Free Philippine Speculative Fiction by Andrew Drilon

and padded to the gate, soapy hands and all. It turned out to be John Joe’s barkada, all decked out in polo shirts and
jeans and sneakers, as though they were visiting for a special occasion. The trio greeted John’s mother politely and asked her if they could come and see their friend—to this she gamely
bade them to come in and said they most definitely could see John Joe.
    Upon entering the house, they came face to face with John’s father.
    He squinted at them and asked: “Did you come here last Wednesday?”
    “No, ‘kol,” they answered—though one reply sounded cracked.
    John’s father caught it and bore down some more: “Are you sure?”
    “Yes, ‘kol,” they all replied—still, the choir was uneven.
    “Okay,” the father said, “sit down.”
    They sat—fidgeting—on the sofa. The patriarch watched his wife walking tentatively toward the kitchen to resume her dishwashing, and then he put out his cigarette on the ashtray
sitting on the coffee table: flicking his lighter on and off, he began to tell them about what had happened that Wednesday—the dirty and smelly John Joe at the gate, the people around him,
the punch heard around the block—and then he sat back, gauging their reactions: two of them listened attentively—the last one twiddled his thumbs.
    “I thought I told you to keep this a secret,” the father barked.
    “I’m very sorry, ‘kol,” he said—his face began to sweat.
    He slammed his lighter on the coffee table—he groaned: “Yawa.”
    The offender cleared his throat and explained the Lia business: she needed to see him, ‘kol, he said, it’s very unfair to her if,
kuan
, she didn’t know what happened
to her boyfriend—John Joe needed to see her, too.
    “
Ay, peste
—you and that girl gave us terrible
kunsumisyon
.”
    Bowing his head, the guilty party apologized and apologized.
    “
Dong
, you never trust girlfriends at a time like this,” the father said.
    And then he pulled out another cigarette and lit up again.
    I told you so,
amaw
, one of John’s mates whispered to his friend while they headed to the backyard—right at the door, he qualified the statement: I told you Lia was a bitch,
he said. The other two said nothing and continued to walk until they opened the door: they saw John Joe flat on his stomach, staring absently at the wall and yawning—they sighed and shook
their heads, until they noticed the chain running from his neck to the tree trunk. This made them jump: what the hell, one of them said.
    The creature’s mother—who was doing the laundry nearby—dashed toward them and explained the situation. John’s bud—the one admonished by the father
earlier—drooped his head and said that this was all his fault, that he never should have done what he had done: oh no, don’t worry, the woman said, there was nothing else we could have
done. John perked his ears up and followed a bird hopping around on the ground with his eyes. And when the bird flew away, he looked at the humans around him and examined them—he slumped back
down a minute later.
    “I understand,” the friend said to the dog-man’s mother.
    “Things will return to normal soon,” she said.
    This time the barkada answered: “We hope so, ‘
te
.”
    And then she excused herself to attend to her laundry.
    When she had left, they all bent down to pet John Joe and stroke his back, but he only looked at them and stayed silent. To get him to react more actively, they tried telling him a bunch of
funny stories—this guy puked his guts out last week when we drank, my father was caught in the CR with no tissue, my cousin slipped and fell from our mango tree—but no, John Joe
didn’t so much as snort. They gave up, and decided to sit there and watch him, chained like a real dog—until one of them asked the repentant friend what happened when he’d taken
Lia home that day.
    John Joe turned to look at him.
    He frowned and said nothing—he looked constipated, sitting