Rush hour, a jeepney driver rested his head against the steering wheel as he waited for passengers next to the Sandiganbayan in Commonwealth Avenue. 

            The edifice, where justice resided, looked so out of place as it stood at the side of the highway.  It would have made sense to think that it just fell out of the sky one day and made a loud booming sound after it planted itself on where it was.  Tall emerald windows stretched vertically into an arch on both sides of the cracked gray walls.  It would have been more the shade of ivory if it weren’t for the pollution and the acid rain that defiled it.  The topmost part of the structure got the worst of it.  It was where the dark gray streaks were most visible, like tears, mixed with mascara, that streamed down.  The only things that still hinted of the buildings former glory were the gold plated details that lined the windows, and the foreboding iron gates that were placed around it.  But still, the Sandiganbayan could be regarded as majestic judging from its surroundings. 

            Aside from all the lead that belched out from the crawling automobiles, the pungent scent of old fruit and vegetables, as well as trash discarded on the sidewalks, lingered in the air.  Flies, sometimes as big as a thumbnail, feasted everywhere.  The stall keepers did their best to ward off the pests.  At times, however, they would grow so exhausted in brushing away the relentless insects that they would just let them swarm in.  Then, they would just sit back and call out to potential customers who either walked into the tricycle station or in one of the jeepneys.  Some would even come from the other side of the highway as they placed their lives on the hands of the motorists on a not-so-busy day (for some, it was quite a chore to climb the stairs of the pedestrian overpass).  While in the vicinity, people knew better to hold their belongings close to their bodies.  A snatcher was always lurking somewhere, ready to disappear into the corner of Manggahan together with someone else’s cell phone, bag, or even a simple cap.

            The jeepney driver looked up at the rearview mirror to see how many have already boarded.  From his reflection he saw the bags that formed under his bloodshot eyes.  It cant be helped, he said to himself.  After all, he hadn’t done an extra long shift in three days.  Just when he was about to place his sweaty forehead on the steering wheel again, a woman together with her two children took the vacant seat next to him.  She squeezed herself in the middle, in front of the stick shift, and in the process scooted the driver over to the left.  Without so much as a look, she placed her money on the dashboard as she waited for her change. 

             Sometimes, the jeepney driver doubted that his passengers ever thought of him as a person.  Their interaction with him would, more often than not, be limited to phrases such as: “here’s the money for so and so passengers”, or “para.”  It wasn’t as if he was so horrendous or too handsome that people would feel uncomfortable to approach him or make eye contact.  He was right in thinking that he was just so “normal-looking” that people easily took him for granted.  Not that he wasn’t special, in fact, on more than one occasion, he had stumbled on his small share of immortality. 

            With all the photographers present during EDSA dos, he was lucky enough to be a part of a single photograph that helped define the historic event.  His face, crunched in a tiny corner of the photo was all over the front page of a local newspaper.  It appeared that he was in protest with all the other people, but in truth, he was just trying to see his brother who worked as a security guard in the Galleria.  Just months after, fate smiled upon him once more during EDSA tres.  His fellow jeepney drivers decided to join in the commotion, since business was going to be slow that day anyway.  Though his face was much bigger as it appeared in another newspaper, seeing that he was yet again (against all improbabilities) part of a stolen shot, his name still couldn’t be found anywhere in the article.  It became more apparent to him, after that, that his face was “normal”, merely identifiable as part of a collective.

            Hesitantly, the driver takes some money from his stash of coins and gave the woman with two kids her change.  She placed her change inside her coin purse without even checking if the amount was right, which was a good thing.  That way, she wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were all counterfeit coins.  He thought of taking them back, since he knew that raising children was tough (not to mention two), but he just made a sigh.  That sigh meant a great deal, at least for him.  It signified that he still felt bad about cheating other people, which meant that his conscience was still at work.  His son was about to graduate from high school, and he was ready to do anything to put him through college.  Like most parents, he hoped that he would be able to save his son from the kind of life that he had led to that point.  It was also this hope that, in the possibility of its realization, could extend to his own salvation.   For now, it couldn’t be helped, he thought.  Being virtuous was something he couldn’t afford just yet, but he always promised to practice it if ever the time came when he already could.      

            More passengers came in the jeepney, most of them walked from the tricycle station at the corner.  Each of them paid the fare the moment they found a spot inside the jeep.  Looking at his near full stash of coins, he sighed every time he reached inside it to produce change.  Half of the seats were still vacant, so it meant that they couldn’t depart just yet. 

            The heat grew more incessant as cars started to pile up on the road.  The driver slouched on his cramped seat after wiping the beads of sweat on his face with his white bimpo.  He stared at the long pile up to his left, while feeling his body begging for rest.  He always contemplated the smallest detail in things whenever he was on the brink of falling asleep.  It was like noticing the sound of dripping water from a leaky faucet, and thinking about how big of a puddle it would make by morning with the rate it let out droplets.  Where the jeepney driver was, he eyed the different decorations of automobiles such as:  paint jobs of expensive cars and thought about how good it might have looked on his dull, metallic gray jeepney, or the batches of sampaguita or kalachuchi dangling on the rear-view mirrors of owners and buses, in which he tried counting them and multiplying it by ten pesos.              

            Soon, another wave of passengers came, and in no time, the jeepney was at its full capacity.  The driver glanced behind him, double checking if everyone had found a place before shifting into first gear.  By the third stop he had noticed a couple of freeloaders, or manga kuto as he called them, hanging onto the back of the jeep.  They always persisted no matter how many times he yelled out to them to pay up or get off.  So it was only proper to dissuade them, in another way, with every chance he got, as the driver thought.  The clutch creaked while the driver shifted to a higher gear.  He swerved as much as he could, weaving in between the traffic which was lighter further along the road.  Though he didn’t make his turns too sharp, just enough to bring the fear of falling off to the people who held onto the back.  Sometimes, he preferred seeing them hanging on for dear life as he went faster instead of them paying.  A certain grin formed across his face, one that said: serves you right. 

            As he made another sharp turn into a corner he suddenly heard someone in the back say “Oh shit!”, which was distinct from the usual “Ay!” or “Oi!” from distressed passengers.  It was a young man who sat near the back of the jeep.  He had light skin, newly cut hair glossed with gel, a well pressed attire of long sleeves and slacks, and a cell phone pressed against his face.  The driver got a better look at the young man as he tried to sit up straight.  Hearing the play of English and Tagalog words coming from the young man’s conversation, reminded him of motor oil and water. 

            At the last stop, the driver pictured himself entering his home and crashing on the mattress.  But seeing his coin purse still half full meant that there weren’t enough passengers to call it a good day.  Not to mention that there were two more kutos holding onto the back.  Through the rearview mirror, he watched the remaining passengers exit at the end of the jeep and into a mass of commuters.  He saw the young man from earlier as his clothes stood out from the rest.  Suddenly the driver recalled that he never bothered paying for his fare.  The driver asked for his payment, and upon hearing him, the young man froze.  For a while, the two stared at each other through the mirror, until the young man leaped out the back.  Finally, alone in his jeepney, the driver gently shook his head and from his dry and tired mouth a sigh could be heard.  It’s no use to try and chase him, he thought.  For the moment he stepped out, the young man was lost in the crowd.                               

(April, 2007)

Joseph is a relatively old college student who is just waiting for his summer classes to end so he can already graduate.  He has always wanted to be a writer ever since his first year in De La Salle University, and as of now he is dying to be published.  He hopes that people would enjoy what he has written, or if not maybe they can tell him what he is doing wrong, to which he will be grateful for.