Moondogs - Alexander Yates [83]
His fist came out quick, catching Ping right in the nose. Ping didn’t fall or let go of his shirt, but after Benicio punched him a second time he did both. Everybody was looking at them now. Bobby stood and started to walk Benicio to the door at a fast limp. Bong and Baby Cookie held Ping’s arms to keep him from coming after. It was hot outside the karaoke club. The night was bright, smudged and stumbling.
THE NEXT MORNING BENICIO woke sprawled on a wicker couch with a blanket wrapped around his legs. He was in a sitting room with white tile floors, lying beneath the lazy swing of a ceiling fan. The room was spotlessly clean and filled with inward-facing chairs. Beside the wicker couch was a coffee table that was bare save a shallow bowl filled with ice cubes. The space would have felt sterile if not for the bright doggy chew-toys scattered across the floor—rubber squeakers in the shapes of hotdogs, chicken drumsticks and cats—and the crooked tilt of three landscape paintings on the wall. Benicio tried to sit up, realizing as he did how dizzy and nauseous he still felt. His whole body was slick with sweat, and the only place that felt dry was the inside of his mouth.
An older man entered the room and even though Benicio was fully dressed he pulled the blanket up to his chest. The man wore a robe and had a newspaper tucked under his arm. He acknowledged Benicio with a small nod and then turned to the wall, grumbling a bit as he straightened each of the paintings. The man said something loud in Tagalog and Benicio heard Bobby answer from somewhere behind him. The man wrinkled his nose and left.
“My father,” Bobby said, coming around the couch and taking a seat in a chair across from Benicio. His bandages looked slightly moist, and wilted, and he shuffled slowly without his cane. “It’s polite here to stand when an older man enters the room,” he said, leaning in and lowering his voice.
Benicio held his breath as he sat up. “I didn’t know,” he said.
“Why would you have?” They looked at each other for a while, the fan clicking away above. The night before Bobby had insisted he come back to his family’s home in Dasmariñas. Benicio regretted it now, wishing he’d stepped out of the cab at the first red light or bottleneck and found one of his own. He could have pointed the driver to the hulking pink hotel on the dark horizon and avoided this awkwardness.
“Hey …” he ran his throbbing hand though his hair. “I was a jerk last night.”
Bobby just looked at him for a while. “Yeah, but they were jerks first. Ping especially. Believe me, if you’d said anything about his family he’d have reacted worse.”
“Well, I’m really sorry.”
“I know. You told me in the taxi. And while I was opening up the gate. And while I looked through the closet for a blanket. You’re even better at staying on message than Charlie is.” He grinned and drummed his hands on his thighs. “Is Ping all right?”
“Yes, believe it or not he’s alive. The doctors say it was a close one, but he’ll pull through, thank Jesus.” The beat on Bobby’s thighs quickened and he slapped Benicio’s knee a few times like a high-hat. “Lighten up.”
“I don’t feel light.”
“Well, you’re just a short taxi ride from your hotel. It’s early yet. You can go back, sleep for a few hours, and wake up with the whole day ahead of you. Any plans?”
“Not really. My father should be in by now. So we’ll probably just be visiting.”
“And if he’s not?”
Benicio paused, thinking this possibility over. “I guess I’ve kind of wanted to see what Corregidor really looks like,” he said.
Bobby shrugged. “You could,” he said. “The tours are a little hammy, but it’s not a bad trip. Or, if you want, you could come south with us. Katrina and I are going to take a break from Charlie’s parties and do a little diving. Well, she is, at least. It’ll be an overnighter, but we’d have you back by lunchtime on Sunday. And you don’t have to worry—we’re not inviting any