a maxwell song, that gurgling funk number from mtv unplugged, hissed from the ear phones of a fellow bus rider this morning. ah, quezon city, project 6. 1997. this was the year you fell for the smoothness of a kapampapangan dj-in-training and leased your first apartment in manila, a two-roomer flanked between one sublet by a makati lawyer for her mistress who danced at lexus club and one by a straight playwright who never talked to anybody in the row except the beefy security guard who worked, wearing only white tanks with his indigo regulation pants, at nights. this was the year, in the other room you tried not to clutter with your things, you started hanging his vintage shirts, then some of his stone-washed denims in that needy closet, thinking love can be had that easily as filling up this deprived space with his stuff. this was the year you took, really took, to r & b, soul, new jack, neo-soul, maxwell, d'angelo, bilal, not to forget prince - heavens no! - and enshrined their cds on a shelf you assembled clamorously one saturday morning while that boy, still wasted from a party the night before, slept noiselessly like a serene ivory idol in that room.
