Chapter 8. 'Meet Miss Ass-fuck.'
The annual cycle. Typhoon Milenyo. Amor meets the Masters of Uranus. Bruno rapes Blen's throat. Blen and Amor's photo-shoot.
In the early days of the following week, a cyclone formed over the Pacific, and moved slowly towards the eastern seaboard of the Philippines. On the rolling news channels the weathermen and girls tracked it, speculating where it would make landfall, and how severe it would be.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, Amor returned to the lady-house having made her first trip to Manila airport to see off a departing lover. She too came with a plastic bag full of gifts, and a roll of 1000p notes stuffed into her bra. Tipping the taxi driver 100p as instructed by Danny, she hurried into the lady-house, out of the rain.
Blen hugged her with genuine warmth, delighted to have her friend back once again, and the house mates gathered around to hear her news.
"He will come for me soon, he will come back at Christmas," Amor told them, breathlessly.
Blen felt an involuntary twinge of jealousy. "Will he marry with you?"
"He does not discuss it yet, but he will talk to me every day." Amor produced from her back pocket a shiny new cell phone. "He have my number, and I have his, and we can call."
To Blen, this sounded familiar. Precious also was a telephone girlfriend to be visited at Christmas, and she wondered whether that might be more convenient for the foreigner than a wife to be welcomed home as an equal and permanent life partner.
The rain continued on Wednesday, and the wind began to gust and drive the rain in under raised umbrellas, making even short journeys outdoors damp and unpleasant.
The Typhoon season profoundly affects the Angeles City hospitality trade. In an annual cycle; beginning in November, when the weather improves and the tourists return, and with the relief of the busy Christmas trade close at hand, understandings are reached between bar managers, from MacArthur Highway all the way up Fields Avenue and Perimeter Road to Friendship Highway, as to the pricing of drinks and bar-fines. New hopefuls enter the bar trade. Closed venues re-open under new names, with new management, the result of a fresh injection of foreign investment, often the retirement savings of the putative Papa-san. There is a flourishing trade in 'Rights', a shell vehicle to operate a bar, sold to naïve Papa-san wannabes, which revert to the shady promoters when business turns down, ready to be marketed again next year. The only 'Right' is the right to underwrite losses, but each year there is a new crop of dupes, hoping to buy the dream.
The wannabes invest in paint and décor, engage a Mama-san and her girls, then open their doors for the Holiday season. They readily agree to fix prices for ladies drinks and bar-fines, and, for the holidays, everyone stiffs the customer. Demand exceeds supply, the stages are stripped of dancers as customers compete to take out their favourite girl, and ladies drinks flow liberally. Christmas passes and the balmy weather continues to attract tourists for several months. But, June comes, and with it the rainy season. Tourism declines. It continues to decline through July and August, when the rain peaks. But, worse is to come. In September and October the typhoons arrive, bringing with them inundations and brownouts. Now tourists are rare.
The bars are supported by the expatriate community, those who know the ropes, the pensioners eking out their pension. Room rates are slashed. Price agreements collapse. The Fields Avenue bars attract most custom, so the satellites up Perimeter Road and beyond cut the cost of bar-fines and ladies drinks. To minimise losses, the cuts are made at the expense of the girls. A customer can negotiate a lower price, but the bar keeps its share and the girl takes the reduction. The best girls gravitate to Fields.
Promotional events are advertised. They compete to be the most raunchy. The more desperate the bar, the raunchier the display. The authorities intervene, some Papa-sans do some jail time while bribes are arranged. Doors close, and are padlocked. Dejected wannabes board flights for home. Rights revert. The promoter looks up the contact details of the new wannabes he cultivated in high season - he gives them a call - he has heard about an opportunity that might interest them.
Daddy Don had learned his trade as a bar manager in the old days; he knew all the important people, and could pull all necessary strings. Mama Mutia had worked in Balibago for twenty-five years, since she was fifteen, the first ten years as dancer - through the Pinatubo irruption - then five years as a supervisor to a Mama-san, where she learned her present trade and met her husband, who financed her to set up in business on her own. For the last decade, she had been a Mama-san in her own right, recruiting and providing a line-up of girls for bars. Still young and active, since her children were away at school she enjoyed the occasional bar-fine and participated in the speciality events that she facilitated as a lucrative sideline. For six years, she had serviced Talent Spot and worked with Daddy Don. They entered upon the low season campaign as well practised veterans. Dirty dancing contests, participation in B.O.W parties and pool parties provided the opportunity to expose their headline girls to the available customer base. Special events, birthday parties, Halloween, any excuse, would be used as a promotional opportunity. It was vital to maintain a reputation as a fun bar through the rainy season.
On 28th September, the 2006 rainy season reached its nadir. Typhoon Milenyo made landfall on the east coast of Luzon, and by ten-am, it was traversing Manila itself. Angeles, 70 km to the north, was swept all day by gusting winds, and inundated by torrential rains, which drummed loudly on corrugated iron roofs. Gutters overflowed, and water spouted from all four corners of every roof. The unmade roads turned into mud or sludge. On open ground, water grew from puddles, to pools, to ponds, to lakes, and eventually formed a boiling surface which covered all level ground. Fast flowing streams rushed down paved inclines, including Fields Avenue. Roofs lifted and blew away. Signs rocked and swayed crazily until they broke free. Poorly rooted trees were ripped out and dropped on their sides. Advertising hoardings rocked, and were slowly collapsed, flattened by the powerful winds. The flotsam of untethered objects, carried by the wind, was deposited, to be washed away by, or eddy on the vast expanse of water.
In the lady-house, the girls closed the jalousies and shut and bolted the door. Cloths were stuffed into the gap under the door to prevent water from being blown in, and anything susceptible to water damage was taken off of the floor. A mop and bucket were ready to mop up seepage. As the rain continued to build on the roof, it found ways in, to drip through the bedroom ceilings. Pots and bowls were found to catch the drips and were frequently emptied. The beds were moved, and covered with plastic bags to protect them. Shortly after eleven-am, the lights and TV flicked abruptly off. A battery radio remained the sole entertainment, and by the light of a petrol lamp, over the sound of the powerful winds scouring and buffeting the lady-house, the girls listened to melodic love songs, interspersed with news of the progress of the typhoon.
At first came the news that President Arroyo, who had been on business in the Clark Economic Zone, was returning to Manila to coordinate the response to the emergency. Later, came the news that her convoy had been unable to negotiate the North Luzon Expressway, one of the finest roads in the country, because of wind born debris, and had returned to Clark.
"Will Talent Spot open today?" asked Precious.
"Talent Spot is open every day," said Anabel, "if you do not go, you do not get pay."
"We will be more comfortable there," suggested Precious.
In mid-afternoon, a group of the girls, covered with plastic bin-bags to protect them from the rain, set off for Talent Spot. With arms linked, and heads bowed, they forced their way forward, the rain stinging their faces when they looked up. Occasionally they would duck in response to a shouted warning, as airborne flotsam flew by.
MacArthur Highway was free of traffic, and water flowed in the roadside cambers, spilling onto the pavement. At the junction with Fields Avenue, the surface water that ran off had started as a rivulet a mile away, up at Friendship, and gathered volume as it rushed down Perimeter Road into Fields Avenue, finally to gush out over MacArthur Highway like a burst water main. The girls were knee deep at times as they crossed, then splashed up through the puddles on the irregular sidewalk of Fields, as the torrent cascaded by in the roadway. No one was about. Some clubs displayed 'Open' signs, tied firmly in place outside, but the doors were closed, and there was no sign of door girls. All other businesses appeared to be closed. They pushed on the door of Talent Spot and it was pulled open a little from inside by the door girls, who hurried them in, before hastily pushing the door shut behind them.
The atmosphere within was very subdued. The standby generator powered the emergency lighting circuit, sound system and the air conditioning system, which was turned down low, but not quite off. Dancers sat about on the stage, and many girls, in their street clothes, sat about the bar. Precious, Blen and the other girls made their way to the changing area to find towels and dry themselves. A radio was tuned to a news channel. After drying as best they could, the girls squatted down, huddled together for warmth, and listened to the radio.
The early reports of deaths and damage were coming in. Manila, a city of fifteen million people, containing one in five of the Philippines population, had taken a direct hit. There had been a brief respite of about an hour as the eye of the cyclone passed across the city, then the battering had resumed. The radio reported that the whole of the Island of Luzon was in brownout; the public electricity supply had totally failed. The weather bureau was speculating that this would be one of the most destructive cyclones the Philippines had experienced.
Milenyo passed over Manila, and made its way west towards Zambales. Angeles remained cloaked in the vortex of dense clouds, but late in the evening the winds began to abate. Two customers did come in towards eleven-pm, determined to barhop despite the typhoon, and told how other bars were faring. Up in some of the small bars on Perimeter Road, lit only by dim oil lamps, and free of the threat of police interference, the girls had taken advantage to engage brazenly with the customers, and were openly giving blow-jobs and being fucked over the tables. For the most part, they found the bars much the same as Talent Spot, the girls reluctantly being whipped into action by Mama-san when the customers entered, then dancing without enthusiasm. They were able to take advantage of the unusually dim lighting to have some in-club fun that would not usually be permissible.
When Blen and the others made their way home, the rain still fell, but the wind had dropped, and the rainwater flowed rather than cascaded in the street. During the night, the lights in the house flicked back on and the TV came back to life as the public electricity supply was restored. The lights and appliances were quickly switched off, and the girls returned to sleep. Next morning, the girls followed the news with great interest. Several hundred Filipinos were dead or missing. The economic loss was estimated in billions of pesos, and Milenyo had achieved a top ten ranking for destructiveness.
The following day, Girlie returned in a taxi, at about four-o'clock. She, like Precious and Amor, had now accompanied a lover to the airport. Girlie had ridden out the typhoon with Belle, in her hotel. The previous day, when Manila airport had closed, Belle had become agitated, fearing her flight might be rescheduled. They had been quite comfortable in the hotel, which had a full power generator, so apart from a blip on the changeover from public supply to generator, power had been maintained, and the kitchen provided hot food, and the bar cold beer. After a lazy evening and night spent making love, and monitoring the TV in the interludes, at six in the morning, two hours earlier than originally arranged, the taxi had picked them up for the airport run. The journey south, on the expressway, was slow. Not all the debris had been cleared, and there were bottlenecks to be negotiated. At times, the raised expressway appeared to be the only visible dry land, as water stretched across the Pampangan plain to the horizon, with only the occasional tree protruding. The congestion, once they hit Manila, was greater than usual. Pools of deep water remained in the streets, further delaying traffic. They had reached the airport at ten, and Belle made her flight.
Girlie then asked the taxi driver to go somewhere to eat, and she had bought him a McDonald's at a mall, then walked around the mall admiring the wares, hoping the street water would meanwhile subside. The return journey was just as slow, as the clear up still continued. It had been a gruelling journey and Girlie was exhausted when she arrived back in the lady-house. Greeting her friends wearily, she immediately excused herself to flop down and get a couple of hours rest before work. Roused at half past six by the others, at seven they were on stage at Talent Spot.
The sun had not broken through the cloud at all that day, the rain had been continuous and a sense of deflation settled over Fields Avenue. Talent Spot was unusually quiet for a Friday night, even a rainy-season Friday night. This suited Girlie, who found it difficult to maintain her energy through her sets, and settled into a seat, eyes closed, between them. When they arrived home, she was first to hit the bed.
On Saturday morning, the grey cloud turned white and the rain let up. By early afternoon, the sun had broken through, and pooled water ebbed away and evaporated. Normality was returning.
Girlie was last up. She slept in until two-pm, but when she came down she was refreshed, and in high spirits.
"Now I feel good," she announced, "I need that long sleep."
"What will happen with Belle?" asked Amor.
