his friends called him kano, the american, because he looked pasty for an islander. and when he got back home from working in saudi arabia, he played his americanness to the hilt by dropping without any provocation at all what could pass for english phrases.
besides his ubiquitous ray ban aviator glasses, kano brought home the first betamax to our our island where tv reception was almost nil. and when kano started playing flicker-free, full-length movies, that was it for us kids in the neighborhood. to us, he became mr. kano.
mr. kano would usually start to feed his clunky betamax machine a fresh tape after the eight o'clock catholic angelus. but our neighborhood posse, around eight of us, would have already milled around their house an hour before that, often watching him and his yet childless and surly wife eat their dinner through their low lying kitchen window.
then when the english movie started, (I never remember any tagalog movie being screened), mr. kano would annotate the screening authoritatively. for us who were still into grade school, his armchair interlinear critical explanations were quite welcome.
one night, when the movie, a spaghetti western, I now realize, went way too long, mother was livid and physically dragged me down from mr. kano's kitchen window ledge where I was perched.
after her unimaginative and rehashed chiding, always about responsibility, mama asked me why mr. kano was so animated during the showing. I told her he was helping us understand the movie better. how, she asked. by interpreting for us since he was the only one who understood english in the crowd having worked abroad, I answered.
mama scoffed at the idea that remeriano, mr. kano's school name, could accurately interpret the english dialogue for us as according to her, he never even went beyond grade two. but he had been to saudi, I shot back. and for me, mr. kano was the man.
after that night, mama officially forbade me ever going back to mr. kano's screenings. but whenever mama received her suitors, I could still slink out of the house and to mr. kano's glorious parlor I went where english was spoken quite pleasingly with a very strong island accent.
this morning, I went to drop my laundry in this wash place predominantly patronized by mexicans. while waiting in line, a hong kong chopsocky movie was being shown on the tv above the counter. the movie was not subtitled or dubbed. pure cantonese mellifluously pouring out of the levitating actors' mouths.
an old man standing by a dryer looked relieved upon seeing me walk into the laundromat. he kept on staring at me while I fidget in the line.
finally, he could not help himself anymore and started speaking to me in spanish. I immediately cut him off, saying I don't speak his language. ay chino, he said exasperatingly as he walked back to the dryer. he obviously mistook me for a chinese.
wheeling my laundry bag home, I thought of going back and dare talk to the man again. with the meager english he knows and I, without knowledge of any chinese dialect, we would have been a pair to listen to. and behold.
like mr. kano, i could have easily made up any story that would fit the action in the movie and the chicano would pretend understanding my heavily accented english.
and after our animated exchange, he would have probably went home grinning, thinking that some crazy, wildly gesticulating chinese guy was the coolest crazy, wildly gesticulating chinese guy he had ever met.
and I would have went home thinking that for a day I was the man to an english-challenged chicano instead of being just a surly asian man dragging home a creaking, rusty laundry cart.