Catering with Benefits (1) - 7. Romel

Romel said goodbye, as Edward left for work, then cleaned up the breakfast dishes and took a shower. He was excited about picking up his new car today, the first car that would be truly his. While in the shower his thoughts went back to the day when his father took him to a used car lot in Manila to buy the family’s first car. Romel was only eight years old at the time, but was just as excited as his father. While his father walked around the car yard, closely shadowed by the salesman, Romel went off browsing on his own. While the salesman was busy attending to Romel’s father he was unaware of young Romel getting into other cars and pretending to drive them. That is until Romel accidently leaned on the horn of one of the cars. He ducked down below window level just as the salesman looked around the yard. Moments later the salesman returned his attention to his prospective client, assuming the sound of the horn must have come from the street. Manila’s drivers constantly use their car horns to signal all sorts of things. Sounding a car horn in Manila can mean ‘keep back I’m coming through’ or ‘I’m changing lanes’ or ‘Don’t step onto the pedestrian crossing, I’ve no intention of stopping for you’ or ‘I’m just venting my frustration at the heavy traffic’. When he felt it was safe, Romel emerged from the car he was ‘test driving’ and continued to wander around the yard, admiring the smooth lines of the newer cars and imagining how others sustained the dents and scratches.

Romel was born into a middle class family, the first son of a nurse and a clerk working for the electricity supplier Meralco. His mother returned to nursing shortly after Romel’s birth. He was taken care of by his grandmother who lived with his parents since she was widowed when his grandfather was killed in an industrial accident in 1981. His grandfather was a construction worker on the Manila Film Centre being built near Manila Bay at the direction of Imelda Marcos. The project was a rush job, being built on reclaimed land so many safety procedures were ignored in the interest of getting the construction finished in time for the First Lady’s film festival. At around 3.00am on November 17, 1981, the 3rd shift of the day was pouring concrete when the scaffolding collapsed. Romel’s grandfather was among the 169 workers who fell and were buried under quick-drying wet cement. A blanket of security was immediately imposed by the Marcos regime, and neither rescuers nor ambulances were permitted on the site until an official statement had been prepared by the Marcos regime. The rescuers were not permitted to go inside the accident site until 9 hours after the collapse. Naturally, Romel’s family and especially his grandmother were devastated by the death. But their pain was further compounded when they found out the bodies would not be recovered from the site. Construction continued unabated by the accident and many families never had the opportunity to bury their loved ones in a resting place of their choice.

His grandmother initially went to stay with the family for support on the day of her husband’s death. As the weeks and months went on, her grieving continued and she showed no signs of recovering from the devastating and sudden loss of her husband. She often said she had no reason to continue living and went into a deep depression. She refused medical help, but instead spent most of her days praying for the opportunity to join her late husband. Romel’s mother fell pregnant shortly after the loss of her father and her mother stayed on to assist her as well as deal with her grief. When Romel was born, his grandmother found a reason to live and finally started to emerge from the darkness of her grief induced depression. She put all her energy into taking care of her first grandson. So much so that Romel’s mother became jealous and felt that her motherly duties had been taken over by her mother. However, she was pleased to see her mother’s improvement and did not stop her or suggest she was interfering. The advantage of course was that she was able to return to work shortly after the birth, safe in the knowledge that her new born would be well cared for in her absence.

Romel snapped out of his daydream when he noticed the shower running cold. He had been there so long he had used up the hot water and his skin was beginning to wrinkle. He quickly dried, dressed and headed off to the car dealer to take possession of his new man toy.

The dealership was only a bus ride away from home. As Romel wandered through the display cars on his way to reception his mind again went to the family car. It also was a Toyota, an old Corolla he thought. It was manual, a ghastly yellow colour and had a radio that only worked for about a month. He remembered his father regularly complaining about the gearbox and the amount of oil it burned. But, it was the family’s first car and loved despite its shortcomings. In those days his father could not have dreamed how much cars would change in just 30 years. Romel’s new purchase was not top of the range but still had automatic transmission, fuel injection, computer controlled engine management, satellite navigation, Bluetooth, cruise control and electric seats among its many standard features.

He was met at reception by a middle-aged man named Oliver, who introduced himself as the delivery facilitator and asked if his wife would be joining them today. Romel advised that he did not have a wife. They went through the formal paperwork and then the handover of keys and registration certificate. Oliver accompanied Romel to the vehicle and ran through the car’s various features for Romel. As they were shaking hands to say goodbye, Oliver asked “Can I take you to lunch Romel?”

“That’s generous of you, but I don’t have a lot of free time today.”

“Well maybe another time, I have your number I’ll give you a call.”

Romel did not immediately understand why a car salesman would want to take him to lunch. He knew car salesmen sometimes gave customers a small gift, like a bottle of wine or hamper, to celebrate the sale, but lunch was a new idea to Romel, and he gave it no further thought. He was more interested in trying the features of his new possession. He set the navigation system to his home address to test it, but could not test the cruise control on such a short drive. He nearly run into the back of a car that abruptly stopped in front of him, while he was adjusting the electric seat, so he decided to leave the testing of other features until he got home.

***

The following Saturday evening was the date for the group dinner party at Craig’s to meet the new boyfriend. On that afternoon, while Edward was listening to 2GAY fm classical music program and napping at the same time, Romel decided he would give the new car its first wash, whether it needed it or not. Part way through the wash his phone rang. The number was shown but it did not match any number in Romel’s directory. “Hello, this is Romel.”

“Hi Romel, this is Oliver.”

“Oliver?” asked Romel

“Oliver from the Toyota dealership.”

“Oh, sorry Oliver, I should have recognised your name.”

“That’s OK Romel.”

“Are you ringing to see if I’m happy with the car?”

“Well, yes...” Oliver said hesitantly.

“It’s great, I have no problems and I love it.”

“That’s great, good to have happy customers.”

“Yes, I am a happy customer, thank you for asking.”

“Now that’s sorted, I’d like to ask you if you would like to meet me for a drink, later when I close up the showroom this afternoon.”

“I’m sorry, but tonight I’m going to a dinner party with some friends.”

“Oh that sounds good, would there be room for one more, Romel?”

“Actually it’s not my dinner party, so I can’t invite an extra guest without the host’s permission.”

“Would you ask, I can call you back, if you want to call the host?”

“No I don’t think that’s a good idea Oliver. It would be very late notice for my friends.”

“So when do you think you would be available for a drink or more?”

“Oliver, I appreciate the offer and all the help you have given me with the purchase of the car but I’m not really available at present.”

“That’s OK I can wait till you are ready.”

“I’ll see how things go.”

“Ok, I’ll give you a call next week; enjoy your dinner party tonight. Talk to you soon.”

“Bye Oliver.”

Edward had noticed, through the window, that Romel was on his phone. When he hung up he went out to see who he was talking to, but did not want to ask directly.

“Was that Craig, about tonight, does he want us to bring anything?”

“No, it was the car dealer; he wanted to know if I was happy with the car.”

“That’s good after sales service.”

“Yes, he wants to ensure I’m a happy customer.”

“I hope that’s all he wants.”

Romel let the conversation drop at that point by asking Edward “Can you turn on the hose for me and I will give the car a final rinse before I chauffeur you to your dinner party sir.”

***

Justin was looking forward to meeting Craig’s friends but was also a bit apprehensive about whether he would fit in with the group. He was not normally nervous about meeting new people but these were the closest friends of the man he cared most for and so it was important to him that he made a good impression and not to in any way embarrass Craig. The menu for the night was especially planned with dishes that could be mostly prepared in advance so that Justin would not be left alone too much with the others. As they were all such close friends the risk was that Justin could be left out of the conversation if Craig was not there to draw him in. But they were all a friendly and easy going bunch and were pleased to hear Craig had a new boyfriend. It had been many months since he had a steady, so they thought this one must be special. Via text messages on the few days before the dinner, they had discussed Craig’s lack of boyfriends recently and a few short term relationships. They agreed that after they vetted this one if they liked him they would do their best to help him fit into the group.