ROADKILL! (Or The truth about Mary)

II

A week back also, I was told of another series of roadkills. One was that Mary is pregnant, that is why she is leaving Jolo for Manila. Two, that her cousin, another devil-rider of a street tomboy, and whom I would now call Magdalene, has given birth to a baby, which they now gave to the rapist (they don’t use rapist there, though; they refer to him as the father); and that three, at Takut-Takut, another tomboy is going around with a bloated belly, courtesy of a pedicab driver who was forced by his elders to marry her and then left her for garbage a day after. 

So now, the dopeheads at Takut-Takut are talking. They say, Amun president niyu ha Tumba Lata yadtu? Hahaha. 

I told Karen it could be that some joke must have passed at the men’s lair; they must have wagered on the street dykes' pussies, or how come the serial kill. 

Karen was appalled. “That’s infuriating."

Yes, I assured Karen. Mary and her cousin Magdalene are the toughest in the gang, so they beat them first.

What I really thought was slander. And told Mhang, Tumba Lata’s resident reporter and information comptroller, You don’t believe men when they talk about women. Here that’s how the drug pushers get to marry the Muslim girls they want, by telling the entire barangay that she had had been had, she is no longer a virgin!

She carried on like I have not spoken. “Men could tell if a girl is pregnant.”

“They couldn’t!”

“They say Mary’s tummy is big."
"She drinks beer and slumps a lot."
 "And that she has the looks of someone having her morning sickness." 
"Whoaa."
"It must be Joseph, the guy who supplies him with shabu. Or that boy with a motorcycle, the one Mary borrows all the time, and the one who helps him with the laptop.”

“Who?”

“Joseph. A very ugly fellow, let me tell you. Dark-skinned, thin like a skeleton, a pedicab driver. They say that even when you were here, Mary was doing shabu every night.”

“Please, don’t believe them.”

"That’s why he was up all night." 
"Mhang, you're the only one who sleeps at eight and wakes at six."
“"One of the policemen was even saying that he has shagged Mary.”

"You’ve told me that already.”

“Once an addict, always an addict. Even when you were here? He was on shabu. It was his dinner, you don't know.”

Now I know that that statement was more for me and not about Mary. They tell me that all the time. You don’t know this and you don’t know that. You can’t do this and you can do that.  You don’t go out into the street without us, you don’t hang around with lesbians at the docks, you don’t jog, you don’t set up a program, you don't organize lesbians, you don't know Tausugs, you don't and you don't.

Well I don't. So I asked Mary. Are you pregnant?   Don’t lie. If it could happen to Magdalene, it could happen to you. In fact, it could happen to me. I didn’t tell him I have been getting an inordinate amount of propositions in my mobile lately.

Of course Mary got angry. And of course she covered up for his cousin Magdalene. "I will smash their teeth for spreading that kind of shit. I even went to see Magdalene to find out and it is not true!”

“I am not asking to accuse you. I want to know that I may know.”

“Don’t believe anything they tell you!”

That was the second time he said that to me in days. Don’t believe them; don’t believe the  Seven Brothers. They just want to scare you, so you won't go back there.  Huwag kang maniwala sa kanila, nananakot lang yan sila para hindi ka na bumalik doon. Huwag kang matakot, bumalik ka doon.  

You always root for that about Mary. He always was The Opposition. Everybody scampering for safety and he will go the other way.