I HADN’T seen him that generous before last night.
Sure, he knew how to appreciate good works and rewarded them, depending on how valuable each to his purpose at a given time.
But what surprised me more was his jumping into my car and asking me drive him to an unknown destination. Surprises, I remember, partly defined his character, making him less predictable, more awesome than his successful persona had already awe-inspired his peer and admirers.
Did his car break? Impossible. The care and attention he lavished on his cars were legendary. By his standard, not one should be out of shape when he needed them. That’s the same standard he held his men, or women. Or one would hear or get the taste of the man’s temper, which was also something talked about in office pantries every now and then.
I vividly remember one day when a lady officer came to work not properly dressed. He gave her a mouthful and then sent her home to fix herself in the right corporate attire. He angrily told her not to come back until she did. Everybody looked as if they were going to a confessionary. The sin of one was felt like the sin of all.
I didn’t bother to ask. Things happened so fast, and much of it seemed to play out in a fog, less details, mostly atmospherics. Soon, we reached our mysterious destination. He quickly picked himself up, pushed the car door and, before he rushed to a nondescript edifice, he dropped an envelope on my dashboard and motioned me to follow him.
I got off the car slowly, but not before taking a brief glance into the white envelope with some colored bills, probably new ones as part of his superstition or style. I didn’t count; he understood noblesse oblige very well, but only up to a point. That’s where his generosity ended and his frugality, practicality took over. He gave on purpose, with a purpose.
Before I knew it , I was in an office-like setting. There were snacks on what looked like a small bar. His wife was there, ahead of him , for ostensibly a business meeting. ( I wondered why she was in white. I knew she loved colorful dresses). There were some people whose face I could not recall. He loved to punctuate informal conversations about the wife . Behind a man’s success, he would say, quoting an American tycoon, is a spouse. And he would immediately qualify that, with a touch of wit and humor, that it didn’t mean a man is supposed to have more of them.
Then we were off again in a hazy route that we kept losing our way. Until we stopped by an army of unruly toddlers playing by the roadside to ask for direction. We drove off again, but not before him palming off a couple of bills to an unwashed kid who pointed to a giant tower afar off. That didn’t help us either because we soon found ourselves at a dead end where some men signaled us to make a turnabout.
That would have upset him. He always had a plan even when he was dreamy kid who wrote one day on a one-peso bill and foretold what the future would be. And it turned out perfectly as written, perhaps well beyond his wildest imagination. But it started with a roadmap, whether it was a business journey or a road trip somewhere. He wasn’t comfortable in being lost somewhere and waste his time going back to the right track. He valued time. At one time, he said he felt like he had twice accomplished, or more, what an average man of his age could.
Surprise yet again. He visibly wasn’t at the circuitous path we took. But he looked seriously concerned that we were not making progress at all toward the giant tower we could see from where we were helplessly driving around in endless circle.
Feeling the frustration, I turned to him and said, may be you should call your pilot to pick you up.
And then I suddenly remember that a fateful, tragic helicopter crash ended his life’s journey more than two years ago.
I woke up. A dream seems to edit reality, rewrites it, or portions of it, as it were, living what’s good and nice and wonderful like a fairy take does. Dreams make us better, or make us feel better. Dreams reinvent.
Life happens in a blur. His sudden death seemed like a prophetic sign that something more dreadful was afoot. A few months later, the pandemic set in, claiming lives from all walks and putting society in a scary, circumscribed existential mode.
Certainly, he would have had a roadmap of his own on how to bounce back from the adversity. He knew whereof he would speak. He had surprised people close to him with how well he handled troubled times to his advantage, business-wise, and emerged bigger than before. He used unfamiliar times and terrains much like a skilled surfer does with the huge waves to bring him to the shore with enviable but inimitable success.
He’s gone and now, sometimes a fuzzy dream makes you remember the man who, in his time, left his own, distinct mark. Remembrance is a pleasant, never-ending fairy tale.
