Maid of Cotton (Creative Non-Fiction)

Alez Maskara (penname)

(written circa 1996)

It was neither Estas, nor Dimas, nor Jesus nailed on the cross that
captured my imagination, these statuettes surrounding a coffin were
normal in a Philippine wake. ‘Twas neither the flowers, nor the cigars
hanging from the lips of men, nor men playing poker, nor boys
serenading girls, nor old women gossiping, nor farmers drinking coffee
and Ginebra put me under spell, for these, again, were normal in a
Philippine wake. It was not the rented lights against the black mantle
hanging in front of the house that took my delight, I may sound
redundant now, but this was normal in a Philippine wake. Neither did
the black dress nor the black veil covering the salt and pepper hair of
Aling Rosita stole my breath away, everybody wore the same, in a
Philippine wake. The wake for Isidro, the most honest and reliable gay
in the barrio was not one that I’d describe ordinary. The statuettes
around his corpse were fashioned out of pure gold. The flowers
displayed around his lifeless body mimicked a garden in Italy. Aling
Rosita appeared and talked in a way that could teach Imelda Marcos a
lesson or two. Tandang Sepa, the septuagenarian gossiper, after
extolling the virtues of Isidro took a sip of Ginebra gin, spat it out of
the window and exclaimed, “I wish I’d die today so I could join the
splendor of Isidro’s wake.” Then, her eyes traveled to the bowl of
rolled peso bills, contributed by gays for Isidro’s burial.

His gay friends were the ones who demanded that statuettes were not
enough, they should be the finest in the archipelago. Flowers were not
enough, these must be arranged by the best floral decorator of
Guagua. Who happened to be gay. That the black candles be designed
with red and silver dragons coiled around them, hand sculpted in the
famous Chinatown of Manila. Aling Rosita, Isidro’s sister, must not
wear any black dress, it must bear the name of Cordero. The mantle
should be a quilt detailing the life of Isidro, with roses and sunflower
buntings. It should be made out of cotton for Isidro was the ultimate
Maid of Cotton.
The wake was to last three days, his gay friends, scattered all over,
demanded that his burial waited for their returns. And when the casket
maker brought in its glass lid, one of the local gays broke it, saying he
would never let Isidro be displayed like a Barbie doll for sale. Indeed
Isidro never looked so beautiful in his entire life, thanks to the
expertise of the nationally famous make-up artist in the local
mortuary. Who happened to be gay. The old women shook their heads,
saying, “He looks as beautiful as his mother.” Which saddened many a
hustler saying, “If he were this beautiful then, he could have been my
boyfriend …for half my regular price!” The two days passed and his
friends arrived with their local, French, British, Japanese, Australian
and American lovers. On the day of his burial, you’d think an
international gathering was sending Isidro to his grave. On the first
two days, Aling Rosita did not leave the side of Isidro’s corpse. She
wept unstoppably. On the second day, all her children, ten of them, her
grandchildren, thirty nine of them, her great grandchildren, two of
them all came. Her eldest, Satur, wailed the loudest, he was after all,
the most cruel to Isidro.

On the third day, Aling Rosita, as was customary in a Philippine wake,

pulled up the transparent veil over her face and began to speak. This
was the eulogy that began all the other eulogies, people hailed these
speeches as the best ever spoken in the entire history of the barrio.
The drama surrounding the death of Isidro, they said, was worthy of
Famas nomination.

Aling Rosita’s Eulogy

“Isidro… Isidro,” she whispered, “Flesh of my flesh… blood of my

blood.” She stared at nothing in particular through the window… and I
thought rice stalks stood still. Water buffalos stopped wagging their
tails. Cats and dogs rested on their hinds. Why, even the insects and
birds withheld their daily business among the river lilies. Even the
runny noses of children seemed to have run dry. Aling Rosita
continued:

“In 1944, Isidro and I became survivors in a war that killed both our
parents. Our town was devastated and we had no place to keep.
Deprived, we roamed among our relatives all the way from San Simon
to Sesmoan, I made sure Isidro tagged along. When I reached sixteen,
Constancio Poblete proposed marriage to me. I accepted only with one
condition – that Isidro, my little brother, live with us. Constancio hated
Isidro for being a bakla, a malas to any livelihood. I demanded that
Isidro stay with us without ifs and buts. Constancio relented.

“The three of us pioneered this barrio… I remember those days… we

carried rocks on wheelbarrows and stripped bamboos to build our
home. With our small beginning, the barrio grew as the rest of you
followed and built homes as well. I produced ten children. How I could
have raised those children without Isidro, God only knew. He was my
companion everyday while Constancio was out in the fields. When my
love for Constancio faltered, Isidro bombarded me with love stories
from Liwayway Comics until I fell in love with my husband all over
again. When I was too tired of my children, he huddled them away and
played with them until I recovered my bearing. He retold all the stories
of Lola Basyang to them until they became knowledgeable so that they
all graduated at Lubao Highschool with honors and went on to acquire
college degrees in Manila. Isidro did more than create intelligent
children, oh he did more than that! With the fifty centavos I gave him
once a week, he spent his Sundays in the capitol town San Femando to
read all the available newspapers there, and secretly collected
disposed magazines from the tenements of the marketplace.
Occasionally, he bought bargain dressmaking books and studied these
day in and day out. You see, he cherished the only property left to us
after the war – our mother’s Singer sewing machine – you see it now,
all black and rusty, occupying a special spot in his shop. He started
cutting dress-patterns from cement paper bags and created paper
clothes before me while I giggled. Life went on like this until the worst
catastrophe happened. Satur, my eldest child, broke the heart of Isidro
forever.

“You Satur, who have sired children yourself, probably understand

better than anyone the cruelty you subjected your uncle Isidro to.
During one fiesta, you brought home your college fiends from Manila.
When the time to introduce your family came, your finger pointed at us
one by one, beginning with your youngest sister up to me and your
father. But when your finger pointed at Isidro, you blushed and called
him the maid of the house. You, my son, introduced the uncle who
brought you up as your Maid! How dare you!”

Satur’s Eulogy

Satur was weeping while listening to his mother’s eulogy. When she
was done, he stood up and stared at the dead face of Isidro. Satur, an
engineer from the Department of Public Works, was no longer young.
Wrinkles on his face were deep, the muscles in his temples and jaws
pulsated. He was sweating profusely in the midst of hot rented lights.
He began to speak:

“Forgive me Bapang Isidro, I may be too late to say this but please,
forgive me. What my reason for introducing you as the maid to my
college friends was explainable only by my youth. I was ashamed of
you – that’s the truth. If only the society in which I lived in then, if the
generation I belonged to could have been more accepting to persons
like you then, I may not have done what I have done to you. In my
eyes, you were so weak, you stayed by my mother’s side while
everybody else was marrying and having children. And when I peeked
into your room and found dressmaking magazines and kits and the old
Singer sewing machine, I concluded you were useless. Because you
were gay. How old were you then, twenty five years old? Thirty years
old? As a child you made me dream of becoming an engineer, building
roads and bridges. What did you dream of when you were a child? Did
you dream of nothing, contented in scraping the left-overs of my
parents? You had muscles – you had brains – you had legs – you had
arms – at least, you could have picked up the plow, like Father, and
farmed a piece of land. I wish you were something then, perhaps a
custodian, a mason, a carpenter, a peon somewhere, yeah, I could
have proudly presented you. But to see you in an old hand-me-down t-
shirt and old, gray pants smelling of onions, the only thing I could think
of was you being a Maid. Forgive me Tiyo Isidro if I hurt you. Let me
announce this now to all those who hear, to all my friends and to my
wife and children – the dead man lying here beside me is Isidro
Samaniego. He spent the best years of his life taking care of me and
my brothers and sisters. He lived with nothing because he was
dedicated to us, his only family. Despite the pains I inflicted upon him,
he went on loving us – in the years that followed, most of our college
allowances and tuitions came from him. For that, I am shamefully
grateful. Tiyo Isidro was the greatest uncle in the whole world. I wish
I’ve said this to him before he died. Forgive me.”

Indang Sayong’s Eulogy

“For many years I envied Rosita for having a dedicated and industrious
brother. Isidro was very handsome, though his complexion was pale
due to his lack of outdoor life. He was always inside the house taking
care of his sister’s children, cooking, cleaning. He rarely talked in my
sari-sari store until one solemn night, after the monsoon rains had just
stopped. Isidro sat in front of my store carrying a blanket containing
his clothes. He was also dragging a Singer sewing machine. He was
crying and begging me to provide him a place to stay, albeit
temporarily. He said his nephews and nieces were ashamed of him and
he didn’t want to come back to them anymore. He said he would work
for me, do my laundry, clean my house and take care of the store (as
you all know, Pedro and I are not blessed with children) in return for a
place to stay and food to eat. Oh how pitiful this young man was, all
alone, rejected, no place to go. But I could not take him home. I told
him to return to his sister’s house, his pain would pass away, he was
needed there more than here. He said he would rather go to San
Fernando, beg in the Cathedral rather than go back. He stood up and
started to leave. Guilt overpowered me so I ran after him. I was aware
that by letting him stay in my house, I’d run the risk of putting Rosita in
a bad light. What would people say? In letting him in my house, I would
appear better-caring than Rosita. And I would offend her. Besides, my
husband Pedro was not exactly accommodating to people like Isidro…
this barrio never accepted the likes of him. Yet, if I let this young man
Isidro leave, and God forbid, something happens to him up there in San
Fernando, I may not live in peace for the rest of my life. I was suddenly
facing a very difficult decision – I would be jeopardizing my friendship
with Rosita, offending my husband, losing my customers in having
Isidro in my house, but… Come what may, if Rosita and my husband
got mad at me, their anger would pass away, but if this young man got
murdered in a place strange to him, that I couldn’t undo… To my
surprise, I made the right decision. Rosita came to me the following
day thanking me for keeping her brother. She said, “Take care of him,
someday his pain will fade and he will come back to me. Just don’t let
him leave the barrio, keep him close to me.” It was however a different
story with my husband. He wanted Isidro thrown out of the house
immediately. I pleaded, saying that Isidro would stay only for a short
while. Isidro was actually the one who convinced my husband. Pedro
found him not only resourceful, he was intelligent. I could not have
been blessed by a better company. During his tenure in my house,
Isidro delivered more than what he had promised. The house never had
been more sparkling, the food never had been more delicious. He
bought a piece of cloth in San Fernando and whenever he had free
time, he stooped over this cloth and carefully cut many patterns for a
dress he’d been dreaming to create. I’d never seen a more perfect
dress when he finished it. I tried it, the other women in the barrio tried
it, and it fit all of us alright. All the women in the barrio coveted the
dress. Being kind, Isidro offered it to me as a gift. I wouldn’t take it. I
told him he had a talent and that talent should not be given out as a
gift. Being a businesswoman myself, I put the dress up in my store for
sale. And to the highest bidder it was sold. The implication of that sale
went beyond my wildest imagination. Suddenly, every woman wanted
Isidro to cut a dress for her. In just one week, fourteen dresses were
measured and made. Money and work came pouring into Isidro,
confining him in his sewing machine day and night. He never
complained, sewing a dress for him was like a mission, like an
addiction. When he could no longer do his house duties, he begged for
my understanding. Who was I to stop him? I said, “Isidro, do what you
want to do and be happy for it.” After two weeks, many ladies began
visiting my house. Pedro and I decided to build Isidro a shop, just
adjacent to my store. Isidro and I discussed what name we would give
to this shop. At first we thought that since his first dress was made of
cotton, the shop should be named Made of Cotton. Isidro thought about
that but after a few minutes, his voice broke, he said, “You are right,
my first dress was made of cotton, but that dress came into being
after I was hurt by my nephew Satur and I never stop hurting because
my heart is made of cotton. Why not Heart of Cotton?” I told him it was
too sentimental, not good for business. He suddenly beamed and said,
“Let the people be reminded of what I am in the eyes of my family, I
am their Maid. Their Maid of Cotton.”
Jose’s aka Josie’s Eulogy for Isidro

When Jose arrived from Paris, people were shocked. He came home as
a She, with boobs and lined eyebrows. Well, Josie had metamorphosed
from an ugly cocoon to a flamboyant butterfly -former titlist Miss Gay
Paris International – she was the total reincarnate of Rita Gomez,
voice and all. She made Isidro appear like Mohave Desert. Josie was
the initiator of all the splendor for Isidro’s burial. Leaving her French
husband -a hunk in leather called Pierre or something- she spoke on
behalf of all the other gays in this wake, their good looks and lovers
and all.

(“Is this Jose?” whispered the septuagenarian Indang Sepa. “Dios por
santo the world is nearing its end!”)

These were Josie’s words:

“The Maid of Cotton shop was my hiding place, my refuge, the place
where all my hopes began. In my youth, I heard my father comment
about Isidro all the time, comparing him to a plague, he often said,
“Don’t get near that homosexual. Look, he is the joke of the entire
barrio.” It just so happened that my father and his drinking buddies
were the only ones who made it so. I tried to heed my father’s rules. I
tended to manly duties, plowed the farms, and tended the carabao…
But it is not easy to change one’s inborn preference. I am gay through
and through since the day I was born. Switching orientation is not as
simple as changing one’s clothes. The more I tried to hide my true self,
the more awkward I became. I felt like a woman trapped in a man’s
body. One day my father caught me wearing my mother’s wedding
dress in the bathroom! He beat me so hard I had to run out of the
house, and no other place was open for me but the shop of Isidro.
Inside the shop, I probably shed three glasses of tears. After that,
Isidro became my closest ally.

“Under Isidro’s wings, I slowly regained my confidence, he was, in the

first place, a role model. He dedicated the best years of his life to the
uplifting of the family he loved and successfully recouped himself after
being rejected. For that alone, I found a reason to go on living. It was
Isidro too, who told me about the world beyond this barrio – other
countries teeming with people, with sophisticated cultures, with
philosophies far more liberal and even accepting than the
constrictions of this barrio. With that hope I dreamt of going to those
lands.

“I am not saying that I never had any disagreement with Isidro – I

found him a hypocrite sometimes. He’d say I should not be too
flamboyant when all the world sees him flamboyant himself. And when
I started talking about men, he’d shut me up like the nuns in Lubao
High School when we both knew gays think of men no matter what
their stations in life are, I guess he thought less of men, especially
with the bulk of work he did nevertheless… Isidro never had a sex life,
his only consolation was his morning biking to Concepcion, his only
form of exercise. That’s why gays called him Mohave Desert.

“My youth belonged to Marcos’ baby’ generation which was blessed

with nothing but misery. Marcos was the only leader we knew under
repression and poverty. Before his dictatorship’s meltdown, as we all
know, we found our incomes shrink while the prices of commodities
expanded. In order to forget our misfortunes, we did all funny things.
Fathers became drunkards in order to forget their impotence in
providing food to their children. Children roamed the streets in Manila
to sell their bodies so they could help feed their families. And people
like us, yes, homosexuals like us provided escapist entertainment by
parading as women into the streets for a laugh, and how you laughed.
Isidro loathed us – especially when all the cross-dressers gathered in
his shop – and would lecture us about the bad impression we were
promoting. I defended my drag. I said, “How can you deny this simple
diversion, it’s the cheapest form of entertainment for people who can’t
even buy a TV. Understand this: not all gays can resort to high caliber
entertainments. A drag show is a poor man’s show; it is the language
of gays who can barely express themselves through sophisticated
means which well off gays can afford. Coming out for us means being
flamboyant in our mothers’ clothing.

“Isidro was full of contradictions. Despite his loathing, he would

finance these drag parades. He would condemn us for bringing men in
his shop yet would provide us room to make love. We tempted him
countless times, but once he closed his bedroom, not even the
handsomest man would make him open up.
“His loathing about our drags eventually faded. In one of our shows, a
talent scout from Manila saw us, invited us, and signed us contracts to
dance in the city. From Manila we flew to Tokyo, Hongkong, Singapore,
Amsterdam, New York and now, Paris. Isidro provided the extra money
we needed in going to these far off places, giving us means to pay him
back and later on, support our families. Look at us now!

“Isidro look at me now. I am as brilliant as a star! Oh if only you’ve

seen me win the title Miss Gay Paris, with tears in my eyes I was
shouting your name. To Isidro! To Isidro! “

Mang Teban’s Eulogy for Isidro

“I am the proud father of Josie. I admit my own misgiving at first. The

first time I saw Isidro set up Maid of Cotton shop beside the store of
Indang Sayong, I got mad – we Filipinos have had a masculine culture
since the time of our Muslim beginnings, we’ve been masculine
through the three hundred fifty years of Spanish colonization, we’ve
been masculine through the US Commonwealth, we’ve been masculine
through wars even through Marcos dictatorship – why would someone
like him destroy all that masculinity? I feared he would demoralize our
children and worse, turn them like himself. My fears became real the
first time I saw my own son wear his mother’s clothing. I said – This is
it! – I beat up my son until only his eyes were free of whip mark. I
talked with the other men in this barrio and we all agreed, either we
killed this fag Isidro or we turn him into a butt of jokes. The goal was
to warn each child of even daring to be like him. This was how we
punished Isidro: every time he passed our way, we whistled and
addressed him, “Oh sexy fox, why don’t you suck all of us.” We
intimidated him, I broke an empty San Miguel beer bottle one night and
threatened him – “Be a man like us or else…” I brandished the broken
bottle in front of his eyes. Far from getting frightened, he pushed my
weapon away and said, “Sleep this off Mang Teban, you must worry
more about feeding your children than paying attention to my
unmanliness.” I was so embittered since my son became close to him.
I called them all faggots.

“Isidro had a way of fighting back, and when he did, he shredded me to

pieces. He hit me hard when I learned from my wife that he lent her
money regularly to supplement the meals of my children, No wonder
we were debt free in Indang Sayong’’s store while I was out of job. Oh
how I cried. First I demanded that she return all the money to him
because I couldn’t stomach a fag feeding my children. But when my
wife asked me for the money to return to him I could not produce it.
And the most painful truth was this: his charity was going on while I
was abusing him on the street. What other man could do that? Though
I am a proud man all my life, I confess all the cruelties I bore upon
Isidro – in his heyday, I never gave him peace of mind. This man who
built this barrio, who fed other people’s children, who supported my
gay son until he could provide for us – is now here dead. He died being
a friend without expecting a return. Oh Isidro forgive me.”

The Priest’s Delivery

Isidro’s casket was brought out from his sister’s house. All the
windows and doors were closed as is customary in a Philippine funeral
so the Spirit of the Dead would not strike for the time being. Ave Maria
beamed from loudspeakers. As the limousine carrying his casket
passed by, people along the road bowed their heads and threw coins
to its direction – a bribe to the Devil – so it won’t attack them. The
funeral proceeded to the chapel for its final rite. The priest spoke to
honor Isidro:

“It is time for us to take a last look at the man who changed the face
of our barrio. Isidro was a beautiful man. At age 45, as years had taken
their toll on him, he slowed down his work in his shop and became a
religious man. He swept the chapel at night and provided the altar
flowers every Sunday. I heard him weep many times, when he learned
some of our precious children had gone to Manila to work to help feed
their families. He released his own savings and lent it to many of you
to make your ends meet. He helped pay the exuberant recruitment
flees for our men and women who opted to work overseas, without
interests, and when paid he used the same amount for another and
another and another.

“Now we are witnesses to the outcome of his kindness. Many of us

have crossed world boundaries, worked lowly but decently, adopted
other cultures and languages and were able to fight starvation.
“I am a priest and my vows condemn any form of sexuality outside of
marriage. Isidro, contrary to the accusations of some of you, had lived
and died clean. He lived like a monk, a saint, and for that, I exhort you
to bless him. Pray may he rest in peace.”

From the chapel, the casket was laid at the center of the cemetery.
People began passing by his coffin for viewing the last time. Children
were lifted over his corpse, as was customary, so he could take a
glimpse of new lives before departing. When the casket was sealed,
hysteria and wailing took over. Aling Rosita fainted and was
immediately revived with ammonia. Tandang Sepa, the septuagenarian
gossiper tried to steal the scene by screaming and pounding on the
casket with one eye closed the other opened. She yelled, “Take me
with you Isidro!” which pissed a lot of the mourners. “Go ahead”, they
said, pushing her toward the open tomb. Realizing her show wasn’t
taking its desired effect, she pretended to faint. For five minutes no
one picked her up. She rose up by herself and walked away. The
foreigners couldn’t figure out what to make of this spectacle. Some
were solemn, some were laughing.

The Greatest Eulogy

I’ve seen all these because I lived close to the cemetery. I was with
the cemetery caretaker who placed the last brick to cover his tomb. I
helped the caretaker put back his tools in his jeepney before going
home.

All said and done, I decided to go home. But then, just before darkness
enveloped the cemetery, a solitary figure emerged from a bicycle and
went toward Isidro’s tomb. I hid behind one acacia tree and watched
the man. He was the age of Isidro, tall and muscular. I recognized him,
he was the bachelor in barrio Concepcion. I heard him speak:

“Isidro, my love, it’s over now. I cannot live another day without seeing
you in our hiding place. For thirty years you made my mornings
beautiful.” (I sighed, I had this intuition before: Isidro would not be
biking to Concepcion every day for nothing!) The man knelt and kissed
Isidro’s tomb so tenderly, picked a flower from the mountain of
wreaths and sat beside the tomb until darkness.
You see my friends, Isidro revealed his most beautiful secret to me
only in his death – his love and passion, not the customs and
traditions. These were the ones that took my breath away.

After death, his name continues to spawn many stories circulating in

the barrio. A mother sees his ghost sitting beside her hungry children;
the ladies invoke his opinion before buying clothes; men are more
accepting of gays. These stories turn into myths- Isidro is still found
sweeping the chapel every night; flowers bloom in May because he will
come down to pick them for the fiesta; people lend money easily
because Isidro did so; and so on and so forth… the Maid of Cotton is
now a legend.