I drained my second glass of bubbly, and the appetizers hadn’t even been served at our table yet. Despite the cool Tagaytay breeze that swirled through the veranda, I was sweating profusely. I nibbled away at some dead skin on my lower lip. Damn, I thought, I’m not getting drunk fast enough. Couldn’t I just grab a syringe, stab my jugular and inject vodka directly into my system? Hell, I’d guzzle down rubbing alcohol if it would drown my stress levels this evening, or at least deaden my nerves from any high-velocity impacts. And if I could get really piss-drunk, then I could kill enough brain cells so I would have absolutely no recollection of tonight’s pamanhikan. Then I could get up tomorrow morning and leave it my folks to break it to me whether I was still engaged or if I was going to extend my vow of chastity for the rest of my natural life.
I know, I know. Didn’t her dad already give me his blessing? Wasn’t that the reason I consented to all those credit investigations and periodic drug tests? I talked about this with my fiancée a couple of weeks ago, right before I sent in my last urine sample.
“Dear, I distinctly remember getting your dad’s permission to marry you before he left for the States. I still have the underwear stains to prove it,” I said, while flushing the toilet.
“Then he wants me to ask him again!” She stood outside the banyo door, emphasizing her point. “Love, don’t you know my family by now? When he said that you could marry me, it didn’t mean that he really meant it. It’s like when I’m mad at you and I say I want to claw your eyes out. I don’t really want to claw your eyes out. Just one of your eyes will do.”
I grimaced while zipping up my pants.
“But if all goes well during the pamanhikan, then you’ll know if he really meant to give you his blessing. Now hurry up, we have to send in your sample to the drug lab.”
“Okay, love. Could you give me a couple more minutes? I just need to let my head soak in the toilet.”
Thinking about what might happen during the pamanhikan left me with a bladder infection. Her dad was being more fickle about his decision than Manny Pacquiao training for his next fight. Any variable could change her father’s mind. I called an emergency family meeting to let my family know that if anything went awry during the pamanhikan, they could kiss the chance of a new pamangkin slash inaanak in the next year or so goodbye.
“Rico, my brother, I love you dearly, but you look a tad bit too bohemian.” He stared at me sedately as he strummed his guitar. “Do you think I could ask somebody to stand in your place for the pamanhikan? Like Sam Milby?” He just kept on staring at me while twirling his dreadlocks around his fingers.
“Mom, like I promised, you can have my first-born. Just try to say as little as possible.” And my mom shrieked as she broke into fake applause.
“Dad, for the love of God, please do not bring the Magic Sing.” My dad slumped his head.
Then I looked in the general direction of my sister. (You cannot look at her directly in the eyes or else you turn to stone. Or something just as dense.) “Rina, during the pamanhikan, can you please, um, smile?” All I heard from her was a low growl.
I turned to the person beside me. “Yaya, when I ask permission from her dad, just hold my hand.”
After some money had passed hands, I got them all to accede to my requests. Except for that damn Sam Milby.
So, after all those cease-and-desist orders had been lifted, here were both our families sharing an exquisite meal at Antonio’s Restaurant, a three-level restaurant amidst lush greenery tucked deep down Tagaytay’s backroads. A restaurant where the police could not respond quickly in case they heard gunshots.
Both families stared at each other from across the table with a glint of caution in their eyes. I knew this glint, it was the same glint that her dad had as he gave me a body cavity search the first time I visited my fiancée at their house. And I knew from this glint that they were all sizing each other up. Now this made me even more worried. If someone mistakenly took a bread roll that was meant for a member of the other family, this could erupt into an all-out family rumble.
To prevent any confrontation, I made sure that the dinner table was beside the bar. This location would be vital if we needed to quickly inebriate anyone (except for my dad, who would inebriate himself in good time) or to sterilize flesh wounds. During dinner, I was pleasantly relieved that nobody fought over bread rolls, no meat was turned into projectiles and no cutlery was used to perform vasectomies. Although there was a mild debacle among the parents about how many chickens my fiancée was worth, things eventually simmered down after my sister promised to turn one of her brothers back from stone to flesh.
After the wait staff cleared the table for dessert, I gulped down my wine, breathed deeply and held on to my balls. “Good evening,” I squeaked. “I would like to thank both family members who have come from near and far to join us for this very meaningful event.” I couldn’t stop my legs from quivering. “I’ve taken all the lie detector tests and I’ve signed all the prenuptial agreements and I haven’t removed the chastity belt since you installed it. So, tito and tita, I would like to formally ask…” I cleared my throat. “I would like to ask both of you for your permission to take your daughter’s hand in marriage.”
Her mom massaged the bridge of her nose and half-smiled. Her dad bobbed his head slightly and rolled his eyes. I spied my fiancée taking hold of her dad’s hand.
“So, you can think about it,” I quipped and the table broke into uneasy laughter. (Well, the Ledesma side laughed). “But, um, not too long, please.” They laughed again (Well, the Ledesmas laughed again). My fiancée wrapped her fingers around mine and squeezed. My legs stopped shaking.
“I would like to say something,” my mom declared. When I heard that, my eyes almost popped out of their sockets. My mom turned to my fiancée. “We love you and we welcome you to our family,” she said with a grin. Then the waiters discreetly converged around our table. “Cheers to you, my dear!” We lifted up our glasses and toasted. She nodded her head and, on cue, the wait staff politely applauded.
I watched my fiancee’s dad that whole time. He kept an elbow on the table, his cheek resting on his fist.
“Dad, would you like to say something?” I asked.
“I’m only here as a witness, in case we need to go to court,” my dad jested. Gee, thanks a lot, Dad. You’d have his sense of humor, too, if your hair was harvested from your scalp before you hit 30.
“Manong,” my brother murmured, “I’ve got something nice to say about my future sister-in-law.” He ran his fingers through his dreadlocks. “When I got to know her better, I found it really funny because she reminded me of Mom in little ways.”
“Oh, no,” my dad, my sister and I collectively moaned.
“Wait, wait, wait,” my brother pleaded. “It’s nothing bad at all. I promise.”
And suddenly I heard a wine glass shatter. “What do you mean, she reminds you of me!?” My mom’s eyes grew large.
“Mom, wha-wha-what I mean is…”
“You mean she’s controlling?” My mom’s voice turned shrill.
“No, Mom, you don’t understand…”
“You mean she’s dominating!?” My mom bared her teeth.
“Mom, no I…”
“Ayaayayaayaayyaahh!!!!” my mom lunged across the table at my brother, dropped him to the floor and gave him a beating that should be aired on the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
My fiancee’s mom covered her mouth. “Oh no, should we pull them apart?”
“No, don’t worry, tita.” I guzzled the wine directly from the bottle. “My mom will get tired eventually.”
When my dad pulled them apart and declared my mom the winner, she took out her compact mirror, lightly powdered her face, and returned to her seat.
After the swelling from his lip subsided, my brother mumbled on. “I’m really happy that you found true love with my brother. We are very happy that you decided to get married or else we would probably have to get him neutered.” He wiped away some dried blood from his shirt. “Manong, I’ll miss sharing the same bed with you and yaya. But now, yaya is all mine. I wish you all the happiness as you take this giant step forward.” He smiled a toothless grin.
I looked at my brother and nodded my head.
My fiancée’s youngest brother leaned back on his seat and fondled the stem of his wine glass. “How do you make something negative sound positive?” he smirked. This was the brother who enjoyed giving me prostate exams. I buried my chin into my neck. “My brothers and I used to watch you on The Men’s Room. It was really funny watching you making a fool of yourself on national television, prancing around with women half your age and three times your breast size. But it was not funny watching you date my sister.” My chin retreated further into my neck until my mouth was no longer visible. “I couldn’t believe she was dating someone like that!!” He then whipped out his asthma inhaler and took one strong puff. “I can’t believe it! I’ve seen your chest hair on late-night TV and you want to marry my sister!?”
As her youngest brother checked his blood pressure, her other brother took over. “When I found out that you were dating my sister, I just thought you were a weird dork,” he wryly remarked. “But when my dad shared your background check with the rest of us, I found out that those women were paid to bare their flesh on your show. You weren’t. All that Men’s Room crap was just an image you created to compensate for being such a loser in high school.” He looked at my fiancée, who was shaking her head in disbelief. “Hey, you were just a funny guy who made my sister happy.” He shrugged his shoulders. “As long as my sister’s happy, then I’m happy, too. Anyway, I don’t think you’re a dork anymore. I just think you’re weird.”
Her oldest brother, who was big enough to compete in amateur sumo competitions, was seated beside me. He looked at me, licked his lips and made me feel like dessert. “I’m very protective of my sister. And I want to make sure that whoever she marries is both loyal and responsible.” He shared this while patting his hand on my back until there was some light bruising. “But in the past few months since we installed that chastity belt on you, I’ve seen how dedicated you both are to make your marriage work. So, you’ve gained my approval — you’ll get my full approval once you improve your credit rating.”
And, for a split second there, I thought that maybe we should have held the pamanhikan at Jollibee instead. I swirled my wine in my wine glass, closed my eyes, then turned in the general direction of my sister. “Rina, would you like to say anything?”
She tapped her foot rhythmically on the floor and I imagined her staring at me with her brow etched into a permanent frown. “Manong, do you really want me to say something?” she replied in her trademark monotone.
The electric fan whirled lazily.
Then, without warning, my fiancée’s mom broke into spontaneous chanting. “Ommmm, Ommmm…” she ommed. “Light and love, peace and joy to all beings. This daughter of mine has been the most obedient among all of my children. She would always give in to all of her father’s requests, even if those requests would hurt her. I remember when her dad used to take out his rifle to shoo away potential suitors. She would not stop him, but would only say, ‘Dad, please avoid hitting their vital organs.’” Her mom then reached into her handbag and pulled out a three-foot-long incense stick. “My daughter has always been a perfectionist in everything that she does. So I knew it would take her a while until she found the right man for her. But she happily gave up being a perfectionist so she could be with RJ. So to be chosen by my daughter is such a big unexplainable thing that only the universe can fully fathom it. All I wish and pray for is that the two of you are blissful for the rest of your lives. May the prana flow freely through your marriage.” Her mom lit the incense stick and the smell of rosewood wafted into the air. “Now, let me call Dada Yogi who has been hiding underneath the table to chant Bavalam Kevalam while I perform an interpretative dance to bless your betrothal.”
Several hundred Bavalam Kevalams later, my dad raised his hand to speak. He smiled to himself and wet his lips, then spoke. “You know, I’ve met all the women RJ has ever gone out with, aside from his yaya. And most of those women were merely figments of his imagination.” He leaned forward and placed his wine glass on the table. “But your daughter was very different from all them. First, she was real. And more importantly, she actually stayed with my son. I knew that if a woman could stay with my son without duress, without pity, and without medication, that she would be the one for him.” He cupped his hand over his chin. “I haven’t seen my son love any woman the way that he loves you. And you are very easy to love. We’re very happy and we welcome you to the family.” Then my dad lifted his chin from his had and looked over to her dad. “I just hope that both your parents will accept my son. Because we have a hard time accepting him as it is.” (Thank you so much, Dad. I don’t know whether to hug you or to hang you.)
All eyes on the dinner table slowly turned towards my fiancée’s dad. Her dad uncrossed his arms, placed both his hands on the table. Everyone stopped fidgeting in their seats. He lifted the wine glass to his mouth, took a sip, and, in his best Marlon Brando impression, rasped, “I really didn’t have a chance to think about it when you first asked my permission to marry my daughter. On the plane to the States, I was wondering the whole time if I should have said yes.” He looked straight at me and I tried to control my bladder from exploding. “But you have been nothing but a gentleman to my daughter. And you were brave enough to ask my permission before proposing to her. So when you spoke to me about…” Her dad’s voice started to crack. “When you spoke to me about…” He paused and took another sip of wine. “I think you are very good for each other and that you asked my daughter at the right time in her life. So, I told myself when I got back to Manila I would give you an answer.” He looked up at the ceiling and exhaled. “Which is: maybe yes.”
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear what you said.” My dad bellowed from across the table. “Could you please speak louder into my Magic Sing?”
My fiancée turned to her dad and folded her arms around him. “Thank you, Daddy. I love you.” She kissed him on the cheek and rested her head on his chest.
I got up from my seat to shake her dad’s hand. But as I approached him, he stood up and extended both his arms. “Welcome to the family.” He smiled and gave me a nice, firm hug. While we hugged, my future father-in-law bent down and whispered into my ear. “Remember, the prenuptial agreement has a two-year redemption period.” Then he hugged me tighter. “But I’m always willing to let it lapse.”
And the cool Tagaytay clime felt much cooler that night.
* * *
For comments, suggestions or donations to my bachelor’s party, please text PM POGI <message> to 2948 for Globe, Smart or Sun subscribers. Or you can e-mail ledesma.rj@gmail.com. Thanks to Tony Boy and Agnes Escalante of Antonio’s Tagaytay for the great debauchery that was my pamanhikan. The pole dancers were a nice touch. For reservations, please text 0917-8992866.