his swooning fans did not make the cut. 

 

it is a miracle how he has managed to be free from multiple-personalities disorder up to this day although his lapses in grammar and his fickle-mindedness could be indications.  wait, now that he's thinking about it, maybe he'd be better off with such a disorder.  the most tricky part, however, is balancing these groups.  time is the factor here, not comfort, preference or anything else.  in fact, he's learned the art of being non-committal, ditching the first to make yaya policy since he had observed that the more organized groups usually plan ahead of the others placing certain groups of equal importance to the disadvantage.

 

last saturday, charlie attended a happy bench party.  perhaps one thing he regrets about his senior year would be having had missed hanging out with them as much as in the previous years in exchange for the publications room.  in fact, he never got to go to any of the out-of-town excurtions--he missed tugegarao, quezon and at least 2 other trips and had to content himself with anecdotes and stories--because he had to do stuff for heights.  to some level, his friends resented this.  this is a point taken against him up to this very day.  but he had no choice.  of course he doesn't regret choosing heights most of the time because this was work he had committed himself to.  and the people in heights were cool too.  what he actually resents is the fact that he was made to choose.  ( i should stop explaining for him now, yes?)  

 

it is not seldom at all that happy bench had parties like these, and their sheer volume would guarantee instant good turn-out time after time after time.  to the outsider, happy bench would appear superficial.  they would break into small groups giving the impression that they were not tight  and solid.  (pretty much like a poem heights would chuck out during a delibs session.)  yet they were all social butterflies and if one would be observant enough, one would notice that they would do round-robins.  before the booze would run out (which rarely happens anyway), they all would have already snooped into each others' latest installments of deep dark secrets.  it's a phenomenon, actually.  and charlie wishes that that they could stay like this forever. 

 

but achieving forever is a tall order, considering how much lechon, kare-kare and other "edible death" (as levi would call these sinful food) he wolfed up.  the merlot, cheap dolce vino,  gold schlagger, beer and alcoholic whatnots did not help either--he was hoping to pass out before he got to eat too much, which happened not, apparently.    

in a sea of good people (whom charlie all loves) such as this, there's a certain sub-group he was naturally most akin to.  for intents and purposes, we shall call them g., silver and levi.  charlie has been good friends with g. and levi since high school, while g. and silver have been together for like four years or even more.  as a group, they've been through a lot although the last time they (the lovers excluded) had been in a real fight amongst themselves would be back in high school.  

 

of course sometimes it happens that charlie gets pissed with any of them.  that is but normal, is it not?  but they would just somehow snap back to the way things usually were before anything major or apparent and irreversible happened.  at least in charlie's case, he had not harbored any pent up feelings or ill opinion regarding these dear people.  likewise, he's pretty much sure that neither had they.  

 

they pretend to be a matured bunch, you see.   in reality, as diverse as they are, perhaps the only noticeable thing they had in common is that they were all fashionably spoiled in accord to their respective means.  ((g. and silver: yes, we are all spoiled.  no arguments.))  and this, he thought, bound them together: unadulterated them.  they needed not pretend that they were friends for any reason.  they bothered not find out anything else they had in common except for the ones that just blatantly manifest.  they were simply, unavoidably, naturally tight.  

 

so they all went to the happy bench party together, stylishly in levi's "carnival red" jag which he named "alanis" (hahahaha).  before they even arrived at the scene, there'd been a cold war brewing between the lovers.  stupid charlie did not take this seriously.  no cautions were implemented; no special considerations and efforts at damage control was ensued from charlie's part.

 

 

 

charlie: sure don't mention it.  (not verbatim, but pretty much the same thought.)

 

(g. falls silent.)

 

 

 

(charlie doesn't say anything.  g. tries to appease silver.)

 

 

 

(g. smirks.  he leaves with silver.   a million years pass and they don't come back.)

 

soon, levi and charlie found themselves following the two.  levi was instantly let inside the car.  (it's his anyway.  i don't think g. had much of a choice.)  charlie, however, was left out for a good minute under the drizzle.  (he was wearing a water-sensitive top.)   

 

 

 

 

the air was thick inside the parked jag.  they left the party in lieu of a meeting reminiscent of high school days.  back then, they would cheesily call it a bull session, and it had last been done before they marched to pomp and circumstance some four years ago (not the latest time they had). 

 

 

charlie: as in?  (laughs)

 

 

 

g.: (conversation lapsed) feeling ko mababa tingin mo sakin. 

 

charlie:  (is dumbfounded.  he laughs again.)  ano?!  ano ka ba?

 

 

charlie: whatever!  ano ka ba!  why would you pay attention to such petty details?!  do you not notice the disparity between levi and i?!  (charlie taps on the jag's nice leather seat to illustrate his point.  the three do not seem to get this.)  and besides, i'm the one who's jobless!

 

 

 

 

charlie: (to g.) well that's not true.

 

silver:  g. confided me that matagal na.  you were classmates under dr. totanes but na-sad sya na you didn't even talk to him.  (later on charlie would find out that g. also expressed this disdain to levi, who advised him to talk to charlie about this.  but. g. chose to keep his mouth shut.)

 

 

 

charlie: i'm always late and you're always usually the first one to leave.  you'd have me stand up in the middle of the class just to say hi?  okay fine.  sorry.  (still laughing.)  oh stop this, you know me, i never am serious!  that's why i love being with you guys, i could afford never to be.  i could just stop caring and i could stop being cautious with what i say.  tact is reserved for politics.  what we have does not involve politics.  (again, not verbatim.  this version sounds so less cheesy.)

 

 

and a big reason why i am posting this in behalf of charlie is because he is hoping that g. would get to read this somehow.  charlie was forgiven that night, both for the things he did that night and for those he had done before.  but perhaps the only way charlie could say sorry to g. in the most appropriate manner is through a venue as public as where he has offended him in the first place.  the blog is not ateneo, but traces of ateneo lie wherever charlie spills his thoughts.

 

to g. (you know who you are): there is no politics between charlie and you.  you are simply two individuals experiencing the world together, though sick or eutopic it might sound. 

 

of course this does not mean that there is politics in any of the other platonic relations charlie keeps, or more so declares.  he would not have called it friendship if so.  this sets these liaisons apart from any other ones he may term otherwise.

 

 

(disclaimer: this hasn't been proofread properly)