Three or four years ago, I sat near the rear of an aircon bus bound for Butuan. It was way past noon when we reached San Francisco terminal, but lunch was still a few kilometers away, at the meal station of Bachelor Express in Jubang.The bus slowed down at Pisaan, the barangay before Jubang, and judging by the thick crowd across the street, to the driver’s side, it was easy to tell that it was Pisaan’s fiesta. To my side of the bus, there were no houses; only trees dotting the road’s shoulder whose slope poured into a vast, swampy wasteland flecked with water lilies.
The bus stopped and the driver, lugging a dusty bag that contained his laundry, got off and crossed the street.
“To get some clothes,” the konduktor said without looking up from the stub of ticket he was flipping faster than the speed of light.
Everybody groaned while I cursed under my breath. As hunger gnawed at my gut, I looked away, to my right. And that was when I saw him!
On a grassy slope directly parallel to where the bus had stopped, he was crouching like a jockey whose horse was about to jump over a hurdle. From where I sat, I saw that his pants were down and he was holding on to a thick weed to prevent gravity from pulling him into a carabao wallow few feet below.
That his stomach got upset after pigging out was easy to understand, but doing it like a pig was not. I mean, in broad daylight along a busy highway? Well, he must’ve thought that the big trees would shield him from doing a quickie. But then again, the unexpected happens when you least expect it!
Nobody would have cared if he stood without wiping his ass, pulled his pants and walked just like that. But the terrain was such that doing so would make him lose his balance. And so like a Greek statue, he bore it with dignity even if his face was raw meat and his perspiration, kernels of corn.
But it was a credit to the man’s showmanship that not once had he bowed his head. Instead he maintained eye contact with his audience, giving them a constipated smile under a thought bubble that said: “hehehe, inkalasatan ako.” (no translation available, sorry)
Inside the bus, I didn’t move. I didn’t look to see if others were watching the scene like I did.
I felt for the man but I couldn’t help stealing glances. Nervous and embarrassed, he must have tightened his grip because after a while the weed gave, sending him somersaulting his way to the carabao wallow.
Just as his body hit the water lilies amidst an explosion of mud, the bus moved. Then few meters later, to the chagrin of everybody in the opposite row, a laugh broke in unison.
