CHAPTER 1

The Saddest Instrument

I s the saxophone. Nobody understood this better than Milo David, a

man constantly gripped by sadness and all its sundry frequencies. Times
are when nothing stands between a man and his misery except a faint,
unintelligible sound which he read somewhere was called a “skronk”—a
harsh, brassy squeak that evoked metal, wooden reed, and air being pushed
to their physical extremes. Milo felt that it was the sound that embodied his
soul, a sound that captured all the grotesque beauty of the world around
him: the roar of traffic, the clashing voices from the wet market nearby, the
din of the neighbors’ TV and radio in full blast. The saddest. And therefore,
the most savage. Because nothing is more terrifying than solitude pushed
to the brink. And nothing is more terrifying than genius that has gazed into
the edge of madness. If his sanity were a big hunk of concrete, the slaves
pushing it came in the form of milky crystal bits. He had gazed deep into
the saxophone and found an immensely dark soundscape.
That morning, like almost all mornings of the past five years, Milo David
contemplated suicide, helped in no small part by cigarettes and a savage
hangover. But how? Frightening amounts of cheap liquor, nicotine, downers,
and amphetamines are sure indications of a man who has no intentions of
staying long on earth. But each time he glanced at the aging saxophone
resting on a corner of his room, he would always decide, “Not today.” To
see the world through the bottom of a gin glass. To see the world through the
opacity of an aluminum foil wrapper. To perceive patterns in the swirl of this
morning’s vomit. To fall under the hypnosis of tranquilizers. That seemed
to be his overriding philosophy. A destructive one, yes, but he believed

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 Lourd Ernest H. De Veyra

the music would finally redeem him. It would save him from the neighbors’
maddening noise. Oh, how so much he wanted to just ram down their doors
one hot day, yank their TV off their tacky plastic cabinet while hopefully,
they were tuned into Wowowee and hurl it outside their window. He imagined
that sound of plastic and glass shattering on the busy street below. It would
be one of the most beautiful sounds he’ll ever hear in his life.
His head felt as if being jackhammered from both sides. He couldn’t
even remember what happened at the gig last night. Maybe he was brilliant,
or maybe he simply jerked off all over the club, that is, if he could even
remember where. Moments like these, he would be seized by paranoia. Was
I a drunken jerk to everyone? Did I hit the notes right? Was my zipper open
as wide as the barangay hall again? A flange of guilt always seized his
mornings, helped in no small part by the tragic absence of coffee in his sorry
excuse for a kitchen. He wasn’t as poor as to not be able to afford coffee, but
Milo was the kind of guy who’d constantly walk into a convenience store and
completely forget what he was supposed to buy—except cigarettes, two to
three packs to be exact. Coffee, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste, canned food.
For some reason, he would be briefly convinced that these weren’t exactly
essentials, or that he could pick them up again at Aling Rose’s sari-sari store
for much less. The problem is that he would come home extremely late when
all the stores were closed, and only scandalously barking dogs heralded his
lurching arrival. It became a cycle. When overcome with an artificial sense
of order and purpose for the day, he’d make a mental grocery list of things
to purchase from the remainder of last night’s budget, half of which always
went to beer and cigarettes—the two things essential to his existence. This
usually happened when he stared at the cracked and filthy bathroom mirror
illuminated from above by a sad incandescent bulb. Milo felt a slight sense of
alarm at the sight of sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones, the bloodshot
eyes, and teeth bearing an onset of decay. He recoiled at the smell of his own
breath, which he simply thought could be masked by smoking more cigarettes.
Better to reek of smoke than stale saliva and festering fish, he believed.
Nothing like nicotine to mask the bad stuff. What he might not realize was
that the atrocious odor came from within his body, from a stomach stewing
into disgusting mulch in its own gastric juices—the kind of smell brought
only about by perennial starvation and not talking for extended periods of

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time. Each time he put the saxophone reed into his mouth, he would flinch
at the smell of his own spit. Not exactly an enjoyable procedure considering
how important it was to thoroughly wet the reed, like a cigar, or even candy
to produce the necessary sound. His solution: more cigarettes.
Milo took off his shirt and gazed at the skeleton in the mirror, its
semblance of skin already assuming a sickening pallor, compounded by
the crudely executed tattoos on his chest: a dragon bending awkwardly over
bony contours. On his right bicep crawled a pattern that resembled a barbed
wire juxtaposed with the letters of the alibata. On the left, an Aztec sun,
his rationale for which remained largely vague except that it looked cool
and sinister. He stared at the mirror for minutes, flexing a shoulder every
now and then for effect, and, in a weird stroke of vanity, turning his head
sideways to study his profile. But it was the ribs that struck him as alarming.
He affirmed: today, I’ll be stuffing myself silly with the good stuff from
Mameng’s carinderia—adobo, inihaw na liempo, sinigang, balumbalunan,
all the rich dishes he hasn’t tasted in ages. Not for lack of money, but from
lack of appetite, oftentimes chemically induced. From his torso, he returned
his gaze to his face. After a few seconds, he absentmindedly attempted a
smile that appeared more like a grin. That it was toothless struck him as both
funny and sinister. His first instinct was to reach for his tragically bristled
toothbrush, only to realize, grasping the wrinkled tube, that he was all out
of toothpaste. He wanted to moisten his lips, but when he opened the faucet
all that came out was a loud, hollow metallic gurgle.
�
Then there was Cora, his former wife of two and a half years. Thinking
back, that marriage had been a bad idea. Apart from the fact that they were
both unprepared, much of their relationship was marked by sparks of petty
squabbling. Fresh out of college, they were living together and jobless, except
for Milo’s occasional showband rackets. Cora drank, and Milo was heavy
into meth. Perhaps they were both under the throes of insobriety when they
decided to get married at the Quezon City Hall, and strolled to Kowloon
House for a modest little dinner that included neither side of their parents
and family members. Only friends, most of them Milo’s, whose wedding gifts
came in the form of little plastic packets in crystal bits.

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 Lourd Ernest H. De Veyra

They said that a baby was always a sign that the world must go on.
This one was the complete opposite, although the birth of Milo’s son Jaco,
named after the famous bass player from Weather Report, was a genuinely
happy moment. So happy that a few months after, Milo actually stopped
smoking meth and, surprise of surprises, stopped drinking and smoking.
For a surprisingly lengthy period of time, it was a relatively harmonious
existence, but the fights still broke out occasionally especially when money
was involved. And money has always been a particularly thorny issue for
Milo—who regarded it as an icepick pressed into his pride whenever she
brought the subject up.
Months after, a heated argument ensued when Cora found out that “Jaco
Pastorious” was a legendary but notoriously neurotic jazzman—but that
morning, some prior screaming happened over milk for the baby. Of course,
the unspoken was inevitable: they had no money. Do you want your son to
grow up a nutcase—like you? And besides, you play the saxophone. Why name
your son after a bassist? Are you on dope again? Or is your brain just fried?
Milo, who had been trying his best to stay sober for weeks, finally
snapped. How dare she talk about the Great Pastorius like that! I mean,
come on, Milo reasoned to himself, this was a guy who totally gave his life
to music—a true genius who revolutionized the electric bass, and it didn’t
matter what instrument was at issue here, although it could be said that Cora’s
shrill brand of sarcasm might or might not have broken the straw. The next
thing Milo saw was his right hand whirling like a ping-pong topspin—half-
knuckle half-palm—that landed on her cheeks. Maybe it was the devil,
yes, the devil made him do it, flamed no doubt by those weeks of tortuous
abstinence. She packed her bags, left with the baby and to stay with her
parents in Kamuning—a neighborhood, a house that occupied a special
place in his heart if only for that fact that it was within crawling distance
from Pepe Smith’s. Hours after she left, Milo still felt strangely calm and
centered, without the slightest note of remorse, although his hands were
tremulous as he tried to light one nervous cigarette after another. He had
decided to further wear out his cassette copy of the Juan dela Cruz Band’s
Super Sessions where Pepe Smith barks about not bringing an umbrella as
rain started to pour but he’s packed enough medications to fortify himself

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against sickness. With P300 in his pocket, he hopped on a jeepney and went
over to Dax’s house while contemplating this nugget of lyrical brilliance.
A few months after, Cora would not answer his calls, the majority of
which were made under psychologically unpleasant circumstances.

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 About the Author

L ourd Ernest H. De Veyra has published three books of poetry. He is

the lead vocalist of the spoken-word jazz-rock band Radioactive Sago
Project.
This is his first novel.