Manila street scenes are simultaneously entertaining, intriguing, and sobering. Personally, I am intensely attracted to and fascinated by the unfolding human drama outside the air conditioned isolation of the back seat. Indeed, mental snapshots from passing street scenes often generate internal visions and reflections on life and death from the perspective of middle age in a foreign country a kazillion light years from my roots.
Recently, those visions have tended towards life experiences shared with my late brother Paul, four years younger than myself and, despite the rather amazing differences in our life paths, my best friend. Paul and I were about as different as two siblings could be. Products of the same Scotch-Irish/hillbilly roots (See Finnish Saunas, Scotch-Irish Roots, and Moonshine Whiskey), and both with presumably similar access to the life opportunities and facing more or less the same obstacles and constraints, we traveled far different paths...
One brother was a lifelong bookworm and, in one way or another, seeker of knowledge; the other never liked to read much and was indifferent to intellectual pursuits. One brother got himself way over-educated, built a consulting business in the Big City, then relocated to the far side of the orb to apply all that accumulated claptrap knowledge to solving the problems of mankind; the other brother dropped out of school in tenth grade, knew how to kill people with his bare hands, and struggled to survive on minimum wage grill cook jobs and small-time hustling. One brother was awarded Fellowships, did research for city governments and universities, and became a strategist for development agencies in Asia; the other brother was kicked out of the Marines with an undesirable discharge and did hard time on a manslaughter charge. One brother managed to find fulfillment in life, more or less, and continues to support his family selling his brains and intellectual skills; the other brother suffered incredible misery and pain after losing (inevitably) a battle with human immunodeficiency virus, the mode of transmission having been either sharing a needle with other speed freaks or selling his blood at unsanitary blood banks when down on his luck.
Paul crossed the River Jordan 10 years ago tonight at age 36.
Thus, in free association mode, and in memory of Paul, following find a gonzo account of a couple of flashbacks spurred this week by a random street scene, an eerie telenovena that aired in mental space somewhere amongst Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehatchipi to Tonopah, and just before that signpost up ahead...
One of the many surreal street scenes that I pass by regularly is a squatter settlement situated along the railroad tracks on the outskirts of Makati, populated by too many poor rural folks who migrated to Metro Manila in search of a better paying job (or any paying job), living in tarpaper and cardboard shacks perilously close to the tracks, naked kids playing in mud out front and laundry stretched drying as far as the eye can see.
On the commute home Friday night, I was thinking of Paul when I chanced to see two Filipino boys, scrawny and probably malnourished, deeply tanned, barefooted, engaged in a freeform sparring match, fists and feet flying herky-jerky through the air, not doing much harm to one another. After a 15 second exchange of kicks, most having hit nothing but air, the two fighters separated. One of the boys reared back, directed an imperious, hypnotic stare at his foe (the evil eye), raised his right arm above his head with fingers pointing menacingly just so, the whooping crane, hissing in most menacing fashion...
I was immediately struck by the obvious origins of the choreography in the work of the late, great Bruce Lee, albeit recognizing that the skinny Filipino kid had probably absorbed the moves second hand via Jackie Chan or Jet Li. The image spurred several interlocking flashbacks to 30 some years ago in South Texas, a time when I was trapped in the belly of the military beast and Paul was hanging out and riding shotgun on a series of bizarre escapades that would do Hunter Thompson proud.
Scene: A drive-in movie on a country road near the Texas Gulf coast, two spaced-out brothers seated in the front seat of a '69 Barracuda, metallic speaker hanging in the window, pervasive odor of buttered popcorn and hot dogs. Having chanced upon the double feature of Enter the Dragon and Fists of Fury, we promptly availed ourselves of aforesaid double feature four nights in a row.
Paul, who had joined me in Texas after barely surviving some scrapes back home, was essentially hiding out; within a few months he would enlist in the Marine Corps. He and I had grown up together, initially as sibling rivals but then as the closest of friends and partners in small business endeavors. After I had vanished into the US military, Paul had begun running with a tough crowd; despite his pint size (5'7", never weighed more than 130 pounds in his life), he had acquired a well-deserved reputation as a tough-as-nails fighter and somebody you really didn't want to mess with.
Paul had discovered Bruce Lee at Southern Indiana drive-ins before joining me in Dixie. I suspect he bonded with him because of his cockiness and small physical size - Bruce was the same height as Paul and weighed under 150 pounds, yet he could take on the biggest gweilo and knock the hell out of him. I was surprised to learn that Paul's interest in Bruce Lee went beyond his predictable attraction to the master's street fighting skills to incorporate the philosophical elements. It was the first time I had seen him take a serious intellectual interest in much of anything, so I listened politely and even entered into playful dialogues with him...
The point is the doing rather than the accomplishing... There is no actor but the action; there is no experiencer but the experience... if you want to become a swimmer, you cannot do so on dry land, you must enter the water.
By the third double feature night, I was beginning to appreciate the Bruce Lee magic. Whether helping the Chinese community fight off the big bad Japanese invaders or going the extra mile to help a small-town family hold out against evil, big city drug lords, Bruce was always on the right side. The plots, of course, were utterly predictable (Bruce swears not to fight; folks Bruce is close to get whacked; Bruce goes berserk, overcomes hundreds of thugs, thus obtaining the requisite retribution; Bruce turns himself in for his ordained punishment).
But so what? When Bruce whooped like a crane, executed his double back flips culminating in deadly kicks into the chests of three bad guys at once, landing gracefully on a tree limb, in a relaxed stance with a smirk on his face and proffering pithy words of dubbed wisdom, who was I to argue?
After his initial Hollywood successes, Bruce established himself as a martial arts guru in LA, teaching his own Jeet Kune Do ("the way of the intercepting fist") to students like Steve McQueen, James Coburn and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Ironically, Bruce died just a month before Enter the Dragon was released. Like James Dean and Jim Morrison, he left a slim body of work and a good-looking corpse, so it's not surprising that he was infinitely more famous in death than in life. The movie earned over $200 million and '70s college kids started placing Lee posters right up there beside Che's on the dorm wall.
After the breakthrough success of Lee's movies in the early '70s, nobody stepped up to build on the exquisitely violent fight scenes Bruce had created. Indeed, although action movies became increasingly popular in Hollywood, they featured poor fight scenes at best (compare a Van Damme movie to a classic Lee sequence, it's night and day). Hollywood producers were always watching budgets, and complex action scenes take a great deal of time and resources.
Resuscitation to a degree came in the person of Jackie Chan, whose "Rumble in the Bronx" (1995), "Mr. Nice Guy" (1997), and "Rush Hour" (1999) made him the first Hong Kong star since Bruce to really break through. (Paul would have loved Jackie for his zaniness and athleticism, but would have griped about his lack of centeredness and too much use of wires). Interestingly, Jackie played one of the zillions of thugs Bruce clobbers in "Enter the Dragon"; though he is seen only briefly on screen, his face is clearly recognizable. Jackie Chan and Sammo "Martial Law" Hung also starred in several Lee clone vehicles like "New Fist of Fury" and "Enter the Fat Dragon".
Flashback #2: Popeye Clobbers Cosmic Cowboy (Paul = Bruce on a Strange Texas Night)The week after the drive-in quit showing the Lee double feature, Paul and I headed out on Saturday night for an undefined cruise into the South Texas flatlands in a substantially altered state of consciousness, cruising smoothly beneath the full moon to the eight-track dulcet tones of "Your Cheatin' Heart" and "Hey, Good Lookin'", driving for light years in the humid summer night, driving well over a hundred miles into the middle of nowhere.
We were about to head back to the coast when we came across an old barn miraculously transformed into a Texas roadhouse, Christmas tree lights all over the outside and a garish neon Lone Star beer sign in the window.
"Heavy duty," Paul noted analytically. "Let's check out the action."
"You sure about that?" I queried. Not that I was having second thoughts, but...
Paul looked at me quizzically, seemingly amazed that I should even ask.
"What's wrong, brother? You afraid of a few cowpokes?" he asked, spitting on the ground and glaring over at the cowboys as he lit a Camel. "Don't worry, I'll take care of you. I been in a lot worse places than this."
The parking lot was chock full of pickup trucks with shotguns in the rear window. Several cowboys with stubble on their faces and huge rodeo hats were smoking cigarettes out front; they scrutinized us carefully as we pulled in, staring at us in a distinctly non-hospitable fashion. We were definitely not locals.
"Far out," I said.
The cowboys glared menacingly at us, generating mini-hallucinations involving werewolves and throats being ripped to pieces and a quick psychedelic visit to Tombstone where I put in an appearance at the OK Corral in the role of a dead Billy Clanton. I quickly shrugged off the uninvited visions - no point generating bad karma.
The door was adorned with a cheery little sign:
No guns or knives inside. All fighting outside, please. We are not responsible for injuries incurred in fistic or other altercations in the parking lot.
I felt queasy for a second, envisioning flying teeth, broken noses, and rivers of blood. But I quickly suppressed the uninvited images and followed Paul into the old barn, visions of Daniel in the lion's den and Shadrach and Meshach about to join Abednigo dancing in my mind. I said a quick prayer to Howard and hoped like hell that He was firmly on our side as we entered.
The band was of remarkable quality for such a dump, good fiddle and slap bass player, the singer doing dead-on covers of one Hank song after another -- "Cold, Cold Heart", "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," and "Baby, We're Really in Love". We had found honky tonk heaven!
Later in the evening, while Paul was doing the Texas Two-Step with a blonde cowgirl, I found myself sitting barstool-to-barstool with a buxom redheaded vision of loveliness in full cowgirl attire, making flirty talk as best we could over the racket of the music and the crowd. Her leg was pressed tightly against mine and her more-than-ample breasts were snuggling into my arm.
We had just started necking a little when the whole evening took a decidedly disastrous turn.
"Hey, a**hole, what the f*** you think you're doin'?"
Those words had come from the mouth of a very ugly, large cowboy who was now standing about half a foot in front of my face and scowling like crazy, his face contorted like an out-of-control lizard, his scrubbly beard reminding me of Yosemite Sam. I started to laugh in his face, since he was just a cartoon, when it dawned on me that the redhead had disappeared. Worse, everyone had cleared out a neat little circle around the bar. I started to feel sick to my stomach when I remembered the sign on the door.
"Hey, s***head. I'm talkin' to you, m*****f***er. What you doin' feelin' up my woman?"
The ugly cowboy was at least 6'2', 230 pounds, and smelled like a rodeo cowboy who had been wrestling steers for a week. I fervently wished that it was just a cartoon, but knew that it was all too real. All I could think of was what those damn rednecks had done to "Captain American" and Billy at the end of "Easy Rider". I knew that at a minimum my glasses were going to get busted, I was going to lose some teeth, and I'd bleed a lot; at worst, I could end up seriously hurt or dead.
A multitude of sneering cowboys were standing around with their arms crossed, a frightening human gauntlet; they had no intention of letting me get to the door. Making a run for it looked like a long shot and there was no security in sight. I was starting to identify with the Christians in Rome awaiting the lions' grand entrance. I needed a miracle, bad.
The miracle was Paul, who leaped into the scene seemingly out of nowhere. He muscled his way in between us, practically spitting in the ugly cowboy's face.
"Listen, mister. That girl was all over him. Maybe she don't think you own her."
The cowboy did a double take, then laughed loudly and derisively. He towered over Paul and was at least a hundred pounds heavier.
I motioned to Paul, pointing to the door.
"Get the hell out of here!" I hissed, just wanting to be left to my fate and not seeing any point in both of us dying.
Paul ignored me and continued glaring at the cowboy.
"Hell, shorty, you better mind your own business," said the ugly cowboy. "I'm gonna beat the s*** out of this punk here. You better just stay out of the way or you're gonna get hurt too."He turned to me again and grabbed me by the neck. I was on the verge of fighting back, knowing full well that I would be beaten to a pulp, when Paul jostled his way in again.
"Listen, buddy, you leave my brother alone or you're gonna be mighty sorry."
The cowboy was starting to get irritated at the gnat who kept bugging him. He wanted to geton to the main event - killing me - but was being forced to deal with a runt. I was worried about Paul and certainly appreciated his trying to help, but feared we were going to die together, victims of our own foolhardiness. I failed to reckon with the fact that anything can happen in cartoons.
"Listen, punk, butt out. I'll deal with you later."
Paul spat on the floor and looked the cowboy right in the eye.
"F*** you," he said calmly, subtly shifting into a fighting stance.
The cowboy took the bait, first turning red, then throwing a brutal punch right at Paul's face. I watched in horror as his massive fist floated through the smoky air in slow motion, my whole life flashing before my eyes in blinding kaleidoscopic colors. Although I fervently prayed to Howard that my life wasn't about to end, I knew that divine intervention was most unlikely.
But the punch never landed. Paul ducked gracefully, spinning in an elegant 360 degree arc, culminating with his foot catching the cowboy right in the chest, knocking the breath out of him instantly. Paul had disappeared, replaced by a demon from hell, a whirling dervish of frightening intensity, a spinning buzzsaw of flying feet and fists. He had transmogrified into a hillbilly Popeye full of spinach - and he treated that ugly cowboy just exactly like Popeye did Bluto.
In approximately two seconds the cowboy was laying in a heap on the floor, bleeding. Paul was slightly disheveled and still quite red in the face as he stood over his victim in a relaxed fighting stance, ready for more action if necessary.
"You try to get up and I'll kill you, you sumbitch."
Bluto stayed down.
Paul looked at me calmly.
"Let's get the hell out of here, brother."
Although still in a state of shock about not being dead, I pulled myself together as best I could, realizing that I had just witnessed a truly incredible cartoon.
As we walked towards the door the rough and tough cowboy gauntlet parted like the Red Sea, with Paul as Charlton Heston in the lead. One of 'em even opened the door for us as we strolled calmly to the car. Some of the cowboys followed us outside, but they just stared at us as we pulled away. Nobody went for his shotgun.
As we pulled back out onto the country road, I slipped a Willie Nelson tape in the player.
"Thanks, brother," I said, lighting a cigarette for Paul.
"Any time," he replied as he kicked it in gear.
Then, with an offbeat grin, he treated me to a Bruce Lee summary of the situation.
"I never beat around the bush and don't believe in winding detours. Just follow a straight line to the objective. Simplicity is the shortest distance between two points. So that was a simple approach to a simple problem."
The events described above occurred 30 years ago. After I survived the military I went straight, used the GI Bill to get more educated than is sometimes useful, and built myself a career as a professional in the Big City - Los Angeles, to be specific, perceived as an abstract and sinful place by folks back home. Since 1998, I have been situated in the Philippines, which I am using as a base of operations to take over Southeast Asia (progress is grudging).
After being booted out of the Marines because he punched out a gunny sergeant and did too much speed, he went on to lead a difficult life, a life characterized by failed marriages, interchangeable minimum wage jobs, a prototypical hardscrabble life. He occasionally deployed his street fighting skills in the service of certain organized underground interests, grew herbal crops in the hills to make a few bucks at harvest time, and fed his family with wild game shot in the fall and frozen for the winter.
In 1992, he got pneumonia and was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. By the time he was hospitalized the first time, his t-cells were already decimated and he had lesions on his face. He lasted about a year, a year during which I made numerous trips back home and spent endless hours on the phone talking with Paul about life and death. Indeed, one of the most painful experiences of my life was reciting the Lord's Prayer with Paul on the phone the night before he died; his breath ran out and his coughing got too intense, so I had to finish it on my own.
All of us have to face the reality of human mortality, whether we want to or not. Even though the wheel of life keeps right on turning, no one wants to face the prospect of his or her own mortality. Most religions go to a lot of trouble to construct elaborate images of life after death, or symbolic images like the wheel of life and death and Heaven above where the streets are paved with gold. Only Confucianism accepts a "good death" as the normal and expected outcome of a life well lived.
Amazingly, and to his eternal credit, Paul found a way to face death with tremendous dignity, going full circle, returning to his religious roots, dying unafraid, believing beyond a shadow of a doubt that, even in the agony of a painful death, he was going to cross the River Jordan, destination Heaven.
Rest in peace, brother.
