"Well, it's time to relax from now on, " Ambo tells himself. It's been a while since he had any major vacation, and how desperate he is to take a few days off. He is trying to veer away from his work drama, the isolation caused by his drama, the false security provided by the drama. "Darn, I feel that my life is a non-stop Mexican soap without the sex," he says to himself. He can't think a single moment in the past six years that his life got outside the dramatic scheme of things he calls 'family duty'. Take care of parents, brothers, sisters, their children, etcetera. For the past eighteen years, he is boxed in that box, cocooned in that cocoon, forever a wingless butterfly, the Sisa of all Sisas and if Rizal would write another novel about Filipino struggle, honey, Ambo is smacked right there in the center of it. The poor, pobrecito maricon. He talks of his diaspora struggle so often that people get tired of hearing it and scream, "Enough, shove that drama into your ass." So what if he provided the whole Philippines all their sustenance? Just shut the fuck up about it. Already.
When people are really are tired of you, you see the signs written on the wall. You are avoided like the plague, MRSA, Hepatitis B and C, AIDS and Avian flu combined. Seriously. You are left alone. Another sign is, people tend to agree with you condescendingly. But they don't want to talk to you longer than thirty seconds. Ambo counted the seconds. Yeah, it's no more than thirty.
Everything he says now, he says it all to himself. I mean, he talks to people everyday at work but that is work. Outside his work, he has only himself to talk to. And when he talks to himself, he goes back to the drama. Drama here and there, tear-jerking martyrdom, sacrificing, self giving, self forgetting, self denying, self offering whatever drama. He is just as sick of it as the others. This is how a third world country kid ends up - a melodrama. Just like the movies of his country. Stuck to the same drama with glue.
Ambo wants to get out of this rut. He is dying to get rid of the drama. He wants to live his life like the way life should be lived.
He goes to the beach. Why the beach is because it is there. And because it is there, he never visits it. The procrastinator in him thinks the beach can wait because it has nowhere to go. Sometimes, he accidentally passes it, like when there is a road detour due to constructions and he'd marvel at it in a remorseful way. Why doesn't he visit it more often when it is only five miles away from his house? He sighs inside the car, " I can't believe I've never come down here." The dummy works seven days a week. Then he decides, no, he vows, at that particular moment, to visit the beach when he has a free time, which he knows will never come, and if it ever comes, he has other things more important things to do, until another road detour forces him back to it to regret he never visited it.
But today our gay Ambo forces himself to spend time alone at the beach. First things first, he went to Walmart to buy a blue beach umbrella and a green beach foldable chair. Also, Coppertone. He collected his sunglasses, a novel, his Ipod, digital cam, beach towel and drove straight to Boynton Beach. On the beach he set up his domicile -- staked his umbrella with all his might against the sand, spread out his foldable chair which turned out to be a garden chair, applied Coppertone all over his body, settled down to listen to his Ipod.
Earlier on this particular day, the weatherman reported that South Beach shore will be full of gusty winds and high surf. Ambo thought this as perfect for him, he will savor the masculine wind, taste its saltiness, marvel at the restless waves, take pictures of rolling, glistening, spraying surf while listening to his soft RB music. He made sure he was as far away from the crowd as possible. He located himself at that critical line that has a posted warning: Beyond this point, no lifeguard is on duty. This is just the place Ambo wanted it. Away from it all. Lying on the sand quietly feeling the wind under the shade of an umbrella. It was alright until after five minutes when a strong gush of wind approached his corner, like a hurricane it began drawing the stake of his umbrella out of the sand, he struggled keeping it standing, meanwhile he could hardly relax to his music, the chair he bought was not exactly meant for the beach and it stood so unevenly his butt started hurting. His bag, being opened on the sand started collecting, what else but sand. His one hand was trying to keep his umbrella against the wind while the other hand was trying to set up his Ipod's earphones, clicking his dig camera and applying lotion all over himself.
So this is relaxation? he asked himself. In another second he would be struck by a much much stronger wind. So strong it uprooted his umbrella and turned it inside out. He fell off his chair and tumbled and rolled on the sand, the sand got stuck to his Coppertoned body while his Ipod and digital camera got buried in the sand. He was the greatest spectacle of South Beach on that particular day.
Ambo went back to Walmart. Looking like a beaten car wheel that got stuck in the mud, he asked the Cutomer Service: Can I return this stupid umbrella and garden chair?
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