Stranger in the cool of summer night

Media

Part of The Carolinian

Title: Stranger in the cool of summer night
Creator: Patalinjug, Ricardo I.
Language: English
Year: 1965
Rights
Fulltext: Stranger in the Cool of Summer Engineer and Mrs. Jesus Alcordo (Nee Yolanda Villon) They were married on March 17 in the Archbishop’s Palace chapel. Engineer Alcordo is graduate of the College of Engineering and is presently connected with the same college. Yolanda was a former Carolinian. The “C” prays to God to shower His divine blessings on them! by RICARDO I. TATALINJUG Night A Quadricentennial... (Continued from page 22) the success of the missions. In these days of preparation for an on the grace-laden days of the Congress itself, let us storm heav en with our prayers that we may be filled with the light and strength of the Holy Spirit, so that each and everyone of the 24,000,000 Cath olics of these fair isles may coura geously and generously rise up to the challenge of Catholic Action, not only in and for the Pearl of the Orient Seas, but for the entire Orient as well. $ .. . other testimony of summer nights. — T. S. ELIOT For Thine is Life is For Thine is the. — T. S. ELIOT SUDDENLY it was evening and the groan of the traffic stirred the dead heart of the soulless city and electrified the footsteps of the hapless victims of Twentieth Century Complexity. Their eyes looked ferocious and dry as they undulated like somnambulists in the macabre rhythm of the man-made hell. Monotony punctuated the march of darkness; cacophony accompanied the progress of time. The insolent breeze came to disseminate the odor of decay. In the sidewalk, a pious humanitarian sang his badly but boldly composed ditty: ‘Pray, Brothers, pray Before the stars fade, Before The Bomb flowers Over our heads!’ The hidden violence of his cogent voice struggled to be noticed, stirred the evening’s drooping wing, and invaded the sepulchres of the passersby’s nauseadrowned consciousness before it wound its way through the womb of the night. This was the night of summer nightmares and bloodthirsty dreams haunted the veins of the city and the collective consciousness of humanity. Somewhere, lovers lay in a motel with bullet holes in their temples. Somewhere in Vietnam, communists and non-communists were dying of bul let wounds; in China Mao was finishing China’s unfinished revolution; in Pen tagon a New Bomb was perfected; while in Indonesia, Indonesians were migrat ing to Mindanao like birds. Mr. and Mrs. Prolasio J. Solon, Jr. (Nee Angelita Gandionco) They were married on January 21. Both are Carolinians and graduated from the College of Commerce. The “C” wishes God’s choicest blessings on their new state of life. THUS he lay in bed. It was warm in the room. A block or two away the rumble of the city could be heard. But the room itself was quiet — quiet as a tomb. That morning all' the boys in the apartment bundled their few belongings to flee from the meaningless monotony of the city. Perhaps they were going to their respective provinces were the grass was green and the air was cool and gentle like a woman’s breath. In the womb of the summer night the tenement looked like a huge corpse sprawl ing unashamedly in the dead heart of the city. Page Thirty-six March-April, 1965 He rose, lighted a cigarette and looked outside. He stared blankly into the darkness and the fierceness of his gaze and the savage beating of his heart wrung the words from the soul of the night: Extano, go down into my womb. I have memories to offer you. 3 AND suddenly he was burning, burning with the fever of remembering borne by the canopy of dark■ ness hovering over him like a wing of madness. He was burning in the hole of hell, the hell of his own creation, the hell of his past that would not go. His mind ran and shrieked and the unseen fire raged on. He wanted to flee and fly like a frantic flicker, to flee away from the gruesome fire, but the fire and the fever would not go and they clung to him like a shadow, like a wraith, like a delirium, like the heart of summer, like the furies! — Tather, don’t forsake me! I am your son! Look into my eyes and search there the reflection of your own soul. Can you not see in the quivering of my hands the sincerity of my ambition and the humility of my supplication? — Go away! I have no son! — Father, don’t crucify me! — Do you not know that with every poem you write you are crucifying me? Do you not know that with every failing grade you get the doctor comes here to cure me? And do you not know that with every bottle of wine you empty your mother prays the rosary 100 times and walks with her knees from the main portal of the church to the altar? — Father! — Go away, stranger! I have no son! — But I have a father! — Yes, the Devil! — Father! — Go away, Orestes! Agammenon is dead! The night shrieked and the nightbirds screeched as he ran in the rain racing with Father Time while behind him the Voice echoed and reechoed. He plunged deeper and deep er into the night, into the depth of darkness waiting to be borne by the fatal wings of Thanatos did not come and Lethe was nowhere to be found. The Voice followed fast and fol lowed faster until he fell down in a swoon! FATH EEEEEER RRRR!!! The door opened with a bang. The furious landlady ap peared with a broom in her hand. “Shut up, idiot!’ she shouted. Extrano was startled. He was sweating profusely and his lips were quivering like leaves. And when the landlady looked straight into his eyes, she saw there the wildness of an elegiac remembering. “Are you one of the furies?” “I am the landlady. What can I do to help you?” “I want you to sweep all the memories of the tortured mind.” “Maybe there’s something wrong with you. Look, why don’t you take a vacation? In the province perhaps where the ..." “You too, Bruta? You also want to exile me from here?” He took his jacket and went out. 4. EL Mundo, the nightclub where he was working as a crooner and pianist, was already crowded with ■B the usual customer — people with bruised feelings when he came in. He was their favorite singer because his melancholy and mellow voice fitted with the ballads he crooned — ballads about love and life, about the night and the sleeping city. Sometimes he sang tenderly and furiously but oftentimes he sang sadly, because his heart, he said, was forever grieving like the night. "You’re late, Extrafio,” Ouido, the proprietor said ner vously. “Where have you been?” “I have just emerged from Hades!” he said with a grin. “The piano is waiting.” He pounded the ivory keys and sang: “Come, let’s sing Stimmer ballads In the cool of Summer nights. Dress your bruised Feelings ivith Ribbons colored With laughter. . .” The melody rose into the air. He sang with all his might until his throat burned with a soulless joy. The people clapped and the proprietor laughed. The song ended with a savage yell. “You have a nice voice, Extrano and you play the piano well. Why don’t you study in a conservatory and get your self a diploma?” a stout lady said. The wrinkles of her face were covered with an imported rouge. “Extrano, why don’t you wear a necktie?” a young lady who had successfully sneaked from her bald husband asked. “Ladies, I am one of those who do not believe in the power of a diploma nor in the elegance of a necktie.” He laughed and walked over to the table of Professor Salamida. The Professor was alone in his table, nursing his glass in silence. "Hello, Professor,” Extrano greeted the old man. “Sit down, Extrano. Let’s talk. I have just read your latest volume of poems and they suit my taste. You are one of the best philosophical poets I know.” “Oh, I don’t philosophize, Professor. I ‘foolosophize’.” “Ha! Ha! Ha!” “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Extrano, what’s your idea about life?” "... a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing.” “Oh, so you’re a believer of Shakespeare.” “Existentialism is nothing new!” “Oh, but how about love?” "A stolen metaphor from fairy land!” “And death?" “It is like the sun. It is true!” THE passage of time was marked by the number of empty bottles. Slowly, the hall was becoming empty. Only the vociferous young men were left. And Extrano who got sore of the growing silence, leaped angrily on the table top. Drunk with wine and memory, he sang and danced. His face was flushed and there was a shin ing wrath burning in his flesh. His blood shrieked and his bones screamed. In the frenzied wind of the summer night he sang and danced and his shrill manly voice echoed with anguish and anger. The angry summer drizzle stopped and March-April, 1965 THE CAROLINIAN Page Thirty-seven the uninvited black clouds departed. The moon rose and shone above the houses that bloomed like sickly flowers in the dead heart of the lifeless city. 7 have no more phantoms, No more weird darkness in My world. Now you can look Into my eyes and see there The cool serenity!’ The man on the bongos howled: ‘Bravo!’ From nowhere a Voice thundered: ‘Liar!’ The audience of young men with jackets clapped and smoked and laughed and looked. "Dance, Extrano, dance!” “Sing, Extrafio, sing!” Thus he danced and sang in the manner of an angry Ilonggot warrior. Then from the room upstairs a baby cried. It was a cry of innocence protesting the savage bedlam below. Panting, Extrano stopped. He took a long drink from the bottle in his pocket. Whisky! Then, strumming his guitar, he heaved himself into a song again: "Cry, baby, cry Until your eyes Become dry! Blotv, tears, flow Blood the world And drown all its Ancient sorrows!’’ Upstairs, the baby cried in obedience. “Dance, Extrano, dance!” “Shut up, scalawag! I’m not your slave!” Guffaws. Then silence. Extrano opened a window and looked at the sleeping world outside. The scavengers of the night — cats and dogs and rats and brats — tumbled over garbage cans. Almost every night he peered at the window to watch this cruel thing. The waifs rummaged the garbage cans only to find there the scraps of human wrath. He lighted a cigarette and decided to go out into the cool of summer night. He proceeded to the door... “Are you going home now?” Ramon asked. “I have no home, brother.” “What a catastrophe!" Cornelio sneered. “Then why don’t you join us?” Prospero asked. “I’m not of your kind, brother.” “What an insult!” Manido boomed. “You’re a fool!” Rackmaninoff squeaked. “How about you, brother?” Then he was gone. The young men looked at each other. Silence asked the silent faces only to receive a silent answer. IN HIS room, the Professor, after knowing that his wife was out again with her coterie of ‘charitable’ women, wrote: "Home without love Is inconceivable And TV alone is Not enough. Tell Me, Dear, in the Absence of publicity Where does charity go?’’ WHILE in the empty streets, in the cool of summer night, Extrano, the eternal stranger of the tired old world mumbled: Shantih! Shantih! Shantih! THE END yt((e(u.jak First prize, USC Literary Contest a huge shining axe chopped down a tree young and fresh while a tree stump stood, holding a concentric circle exposed to sun, to rain winds sang and the raindrops brought the hymn of a native a wanderer who roamed mountains and hills, slept in caves, sculptured and tattooed his skin, burnt incense in the dwelling of little gods there were little gods whose ire and impatience brought rocks rolling, rolling, crushed down a deep, hungry gorge.............. these little gods slowly, slowly turned flowers when the ripples of a stream, the moss-covered stones of a river, like the poetry of a star mosaic fastened and introduced into a dark, uncomprehending world anchored a light, light that ripped flowing skirts of darkness, unbelief taking tiny wings and tattered fragments awakening slumbering souls! exposed to sun, to rain, the tree stump’s concentric circle held God Omnipotence, Truth, Light and the wanderer no more burnt incense in the dwellings of his little gods, but picked his little flowers, strew them around a tree carried a chalice with prayers the roots of a tree four hundred years of age, the beginnings of a new arc in a circle to eternity, in sunshine or rain spread out to feed on that divine light, year after year, grow and multiply like stars in the skies singing allelujah! allelujah! By Rene Racoma Page Thirty-eight THE CAROLINIAN March-April, 1965