From bai to hon

But he was useless as husband or father, I knew that even then. He would die in some silly argument with a drunk neighbor one night.

Bai, or bay. It means friend, or dude in Cebuano. Native speakers throw it around like so much currency and it is as casual as it sounds. But nothing in the Cebuano language is more deceptive.

“Bai Jun, how have you been?” says this last-row seatmate of mine in high school whom I have not seen in ages. He would cheat in unannounced biology quizzes by looking at somebody else’s work, mostly mine, and later in real life would cheat again by pretending not to know me when he, already an up-and-coming sales executive or something, and I, a mindless college undergraduate, would meet at some downtown diner and he would scamper away like I were mendicancy in person.

This was the period when I told my father I would quit school and would take what earnings I made as land data encoder to the tubaan and squander it there Fridays when there was no moon and the girls looked pretty because the tungog that made the coconut sap the jungle sherry that it is told you they were. The practical man that he was, my father vowed not to give me anything — no, not even a hanky if I asked him for it, for as long as I was drinking this coconut sap made bitter by the bark of a particular mangrove that makes one giddy after a gallon or two has been consumed.

Not a single centavo passed between his hand and mine in the few years that I had my fill of unabashed self-indulgence. He would talk to me again like I were a human when I finally graduated a year or two after the youngest of seven siblings had her diploma.

Non-native speakers are amused that the world resonates, that bai provokes laughter when said or spoken in the same breath as the harmless doughnut. Sus, bai. It has its charm.

I once used it to connect with a girl I liked. This was the period when I was back in school again and learning things like crazy. Like insinuating one’s self to someone else’s crazy. You know the feeling. This person appears before you early evening in English class when the bats are out hunting mosquitos and is just terribly ruthless. Rips you out of your seat.

Some of the best heart stories I know involve one college paper editor who asked one particular girl to cover one particular event and write about it. She complied and did as told. The editor must have been smitten because he edited the submitted piece to such a degree as to render the piece unrecognizable to the author, who was of course incensed. I imagine the fireworks or mayhem that must have ensued but long and short, they ended up happily married to this day.

There’s this other marriage that began with an early morning proposal to begin a life together at this island in the South Pacific. Each time I see the man I would imagine that scene and believe that that marriage is built on solid rock. You could see it on his face and the way his life has turned out. But these are the fairy tale nuptials of my so-called city friends.

One of the saddest I know concern a man who would rather sell snake oil, yes, snake oil, for a living and do magic tricks to draw a crowd of 15 or 20 of which only one would actually make a purchase of a bottle or two for P25 — on a good day. The man was a friend who would help me come down to the población from rebel-infested mountains at night when only the stars were out because I hate sleeping in someone else’s bed. He would craft a makeshift sulo made of dried palm fronds to light our way back to town and encourage me to talk as loud as I can, laugh just as hard as we negotiate steep hilly sections and pant like crazy so the contingent of army soldiers patrolling those same hills would not mistake us for the rebels that ostensibly lurk in the far-flung barrios of my youth.

On some days when I would visit, I would see his wife and kids toiling in the fields under an unforgiving sun and he would quickly change his clothes and come with me to wherever it was we were going that day. The guy did not even complete his elementary education but he could charm the town mayor with his stories not just of snakes but of women and the hardships of life. The man was so glib I was convinced he could charm the provincial governor himself should the man be within hearing distance.

But he was useless as husband or father, I knew that even then. He would die in some silly argument with a drunk neighbor one night when barrio folks have this Friday night dances known as the diskoral when tuba by the gallon flows copiously and Latin dances thrill the womenfolk no end.

I would tell my own wife about these and many more stories early on in the marriage when I would call her bai as an endearment. These days she would not allow me. She would insist we call each other hon. Yes, hon.