Bryter later

(Author’s note: The author would like to say that he usually takes it as an affront to his intelligence and good taste in general whenever diary entries pass themselves off as ‘articles’ with the writer judiciously using I at the beginning of every sentence. Except of course if you’re Butch Dalisay or Nick Joaquin. However the following piece couldn’t have been any less personal, so I hope the kind reader forgives this one slip. It couldn’t be helped. By the way, the title is taken from a Nick Drake album.)

Chico was laid to rest yesterday. He spent about two weeks in the hospital recovering from injuries (in particular a burned esophagus) he sustained after drinking a bottle of ammonia. He always talked about ending his own life — especially during the past year. The reason he gave was a broken heart.

I wasn’t able to visit him in the hospital. Not once. I guess I was afraid to, not knowing what to say or what kind of face to present to him. Like many of our friends, I started to regard Chico’s penchant for announcing his own demise as some sort of joke, a flirtation with all the romance of an early death, the myth of Cobain, Curtis and Drake. Owing also to a debilitating phobia of hospitals, I convinced myself that he would make it, and then I would make amends. I would throw him a party, boosting his spirits and — to quote Eric Idle — helping him to "always look at the bright side of life." But all these good intentions are only convenient to say and ultimately useless. Fact is, he’s dead and I can’t do anything about it. The least I could’ve done was to wish him well.

I met Chico the first day of our freshman orientation for the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in Diliman. I didn’t know him yet but he sidled up to me, wanting to hitch a ride to go to lunch. Now Chico — at least the way he looked – was the sort of character my elder siblings would fondly refer to as one of the people "you would only find in UP," the kind that was always interesting to talk to but you wouldn’t want to get too deeply involved with. (Of course, that only strengthened my resolve to get to know as many of these people as I could, seeing that they were kindred souls.) All long hair and clothes that you could only describe as being "found art," Chico kept silent for only a moment before he started to talk. "Mehn, I just found out that a boyhood friend is gay!" he exclaimed. I laughed, then asked him if he was sure. He was. He continued by telling me that they used to watch X-rated movies together. "Maybe he has a crush on you?" I chided. Chico looked at me and said: "That’s what worries me."

All throughout our college days and even after I graduated, we had so many of these strange conversations which went nowhere in particular but which I still cherish more than anything I learned in a classroom. We even wrote a song together called I Love You, Mr. Macho Man which was loosely based on the experience of our friend Darwin. As I was already writing songs for Parokya ni Edgar, we both thought that they would like it and record it. We never got round to doing a proper demo of the song. (In fact, I just played it to myself just before sitting down to write this. I almost burst into tears. No doubt a strange sight.)

Chico was an artist — although I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t always understand what his works were about. He was dead serious, though, about it. His last installation that I was able to catch was at Big Sky Mind (before they chose to shun visual artists like Chico — a sad development). He piled pieces of wood about five-feet high as if for a giant bonfire; at its heart, he put a television set which played a video loop of a house burning down (from Terrence Malick’s Badlands). My girlfriend and muse Yvonne and I were impressed. It expressed so much of that side of Chico that seemed driven to point out the absurd in modern living while acknowledging its validity. I now wonder if his suicide attempt was a part of his art.

The buzz around our circle of friends is that he died because of love. I think this is true to an extent but I don’t think it was one girl in particular. In my opinion, it’s more accurate to say that Chico died because he wanted to be loved not just by one person but by everyone he knew. He wanted to be understood and to be listened to. After being frustrated in life, maybe he thought that he would get it finally in death. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t see that he was loved, perhaps blinded by his own despair.

So, why am I writing this? Honestly, I don’t know. It’s probably motivated by a heavy guilt that I feel because I wasn’t there when it counted. Who knows what would’ve happened had I sent him even just one text message asking him how he was before he drank the lethal dose? Or maybe if I was man enough to have gone to the hospital and cracked a joke at his bedside, maybe hummed a few lines from our song, would it have made a difference? I don’t know.

I honestly hope there’s an afterlife (even though intellectually I’m almost convinced that there isn’t). If there is, I think Chico is in some sort of paradise although God knows he was a sinner (and sometimes unrepentant of it). It seems too cruel if he isn’t, given that he was such a tender and sensitive person who lived and ended his life the way he thought fit. Maybe there we can talk (sorry man) and laugh again.

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