An Excerpt from "Journey Back to the Source"

By Gino Dizon

Reasons to Go

TOMORROW, SAB, ROBBIE, and Jet are taking the trip. They’re in the car now just driving around, the kind that passes for adventure in this city, perhaps in any, but Angeles is landlocked. No high wind is about, the windows are open, to make the most out of friction of air. Inside they’re laughing a wet knee-slapping laugh, you would think they were such a riot. They’re laughing at things no one else remembers anymore. It’s a good idea when there’s no particular destination. They’re in their thirties. They have nowhere else to go but older. They’re two boys and a girl with a car. Everything is possible again.

Where to Stay

It’s a long way up the mountain. Some set out as early as three in the morning for the dispatch point at Santa Juliana in Capas, Tarlac. But that’s because they’re coming from Manila. A group of college friends has taken just this package. Tomorrow, at the appointed hour, a van will pick them up in Ortigas, most likely in SM Megamall. The van will deliver them straight and safely to the dispatch point, also at the appointed hour. They’re all about to finish college. They’re all about being goal-oriented. They still have the luxury of believing life happens at all the appointed hours. Besides, they’re Manileños. Everybody’s supposed to know Manila. But who knows where Capas is, or also, Angeles?

This European family, on the other hand, look like the amenable sort. Daddy and Mommy have done their research. The best stopover: Angeles City, home to a now defunct US air base, just 30 minutes away from the dispatch point. If you stand at its center, on a bridge over a river that no longer flows, you will see to your east the broken peak of Mt. Arayat, lone guardian of the plains, and to the west, rising against the sky, the jagged sentinels of the Central Luzon Arc, your destination. So this family is spending the night in a place they’ve never heard before, except possibly for its lavish cuisine, red-light district, or Holy Week spectacles. Daddy and Mommy used to be backpackers. They’re used to the hazards of adventure. They’re bringing their five-year-old boy, their only child, to a volcano’s crater.

As for the three friends, Angeles is not really a matter of choice. They were born here. They grew up here. Robbie, the one driving, is a G.I. baby. All his life he’s been shuttling between Angeles and the States. He’s had three changes of career. Now he’s taking a break. Sab, beside Robbie, is a nurse. She’s a Canadian citizen now. She and her partner of five years have just broken it off. Jet, in the backseat, laughs the loudest. Ever since his friends migrated, he’s built an entire life in Manila, then one day he’s not just so sure anymore. Or, anyway, something like that, so he’s in between jobs. It’s been years since they’ve seen each other. Now they’re all back in Angeles. All their history happened here: childhood, a volcanic eruption, childhood’s end.

What to Bring

The instruction says two knapsacks. In the second, put everything you will need after the climb. Mostly this is just your change of clothes. What else will you need after accomplishing the feat of surmounting a mountain? Already this boy from the college group is packing his book. He might need something to read during the drive. Nothing outside the window will interest him: fields, more fields, the interminable rice fields of Central Luzon.

This second bag, you will leave in your vehicle. For the climb, bring only the first bag. It should be light, stuffed only with the most essential things: valuables, Advil, bottled water, trail food. Your camera you can just sling around your neck. When you’re up against gravity, you must make an ally out of weight. The five-year-old boy knows this. He’s not bringing anything. Only his parents.

But Robbie’s all bulk. And flabbier on the sides now, Jet notes, but does not say. But he still has something of the jock he’s always been. And Sab likes this about him. Never mind if he’s not so great at living his life. Sab likes telling other people what to do with their lives. For Jet, who’s the intellectual sort, Robbie is his necessary counterpoint. He used to finish Robbie’s assignments for him. He and Sab used to bring Robbie’s water jug at football in Clark. No one could bully Jet, or make a pass at Sab, without Robbie clenching a fist or locking that person’s skull in his good grip. Those were the days. •

> Gino Dizon’s piece in MAXIMUM VOLUME, “Journey Back to the Source,” is part of a project that fictionalizes Angeles, a city situated in the contested land between two presiding gods, Arayat to the east and Pinatubo to the west. Two other stories from this project—“Dust Will Settle” and “Possible City”—have appeared in Philippines Free Press and IYAS Anthology 2001-2010 respectively.