Inspired by a true character
By Bernie Lopez - eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com
Blumentritt is the lechon (roast pig) capital of Metro-Manila. The 50-odd stalls in an eight-block area sell an average of 300 to 400 lechons a day. That’s about half a million pesos gross a day, not bad for a strange place where affluence and poverty see each other eyeball-to-eyeball. One day, a spiritual event descends on Blumentritt.
Richard is a five-year-old Filipino. He has no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no family. He lives alone underneath a small bridge, except when there is a storm, when he would ask the priest in church to take him in. The priest gives him a plate of hot steaming rice for breakfast daily. At break of day, Richard roams the lechon stalls, clutching his plastic plate of steaming rice. By that time, the pigs which are being roasted since 3 to 4 a.m. are hot and ready for the first buyers. At Mang Kiko’s stall, five lechons are standing vertically on bamboo poles, leaning against the wall, deep red-brown, glistening like sports cars.
Richard places his plate of rice underneath the biggest and lets the oil from the lechon drip to his plate. Mang Kiko knows Richard and ignores him. After 15 minutes and 20 drips, he takes his plate, puts some patis (liquid fish salt) from the table, goes out, and starts to eat with bare hands on the sidewalk, standing. When he finishes, he goes to Mang Kiko, places his hand on his forehead, saying, “God bless you, Mang Kiko”. Mang Kiko would shoo him away. It is Richard’s way of thanking people.
At mid-day, he has a plan on how to get lunch. He spots a new egg vendor. So he pretends to limp exaggeratedly towards the woman vendor and just stands there in front of her, hoping to get some sympathy. The woman vendor stares at him. He does not even put his palm out. He just stands there and smiles, irresistible to any decent soul, and he knows it. Finally, the woman gives her two salted eggs. He jumps with joy and hugs her, who quickly pries herself loose from his dirty grasp.
Richard – My name’s Richard. What’s yours?
Aling Fely – Fely. Okay, just go.
Richard – God bless you, Aling Fely.
Aling Fely – I know you’re not lame. Stop pretending.
Richard – I know you know. I was trying to be funny.
Aling Fely – Get out of here.
He puts a hand on her forehead, giving her a God-bless-you, and she yanks it away. Next, he goes over to a sidewalk mini-eatery. A mother and son are just standing up after eating. Richard quickly grabs the left over rice from their two plates and puts it in a plastic bag from his pocket. Nobody notices. He goes over to the eatery owner and gives her a God-bless-you before she shoos him away. Outside a dirty barbershop, he sits on a bench. He peels the two salted eggs, puts them in the plastic bag together with the rice, and pounds the bag against the wall – a feast with bare unwashed hands.
After resting a bit, he goes over to the coconut juice vendor, and drinks left over juice from two plastic cups before they are thrown into the garbage. He puts the empty cups on like slippers, and hangs on the rear railing of a passenger jeepney, and as it moves away, he slides on the pavement, using the cups as his ‘skis’ - ingenious but noisy. He ignores people shouting at him to get off. The burly coconut juice vendor picks him up with one hand. Before he leaves, he gives the coconut vendor his God-bless-you.
In the evening, Richard stalks another lechon stall, the biggest in the area, which displays as many as a dozen lechons at any given time. Hiding within the forest of lechons, he takes a pair of mini-scissors from his pocket and cuts off two 6-inch pig tails of lechon. Aling Donna, the owner, sees him at the corner of her eye but pretends she does not. Richard goes over to her and gives her a God-bless-you hug, for which he is rewarded a plate of rice. That is one sumptuous dinner, two 6-inch pig tails on rice.
The next day, after his breakfast of lechon fat on rice, Mang Kiko confronts him.
Mang Kiko – Hey Richard. Do you know I sold ten lechons yesterday? That’s a record. As soon as you left, a lady bought all five lechons. So, I ordered five more which were all sold before noon.
Richard – That’s because I told God to bless you. You give to me, He gives to you. Haha.
Mang Kiko – I give you twenty drips of lechon fat and He gives me P12,000 income in one day? That’s a bit lopsided.
Richard – You don’t know Him. He didn’t take up Accounting. He’s poor in Math. As long as you give, He gives back. You better believe it, (proudly) God gave to you because I asked him.
Mang Kiko – Maybe so. (Richard begins to leave.) Hey, hey, bless me first.
Richard puts a hand on Mang Kiko’s forehead and blesses him. Onlookers begin to laugh.
Next day, Mang Kiko sells 14 lechons. Richard’s image spread like wildfire. He is giving God-bless-yous to vendors left and right. The mini-eatery quadruples its income. The juice vendor consumes a record 44 coconuts instead of the usual 15. Aling Fely quintuples her egg sales and is now diversifying into balut (fertilized duck’s egg). Aling Donna, the lechon tycoon, sells a staggering 46 in one day. Mysteriously, buyers are coming from nowhere. Richard is getting fat, eating all the lechon he can, no longer drips or tails, but the real mccoy.
And so Richard becomes the legendary God-bless-you kid of Blumentritt. And so, Blumentritt flourishes to this day, sanctified and blest by God through His messenger, Richard, the lechon kid. Bernie Lopez eastwindreplyctr@gmail.com
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