Albatross

It was getting darker. Saturday afternoon, hungry, and I was watchful. I was sitting beside a criminal. And knowing that tomorrow or the day after that, someone would be killed mercilessly, if it even makes sense to kill with mercy. It made me feel like a human reject sent to a battleground where soldiers were dreadful that the war had extended until eternity.
We were surrounded by makeshift houses out of plywoods, used tarpaulins loaded with pools of rainwater, and rotten tin rooves. Housewives were creating a crowd for daily afternoon gossips, while across the muddy, dusty streets of Tondo was a woman responsible enough to call on her youngsters and smack them on the butt as they entered the tiny, old fashioned house.
On the spot that i was squatting, I smiled after someone greeted me with a fellow nod. He lighted a Malboro stick.
He walked past me like I was a boy begging for illegal powder and he's willing to give me some for free.
"Have you met Toning?" the man asked. He dragged on his stick, and it glowed like heaven.
"Not yet. Will he be coming soon?" I asked. "We've been here for half an hour. What a brat." I cursed on my breath and spit onto the uncemented yard of the man we had been waiting for.
"This is Upham, by the way." I introduced Upham to the man who was currently leaning onto a door. "He's expert on ammunitions. R-16, Angel Rum, .38 Special, name them." I looked at Upham and he nodded humbly.
"You must meet Toning, my brother," the man said to Upham.
"I'm not aware that he has a brother," I interjected. "What's your name?'
They both seem to unheard me.
"He's also good at those," the man added. "That man, it's his toys." Then he checked around before continuing like he was planning to masturbate. "He's one of those who assassinated Mr. Go two years ago. And he's smart, my brother. He slid off justice, and see what he is doing now; risking it again."
He smiled. His tanned and tattooed arm flexed as he lifted his cigarette and finished it off with a long single drag. God, that fast. He threw it on the ground and combed the sky like he's a poet hunting for inspiration.
I followed his gaze. The sky was as gloomy as a basin filled with murky, gray water. Directly above one of the shacks passed an unfamiliar bird. It was distant, big and white, and if I was stupid enough would suspect it to be an ostrich. Only ostrich couldn't fly and rarely white as dove. It was flying in an incredible speed, sweeping across the sky in a great heavenly arc, gliding easily through the air. Up there, it was the only thing that was moving aside from a wisp of cotton chugging forward for attention. I lowered my gaze a little and the peaceful space was engulfed by brown dust, wet clutter, and bare skins grazing for unexpected fortune and unusual cash, others contenting themselves by breathing against neighbors and surveying for attacks from sharks they did wrong.
On this world, i realized how consuming it is to look through and down, even by simply looking back. It will be a pleasure to look up sometimes. Up there, it was something different. Like it was a new world built for no one to live rendering it painfully disconnected and uncorrupted. Looking at it would surely be a relief from the pain of our usual territory.
When I had enough, I pulled of that and the small seed of irritability suddenly broke off through my words. "Shit. Where was he?"
Seconds passed and the man noticed my expression. "So, who is this target? Another businessman who treated everyone with kindness?" He snorted like it was funny, although it was true. Kind but elite people are more vulnerable of being murdered instead of average people with huge attitude. Covetousness is a powerful motivation. Not for us, but with the people who had a very short patience from losing.
"Nah," I said. "Actually, it has something to do with adultery."
I looked down, and I could hardly see a stone. It's really getting late. "It's a businessman, yes, but we are taking his revenge for his wife. I heard how wicked she is. She's been bitching around lately with younger boys less than half her age. Jesus, this husband wants her to be tortured first."
"You agreed on that?" the man said, looking amused.
"No." Upham answered for me. "We're mercenaries but we're still human beings, for god's sake. That's why I studied on ammunition so I could finish someone in a snap and keep off the blood out of me, so much of torturing a woman."
I wanted to laugh, but as a fellow, I thought better of it.
It would be Upham's fifth assignment. In my case, I've seen four people killed- with my help, of course- and blood is a natural thing for me. Pool of blood. And justice wasn't something we're scared about after all. It's as simple as getting caught off guard and doing the crime worse than what we've been asked to. That's what we are scared of. The guilt of unnecessarily raping a child or cutting off some man's genitals is too much. It always activated a drop of conscience inside our heads, and wouldn't leave us until another assignment comes when we could redeem ourselves and never do it again. Justice is just a light, formal nuisance especially if someone in a position patronized your skills and previous criminal achievements.

One night, two days after the discovery of the body we dispatched as commanded was discovered floating on the Pasig river, I was reached by two uniformed men. I thought of asking for their badges, but scared to make an impression that I had been on this scenario more often than a normal, innocent civilian, I asked them instead:
"Have I done something?" with matching apprehension as I open the door with uttermost respect for men in uniforms. And I knew, in the first glance, that they were NBI agents, flashing me an arrest warrant even before they step inside. I mean, why would they step inside? Was I expecting them to accept my offer of snacks and forget about things? No, so I immediately came after them because it would already be a crime if I wouldn't.
Once I was in the precinct and been told of me being one of the suspects, I pestered them with the usual but tested what-where-why-when statements and promised to prove the validity of my alibis. Thank god my upper man had a lot of strings to pull. After I called him, I was a free man; as good as an innocent. And this agents ushered me outside with a smile like I was an honorable visitor who was about to leave.
It's hopeless. I stood up and breathed out my impatience audibly. Toning wouldn't come. He's two hours over and it's very late for talking. My wife must be expecting me to be home within an hour.
"You leaving already?" The man asked as I started shaking the numbness off my legs. "He must have reasons."
I flipped my phone open and greeted by a smile from my wife and our son trapped inside her arms. "He must have called then."
I flipped it back with a sigh.
"Maybe he's on his way," he said, inching towards us. Upham was already walking away.
"Fuck him," I said, waving my hand. "Just tell him we've been here long enough to realize..."
Suddenly, a young boy rushed in, panting, towards the man I was talking. I was already few paces away when he begun to speak.
"What's up? Why are you running?"
"It's--" the boy breathed in, and out, and then in. "It's Toning," I heard the boy said. "He was shot."
I turned and looked at the boy in the distance as if I found my long lost child. "What the-"
"He kept on running away but cops gunned him down."
The sinking sun and its remaining light suddenly spilled across the horizon. His words echoed around the foyer of another cold, disturbing evening like a soldier calling out for a truce.
I was tired, I told myself, and I wanted to go home.