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and she’d tell me: “You are a beautiful man.” I of course believed her. I was afraid not to.
    Every night, under the covers, her foot would be pressed against mine. We always wanted to spoon but, because of my troublesome cervical curve and my orthopedic pillow, I had to lie on my back if I didn’t want neck pain the next day. We touched feet through thenight, a gesture of reassurance that we’d stand together through the darkest.
    “I love you,” I’d say.
    “I love you, too.”
    “Do you love me more than I love you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Good,” I’d say, sliding into the edge of sleep. “See you in a minute.”
    “G’night,” she’d say. “In our dreams then.”
    I never told her that I don’t have dreams or can’t remember whether I do.
    *
    From Marcel Avellaneda’s blog, “The Burley Raconteur,” February 14, 2002:
    Happy Valentine’s all! But let’s get to the point: The nerve of that Salvador, no?! The biggest sin a Pinoy can commit is arrogance. Yes, dear readers, you may have already heard the latest literary scuttlebutt about our former comrade and compatriot Crispin’s most recent visit to our shores. Last Friday’s awards ceremony at the Cultural Center of the Philippines was marred when his acceptance speech turned into a tirade against our literature and a threat to publish something that would “lop your heads off.” How we’d hoped he’d mellowed. How I’d hoped my old friend would return humbled by failures. Autoplagiarist? (He should have ripped off from someone else.) There is a time and place for everything, my dear old Crisp. Haven’t you learned that by now
?
For those interested, literary blogger Plaridel3000 has posted a clip of Salvador’s speech on his weblog here .
     
    Some posts from the message boards below:
    —Wat a twatface that Salvador is! Lets c wat his so-called
The Bridges Ablaze
has 2 say. I herd it hits at the Lupases, Changcos, Arroyos, Syjucos, Estregans, among others. ([email protected])
    —It’s sooo sad a man like Salvador has lost himself to hubris. Shouldn’t literature do more than just criticize? Goes to show he doesn’t have the answers. ([email protected])
    —LOL! More power to you, Marcel! Lop the head off that commie. IMHO, he’s in with the Muslims for sure. ([email protected])
    —Hey, kts@ateneo, I think you are correct. But in fairness, do any of us have answers? ([email protected])
    —Love dat clip of his speech. Hilarious. Check out the yellow armpit stains in his barong! ([email protected])
    —How do you get rid of pit stains like that anyway? My bf has stains like that. ([email protected])
    —Dilute a T-spoon vinegar in cup of water, den apply carefuly w/ basting brush. Should work gr8. Ur wlcm! ([email protected])
    —Halabira, I hab d answr to r cuntry’s probs: just kill d rich & reboot d systm. ([email protected])
    —Gundamlover, that’s been tried before. See: en.wikipedia.org/Khmer_Rouge . ([email protected])
    *
    Out of the corner of my eye, I look at my seatmate again. His head is nodding, slumping away from me. My little bottle of alcogel peeks from his breast pocket. My hand hovers to fish it out. I decide against it. Instead, I try to sleep. I try not to think of Madison.
    In the month before Crispin died, it got to a point that being with Madison was like walking naked around a cactus with your eyes closed. She even began questioning my long hours spent at Crispin’s apartment. She liked to alternate her homoerotic suspicions with accusations of literary mercenariness. “Why don’t you like hanging out with people your age, Miguel?” she asked, in the implying, opinionated manner of beautiful women not blessed with big breasts. When I recounted to her my interest in his work, and, later, after he died, my eventual dream of writing his biography, she accused me of sounding like a young naive version of Bellow’s Charlie Citrine. That was one of the lovers’