Last Legacy

Last Legacy

By Rhincel John Ortega De Veas

There was a pounding in Julio’s head when he woke up that cold Saturday morning. It was already 9:00 am but there is no hint of sunshine emerging from the slits of the blinders. It was pouring outside but the sound was oppressed by the thick walls of Julio’s location.

                Julio whimpered out of the bed with his legs still shaking with the presence of last night’s tequila. He wet his face in the bathroom and when consciousness struck him, he realized he was naked. He realized he was not in his apartment at all. Julio was in an alienated world.

                On the bed, a man was snoring while lying on his chest. The man was naked.

Julio searched for his clothes. He was buttoning his jeans when the man woke up. There was a blatant expression in Julio’s face. The man rubbed his head trying to shake off the dizziness in his being. The man gave a sly smile to Julio as he proceeded towards the bathroom while Julio was pulling on all his clothes.

While the man is in the bathroom, there was a weird silence that accumulated inside that room. Julio felt a pang of pain inside. The pain was not physical it was something deeper. Something stronger than Julio himself struck his consciousness. He felt his sense of morality striking his soul deeper and deeper. He felt like he wanted to vomit-to eject from his body all the awkwardness and gruesome stench.

Julio knew that he had no right to feel a deep sympathy for his state. He was a student prostitute for almost four years now. In his opinion, he was quite used to the job. His body became his ticket to survive poverty which limits his opportunities to become successful someday. His mother, a pineapple vendor, was his only relative. His mother is not that strong. She was not even strong enough to raise his only son. Julio had to find ways to finish college and selling himself was his resolve.

Indeed, Julio was good at his forbidden craft. He was a good player at this game. For two years now, he was able to keep it secret. He was top student in the morning, a reckless animal at night ready to satisfy anyone in the right price. Indeed Julio was able to raise himself with this dirty business and was able to send himself to college.

But Julio was not an animal. He was not even the evil in most spirit his kind possesses. He was actually trembling inside. He was a child seeking love from his mother. He yearns for her affection, her care. He was not sure if prostitution is his rebellion but he was sure that in whatever he does, his own mother would not care and that he would have to raise himself alone.

These thoughts were interrupted when the bathroom door suddenly creaked. The man came out half naked with a towel wrapped around his waist. Julio was sitting on the edge of the bed fully dressed now. It was still pouring outside and the man bade Julio to stay but Julio insisted that he must leave. The man handed Julio two thousand pesos and Julio waved a last goodbye and left the man’s house.

Because he was drunk last night, he did not know that the man’s house is just near to the street market where his mother’s pineapple stall is. The rain was still pouring hard as he approached the street market. He decided to go and visit his mother and give her a thousand peso bill.

Julio fell on his back. He stepped on a pineapple which rolled on the pavement with the impact of his foot when he fell. On his sight, though silhouetted by the mist of the strong rain, people clad. As Julio’s eyes adjusted, he realized that several pineapples were scattered on the street.

Julio, soaked, felt a shiver-a shiver that was not caused by coldness. It was something emanating from his deeper being. He ran towards the middle of the crowding people. His heart was pounding to his ears. His uniform and his hair were dripping wet. His shoes were soaked to his socks.

                To his horror, what lie in the middle of the crowd was his mother and her mouth and nose was bleeding. Her skull was cracked and blood was flowing freely behind the sidewalk. He was stricken deeply by the scene. He clung violently to his mother’s body which was cold as ice. He howled a scream loud-a scream that would pierce every soul who has a mother that heard it. He was wailing. Something inside him wanted to cry out every bit of sorrow that tragic moment had caused him. Suddenly he felt alone, more alone ever since he was born, lonelier that lonely.

                He held his mother’s hand and kissed it gently under the gray sky and pouring rain. He noticed that his mother’s petrified pale hand was clutching a white envelope. He took it quite forcibly that the envelope was torn. Two pieces of folded paper fell out. Julio took it. One was a paper from a bank, a deposit slip saying that Julio’s mother deposited a hundred thousand pesos. Julio was astonished about that. Where did his mother get that amount?

                The other paper was a white paper. Julio unfolded it with his hands trembling. It was a letter from his mother. He recognized the penmanship as if it was a part of him. The letter says:

Sa aking Julio,                 Anak, patawarin mo ako sa lahat ng aking naging pagkukulang sa iyo bilang iyong ina. Alam kong nagging mahina ako at pinabayaan kita sa mga oras ng buhay mo na kailangan mo ako.                 Anak, alam kong call boy ka. Nahihiya ako sa sarili ko dahil kahit alam ko na ang ginagawa mo ay wala pa rin akong ginawa bilang iyong nanay. Ngunit nais kong malaman mo anak na kahit ano ka pa man, mahal na mahal kita at tanggap kita. Ikaw ang aking kayamanan Julio.                 Magpapadala ako sa iyo ng isang daang libong piso. Alam kong kulang ito upang mapunan ang lahat ng pagkukulang ko sa iyo bilang magulang. Inipon ko ito ng apat na taon. Ibinibigay ko sa iyo ito ng buong puso. Nawa ay tanggapin mo ito at gamitin mo sa pagtupad sa iyong mga pangarap.                 Mahal na mahal kita anak. Lagi mong tatandaan yan. Ang iyong inay, Lydia

          

          Julio was frozen beside his mother’s corpse. Tears were flowing from his eyes as the thunder and lightning rolled beneath the gray skies above.