Tanga

Our parents introduced us first when we were fifteen years of age. I don’t think either of our parents were aware at the time of our ‘condition’ as mine would later call it. They introduced us in hopes that we would become friends, something that often happens in ethnic families living in the U.S. that didn’t like straying from their cultures.

My family moved to the states when I was ten and it seems like my parents have yet to fully adjust to the Americans. They would always pressure my younger brother and I to befriend other Filipinos and date Filipino girls. Of course, Danilo and I identified with other Filipinos better anyways, so it wasn’t as if we dreaded our parents nagging.

Lauro’s family came to America when he was fourteen, so his parents are even more old fashioned than mine. A year later, his family came to eat at our restaurant regularly because it reminded them of home. After many compliments on the food and chat about home, my parents invited their family over for dinner one night. Lauro and I were the same age, so our parents thought we could become great friends. In reality, we did, but later became a lot more than great friends.

He had a younger and an older sister as well, and our parents decided that the girls were going to be paired up with me and my brother. Divina was seventeen when we met, and she was pretty turned off by the idea of being with a boy the same age as her brother. I didn’t blame her; that would be kind of weird, I’d think. Tala was twelve and Danilo was thirteen, so at their young ages, anything past friendship was far out of their minds. Our parents, however, we practically planning their wedding in the kitchen after dinner.

Lauro and I really did become quite close. He still struggled with his English, even after a year in America, so I tutored him a lot of the time, especially with slang, which he didn’t seem to grasp at all. Sometimes I would make him speak English in everyday conversation between the two of us, or I’d speak to him in English, both of which would make him flustered and occasionally angry at me. He usually only got angry when he was trying to say things that didn’t translate easily.

“Tanga. Ito ay kaya tanga! Bakit ako may sa gawin ito?” ”Stupid. This is so stupid. Why do I have to do it?”

“English, Lauro, English,” I chuckled. We were sitting in my room on my bed, facing each other.

“Walang. Ito ay tanga,” ”No, this is stupid.”

“It will help you learn,”

“Kung paano?” ”How?”

“Look, you already know what I'm saying in English. Why can’t you speak it?”

“Ito naiiba!” ”It’s different!” He seemed so frustrated, but I knew I could push him just a little farther.

“What’s that? I'm an ignorant American that thinks you’re Korea and can’t understand what you say either way,”

“Stupid Americans. Why can they now know the different of Korean and Filipino?”

“The difference, not the different. But that was good!”

“I hate this language,” he muttered, his eyes narrowing in anger. “Why can we not all speak the same?”

“Because they like to see you suffer,” I laughed, tickling his leg that was stretched out next to mine. He giggled and tried pushing my hands off.

“Itgil! Itgil!” "Stop! Stop!" he cried, laughing terribly.

“English and maybe I will!”

“St-st-ah!” he squirmed.

Alright, so maybe it was a little wrong of me to exploit his ticklishness like this, but I honestly could have cared less.

His eyes were closed as he laughed uncontrollably and his hands darted out to try and get my hands off of him. “Stop! Stop!”

“Stop what?”

“You said, you said you stop if I say in English!”

“Tell me what to stop and then maybe I will,” I chuckled, switching my tickling to his abdomen, where I knew he was worse off.

“But I not know that word!”

“You don’t know it,” I corrected, only pausing slightly before continuing my assault.

“Yes!”

“Yes what?”

“I don’t know the word!” he exclaimed, laughing like a maniac still.

“Tickling,” I said simply.

“What?”

“That’s what the word is,”

“Stop ticking me!”

“Tickling,” I corrected again, smiling at how cute he was being.

“Stop tickling me,” he finally said, struggling slightly to breathe as I stopped my fingers from moving across his clothed skin.

“There you go,” I laughed.

“Evil,” he chuckled shortly, adjusting himself and catching his breath. “You evil.”

“I am evil,”

“Yes, you am evil.” I snorted. “What?”

“You still say it wrong. You are evil, I am evil, we are evil, he/she is evil, they are evil, and so on.”

“Too confusing,” he sighed. “Tanga ingles.” ”Stupid English”

English became easier for him after a while, but he still hated it at age twenty.

Most of the time, Lauro had problems with words he didn’t know in English. There was one time, however, that sticks out in my memory where he had problems communicating because he didn’t know the word in Tagalog. He had decided to announce something while his family was at our house for dinner one night when he and I were eighteen.

“Itigil ang play laro, Lauro. Ito sinasabi sa Tagalog,” ”Stop playing games, Lauro. Say it in Tagalog.” his mother sighed, rubbing her temples in frustration. He had attempted to say it in English, but his parents didn’t understand what he was trying to say. Well, neither of our parents had understood him, but mine were staying out of things, because they knew it wasn’t anything that involved them. Or that’s at least what they thought.

Our siblings were a different story, though. They knew exactly what he said the second he said it. Divina practically spit up her chicken adobo.

“Hindi ko alam ang salita,” ”I don’t know the word.”

Mr. Rivera groaned this time and looked around the table for help. “Ay kahit sino malamn ang mga salita?” ”Does anybody know the word?”

I really didn’t want to be the one to tell his family something so personal, but if I didn’t, nobody would. I knew neither of his sisters would say anything, and my brother knew better than to get involved. It was pretty much up to me to say, “Siya ay bading.” ”He is gay.”

“Bading? Ikaw ay bading, Lauro?” ”Gay? You are gay Lauro?” Mrs. Rivera questioned skeptically.

Lauro looked at me and asked, “Bading means gay?” I nodded and he turned back to his family. “Oo ina, ako ay bading. Ako ay para sa isang mahabang oras. Ko lang ay hindi alam kung paano sabihin sa iyo.” ”Yes Mom, I'm gay. I have been for a long time. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

At this point I think my parents were kind of worried. “Phil,” my father started warily. “Paano mo alam na salita?” ”How did you know that word?

“Dahil ako ay bading din,” ”Because I'm gay also,” I shrugged. It was no news to me, but I guess it came as quite the shock to our families for both of us to come out on the same night.

“You never told me!” Lauro exclaimed.

“I could say the same to you,” I laughed.

“So you aren’t together?” Danilo asked, raising an eyebrow.

“No, we definitely aren’t,” Lauro laughed at my brother.

“You are not dating?” my mom asked. I almost expected her to take the news badly, but either way was very surprised with the way she was acting. It was almost as if it barely fazed her; that, or she was trying to act as if it wasn’t happening. Either would be just as likely as the other.

“No,” I responded, looking around the table. Actually, everybody was taking this news differently than I’d expected. Nobody looked overly upset, but nobody was taking it in stride either, though I never expected anyone to do that. Everybody just looked slightly numb about the subject. It was definitely not the kind of reaction I expected.

“Are you dating any boy?”

“No, I'm not with anybody,”

“Good,” my father snapped. “I don’t want you ruining your life while you have this condition.”

“It is not a condition, father. I've been gay for two years,”

“It is a condition, Phil Manansala, and it will pass,” Mr. Rivera said very sternly He rarely called anybody by their full name unless he was being very formal or very angry. “Because if my Lauro has it, it is going to pass.”

“Dad, it won’t,” Lauro spoke up.

“There’s no use,” I sighed. “They don’t understand it and they’re not going to.”

We both gave up that night and let the subject go. We’ve had other talks with our parents, together and separate, and they finally started to understand us after about a year. Even after we both came out, our friendship wasn’t really changed. If anything, we became closer, because we could then talk about things we didn’t think we could before.

It wasn’t until my birthday of twenty that anything past friendship even came up. I had been having thought for quite a while about the two of us and – embarrassingly enough – I even had a few dreams about us. So I’d come to the conclusion that I wanted to at least attempt to try something with Lauro.

He and I had been living with each other for about three months at that point. After a small celebration at my parents’ house, I came back home and Lauro and I had another small little celebration. While I was at my parents’ house, Lauro decided to break out his cooking skills and make two of my favorite Filipino desserts; a jelly roll recipe that my mother gave to me and an avocado milkshake that his mother makes at nearly every get together.

“Halikayo,” ”Come here,” I said softly to him later on when he was cleaning our dishes.

“Yes?” he said, turning to face me. I couldn’t help but mentally smirk and think, ‘Look who’s using his English now.’

“Salamat sa iyo para sa lahat ng ito,” ”Thank you for all of this,”

“Ito ay ang iyong kaarawan. Ko nais mong maging Masaya.” ”It is your birthday. I wanted you to be happy.”

“Do you know what would make me really happy?” I whispered, leaning closer to my best friend. I knew I was taking a risk, but I felt that I needed to do so.

“What?”

“Ito,” ”This,”

I couldn’t be sure if he actually heard me, but I'm sure he would soon figure out what was said. I leaned in towards him and saw the look on his face as he realized what I was doing. His breath hitched as my lips met his and it seemed like he had to stop himself from swooning. I pulled away before I really had wanted to, but I wanted to see his reaction.

Lauro blinked a couple of times as if to get himself under control, but soon smirked. “At ito,” ”And this,” he chuckled, placing a hand behind my neck to bring my head down to his. This kiss was still very soft and light, but there was something different about it. Perhaps it was that both of us knew that we both wanted it to happen. “Malagayang kaarawan, Phil,” ”Happy birthday, Phil,” he whispered against my lips. “I hope you got everything you wanted.”

“If you’ll be mine, then I did,” I smiled softly.

“You’re a lucky birthday boy, then. You got everything you asked for,”

Since that night, we have been together as partners. It has been one year and a little past that and I honestly couldn’t wish for a better past year. My twenty-first birthday passed and soon was Lauro’s. In the months between our birthdays, I came to realize something and I knew then how I was going to make his birthday special.

This time, since I am a really horrible cook, I took Lauro out to eat at one of his favorite American restaurants and then took him to see a play afterwards, which also was one of his favorites. At the end of the night, we went back home and ended up leaning against our side window, looking out at the city – something we did often before going to sleep. I lit a cigarette and took a long drag of it, blowing the smoke out the window.

“Happy Birthday, baby,” I smiled, turning back to Lauro.

“Technically, it is not my birthday anymore,” he chuckled, referring to the fact that it was nearly one in the morning of the next day. “But thank you anyways.”

“It looks like I've finally broken that hate to English in you, huh?” I asked jokingly, wrapping my arms around his shoulders, my cigarette between my fingers still.

“Don’t burn my hair with that thing,” he laughed.

“Oh, I'm not going to burn your hair, dear,” I scoffed.

“Sure you’re not,” he joked.

“Well, hey, I, uh, I've got something kind of important to tell you,”

“Yes?”

“I've thought about this and I really think –“

“Oh come on Phil, just tell me,”

“Tingin ko pag-ibig sa iyo,” I think I might be in love with you,” I said kind of slowly and under my breath. I didn’t exactly know what response I was looking for, but it surely was not the one I ended up getting from him.

Lauro didn’t say anything for the longest time, but then he just laughed and said, “Ikaw ay medyo tanga, Phil.” ”You are pretty stupid, Phil.”

“What? Why?”

“I've been in love with you for two years, but I've been too afraid to tell you,”

“We’ve only been dating for a year,”

“I've been in love with you since before we started dating. I've been to scared to say anything and you’ve been too stupid to realized,”

“Ako talaga tanga,” ”I am really stupid,” I laughed, shaking my head. Lauro leaned down and captured my lips in his.

“I love you though, even with your stupidity.”