[busy signaL]
[Sunday, December 26, 2004]
haven't thought about him in years. but i did today, for some reason. he was the driver of the bus service i and paco subscribed to back in zobel. i forget if it was grade school or high school, since he just appeared one day, replacing the former driver, and left just as nonchalantly.
mang eddie was very proficient at the art of driving, squeezing the tamaraw fx we rode in into gaps half its size, or climbing onto the sidewalk to overtake three cars in a row. once, he drove the fx straight across a roadside vacant lot, to avoid traffic at the intersection. what paco and i now term "gilbert-style driving", we used to refer to as "doing an eddie".
he used to sell candy and softdrinks to the kids who rode the bus, mainly to keep them quiet, as well as to work up a little extra cash. this was common among the buses parked across zobel's gate 4 [or what used to be gate 4; i don't know what they call it now]. anyway, he asked me to extend his racket by bringing a box of airheads to my classroom and selling them at no extra cost to my classmates. that worked well for a while, but i must've been throwing in one or two extra for every purchase, since i soon racked up 375 pesos in debit [at 5 pesos per airhead, that's 75 unwarranted givaways].
i didn't pay up immediately since i thought mang eddie'd stick around for a while, but as i mentioned, one day someone else was driving, just like that. if i remember correctly, the new driver was supposedly his son [nephew? friend?] and he showed me a note in mang eddie's hand authorizing him to collect my debt as soon as possible. he lasted a week, i think, which wasn't enough time for me to come by the necessary amount.
last i heard, mang eddie was in zambales or zamboanga, somewhere starting with a z. zimbabwe, maybe. rumor has it he was too strapped for cash to stay in manila. running from loans, so the story goes. it's moot to say that if he approached me now i'd probably pay him four times what i actually owed. the point is that i didn't help him when i had the chance.
if the premise of mitch albom's the five people you meet in heaven is true, mang eddie'll probably the first one waiting.
merry christmas, mang eddie, wherever you are.
sige ingat.ΓΌ
posted by stani at 6:01 PM
mang eddie was very proficient at the art of driving, squeezing the tamaraw fx we rode in into gaps half its size, or climbing onto the sidewalk to overtake three cars in a row. once, he drove the fx straight across a roadside vacant lot, to avoid traffic at the intersection. what paco and i now term "gilbert-style driving", we used to refer to as "doing an eddie".
he used to sell candy and softdrinks to the kids who rode the bus, mainly to keep them quiet, as well as to work up a little extra cash. this was common among the buses parked across zobel's gate 4 [or what used to be gate 4; i don't know what they call it now]. anyway, he asked me to extend his racket by bringing a box of airheads to my classroom and selling them at no extra cost to my classmates. that worked well for a while, but i must've been throwing in one or two extra for every purchase, since i soon racked up 375 pesos in debit [at 5 pesos per airhead, that's 75 unwarranted givaways].
i didn't pay up immediately since i thought mang eddie'd stick around for a while, but as i mentioned, one day someone else was driving, just like that. if i remember correctly, the new driver was supposedly his son [nephew? friend?] and he showed me a note in mang eddie's hand authorizing him to collect my debt as soon as possible. he lasted a week, i think, which wasn't enough time for me to come by the necessary amount.
last i heard, mang eddie was in zambales or zamboanga, somewhere starting with a z. zimbabwe, maybe. rumor has it he was too strapped for cash to stay in manila. running from loans, so the story goes. it's moot to say that if he approached me now i'd probably pay him four times what i actually owed. the point is that i didn't help him when i had the chance.
if the premise of mitch albom's the five people you meet in heaven is true, mang eddie'll probably the first one waiting.
merry christmas, mang eddie, wherever you are.
sige ingat.ΓΌ
posted by stani at 6:01 PM