Chopping Green Tomatoes

(Season One, Episode 07)

It’s almost noon and LEAD CHARACTER can see an ice cream vendor outside the window blowing the horns out of his bicycle-driven drum of ice cream. LEAD CHARACTER recoils at the noise. His head is pounding, his mouth dry, and his ass sore (though in a good way). He chugs on a bottle of water to quench his gargantuan (hehe, gargantuan) thirst. Then the young man with a FLAT STOMACH enters the room.

FLAT STOMACH: My boardmates are still in the sala. Do you mind waiting for a coupla more minutes?

LEAD CHARACTER (shaking his head weakly): It’s fine. Just let me know when it’s OK to go outside because I really need to use your communal bathroom. My bladder is about to explode.

Yes, aside from the headache and the thirst and the ass-soreness, LEAD CHARACTER has been holding his pee for almost two hours. The previous night had been too irresponsible for him to recover from; bottles of Red Horse paraded like ants in his midst.

FLAT STOMACH then sits on the bed behind LEAD CHARACTER and spoons him.

FLAT STOMACH: I want a boyfriend. Will you be my boyfriend?

LEAD CHARACTER, out of politeness, giggles.

LEAD CHARACTER: That won’t be right. We don’t even know each other.

FLAT STOMACH: Why? Don’t you want a boyfriend? I want a boyfriend. I want someone to talk to.

LEAD CHARACTER: Why? Don’t you talk to your friends?

FLAT STOMACH: But I can’t hug my friends like this… (hugs Lead Character tight). And I can’t kiss them like this… (kisses Lead Character’s nape)

LEAD CHARACTER stops himself from gagging.

LEAD CHARACTER: Sorry. Relationships aren’t my thing.

FLAT STOMACH: Will you find me a boyfriend then?

LEAD CHARACTER (mental voice-over): Sure. In return, find me a beating heart for myself.

At this point, because of his own mental voice-over, LEAD CHARACTER gags. He holds the vomit from exploding out of his mouth then swallows it.

LEAD CHARACTER: Look, I really need to go.

So FLAT STOMACH heads back out of the room. In a few moments, he comes back and tells LEAD CHARACTER that it’s already safe to leave.

They sneak out of FLAT STOMACH’S boarding house after LEAD CHARACTER has peed a bucketful in the bathroom. Before hopping on a jeepney, FLAT STOMACH asks for his number. LEAD CHARACTER doesn’t want to give it, but he reconsiders “why the hell not” since he likes FLAT STOMACH’s flat stomach. It’s something that he doesn’t have.

LEAD CHARACTER sleeps the jeepney ride off from the one-hour-away-from-Ayala area to Ayala. After an hour, he arrives at Ayala. He then heads straight to the jeepney terminal where he realizes that he’s too hungry to get on another jeepney. So he goes to the Shawarma stand.

LEAD CHARACTER: One Shawarma, please. (Extends his one-hundred peso bill.)

SHAWARMA VENDOR: Do you have a smaller bill? I just started my day. I don’t have change for that.

LEAD CHARACTER (shaking his head): No, I only have this amount. I wish to god Shiva that I had the exact amount of twenty-five pesos, but I don’t.

SHAWARMA VENDOR then shrugs his shoulder and proceeds to chopping green tomatoes. LEAD CHARACTER is appalled. He waits for SHAWARMA VENDOR to turn back to him to make him his Shawarma, and perhaps do the initiative of asking for change from the next stall, but SHAWARMA VENDOR doesn’t. A GUY then comes to buy Shawarma. The guy hands SHAWARMA VENDOR a twenty-peso bill and a five-peso coin. SHAWARMA VENDOR promptly makes Shawarma for the GUY.

LEAD CHARACTER: How about mine?

SHAWARMA VENDOR: I still have no change for your hundred pesos.

SHAWARMA VENDOR then turns his back again at LEAD CHARACTER and continues chopping them green tomatoes.

Two middle-aged LADIES then come by to buy two Shawarmas. SHAWARMA VENDOR promptly makes Shawarma for them. At this point, LEAD CHARACTER feels like crying. He makes a mental note to call Persian Palate to report the asshole.

LEAD CHARACTER (shaky voice): So I’m guessing you’ll have change after this?

SHAWARMA VENDOR simply looks LEAD CHARACTER in the eye then goes back to preparing Shawarma for the two middle-aged LADIES.

LEAD CHARACTER plans to go ahead and order Shawarma anyway but then leave after SHAWARMA VENDOR has made it. He also considers just leaving, because his head is pounding and he’s thirsty again. But then, in an act of desperation, for not knowing how exactly to hurt SHAWARMA VENDOR the way SHAWARMA VENDOR has hurt his feelings, LEAD CHARACTER squeezes the middle-aged ladies’ breasts then runs away.

The End