I knew him as Daddy Lolo.  He was my protector. He was my world.  When I was a few years old we he would carry me on his back as he wandered about the streets.  He would take me into the bars, and all eyes would fall on him. Everyone knew who he was. “Do you know who your grandfather is?” They would ask.  “He’s a star. He’s a Duke. Duke Dino”. Dino was his nickname, and when he was younger he played Judas the betrayer in a black and white film, and people called him a movie star.  With his hair slicked back he reminded me of Super Man, and when I was with him I felt like I could fly.

Daddy Lolo was proud.  He was what some people would call an aristocrat, who came from a very prestigious family.  It was a riches to rags kind of story. He would tell me about the castle in Spain, and how his father was close to the King, and his father before him, and so forth.  “Calle de Asunción Castell was named after a relative of ours”, he would say. She was a Marquessa, married to a Marquis. One of my great grandfathers was a duke, doctor, and first commander who migrated to the Philippines during the Spanish American War sometime before the 19th century.

Whenever I picked up a pencil, Daddy Lolo would read the brand, Faber-Castell, and with enthusiasm he would remind me how we are from the same Castell family as those who manufactured the pencils.  We come from the house of Castell y Guitart, never forget. And so, he made sure I remembered.

Daddy Lolo wanted to be doctor like his grandfather, but by that time he had wasted all his inheritance on parties and gambling, leaving his family in poverty.  As an aristocrat, he was too proud to work. His children grew up always hungry,, and as much as my mother loved him she resented him for giving them a hard life. “Fiesta, Siesta, “ my mother would say.  “He is happy go lucky. I had to work young to get them out of poverty.”

I, however, never saw Daddy Lolo that way.  With me, he was mature and always pensive.  He was strong like Popeye, and I ate all my spinach to be like him.  He practiced calligraphy and picked locks. He practiced yoga and read a lot, mostly the Bible when he was closer to death. He taught me how to mark cards. When we had dogs, he trained them all, and they respected him.  There was just something about him.

I’ll never forget when we found out he was sick.  It looked like he was getting thin so fast, and I remember seeing so much blood in the bathroom.  He insisted on flying back to the Philippines. I don’t think he wanted me to see him die. Before he passed I had a dream of him in the middle of a road waving goodbye.  I hate it when my dreams come true.

My grandpa played Judas on the silver screen

My mother’s father once stabbed Jesus on the back

With gold and silver coins and smiling secrets

Projected on a silver screen

Blaspheming  in black and white,

Betrayal of the pain

The door

And the holy Light.

Before he died he contemplated and conjured suicide

Scratched into the emulsions of film

Set to be seen .

Lamentably,

Before he bore my mother,

She would bear me too late.

His film was lost in ash and fire

Murdering moments of a temporary state.

Luckily,

It was not too late to recreate

The story from mouth to mind.

My mother showed me a photograph of him

Dressed as Judas

Vestige of that slice in time.

 

Grandfather’s Hair

This morning she looked into the mirror and spied a single silver strand of hair gone astray

Like a thought that has lost its way,

Colored with the air of sophistication which reminded her of her grandfather

Back when the waves on his head reflected streaks of light caught in a pearl.

The old ladies would drool as he passed them by,

Envious, as he held her hand on the way to school.

The autumn leaves would rustle and crack

Against the soft wind that blew their disheveled hair

Once combed back.

He was cool like the Fonz.