BARS IN THE MOUTHS OF THE CITY
By: Iris P. Concepcion

I wanted to visit the building beside the legitimate National Arts Museum but was sent away because they thought I was an ill-mannered rogue. Anyway, it wasn't what M had done. You'd never miss him and his friends' clean lines. Less talk, more work.

I went to a school fusing the best of what the academe can offer; another forbearing on how visionaries think. I love it when I do not merely yack; my best defense is the impressive works of my people. I was introduced to the best of their class; they look and talk like formidable leaders. I like you all slouched in a sofa, thinking of stuff to write in your laptops.

The pictures above were taken from Luneta Grandstand; The Orchidarium had Barbara's Place on it. I was advised to enter it since there is a restaurant inside. It was closed though so I only looked past the busts; of Rajah Sulayman and other fighting warriors. It rained hard; I talked to the security guard who told me stories of yonder that I listened to with much interest.

All the fathers are blunt and speak straight. Even without the keyboards, they know what I think. I am blessed that they are proper; they respect my ideas; they are with me.

Caveat: Daughter was saying: "Mommy knows what is fake and what is not." Sure do hon. They aped you with ridiculous clothes but I can still see through your cores. I may have lost my real father but I gained millions of them in my midst.

Remember the graduation day of a girl named "Marie" with similar plight?

I am always intrigued by relationships between fathers and sons. I do not understand their rudiments for emotional entanglements. I sure do know how women respond to heartbreaking stimuli. It is not an alien territory to write about. But men?

I have seen the best of these relationships (I am not using my family at this juncture) up close. I did not understand why fathers need to be tough on their offspring sometimes. I have often read the confessions of sons in literature, fearing the God-like qualities of a father; Kafka despised his own in biblical proportions as shrouded in his pivotal novel.

There is, however, a sense of tenderness, made fetching by the fact that men usually keep to themselves and do not talk like one opened dam about how they feel. If there is a heart-tugging piece of sight that makes me dumbfounded, it is when a father sets free his son, allowing him to feel pain, endure the scratches and bile, feel the mud, soak in muck, endure the heat.

When Time comes though, father sits beside his son, ever conscious for the support that ain't mushy (they'd rather funnily mimic), hawk-eyed, ever mindful that he shall get up, will not fall astray, shall be guided and will never feel left out.

He says: "Son, get off now." And he does, silently and with conviction, taking a ride to wherever he is going. And to the persons whom his son loves, he says this: "Here is where you alight."

Let me say, I have heard so much of this particular son's stories; that is a layer that he does not flaunt, the reason why I do not doubt just because he told it so himself. You truly need to break that? WHY?

I learned this: it is not the amount of time they had spent together that counts; it is how in times of want, their fathers are around to stand up for them, carrying them when tripped, and again, set them free.

Men who yack too much as replacements for their absent aesthetics are usually those who routinely find themselves inside brothels day-in day-out; those who can bullshit their own family; those who are latently insecure when they grow up.

My other father was telling me----just write. It calmed me when he mentioned all the siblings likewise in awe and how, like the cavemen of the past, ate chicken thighs and.....................laughed like Alvin The Chipmunk.

And yes, so what if we are passionate? They look good in briefs and bikinis anyway. I couldn't complain too much, should I?