This blog is written in response to an email I got from my BFF Lysette. This is the story of a GAY person named JUAN RICARDO NAWAPA* (*name changed to protect privacy) and how the fight he and I got in to got started...
I felt sorry for him. Yeah, it was damn near pity, but still, any human being would feel compassion for another. So I graciously (stupidly?) offered my house and HOME to Juan so the poor thing might take shelter from the earth’s harsh elements.
Juan used to be my schoolmate at Davao Christian High School. Hardly with any friends, Juan spent most of his grade school and high school life being the odd one out, mostly by himself, or with the countless few he calls “friends” like James Patrickson* or Cathryn Standup*. In college he spent about a semester or two at my university, which is Ateneo. And then he transferred, for whatever reason, to AMA. And after a semester or so transferred back to Ateneo. But nobody really noticed. Hell, nobody really cared. For most of Juan’s life, it’s always been like that. And it hardly made any difference in the world at all.
Now I find myself sitting across this lost little soul offering him something that would become the WORST week of my life. But I hadn’t known this then. Thaphuck, how naïve was i???
Anyway, he went to Cathryn’s house and got his things. You see, before he came to my house, he was staying at Cathy’s house. I asked him,
“Why are you moving out of Cathy’s house?”
“Cathy is so mean.”
“What..?”
“Yeah. She treats me like shit.”
“Like how?”
“Like, she’s so bossy and she always makes me do household chores like a maid or something...”
At the time, I SORT of believed him, but later on I would find out why Cathy kicked him out. It would soon be the same reason why I would kick him out...but let’s not get ahead of the story...
When he moved in, I still had classes and stuff. So everyday he would be left alone with our maid, and sometimes my dad, and our youngest sister too because she was sick at the time. I let him stay in my brother’s room, which was being used as a storage room, ironing room, all-purpose room since nobody was using it.
At first, everything seemed okay. I woke up. He would still be asleep. I got dressed. Ate breakfast. Called a cab and went to school. I would come home, he would be there, watching tv, wearing one of my shorts or one of my tshirts or something. At first, I didn’t mind. Oh no, I didn’t mind at all. I’m not one of those OCD psychopaths who’d go bonkers if anyone touched their things. The only fact that irked me was that he usually doesn’t ask. So that’s a bummer.
But as the days gone by, I noticed more and more how annoying Juan got. Using more and more of my PERSONAL things WITHOUT my permission! What personal things you say? Like Make-up, MORE clothes, shoes, etc etc. Duuuuude! Make-up! To me, that’s like sharing one’s toothbrush or something!! And one of the WORSTS is that he doesn’t put things back where he got them from. That’s just so stupid! You don’t ask...AND you don’t put it back. Argh!
He orders our maid around like SHE was his own maid. Wtf?? He orders her around like ‘cook this for me!’ or ‘do my laundry’. DUH! As if our maid didn’t have much things to do already! At this point, I really wanted to slap him and tell him off, but I thought, hey, the kid’s been through enough. Maybe he will realize it and change! Oh hell was I wrong!
He kept complaining about EVERYTHING!! Much in the same way he complained about Cathy’s! He’s saying our home is too cramped and that his house was a million times bigger. (WHY THE HELL WON’T YOU GO HOME THEN???) He says our food isn’t good. (YET HE STUFFS HIMSELF WITH IT THREE TIMES A DAY, SEVEN DAYS A WEEK, WITH GUSTO!) He complains that our computer wasn’t DSL. (I had to hide the cables because he tried to dial this PLDT VIBE dial-up thing that doesn’t need a card but will charge P7 by the minute in the next bill. I had already gotten told off by my mom in the past because I tried it before and it got up to P700 in just two weeks, so I was disallowed to VIBE ever again. I know if I let JUAN do it, the bill would go up to P7,000....and he wouldn’t even care!) He complained that his room wasn’t aircon! Basta, he complained about every single thing, and I’m sure everyone in the house was SICK of it. What really got my blood boiling one time was that he told me, “Reg, why don’t I stay in YOUR room, and YOU stay in MY room...”
Just thinking about the time he said that really gets to me. Right now I am breathing through a brown paper bag because I am hyperventilating with rage. If he had said that jokingly, it’s not a problem. But the fact that he had said it so maliciously serious...now THAT’S another thing! It’s like the Janitor of some corporation walked up to the CEO and told him, “from now on, you’re staying in the Janitor’s closet, and I am taking over your office. Got that?”
Pretty soon his money would run out, and he would ask me for some. Shit. Was he kidding?? Already I was struggling with the meager allowance my dad gave me each week, what was I, his parents?? Soon I had to really hide my money well because I noticed some money from my piggy bank would go missing when I came home.
He does NOTHING all day but spend spend spend money. He goes to the mall, or goes to an internet café doing nothing but burn some more money on such nonsense things, specially for someone who is so destitute as he. When he’s not spending money, he’s asleep. When he’s not asleep, he’s shoving something down his throat, or out his gut. He keeps saying he will find a job. He keeps asking me to help him find a job. And I’m like, how am I supposed to do that when you yourself refuse to move?? He keeps asking me if I still model and if I could get him a modeling job. At this point, I just had to keep myself from breaking out in a fit of laughter. I didn’t know how to break it to the kid. He was just so damn serious. I mean, come on, I don’t want to get to the point as to describe the kid, but if it gets to that I will! But for now I will just say that he is not model material, and I will leave it at that. Anyway, how does one expect him to find a job, when he thinks jobs walk up to you and asks YOU if you would like to apply for a job. I keep telling him that’s not how it works and if you really want a job it works the other way around. But as his namesake goes, there’s nothing you could tell Juan Tamad to do.
Aside from that, other things got worse and worse. My mom kept asking me “when is Juan going home?” or “aren’t his parents looking for him?” and although my mom didn’t say it directly, I could sense she didn’t want him in her house. For one thing, my mom really hates gay people. For another, Juan was another mouth to feed...a messy, demanding, insipid, lazy, ‘burara’ mouth to feed.
It was hell. Juan just got messier and messier and lazier and lazier. When his money really hit rock bottom, he turned to our maid for help. At this point I was really really ashamed. With the meager pay maids get, they deserve to keep every penny. But since our maid was super duper nice, she let Juan “borrow” a few hundred bucks. Which I had to freakin pay later on because Juan NEVER paid her back, the sonofabitch.
Juan is just like that! He thinks everybody lives for him! Everybody is his maid! And he can be as messy and lazy as he can be and nobody would care! Because we are all his maids and we would pick up after him and still like him. What is he, nuts?? I swear, he must be. But sometimes, I could say, where did his parents go wrong? How could someone turn out to be so wrong?? But then again, Juan has two other siblings and they turned out okay. So maybe it’s not all his parents’ fault. Maybe Juan is just a genetic dud?
Little by little I ask Juan to “please pick up after yourself” or “can you please make the bed when you wake up?” or “Juan, our maid is not your maid, hell I hardly tell her to do stuff for me except when I really can’t do it myself! So please, do things yourself!” But to no avail. It is like talking to a wall.
Honestly I would have gone crazy! My (then) friend Danah knows about this. She sees me at school looking disheveled and she asks me what’s wrong. I tell her all about what’s been going on at home and she could only do nothing but laugh at Juan’s stupidity and console me at my misfortune. A misfortune that I had gotten myself in to. But how was I supposed to know?? I was only trying to do something which I though was right...AT THE TIME. But had I known...i SHOULD have known...Juan’s thankless domestic habits, I never would have even THOUGHT about taking Juan in.
One day I come home early from school and I was just praying at the back of my head that Juan wouldn’t be home so that I could at least relax even just for a lil bit. I peek my head through the door. My dad is at the computer. I sigh and say, “Yessss....Juan isn’t home.”
And without taking his eyes off the computer my dad goes, “What do you mean he’s not home? He’s in OUR room watching television with Shobe!” sensing a sense of annoyance in his voice.
And I’m like, wtf??
At our house, I rarely...seriously....RARELY go in to my parents’ bedroom. Our MAID NEVER goes in to their room...unless it needs to be cleaned or my mom wants a massage or something. Yet here Juan is, a perfect stranger, strolling in to our home like he is the king...or QUEEN...of it all. How thick-faced is that??
I go in to the room and he is there beside my sister Shobe on the bed. Sometimes I wanna slap my dad for letting him in there, but hey, it’s my DAD! Sometimes I question my dad’s parenting skills. Hell-o! Even if Juan is gay how could he just let Juan in there like that! He doesn’t know, Juan could molest our sister or something! But then again, my dad is my dad and he can get shy sometimes on telling people off.
I march in there and tell Juan, “what the hell are you doing in here? Don’t you know that you’re not supposed to be in here? Come on Juan show a little respect!”
And as things went further and further downhill, I texted him one day while I was still at school:
Enough is enough. I have had too much. I try to be nice. I let you in my home. I let you eat my food and sleep in my bed. Not even so much so as a Thank You, yet I still put up with you! But I have had enough Juan. You will defile my house no longer. Before I come home you better have had packed your things and left or else you will not like what I am going to do to you...
And so on and so forth. I have still so many things to tell you but I’m afraid if I go on this would practically become a thesis...or a novel! But now you know where/when the fight started. This was about a year ago...before summer. Yeah. A looong time ago, but if you have had something like Juan housed in your domain for a week...you would go crazy too.
I have learned that no matter what happens i wont please everyone. Photography is one of my passions. I wish my critic's would keep in mind its only one of many things I'm working on. *see my music profile*. Critic's are not the enemy. They can be quite useful as long your going to be intelligent about it. Please don't send me emails about things i have no control over, like your opinion if this or that model is pretty or not. Beauty is so subjective anyways. Btw.. while your being so critical please forward me a copy or link of the project your working on? I find most truly creative / sucessfull people just don't waste time criticising, they avoid negative energy at all costs.
To my Bora crew.. "I love you all. Your in my heart, your in my soul, your on my mind all the time!"
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