Short Story
Here's my short story. It stinks, I know, so bear with it.
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A Banquet
He had it coming. Had he not been too nosy, he might still be alive today. I had no choice but to kill him. Make no mistake: violent I am not. I killed a mere man--a congressman perhaps, but human nonetheless. When a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound, environmentalists ask. Likewise does the dissolution of just another man raise hell upon the universe? I was but an avatar of death, a messenger of nature, an archangel. My message was the destruction of a politician whose selfishness I found most obnoxious.
Congressman Horacio Camandag was a friend and comrade. We met ten years ago upon the urging of my father, who needed the congressman’s financial aid to send me to school. I was then fifteen, and lived with the congressman’s family for the duration of my schooling. I used him to go to school, he used me to keep his house clean. It was a perfect deal.
Until of course I discovered the source of his vast wealth. I was 20 when I discovered that the good congressman was a jueteng lord, a typical crook. All was revealed by him to me during my very birthday. He also told me that he struck a deal with my father, that I was to train as an operator and my family was to take a share in the earnings.
That explained why I was put in a degree program in management and business. I also found out that my dad was an operator himself who had fallen to hard times as of late, which explained why he knew the congressman. My education and residence with the congressman was just a ceremonial passing of the torch, passing the operator duties from my father to me. I was being trained in thievery all this time.
I gladly obliged. There was much money to be made. The business of defrauding the needy promised much needed cash for my family and myself. Dad was too old to run the numbers game, and none of his other business ventures have been met with any success. This was a chance to help my family and myself.
So I spent the next five years after the revelation in the business. Things went extremely well—so well that I was making in one month double the amount my father could make in two. The congressman noticed. The mix of my business and management training coupled with my connections to the congressman made me so successful that soon I was the congressman’s right hand.
However, familiarity bred contempt, as the Romans said. The congressman began demanding more of my share. Fifty-fifty became forty-sixty, then thirty-seventy. I still was willing to do business at this rate, but soon he wanted eighty percent of the share. At this I reneged. Why not? I ran shop, covered up his tracks, collected his money, and ran the business on the front lines. All he did was go to congress, pass inane laws, steal taxpayers’ money, and come to me for the money I made. I did all his dirty work. I deserve more than a mere twenty percent of the share.
But no, he insisted upon his insane demand. Then he sealed his fate: he abducted my parents then framed them up as jueteng operators. Perhaps “frame-up” is not the right term, for dad truly had a stake in the game, but mother did not. This was just the beginning, the congressman said. The next set-up might be directed at me.
That was it. For that little stunt, I invited him to his last supper. I told him apologetically that I was to give him all he wanted, plus a 10% bonus, effectively leaving me with just a tenth of the share. To consummate our deal, I bade him come to a banquet in his honor. He had to come alone, however.
Now the congressman was a shrewd man and a lesser attempt at murder would have startled him. Yet to a Filipino there is nothing more tempting than a hearty feast. This is enough co cloud any Filipino’s judgment—promise money at the same time and his mind vaporizes into oblivion.
And come alone he did, just as I had planned. Had I been his wife he would have doubted me. But I was his star-collector, a wayward friend who had come to seek penance. We met at
“Julia!” He called out with great warmth. “How’s business?”
“Profitable, as always. How was looting today?”
“Boring, as usual. There is only so much one can steal by manipulating laws. Ture wealth lies in the numbers game.”
I chuckled at his words. It never ceased to amaze me how frank he was concerning larceny. He truly was a seasoned politician. His years of “service” had allowed him to joke about plunder the same way any man would joke about his in-laws.
“Well, let’s start! I’m starving!” said he, in a manner most jovial, as his gelatinous belly jiggled along with his speech.
“Follow me,” I said. I led him to our gazebo-dining area which was pitch-black at this time of night. It was set as I had planned: fully laden with the finest Italian pasta and European wine.
At the sight he let out a joyful curse. “This is something else! I know we were having dinner, but this is excessive! You spoil me, Julia!”
“But of course. We are celebrating our continued partnership.”
I filled his cup with wine and fed him bite after bite of pasta, smooth-talking all the way. He returned my affections with drunken warmth.
“If you were always this kind Julia, I would never have had to frame up your parents.”
“It was sad of me to have acted so unwomanly.”
“Right you are! This whole thing was one unfortunate accident. Had you known your place just like your father did years ago, none of this would have happened.”
I ceased motion at these words. After a wait, I asked him what he meant.
“Oh, same thing. An operator, like you, only I discovered that he hid a part of the share from me and kept it for himself. Retaliation was swift. I had his mother killed and threatened to kill his wife next unless he gave something of equal value, namely you, his only child and daughter.”
I felt like throwing up. So father’s debt was not financial but in blood. Now this congressman was really going to die.
“I did not want to hurt you.” He continued. “You’ve become such a fine lady it would be a waste. Plus your lady’s charm proved effective in boosting collections. I guess all the money I invested on you was worth it.”
“I am sorry. I never meant you harm.”
“Of course you did not. You’re a woman.”
“Yes,” I said with utmost submissiveness. At this word I took out a specially reserved cup then filled it with wine.
“The coup de grace,” I said, “the finest Cabernet Sauvignon from
Yet he relented. For some moments he seemed uneasy. After an awkward silence, he said: “Wait a minute, how can I be sure it’s not poisoned?”
I laughed. “It’s not, silly. Where’d you get that idea? Here, let me try it.” I took a sip. Of course it didn’t kill me.
“Oh.” He said. With that, he drank as well.
Of course he was not intelligent enough to figure out the elaborate trick I had set upon the cup. While the wine was not poisoned, one side of the rim—his side was. I laced it with a poison that induces sleep first then stops the heart from beating within the next hour. Soon he was asleep. “Reap what you sow,” I said to him as his eyes closed.
I then called for a waiter to help me carry the congressman to my car. Since he was at this point asleep, it stirred no suspicion—I merely told the waiter that my partner had fallen asleep due to excessive drinking. The plan was to dump him in the forested areas along the road then bury him. For this purpose I brought my pick-up truck. A regular car would have trouble traversing a forest.
However circumstances beyond my control made themselves known as I entered the forest. My tire blew out a full hour away from my determined burial site. I could not lift his bulky body out of the car into the forest for that distance. I was therefore left with no choice but to burn the corpse. I carried it for some twenty feet from the car then set it alight. In no time, he was burning.
Unfortunately I wasn’t alone. I turns out that a group of students were holding a retreat at a nearby retreat house and had alerted the authorities of a possible forest-fire. The authorities as I was reveling at my deed, and they basically caught me red-handed.
Still, I have no regrets for my crime. Though it will someday net me lifetime imprisonment and even death I had made my point. No one messes around with myself, my family or my income. Besides, I am dying to torture Congressman Camandag’s soul further when I meet him in hell.
posted by Frozen Twilight @ 9:37 PM
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