain closed.
“Pay me now.” He demanded. I gave him one pog to pay my loss.
“Hey, Potla,” Kachez saw something that made me turn my back at her.
“Don’t fool, Kohav. Your bet pog is the double body.” Kachez said.
“What double body you are saying,” Potla interjected.
Kachez stood from the ground and placed her two hands on her waist, “You such a fool! I saw you placing your hidden card in your purse, the card with the same image on both sides. Return the card to Kohav now.”
“No, way! I have not done anything wrong in this game.” Potla protested.
“How did you know that it was a double body where in fact most of the cards have the same images.”
Kachez went closer to Potla. She hastily extended her right hand and reached Potla’s pocket.
“What are you doing?” Potla asked.
“See, why is it that you did not want us to see what is inside your pocket?” Kachez demanded.
Other children started to gather around witnessing louder disagreement between Kachez and Potla.
“Why are you so protective of Kohav? Is he even your boyfriend?” Potla teased. Hisses and taunts were heard from the children.
“You did not even see how big your piggy boyfriend is.” Potla squinted his eyes to tease me.
My face reddened, fuming fresh anger, feeling my heart wanted to explode. I dashed towards Potla and hit him with my fist and landed on the ground.
Children were shouting, throwing their fists in the air, and trying to support their bets.
Potla breathed in and out in anger and stood up and gave me the hardest blow. I caught his arms and pushed him forward but he was able to balance and ran towards me and gave another punch. I could not contain the incessant kick I received from him.
“Stop it!” my mother Yarah came to intervene in our duel. We parted in the distance. I just heard my voice burst into tears because of the pain my body received. I cried, wiping my tears with my right arm.
“Potla, your attitude is the same as your parents. Swindlers and scammers.” The eyes of Mother Yarah dilated and her voice roared around the vicinity.
Potla just stood, unbothered.
“Go home, Kohav. You gave me nothing but a headache.” She screamed, hitting me with long twigs of guava on my legs.
“Excuse me!” a huge woman on her duster with the saggy skin of her arms waving stood behind his son Potla.
“Maybe you almost forgot what you did to our common water pump of our Purok. You let the city engineer cut them and replace them with stupid faucets which took an eternity to fill our water containers. You did not even tell us that this would be the case.” She raised her impatient eyebrow.
“For your information, Wangpok, the people were informed except you who were not around because of your gambling with the other neighbors. Besides, it was the notice of the barangay to replace it.”
Then, their verbal heated arguments turned to pulling their hair. They were brought to the barangay to settle the issues.
I ran home, crying in pain.
Yasar stood at the door, watching me cry.
“You involved again in trouble. When will you ever change? Mother told you not to go out and play with those bastard children and look what happened to you.”
“Potla called me the piggy boyfriend of Kachez,” I responded.
“Can’t you even see that you are big compared to Potla who is short? You did not even fight back. You gay.” Yasar challenged me. “Don’t let anyone stop you just because of the size of your body. Loser!”
“You, cheater.”
Yasar was startled as he heard me say those words.
I smirked. “I saw you having a video call with your hidden girlfriend last night while Ezrah was away.”
He tapped my mouth with his fingers.
“You, rumor-mongering child. You don’t even know what you are saying.”
“Duh! I have not heard you call Ezra honey and who will that be? Naturally, your other affair.” I rebutted.
He gave me a deadly stare.
“Kohav, you zip your mouth and don’t you ever test me. Otherwise, I will punch you to death.”
“I am not scared. Do what you wish, cheater but I will let Ezra know about this.”
“Do it and you know what will happen to you.”
He grabbed my hands and stole my plastic bags full of pogs.
“Hey! What are you doing?” I cried.
“I will not return this.”
“That is not even yours. That’s mine. Why do you even get something that is not yours? Return that to me, Kuya Yasar.” I pleaded.
“You promise me to shut your mouth. Otherwise, you will see pogs burn to ashes.” He positioned his lighter and flipped it open. A spark flared up.
“Return that to me.” I cried.
“Promise?” he smirked.
“You devil. Yes, I promise.”
He handed them to me and left. He wondered where Mother was. I told him Mother and Wangpok fought each other and went to the chairman of the barangay. He disappeared and went somewhere. Maybe, to fetch Mother Yarah.
Now, I was left alone since everybody went to work.
Daddy Tadak had a habal-habal driving, a commercial motorbike. Kuya Bracha, my feminine older brother, was working as a bagger in one of the malls in the city. I went up to the second floor of the house and had a change of clothes. I placed my pogs inside the used phone box and pulled the drawer to pick up the matchbox containing the sleeping spider. I bought it last week from a passer-by selling assorted spiders and pogs.
I flicked the matchbox and a dark spider emerged stretching its long legs on the surface. I let it crawl on the barbeque stick, watching it walk with tiny webs left behind. I awakened another spider to have a web duel. I enjoyed what they were doing. One spider devoured the other leaving the prey envelop with a rolling web. I was fascinated.
My stomach clamored. I remembered I had not taken my breakfast. Fried eggs and a mountain of rice filled my plate. I squeezed the plastic bottle of catsup and poured it around the rice. My right foot folded, reaching my belly and I widened my mouth and noisily gobbled up my meal.
“Take it easy, Kohav.” Ezrah surprised me, carrying the newly folded clothes in the plastic basket.
She placed it on the floor. She was the long-time partner of Kuya Yasar whose age gap was eleven years. They were unwed since Ezrah was separated from her abusive husband. She had one son a teenager named Fardo. She stayed with us.
“You sounded like a pig. Eat properly. Look at the mess. Every grain of it matters. You did not even know how farmers toiled the rice the whole day and brought them to life and sold them to the community just to reach the blessings on our table.”
I did not respond to her since my mouth was still full, munching.
“I said do not make noises when you eat. You will live the rest of your life like pigs.”
I wiped my mouth with the back of my arms. I gulped cold water and burped.
“Gross!” she went up the stair and looked for Brother Yasar. I replied telling her that I did not even know his whereabouts.
I picked up the smart TV remote and turned on Youtube and selected a Roblox streaming, enjoying my freedom alone.
The door slammed, seeing Brother Yasar fumed in anger and went up. I heard him that he was looking for his improvised gun.
Ezrah stopped him. He went down embracing bringing the tube metal formed like a gun. He was shouting furiously outside the house.
My heart pounded when I heard the loud explosion. I ran up to the house and peered through the window. I heard Ezrah scream. She was embracing the back of brother Yasar preventing him fight for his cousin Nenra.
“What’s your problem? Huh? Why would block me as I came home and trigger me to have a duel with you? Are you even out of your mind? No wonder your wife left you because of your insanity and addiction and now you are bothering other people to gain attention? For what?” Brother Yasar angrily confronted Nenra.
Nenra appeared half-naked stretched his shoulders and cracked his fingers.
“Come here. Drop your armor. Let’s have a fistfight.” He smirked. Nenra walked near to brother Yasar, motioning mortal combat gestures.
“Nenra! Stop bothering our family. We are not bothering you either. This does not make sense of your insanity.” Ezrah intervened. Brother Yasar pulled the trigger and shot the foot of Nenra. Blood splattered. Nenra hopping in pain.
“Next time when you will bother us, God, forbid, I will not have a second thought to shoot you dead,” Brother Yasar warned. The crowd filled our home and I could see them here on the second floor.
Mother Yarah emerged from the crowd.
“What’s happening here? Why are you holding your dad’s gun?”
“Nenra bothered me, Ma. He blocked me in the corner as I went home.” Brother Yasar told his mother about him. Mother sighed. She picked up her phone and called someone.
“Cap, good morning,” my mother sounded so angry. “Our neighbor lost his mind and created chaos here. Please bring a police officer to apprehend this deviant neighbor.”
They came and brought Nenra to the police station. Mother Yarah and brother Yasar filled a blotter against Nenra.
Nenra, my mother’s nephew, was known to be a drug-dependent and stressed husband who was abandoned by his wife because of his abusive personality. My mother told me that he acquired his behavior from his father, my mother’s brother. Enra’s father was also abusive to his wife and died during the drug raid by the authority.
“Kohav!” the voice of Father Tadak reached my ears.
“Papang!” I was glad to see him, hugging him tight.
“Where’s Mamang Yarah and bother Yasar?” he asked, lowering his eyes to me.
“They went to the police station.”
“What happened?”
“Kuya Nenra created havoc this morning and brother Yasar shot him in the foot. Then, mother Yarah filed a case in the police station.”Father Tadak sighed heavily.
“Kuya Nenra did not learn his lesson again.”
“Papang, my playmate called me piggy and ate Ezrah scolded me because I sounded noisy when I eat,” I told him, hoping to comfort me.
“Don’t worry I will talk to them,” Father said.
I felt a sense of solace every time Father Tadak came home. After he had his late breakfast, he dressed up and perfumed himself. I rarely saw him doing this since he was driving for a living.
“Where would you go, Papang?” I asked, squatting down on the floor with my pogs messing around.
“I would go back to drive,” he answered, putting on his black leather jacket and spraying once more perfume around his body.
“It seems you are going on a date, Tadak.” My mother Yarah appeared at the door.
“Can’t I just want to look good and fresh so my customers won’t say anything bad about me?” he asked.
“I have not seen you prettying up with a strong scent of perfume on.” Mother wondered, getting a pitcher of water and pouring it into the mug with Valentine’s Day image.
“Here we go again, my beautiful wife, Yarah.” He stole a smack of a kiss on the cheeks to Mother, embracing her to solace her doubtful mind. Closing her eyes, Mother Yarah sighed.
“I do not want to see you cheat me again.”
“Trust me. I won’t do it again.” Father Tadak pressed his lips to Mother. I quickly closed my eyes.
Before Father Tadak left, I asked for money so I would buy another toy pogs and a spider. I went out and played with other children.
Anyway, welcome to our family.
