The Suicidal Man in Dumaguete

by Benjamin Simon (United States of America)

I didn't expect to find Philippines

On the rooftop of a Dumaguete youth hostel, an old white man wrote solemnly in a notebook as if he was drafting his own will and testament. If he looked up, he could see Mount Cuernos to his right and the Bohol Sea to his left. In the streets below, tricycle taxis chirped with passengers. I eyed him suspiciously as I relaxed under the midmorning sun. Another sinister foreigner in the Philippines to take advantage of young local women, I thought. I'd never be a geezer like that, here for sex and willing to buy affection. The thought disgusted me, like the flirtatious ladyboys down the street. I never expected he'd tell me a story that would rattle me so vividly. Being sociable, I asked him what he was writing. His expression blossomed -- he beamed up at me as if exiting a murky cave. I estimated he was at least seventy, noticing his withered arms and long wrinkles that went from his eyes to his ears: he'd smiled a lot in his life, I thought. His watch and glasses reflected the gleaming sun. "I'm keeping a journal to stay sane," he said, his expression dropping. "I'm recovering from the death of my girlfriend, the love of my life." Her name was Carla, and she was born here in Dumaguete. They'd been dating for three blissful years -- they were so happy together that she introduced him to her family. Interestingly, he winced when he spoke of this, as if reliving an uncomfortable memory. Back then, he had been ready to spend the rest of his life with her. They bought an apartment together, and she was ecstatic. "She looked like a princess on that balcony," he said. Then, sadly, the happiness ended with pain. She became sick, and slipped away in his arms. She was thirty-one. Leaning forward now, I was shocked to see true love flow out of a man dating someone forty years his junior. "Everyday," he said, looking away towards the volcano, "I wish I could switch places with her." As he spoke of the days after her death, he sounded suicidal. With his lifeless eyes, I thought I saw him glance at the ledge of the rooftop. "I thought about killing myself," he said. "The different ways to do it. I figured jumping of our balcony would be the best way to join her." But that wasn't what she'd want, he said. I scoured for a pivot. "Where's your family, have you talked with them?" No, he hadn't, not since dating Carla. His sons excommunicated him. Incredibly, the old man hadn't met his two grandchildren. Why? He leaned back, crossing his arms, his watch sliding down his forearm. "There's something I haven't told you yet." "Carla wasn't born a woman. She had the courage to become one." He harkened back to meeting her family. Her mother still called her -- rather defiantly -- by her birth name. He wished he'd had the courage to chase his curiosities years ago, before she became sick. "Although," he admitted, "even just twenty years ago, when I was fifty, it wouldn't have worked." "She would've still been a schoolboy named Carlos." My mouth was hanging open. Old and young, foreign and local, man and transexual; My prejudices were exploding like fireworks, celebrating the destruction of my self-righteousness. I was rattled, yet I felt a flower of maturation starting bloom inside me. He was having difficulty deciding what to do next. "Planning what to do with time," he said, "ain't easy when you don't have much left." That thought hung in the air like laundry drying in the Bohol breeze. I heard the ringing of the tricycle taxis again. It was getting hot on the sunlit rooftop. As we departed, we finally exchanged names. When I shook his hand and fell into in his eyes, I was disturbed. I saw all his years of regret and missed opportunities and terrible luck; I saw a solitary man in a foreign country, with no hope, family, or energy to move forward. It was like looking at a decrepit version of myself. And I asked myself a simple yet terrifying question. What's stopping me from becoming him?