Shortly after Lilith: Queen of the Demons was published Jay and I became friends with a young woman named Lillian. She had straight black hair down to her waist, an hourglass figure, and a pretty smile. She used to visit weekly, always dressed impeccably from head to toe. She and Jay spent a lot of time together, cooking and baking all kinds of goodies. They were friends and sometimes they were lovers.
When Lillian was a baby in Vietnam, she suffered a fire injury that required her to undergo surgery. The operation left her without a belly button for the rest of her life. Just like Lilith, who was not born of a human mother, fashioned out of clay by God.
It was uncanny and I thought it auspicious to have her in our lives. There was a point when she began looking for a house to buy in which we could all live together, but it all changed when she met someone else. They got married in a whirl. We never saw her again.
I will always consider her arrival as an otherworldly presence. The divine moves in mysterious ways. I cannot begin to fathom it. I can only be thankful when it happens.
Another strange visitation occurred when I was recording the audiobook for Lilith: Generations of Cain. I didn’t notice it while I recorded, but during playback the angel and demon names were obscured by static.
The first time it happened I got a shiver down my spine. I took a pause, then went back in front of the microphone like a soldier. Every time it happened I got more stubborn and determined to get through the text. Lilith: Generations of Cain is all about the power of names. It seemed to me that a presence, divine or not, was making me work hard to pronounce these holy and unholy names.
This past summer as I worked on Lilith: Beyond the Deluge, I was on a business call with someone who went off tangent about strange situations he had found himself in, seeing supernatural creatures among people in New York City, hearing people’s thoughts from across the room. He said he felt like he could tell me these things he never told anyone. I listened to him for an hour before I wrapped up the conversation and brought it back to business. I asked for his name.
“Michael.”
“You have an ‘el’ name,” I mused. Many of the angels (and some demons) have names that end with ‘el.’ Azazel, Samael, Rafael, Gabriel, Baraqiel, Daniel, Michael…
“Ah, so you know…” He sounded pleased. “It comes from God’s name ‘El Shaddai’ and ‘Elohim.’”
I thanked him again and said goodbye.
Before he hung up he said, “You will hear from me again.”
I thought nothing of it. Even when I pulled out of the garage and saw a crow sitting in a tree across from me I didn’t think to tie anything together.
I should mention that it was a special day, my Dad’s birthday and my (great grand aunt) Lola Ilyang’s death day. I facetimed with my Dad that evening, but the only way I connected with Lola Ilyang was from mysterious events that happened all day: a swarm of bees robbing my hive, the phone call from an angel, the crow in the tree. Everything brought me memories of her.
Laurelia (Lola Ilyang) was a spinster who lived with her little dachshund, Cupsi, in a hut in the middle of a tobacco field in Pangasinan. She was the first witchy woman in my life. She had long salt and pepper hair. She told stories of the kapre smoking her tobacco. She entertained our maids by reading common playing cards for divination.
Ten days after the odd phone call, my mother tagged me in a Facebook post. My college friend died. Deogracias Cruz. Is there a name more God-like than his? The Facebook post contained a video of Deo singing the Prayer to St. Michael.
“Saint Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil; May God rebuke him, we humbly pray; And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen.”
The man on the phone said I would hear from him again. I did not know it would be this way.
That afternoon Jay invited me out to the temple he had built in our backyard, overgrown with yarrow and lupines in the spring; tansy, mint, and goldenrod in the late summer. Jay spent the summer clearing around an arrangement of rocks and made paths to it. He decorated the place with Hindu gods and goddesses, Balinese wooden animals, and a statue of Quan Yin. There is a bed of marbles of various sizes, a solar system at the foot of a wooden frog. A Nag Champa cone burned and dripped smoke down a path in the rocks. As soon as the incense burned out, it started to rain. Thunder. We went inside.
I made chicken soup from scratch. It’s a long process that begins with boiling a chicken carcass into broth. My daughter named it “Mama’s famous chicken soup” way back when a butcher in California used to gift me with chicken carcasses whenever I came around his shop. I set aside a wishbone for my collection. I keep several wishbones in a little teapot. I realize it’s kind of witchy but it makes me feel lucky.
I went to an all-girls nun-run Catholic high school in the Philippines, very strict and narrow-minded. I was a good student but something as trivial as my asymmetric hairstyle got their nunnery panties in a bunch. What made high school life worth living was Gina. She and I connected on an artistic and literary level. She was a huge The Cure fan, so I drew her a portrait of Robert Smith. She wrote me a fantasy article for Town & Country magazine, in which I am a fabulous art curator and married to Johnny Depp. We talked endlessly about ideas for stories we wanted to write someday and we talked about sex. Sure, we had no experience whatsoever, but we were teenagers. Sex was an obsession.
In college she went to UP and I went to Ateneo. She partied hard with her sorority sisters. I got sucked into music and theatre. She invited me to an Upsilon event once. I felt out of place. Our paths divided for the time being.
She tracked me down in the mid-90s when I was in New York. I was performing Off and Off-Off-Broadway. She was a young single mom, making it as a writer and editor in Manila. She found out I made my own body products so she asked me to write an article for her fledgling magazine, Earthian. It was granola and green long before it was a thing. I accepted. It was my first published piece.
In the mid-2000s she discovered an obscure anonymous blog I was writing about my pregnancy and home birth. She asked if she could publish it on Working Mom magazine. How could I say no to celebrating my infant’s birth on the pages of a glossy magazine? Gina made me feel like a celebrity.
When she found out about my porn, she stayed on my side all the way. She defended me against attacks behind my back from people we went to high school with and if you knew her, you’d know she unleashed a fury on anyone who crossed her or her loved ones. I flew to San Diego to catch up with her when she visited in 2010. We were regulars at her pub, Fred’s Revolucion in Cubao X in 2012. A few years later, she and her family were guests in our old farmhouse in Maine. We shared stories, beer, and laughter indoors while our kids ages 11 and 12 built a bonfire in the backyard because that’s the kind of parents we were and that’s the kind of kickass kids we raised.
She roped me in to write for Agam, the book of photos by her husband, photojournalist Jose Enrique Soriano. As executive editor, she included me among 24 contributing writers – accomplished poets, journalists, anthropologists, scientists, and artists from the Philippines. I felt like the black sheep among those luminaries, but Gina was my champion. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. She autographed my copy of the book: Will always be your friend, fan, and supporter – living vicariously through your groundbreaking work. Love you.
Tuesday night I got a message from her husband. Gina was in a coma in St. Luke’s ER. No one saw it coming. He asked for prayers. When an atheist asks an agnostic to pray for a Catholic, you know it’s serious. I prayed. I used all my mental energy to summon her back. “Come back, Gina,” I commented on a recent Facebook post in which she had tagged me. Come back, Gina, I thought constantly day and night. Come back to us. Thursday around 5 in the morning I woke up with a cramp in my chest. It pinched everytime I breathed. My heart literally hurt. I messaged her husband, “Tell me something, anything.”
She’s gone.
“She loved you and we were looking forward to visiting again.”
I had a difficult loud ugly cry by myself until Jay came out of his studio and held me and we cried together. I am so glad he got to know her. I’m glad I have somebody to grieve with and celebrate her life with.
Gina recently posted a fabulous profile picture across all her social media channels and even more fabulous photos of her and her kids at a kiki ball. Just last weekend her kids thanked her for giving them “a rich uncommon childhood.” She said she won the “lotto of life.” Her latest piece, my favorite yet, the crass and soulful Patricio, was published online on Esquire posthumously. I joked to Jay that it was a memorial-worthy social media presence, one to aspire to. He asked me not to die until my profile pictures got really old and ugly.
I got out a bottle of beer from the fridge, spilled some in her honor, and drank to my friend. Gina had a sharp wit and a fiery nature. She was a fierce mother and a fierce friend. She burned brilliantly, my friend for life. Gina burned fast, but she burned exceptionally bright.
This photo was taken at Ground Zero of what remains of the World Trade Center. On September 14, three days after the planes crashed and burned the Twin Towers, it rained. By nightfall the rain ceased and dust settled in the city. It was time to go to the funeral.
I headed for East Village. St. Mark’s Place was bustling. People were in shock but in good spirits, a camaraderie that graciously emerges when tough times unite a group of people. I had Japanese noodles at a hole in a wall so crowded it felt like the end of the world. We all slurped our noodle soups like it was. After that I knew I was ready for my pilgrimage downtown.
I walked around the barricades to make my way closer to the ruins. Even in shattered pieces, the World Trade Center was impossibly huge. First responders worked round the clock. I took a good look and got out of their way. I bought an American flag off a vendor and tucked it into my bag as I walked away. The subway smelled of Lysol and burnt flesh. Firefighters off their shift slumped in their seats on the train. They stared dead ahead of them in between nods at people who thanked them for their service.
I had a ticket for Rocky Horror Picture Show on Broadway in my pocket, purchased weeks prior. The show was going on that night and I wasn’t about to miss it. Dick Cavett was the Narrator. He talked about life and death and life going on. Each one of us with beating hearts do our part to keep life going.
Back then, New Yorkers were in it together, regardless of race, religion, or political affiliation. How did that same event that united a city become the catalyst to a war with no end in sight?
