Patron Saints of Nothing

The article included the fact that four low-level officers were eventually charged for killing that seventeen-year-old, but their punishments were minimal and only happened after massive protests. But what about the other victims who never got a hashtag? What about Jun?

Would there be justice?

Definitely not if nobody even knows what truly happened.

So maybe that's it—maybe I can find out. If his friend is right, maybe there are witnesses; maybe there's video; maybe there's a flawed report.

I feel like I should have taken her baby and given it to an orphanage or something. I told Grace this later, but she said there was nothing could do, that I am too young to take care of a child. She also said that there are probably millions of children that need to be taken care of and even if I was old enough I could not take care of them all. Even though she is young, I know she is right. And that makes me feel like my chest is hollow.

But, it seems to me that there are so many older than us who are able to take care of those in need. If everyone did a little bit, then everybody would be okay, I think. Instead, most people do nothing. And that is the problem. Does that make sense, Kuya?

But adults lie, I guess. That's what they do.

Sure, there are a bunch of reasons they do it, and people would probably say most of them are pretty good. When you're a kid, they lie and say you did a great job in a game even if you sucked. Then you grow up a bit and your mom and dad lie to you about how strong their relationship is and how much they love each other after they have a big fight.

[…]

Sometimes I feel like growing up is slowly peeling back these layers of lies.

[…]

I imagine the moment when Tito Maning will pick me up from the airport. Standing straight, I'll greet him, look him in the eye, and then ask him point-blank how his son died. […] I will hold his gaze until he gives me an answer, and if he lies, I will demand the truth.

He stops. Reaches up and pulls the sack off his head.

It's Jun. His hair's a mess, tangled with sticks and dirt, and the lower half of his jaw is missing, a gory mess in its place. His eyes meet mine. Two stars in a clear winter sky.

“What happened to you?” I ask.

The exposed muscle and sinew where his lower jaw used to be twitches as he continues moving toward me.

“I'm sorry for what they did to you. I'm sorry I lost your letters. I’m sorry I was too afraid to speak to Tito Maning again tonight. But please tell me, what happened to you?”

He doesn’t answer. He can't. Instead, he stops a step away. Then he reaches out and places his palm against my chest.

I wake.

Since he already knows, I may as well ask about the contents of the note on the back of the list I found in his desk, about how he told his subordinate who located Jun to proceed. But I feel drained, lost. A compass missing its needle. What would be the point when I can't sense whether anything he says is truthful or not?

Tito Maning reaches the car and turns to me. “I am disappointed my brother did not teach you to respect your elders.”

He expects an apology. I stay quiet.

“You do not live here. You do not speak any of our languages. You do not know our history. Your mother is a white American. Yet, you presume to speak to me as if you knew anything about me, as if you knew anything about my son, as if you knew anything about this country.”

Tita Chato puts out her cigarette. “What happened to Jun is a tragedy, whether or not he was a drug pusher.” She pauses, gathering her thoughts, then continues. “But he is dead. We cannot bring him back to life. You need to accept that. There is nothing we can do about it except mourn.”

I clench my jaw.

She's not all that different from Tito Maning. Though her words were delivered with more compassion, they were the same: I am not truly Filipino, so I don’t understand the Philippines. But isn't this deeper than that, doesn’t this transcend nationality? Isn’t there some sense of right and wrong about how human beings should be treated that applies no matter where you live, no matter what language you speak?

I'm alone in this. Somebody needs to clear Jun’s name even if nothing comes of it. We failed him in life. We should not fail him in death.

“Tell me, Jason Reguero, are you willing to die to find out what happened to your cousin?”

I clench my jaw as I consider my answer. Part of me wonders if this is all that serious. It's not like I'm writing some investigative piece that will be published for millions to read. Finding out the truth about Jun isn't going to change the world.

But then again, this feels important and part of me is sick of never doing anything of significance in my life. I go to school. I do homework. I play video games. I'll be going to college in the fall, where I'll pretty much do four more years of the same—and for what? If I died right now I will have died having done nothing and having helped nobody.

“Yes,” I finally say, trying to imbue the word with the heaviness of the conviction I feel in my soul.

I knew it. I fucking knew it.

The Jun who hugged me after that puppy died, who became a best friend more than a cousin, who wrote me letters for years, whose heart was bigger than anyone else's I've ever known—there was no way he would have sold drugs. He was too good. He was the best of us. He wouldn't have been able to live with himself knowing and feeling the pain and destruction those drugs would have caused.

A man holds a photo of himself kissing another man on the beach.

A large family posing together beneath a cross together holds a photo standing in for the father.

All of these people, dead—yet alive again in these images thanks to my cousin. In all of this, there is both beauty and sadness, light and darkness, pain and something that might be healing.

Maybe Grace is right. Maybe it is worth it.

She laughs at the memory and I laugh with her. “Kuya Jun had a way of making people pay attention, of making them realize that others existed outside of themselves and getting them to care. But I don't…and I failed him. I stayed quiet whenever Tatay yelled. I left the room whenever they argued. I never asked Nanay to let him live with us again. I never even protested when they told us there would be no novenas, no vigil, no lamay, no funeral.”

[…]

I'm not sure what to say. Maybe I should tell her it's not her fault, maybe that it's all okay because he's with God now? I try to channel Jun because I think he always spoke the truth as he felt it, but I don't have that ability. I offer no reassurance, no wisdom. I only hug her tighter and start to cry with her.

Tito Danilo continues. “And later, he started selling.”

“But why?” Grace asks, desperate.

“Shabu is a hunger suppressant. You see, it is cheaper than food, so many of the poor start for this reason, and then they become addicted. As for why he started selling? Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe to make money to keep feeding his addiction.”

I close my eyes, as if doing so will rewind the story erasing everything Tito Danilo has just told us. As if it will stop the warping truth. I can't reconcile this version of Jun with the one I had come to know to love, to admire.

I nod and let my graze drift upward. A bird flits across the rafters to a nest high in the corner. It reminds me of when I heard the baby birds chirping outside the window the day that the puppy died in my hands. What was it Mom told me in that moment? Something about death making way for new life. But what new life has come from Jun's death? I don’t know.

I imagine souls trapped overhead, bouncing against the steepled ceiling like invisible balloons whose strings have slipped from careless hands.

In the car with Tito Danilo and Grace on the way back to Lolo and Lola's, I think about how there's a new grief in remembering Jun now, knowing what eventually happened, knowing that he was more than my idea of him in ways I do not like, knowing that there's probably so much more I'll never know.

I was determined to find the truth. And I did—at least a piece of it. But was it worth it? What do I even do now?

This didn't play out how I thought it would.

I expected the truth to illuminate, to resurrect.

Not to ruin.

“Jun died a tragic death before his time. But that does not extinguish the good that he did on this earth. It lives on in the lives that he touched, and like a single candle's flame, it can grow and make what is dark light.” He pauses to let that sink in. “I invite each of you now to light your own candle from his, signifying that his goodness, his love, has multiplied through the ways he touched each of us, will continue to multiply through those we will go on touch.”

I don't want to believe there was another side to you. But I don't have any choice, do I? I will try not to judge because I have no idea what you were struggling with in your heart, what complicated your soul. None of us are just one thing, I guess. None of us. We all have the terrible and amazing power to hurt and help, to harm and heal. We all do both throughout our lives. That's the way it is.

[…]

When I turn around to rejoin the others, I stop short—Tito Maning is standing in the shadows just outside the back door. At first, I wonder if he's about to come over and put an end to the memorial. But his arms are crossed and he's posted up against the house like he's been there for a while. Then I remember how Tito Danilo said that Tito Maning called to ask for his help to save Jun. Truly, none of us is one thing.