Dogeaters: A Novel

by Jessica Hagedorn

Overview

Finalist for the National Book Award and a 2015 Wall Street Journal Book Club selection: An intense portrait of the Philippines in the late 1950s.
Dogeaters follows a diverse set of characters through Manila, each exemplifying the country’s sharp distinctions between social classes. Celebrated novelist and playwright Jessica Hagedorn effortlessly shifts from the capital’s elite to the poorest of the poor. From the country’s president and first lady to an idealist reformer, from actors and radio DJs to prostitutes, seemingly unrelated lives become intertwined. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781480440203
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	08/06/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	251
Sales rank:	259,055
Lexile:	860L (what's this?)
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Jessica Hagedorn is the author of Toxicology, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, which won the American Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award in fiction. She is also the author of Danger and Beauty, a collection of poetry and prose, and the editor of Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. Her plays include Most Wanted, the Heaven Trilogy, and the stage adaptation of Dogeaters. Hagedorn recently edited Manila Noir, a crime fiction anthology, for Akashic’s acclaimed Noir series. For more information, visit www.jessicahagedorn.net.
Jessica Hagedorn was born in Manila and now lives in New York. A novelist, poet, and playwright, her published works include Toxicology, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, which was a finalist for the National Book Award. She also edited both volumes of the groundbreaking anthology Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction. She directs the creative writing master’s program at LIU Brooklyn. For more information, visit www.jessicahagedorn.net.

Read an Excerpt

Dogeaters

A Novel

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By Jessica Hagedorn

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Copyright © 1990 Jessica Hagedorn
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4804-4020-3

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CHAPTER 1

Love Letters

1956. The air-conditioned darkness of the Avenue Theater smells of flowery pomade, sugary chocolates, cigarette smoke, and sweat. All That Heaven Allows is playing in Cinemascope and Technicolor. Starring Jane Wyman as the rich widow, Rock Hudson as the handsome young gardener, and Agnes Moorehead as Jane's faithful friend, the movie also features the unsung starlet Gloria Talbott as Jane's spoiled teenage daughter, a feisty brunette with catlike features and an innocent ponytail.

Rock Hudson's rustic gardener's cottage stands next to a frozen lake. The sky is a garish baby-blue, the clouds are ethereal wads of fluffy white cotton. In this perfect picture-book American tableau, plaid hunting jackets, roaring cellophane fires, smoking chimneys, and stark winter forests of skeletal trees provide costume and setting for Hollywood's version of a typical rural Christmas. Huddled with our chaperone Lorenza, my cousin Pucha Gonzaga and I sit enthralled in the upper section of the balcony in Manila's "Foremost! First-Run! English Movies Only!" theater, ignoring the furtive lovers stealing noisy kisses in the pitch-black darkness all around us.

Jane Wyman's soft putty face. Rock Hudson's singular, pitying expression. Flared skirts, wide cinch belts, prim white blouses, a single strand of delicate, blue-white pearls. Thick penciled eyebrows and blood-red vampire lips; the virginal, pastel-pink cashmere cardigan draped over Gloria Talbott's shoulders. Cousin Pucha and I are impressed by her brash style; we gasp at Gloria's cool indifference, the offhand way she treats her grieving mother. Her casual arrogance seems inherently American, modern, and enviable.

We compare notes after the movie, sipping our TruColas under the watchful gaze of the taciturn servant Lorenza. "I don't like her face," Pucha complains about Jane Wyman, "I hate when Rock starts kissing her!" "What's wrong with it?" I want to know, irritated by my blond cousin's constant criticisms. She wrinkles her mestiza nose, the nose she is so proud of because it's so pointy and straight. "AY! Que corny! I dunno what Rock sees in her—" she wails. "It's a love story," I say in my driest tone of voice. Although I'm four years younger than Pucha, I always feel older. "It's a corny love story, when you think about it," Pucha snorts. Being corny is the worst sin you can commit in her eyes.

"What about Gloria Talbott? You liked her, didn't you? She's so ..."—I search frantically through my limited vocabulary for just the right adjective to describe my feline heroine—"interesting." Pucha rolls her eyes. "AY! Puwede ba, you have weird taste! She's really cara de achay, if you ask me." She purses her lips to emphasize her distaste, comparing the starlet to an ugly servant without, as usual, giving a thought to Lorenza's presence. I avoid Lorenza's eyes. "She looks like a cat—that's why she's so strange and interesting," I go on, hating my cousin for being four years older than me, for being so blond, fair-skinned, and cruel.

Pucha laughs in disdain. "She looks like a cat, aw-right," she says, with her thick, singsong accent. "But if you ask me, prima, Gloria Talbott looks like a trapo. And what's more, Kim Novak should've been in this movie instead of Jane Wyman. Jane's too old," Pucha sighs. "Pobre Rock! Everytime he had to kiss her—" Pucha shudders at the thought. Her breasts, which are already an overdeveloped 36B and still growing, jiggle under her ruffled blouse.

It is merienda time at the popular Café España, and the tiny restaurant is quickly filling up with more customers flocking out of the Avenue Theater across the street. I am acutely aware of the table of teenage boys next to us, craning their necks and staring lewdly at my cousin Pucha. Pucha plays with her hair, affecting a coy pose as she, too, suddenly becomes aware of the boys' attention. "Psst ... pssst," the loudest and largest of the boys hisses lazily at my cousin, who makes a big show of pretending not to hear. I glare at him angrily. I want Lorenza to save us, pay our bill, escort us out of the crowded restaurant, and take us home in a taxi.

Lorenza catches my eye. "Señorita Pucha," she murmurs to my cousin, who refuses to acknowledge her. Pucha is flattered by the hissing boy's grossness and has other plans. She orders another round of TruCola, including one for the frowning Lorenza, who pointedly does not drink it. In her loud voice, Pucha professes to still be hungry and orders a second slice of bibingka, which she eats very slowly. She is a changed person, smiling and chattering about Rock Hudson, Ava Gardner, and her latest favorite, Debbie Reynolds. She is suddenly solicitous, oozing sweetness and consideration. "Don't you wanna eat something, prima?" She asks me. "A sandwich, maybe? Some cake? Is okay—I got my allowance."

The teenage boy starts to hiss again. Then he starts making kissing sounds with his fat lips. I am disgusted by his obscene display and the giggling reaction of my flustered cousin. I stick my tongue out at him, this flat-eyed snake who makes a fool out of Pucha in public. He is oblivious to me, his shining flat eyes fixed on my dim-witted cousin. His friends are laughing. I am powerless; I am only ten years old. I remember to this day how I longed to run out of the fluorescent Café España back into the anonymous darkness of the Avenue Theater, where I could bask in the soothing, projected glow of Color by De Luxe.

"I'm not hungry, and I think we should leave," I mutter through clenched teeth. The gang of boys nudge each other with their elbows, making faces at us. My overripe cousin bats her pale eyelashes at their leader the snake while she sips her drink with a straw, lost in thought. He leers at her; she smiles back, blushing prettily. Lorenza starts to get up from our table. "Tayo na, Señorita Pucha. Your mother will be very angry if we stay out too late," she threatens Pucha gently. Pucha is visibly annoyed. She gives Lorenza one of her contemptuous looks. "What about my dessert?" she whines, then turns to me. "Lorenza is your yaya, Rio—not mine. I'm too old for a yaya, puwede ba." I glare at her. "Senorita Pucha, your mother ordered us to bring you home early," Lorenza insists. Pucha ignores her and keeps eating. "I have to finish my dessert," she repeats, her voice louder and more impatient. "Pucha," I say with some desperation, "let's get out of here. What are you going to do—give him your phone number? You mustn't give him your phone number. Your parents will kill you! Your parents will kill me," I start blithering. "He's only a boy. A homely, fat boy ... He looks like he smells bad." Pucha gives me a withering look. "Prima, shut up. Don't be so tanga! Remember, Rio—I'm older than you, and you better not say anything to anybody!" She turns to Lorenza: "Did you hear me, Lorenza?" Lorenza sits back down, defeated. Pucha turns to me once more and speaks in a whisper. "I don't care if he's a little gordito, or pangit, or smells like a dead goat. That's Boomboom Alacran, stupid. He's cute enough for me."

The cashmere scarf is gracefully draped around Jane Wyman's head to keep her warm. In her full-length, mahogany sable coat, she drives her dependable dark green Buick, the color of old money. It is how I remember the movie: a determined woman alone in the winter, driving a big green car on a desolate country road, on the way to see her young lover. Pobre Rock, indeed. A woman like Jane Wyman baffles Pucha. Why does she choose to drive her own car, when she can obviously afford a chauffeur? Pucha wants to know. And who plays Jane Wyman's spoiled son and Gloria Talbott's brother? Pucha insists he's Tab Hunter, her second favorite after Rock Hudson. I shake my head and don't have the heart to argue with her. The role of Jane Wyman's son is a minor one, completely forgettable. The character's name is "Ned"—that much I remember. Ned Nickerson is the name of Nancy Drew's boyfriend in those books the American Consul's wife gives me the following Christmas. Now, after all these years in America, I have yet to meet a man named "Ned" or anyone with the surname "Nickerson."

1956. Long before my mother Dolores leaves my father Freddie and takes me to North America. Long before my brother Raul decides to stay behind, renounce his worldly possessions, and become a faith healer. Long before my father Freddie Gonzaga, out of fear, announces he is moving to Spain for good. He makes pronouncements but rarely lives up to them, according to my cynical mother, who should know. She envisions him a recluse, living out his last days in some rotting villa in Manila, abandoned by his mistresses and surrounded by all his packed belongings. Bulging suitcases reinforced with rope, sealed cartons the size of refrigerators stuffed with obsolete Betamax machines, rusting tape recorders, and unused Japanese microwave ovens. "Any day now!" he'll say. "I'm packed and ready to go!" He waves his passport defiantly at anyone who challenges him. Rumors abound: My father suffers from a terminal disease, my father has a few months to live. Much to everyone's surprise—including his doctors' and his own—he lives to be a very old man.

It's been years now since my cousin Pucha reported in one of her numerous letters to me, spelling errors intact: "RIO—I wish you never left us but if God wills I will perhapps be joineing you soon over there, primma. I need a US divorse, sabes ya—its still not okay here its a mortal sin. Well maybe I could do it in Honkong and go shopping too but I rather the US we could go shopping together! Or maybe Reno ITS MORE FUN plus with you there primma it wont be so lonley! Your Papi is not so good he just came out of hospital again why dont you come see him? Hes always joking you know how he is, life of the party, pobre tambien! Raul was with him everyday, thanks be to God your brother is here. Write to me why dont you I always do the writeing its not fair. I miss you LOVE always, PUCHA."

I never worry about my father. He has connections and believes in paying bribes. In his later years he is often broke, but when he really wants or needs it, he finds the money. There will always be a way out for him. I am still not sure what sort of passport he waves in the air, if he owns one or two. Maybe Spanish, maybe British, maybe Filipino, maybe anything. It is the sort of business he keeps to himself. He believes in dual citizenships, dual passports, as many allegiances to as many countries as possible at any one given time. My father is a cautious man, and refers to himself as a "guest" in his own country. My mother, who carries American papers because of her father, feels more viscerally connected to the Philippines than he ever could. She used to argue with him. "I don't understand, Freddie. You were born here. Both your parents and most of your brothers were born here. I was born here, so were our children. You are definitely a Filipino! A mestizo, yes—but definitely a Filipino."

My father smiles a complacent smile. It usually means the discussion is over. He shrugs. "Two generations, three generations, it really doesn't matter. What matters is I feel like a visitor. After all, my great-grandfather came from Sevilla," he reminds my mother. "And your great-grandmother came from Cebu!" she snaps back. There is a brief silence before my father repeats, "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you say—it's how I feel." My mother throws up her hands and curses magnificently. His stubborn evasiveness is something my mother will never understand about my noncommittal father; it never fails to infuriate her.

My father and uncles are smug, mysterious men together, especially at the dinner table. "Let's be on the safe side," my father might say to Pucha's father, Uncle Agustin. "We're not fools, and we're not cowards. But we are typical Gonzagas who want to stay alive at all costs. Nothing to be ashamed of." My father could be discussing anything—real estate or politics—it's all the same to him. Uncle Agustin puffs on a Cuban cigar and says nothing for a moment, assessing in his small mind what his younger brother has just said. He is even more noncommittal than my father. "Well," Uncle Agustin finally says, clearing his throat. "Well, Freddie. Perhaps."

My father brings up one of his favorite topics, the eldest and most successful Gonzaga brother, my Uncle Cristobal who lives in Spain. "Uncle Cristobal flies a Falangista flag above his front door to show his allegiance to Franco during the Spanish Civil War. He flies the flag not because he really is a fascist, but because he is a wily opportunist; like my father and Uncle Agustin, he is a practical Gonzaga, a man who always knows which side is winning. After the war, Uncle Cristobal is rewarded with a prosperous import-export firm based in Madrid. My father has said that if Uncle Cristobal had lived in Russia in 1917, he would have been a Marxist. "Adaptability is the simple secret of survival," my father always maintains. It is another of his well-worn Gonzaga clichés, but also a rule he lives by.

1956. My Lola Narcisa Divino's room is filled with the sweet gunpowder smell and toxic smoke of Elephant brand katol, a coil-shaped mosquito-repellent incense. Narcisa Divino is my mother's mother, a small brown-skinned woman with faded gray eyes. She is from Davao, in the southern region where I have never been. While my grandfather Whitman Logan lies ill in bed at the American Hospital, my grandmother stays in the guest room next to the kitchen in the back of our house in Manila.

Besides my grandmother, who is treated with a certain deference and referred to as "eccentric," I am the only one who doesn't mind the incense she burns all afternoon and into the night. My brother Raul complains about the whole house stinking and makes fun of Lola behind her back, imitating her stoop-shouldered walk and soft, childish giggles. When his rowdy friends come over, Raul acts ashamed of her and avoids introducing her to them. She becomes invisible, some tiny woman who happens to be visiting, content to listen to her radio dramas in the back room. Lola Narcisa ignores the rest of the family as much as it ignores her. She acts surprised by my daily visits. There are times she seems confused about who I am, but she is always pleased to see me. Some days, she calls me by my mother's name.

My father Freddie is polite and even solicitous in my Lola Narcisa's presence. He is willing to pay all of my grandfather's mounting hospital bills, and makes sure Lola Narcisa's basic needs are met. Once a month, the fashionable Dr. Ernesto Katigbak is sent for to examine her weak lungs; my father pays for Dr. Katigbak's expensive house calls without complaining. He even calls her "Mama," but she, my brown-skinned, gray-eyed grandmother, is not asked to sit at our dinner table. When guests inquire after her, my Rita Hayworth mother simply says Lola Narcisa prefers eating alone in her room. Actually, my lola prefers eating her meals with the servants in the kitchen. She prefers to eat what the servants cook for themselves, after everyone else in the house has been served their food. While they eat kamayan with their hands, she and the servants go over the intricate plots of their favorite radio serial, Love Letters, which they listen to after dinner in my grandmother's cozy room. I know. When my cousin Pucha isn't visiting or spending the night, I've joined my Lola Narcisa and her friends many times.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn. Copyright © 1990 Jessica Hagedorn. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

PART ONE: COCONUT PALACE,
Love Letters,
The King of Coconuts,
The White Bouquet,
Mister Heartbreak,
Jungle Chronicle,
His Mother, the Whore,
Floating Bodies,
Serenade,
Tsismis,
Sprikitik,
Her Eminent Ascent into Heaven,
President William McKinley Addresses a Delegation of Methodist Churchmen, 1898,
Heroin,
Her Mother, Rita Hayworth,
High Society,
Surrender,
Avila Arrested in Human Rights Rally Dispute,
Sleeping Beauty,
One Christmas in a Mountain Lodge up in Baguio, Date Unknown,
Epiphany,
Breaking Spells,
In the Artist's House,
Excerpt from the Only Letter Ever Written by Clarita Avila,
Jungle Chronicle,
PART TWO: THE SONG OF BULLETS,
The President's Wife Has a Dream,
Man with a Mission,
Romeo Rosales,
Paradise,
The Weeping Bride,
Last Chance,
Dateline: Manila,
Movie Star,
Golf,
Insect Bounty,
Hunger,
Redemption,
Jungle Chronicle,
The Famine of Dreams,
Bananas and the Republic,
Terrain,
Luna Moth,
Pucha Gonzaga,
Kundiman,
Acknowledgements,
Author's Note,
About the Author,