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I’m a sentimental person.
Sometimes I put on my sentimental sandals, and my sentimental walking pants, and go on sentimental walks. In this melancholy, I’d usually visit some of my old haunts.
A month ago, I took to walking around Cartimar, which for those alien to Pasay, is a shopping arcade of about 3 rows of squat buildings.
Cartimar is home to a dazzling array of flora and fauna for sale - dogs, cats, mice, iguanas, worms, fish, monkeys, hamsters, and birds (rats too, but they aren’t for sale).
And that bullfrog for dissection in Biology class? I got it here.
This is practically where I spent (and wasted) my high school years.
As i strolled past the pet stores, a flashback hit me. It was about a time - ten years ago, I think - when I saw this really pretty bird out for sale. It was so pretty I just had to ask the saleslady how much it sold for.
"Miss, magkano po yan," I said, jabbing a finger at the bird.
"250 po, sir," said the lady, listlessly.
"Wow mura naman"
"250 thousand po, sir"
And so I peed in my pants - just a bit though.
Okay lng siguro kung 250 thousand lira or 250 thousand yen. Anyway.
Along the pet shop buildings was one of my childhood tambayans -Aling Poleng’s carinderia - home of the famous egg sauce( egg with Mang Tomas and rice), dinuguan, and sago.
Ahh…the memories of blowdarting my barkadas with sago pellets….
What’s a carinderia doing right smack between two pet stores? I don’t know. But it’s better than having a carinderia selling dinuguan beside a funeral parlor( or maybe a beauty parlor beside a funeral parlor).
When I was in high school, I used to come to Cartimar to play video games. But back then, it was quite expensive ( 40 pesos an hour for SNES). It was imperative then that we eat cheap. Meaning: Egg sauce( 10 pesos only!).
So there you have it. My puberty was fueled by eggs and Mang Tomas.
Unfortunately, my search for Aling Poleng’s ended in vain. It was gone. I tramped up and down the corridors looking for a trace of the famous ice grinding machine they had out front.
It wasn’t there. Gone. Poof. Just like that.
I mourned a bit and moved over to the next row of stores.
Cartimar is also home to dozens of sneaker stores. It’s seen better days, but it’s still a good place to find cheap knockoffs and discount Nikes.
My dad and us kids used to frequent this PX store right next to the marketplace. Dad and the old kindly lady owner were friends. And Daddy was always a loyal customer.
He’d usually come for some pound cake. peanut butter, marmalade, and some snacks for us( usually Combos or Cracker Jacks ).
And once in a while he’d go for some Alberto V05 hot oil packs.
Which was funny because he didn’t have hair.
The oil probably made his bald pate glow, I don’t know….
I went down the row leading to the PX store and found that the store was still there. But there wasn’t anyone in it. The lights where gone. There were candles lit around. And it looked deserted - which was weird because it still had goods inside - albeit really old, musty, moldy, and rusty.
Another nostalgic spot vanquished.
I went on through another row, this one home to Bok’s video game palace. And anyone that knows me long enough knows that this is where I blew most of my lunch money…and then some.
This was where you’d find me if I weren’t at school, which was quite often. Actually, I spent more time here than at school. It got so bad that I’d miss about half of my classes a year. And whenever I’d drag myself to class, most of my classmates would jeer,"Hey, we have a new classmate."
Bok’s place was owned by two brothers, one was Willie, or Bok. He was the nice one. He’s sometimes let us play beyond our rent. And he always spoke in soft tones.
The other guy, we just called him Wawa. He was the hard one -always shouting and cursing. And he wasn’t beyond physically removing us from the place if we got on his bad side.
And being on his bad side meant he wouldn’t let us play at his joint. Which was unnaturally cruel for someone like me who was totally dedicated to spending every waking hour patronizing his business.
Anyway, he got the nickname Wawa when, somewhere mid his shouting and cursing, he popped. A full-blown stroke. We were kinda shocked when he showed up one day with half his body drooping listless, and him capable of only speaking in monosyllables. Which, you guessed it, was "wa wa wa."
But that’s for another story. You will be pleased to know though that he never lost his zeal for life. On the contrary, he’d still blow up on us from time to time, chase us with his walking stick, indulge in some porn (and helplessly drool), and yes, scream profanities at us (You just knew by his tone what he meant by wa wa wa wa ).
They closed shop a real long time ago, when PC rentals became all the rage. I still think of them fondly and hope the best for them today.
I ended my walk. I had been through Cartimar and found out that It no longer held too many memories of my past, which was sad…in a way.
I wanted to relive a bit of my past not because it was great, but because, for all its thorns and stuff, I was there. Today, I decided to write about it because, for all I know, I might forget about it, and not realize that during that pocket of time, I existed.
I was there. It happened. It affected who I am.
So there. I’m letting you know that I was there. Please remind me about it when I lose my ability to hold water.
