I haven’t told a story here in a while…
We had a lot of relatives come into town for the wedding. One of these relatives was Dave’s grandmother. In Tagalog, ‘grandmother’ is ‘lola’, so that’s what I’ll use, since it’s less letters.
Anyway, we’re hanging around Dave’s house and chatting with Lola and Dave’s aunt and uncle from the Philippines. Dave’s aunt asks if I’ve met their daughter Cathy, who now lives in California. I said yes, I had first met her several years ago when she had come to Chicago to visit from the Philippines.
Then Dave’s lola says, “Oh, I know about Cathy’s visit to Chicago! You made her drive you all home when you all got drunk!!!”
I look at her appalled.
Dave looks at her appalled.
“Um, I don’t remember that…” Because really, I don’t. Nor does Dave. We look at his grandmother like she had just sprouted wings and grown a third eye.
“Don’t try to hide it,” she laughs, “I got it from a reliable source. She was visiting from the Philippines, she didn’t have a license, she had never driven in the city or on the highway before, but no one else could drive, so she had to drive you all homel. Then she slept at your house because she didn’t know how to get home!” She wags her finger at us.
“Are you sure? I don’t remember that at all, Lola,” Dave says. By now, everyone is intrigued.
“Yes! You all went to the disco and stayed out late. You took her out all the time, but this time no one could drive home.”
“Maybe you don’t remember because you were all DRUNK!” Cathy’s mom pipes in.
Me and Dave sincerely don’t remember. I remember hanging out with Cathy on the fourth of July, but nothing else. Dave’s mom tells Lola that maybe she’s mistaken.
“Believe what you want. I know it’s the truth. I didn’t hear it from the two of you, and I didn’t hear it from Cathy, but it’s a good source. I’m not lying.”
Later on, I’m talking to my friend Jen, and I tell her about it. She laughs and says that Lola was telling the truth, and she coincidentally was recounting it to her boyfriend the other day. After she had enlightened me, it all came back in a mad, post-drunken rush.
Way back, when Cathy visited, it was during my old clubbing days. We’d go out to the clubs starting on Thursday, drink, stay out late, and do it again the next weekend. We had taken Cathy out, and we were dancing on the platforms. Cathy had told us that in the Philippines, it was usually the easy girls or the prostitutes that danced on the platforms. That made us laugh and we made her dance up there with us.
And yeah, I guess we were drinking. And she had to drive us home. And we all passed out. And they went home the next morning.
It all comes back now….in little bits and pieces.
So yeah, Lola was right.
Damn, what else does she know from her ‘reliable source’? Grandmothers just know these things. It’s spooky.
Tags: Stories by Yano
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