Location: Saguijo, Makati

Mood: Drunk

Music: Musical Orgasm’s set

You are in Makati. You are in that part of Luzon where the down and dirty southerners reside. We are filthy here, filthy poor, filthy rich, filthy boring in our business minded ways. Our malls are too expensive, our lives are too real, and reality is governed by how much we have in our pockets. We don’t know why, in Makati, it’s like this. Outsiders say that we’re being too bred for boring – artless and commercialized, shut early and too organized. But frankly, I’d beg to differ.

This is Makati, you’re in Makati – specifically San Antonio Village in a quaint little scenester bar a block away from Chino Roces Avenue. You are in suburbia, but from the looks of the throng, it seems like you are in a different place. They call this place Saguijo[1], and you are here where art is secretly taken in (like opium, like pot, like heroine).

With your beer, you are standing outside the white fenced parking lot – Apollo bodied stranger, looking like some guy that hopped off of their myspace account. And you are with ditty gestures, drunken stance, curly haired, hairy faced mutt of a guy. You are with your friend, and he is obscured, at this point because he’s bent over, removing something from his pants.

“Yeah, I like the Pinkerton[2] album the best,” you say, shruggin and then quickly you take a swig from your Red Horse; an appeal, probably, to drown your thirst away from a parched and busy day. And while you’re doing that, someone, your friend takes over the conversation. He’s a talker and both of you seem to like Rockband[3] a lot.

“I think Sparta[4] should be in Rockband,” your friend says. He’s taller than you, Chinese features, but with tanned skin, and an athletic build. His shirt says, #10 France [5]– a football fan probably, or a football player. You’re only wearing a plain gray shirt but both of you seem to have black Vans Slip-ons on.

You make a little gesture, an air guitar gesture before you agree with him – some beer spilling over the floor. Either of you are probably musicians as well or you two just play too much X-BOX 360. Your friend looks at the beer stained asphalt ground and you do the same before talking again.

A few minutes pass, and a guy with a black shirt and thick rimmed glasses hands you another round of beer. He is passing by. You thank him, and you avert your gaze at something that distracts you. Then your friend returns you back to your train of thought by nudging your shoulder and you continue talking about bands, this time local bands.

At this moment, you are getting drunk and you are unmoving from your spot. You are redder than before, and you are slurring. Your friend does the same though he seems to move a lot, rubbing his right arm with his left palm.

Somewhere within your discussion, you take out a pack of Marlboro Reds from your pocket. Your thin, candle stick fingers, that were casually sliding through the slits of your back pockets, are now giving a feel on the box of cigarettes. Carefully, you tap the pack on its bottom, and two sticks jolt out. You take one in with your mouth, offer one to your friend, and you rummage through your pockets, again, to find a lighter. Finally, when you had taken the lighter out, your friend says, “Pare, it was nice seeing you here,” and your face motions into a little frown, and you seem sad about this. Either way, you wave him off, as he gives you a quick slap on your shoulder, and you, shrugging your slight disappointment off with a grin, continue to light your cigarette.

Noticing something, you avert your gaze to that something slumped on the floor, you lean over and you put your beer bottle down, squat, while you extend your arm to put around it. And a few seconds later, after you’ve realized that that something is a person you know, you say, “Oi Drew, what are you writing there?”

The End.