“We need to talk” Never Precedes Something You Want to Talk About.

Manila, Philippines - Sept 20, 2011

Middle-aged Filipino men have a solid sense of humor. Within a 10-minute walk, I just witnessed three male potbellies covered in shirts reading “I Like Girls That Like Girls”, “My Pen Is Huge”, and “Female Body Inspector”. These guys aren’t necessarily perverts, it’s just the only apparel you can find in Manila’s Red Light District.

My hostel sits kiddie corner to the red light district in Manila City, Philippines. I am walking home around noon, protected by the sanctity of daylight. All is well for now. The usual crowd of hookers, vampires and breast promoters have retreated to the dark backrooms of their clubs.  The street is seedy, poor, and tattered, but I haven’t felt unsafe yet.

The walk home is smooth up until I am approached by a large he-man of a lady who introduces herself as Josephina. Josephina is about 5’10’’, thick, Filipino, poor complexion. “Excuse me may I ask you a question?”, she says unassumingly. “Do you have a big di**?”.

 I trip over my tongue. “Umm. Sorry what?” I reply. “Do you have a big di**?” she asks again, more assertively this time.

“Umm. I haven’t measured it against my friends yet,” I reply. “Well, do you think you have a big di**?”, the lady fires back at me like I’m a moron. “I’m not sure…I mean…I like to think I haven’t seen enough di** to know.”

She has no responses to my answers, only grimacing looks and unrelated follow up questions. “Can I ask you a question?” she says sternly. Her tone is the same as if your boss tells you “we need to talk”. “We need to talk” never precedes something you want to talk about. My hair stands on end. “Let me ask you a question white boy….Where you from?”

“Canada,” I say, figuring this conversation can only end with her not liking me or my nationality.

“When you last have boom boom with girl?”, she says. Josephina claims to be assistant manager at The Golden Mango, a brothel where “extra services” are on special for 500 pesos (roughly $10 USD). She explains her club is “just around the corner and has many beautiful girls”. She continues her sex interrogation questions, including “how many girls you want to boom boom?, “you like butts big?”, and “is your co** hard?”

These all felt like quotes out of a Sir-Mix-a-lot song, but this wasn’t tongue-in-cheek. Josephina was stone-cold serious. Business was hurting, and she was desperate to get me in her club. She had hit me with so many ass-backwards sex questions, I had become desensitized to the conversation’s awkwardness. Like after you shower at the YMCA a few times, old balls no longer freak you out. Total immunity. I held my giggles back. Josephina was pissed off at the hand she had been dealt in life. She was sad, and I felt bad for her.  And then she asked me this. “Is your co** hard?”

“Bah. Umm? Like, right now? Hard? I’m sorry, I have to go”. I duck into a 7/11 to end the solicitation. A man would have needed 20 Viagra to pitch a tent in front of a 7/11 for a woman that looked like Kevin Nealon. I browse around the seaweed crackers and larb flavored pretzel snacks for five minutes and proceed to leave. I think that I have shaken this demon, but Josephina is standing outside waiting for me.

“So you like Filipino girl? They very beautiful”. There is a tremble in her voice. Desperation mixed with anger. Her eyes are glossy, maybe even teary. Trying to change the subject away from prostitutes, I reply “I like all Filipino people. They are very nice.”

“But it’s only 500 pesos for massage, blow***, and f*** she says.

“No thank you,” I reply. She ignores my answer and repeats the same “special offer”.  “No thanks. Please leave me alone”. She will not let up.

At this point, I am simply being a pussy. Too passive, afraid I will shatter her feelings if I run away. I need to find my inner prick and tell this lady to shove off. “What’s your name?”, she asks. “Ummm, Brian…Brian Noonan”, was the first fake name that popped into my head.

“So Brian, do you even like girls?” she mocks, questioning my sexuality. “Sure, I like girls fine, but I’m not going to buy them. Sorry.”

Josephine then claims I can get a regular massage with no “extra services”. I ask her how many clients out of 20 get “only a massage”, free of sex.

“Mostly zero, but sometimes one”, she says. I proceed to walk back to my hostel, pulling out the business card to “Friendly’s Guest House” so I can see the address. Big mistake. Josephina sees where I’m staying.

The “special offers” keep coming. I try all sorts of tactics to shake this lady. I start making stuff up. I tell her I have a girlfriend. I tell her I have erectile dysfunction. None of this works. At one point I even tell her that I’m gay, figuring that will end it. Nay.

“No problem. We have men for boom boom. Just come see my club”, she begs. “Five minutes. Just look. No buy.” I try to walk around her but she steps in front of me. “Just look please”. I have little choice at this point.

Figuring it will make for a good story, I agree to follow her to the “Golden Mango”. She says it’s nearby. Three minutes walk. It’s even on the same street we are on. So I follow her.

Three minutes turns into six minutes. We take a few turns. The streets get shadier. My conscience starts to tell me this is a bad idea. No shit Brett. It dawns on me Josephina probably doesn’t even have a club. It comes time to run or die.

Shazam! I sprint in the opposite direction as fast as I can. Adrenaline rushes through my brain. Turning the corner I run out of breathe. It feels as if I just escaped Alcatraz. I nearly pitch a tent. Looping back toward Friendly’s Hostel, someone is waiting for me. Brian Noonan is fu****.

Two blocks away from Friendly’s, Josephina confronts me in the street. Enraged. Her eyes buldge from her skull. Her Latin fire ignites. “Who the f*** you think you are? You trying to play me? I turn around and see you runnin’. You think I’m a damn fool? You want to play games muthafu****?”

“Un no. Sorry,” I reply, dumbstruck.

She takes a step closer. “I’ll make you see something you’ll never forget. You want to play games with me? This is my country. This is my hood. I know 100 people who could cut you right now? You’re in the Philippines, bitch. I’m going to cut your face.”

This I believed. Josephina has killed men for less. Her arms are twice the size of my torso. She could have easily been a man in her previous life, or in this life. Maybe she was still packing. Her rumbling voice of rage lowered with every threat. This was the exorcist in real life.

“You scared now, aren’t you?” Josephina could smell my fear.

“Yes. I am scared. Please don’t shiv me,” were the exact words that came out of my mouth. I watched her hands move toward her back pockets, fumbling for a potential weapon. She inched closer. She was trying to break me down. And she was succeeding. Glancing around for potential help, I spotted a security guard outside a Japanese restaurant. I began inching toward the security guard with Josephina trying to block my path.

“You want me to do something you’ll never forget?! You don’t know what I been through. Play me for a fool! How about I cut your face right now!” I find myself apologizing for nothing. I try to strike a monetary deal, but you can’t reason with the irrational.

We are on a busy main street just two blocks from the hostel. I decide to take my chances and swiftly walk around her to the security guard. I feel if she was going to stab me in the middle of Main Street she would have done it already. I approach the security guard.

“Excuse me sir, this lady is going to stab me,” I say as Josephina stands next to me. The security guard doesn’t speak English, but he can smell the sketchiness. He motions for me to go inside the Japanese restaurant he is posted at. Josephina doesn’t follow me inside, but instead motions for two thugs who join her. The three wait for me outside.

Josephina and the barbarians talk and exchange glances back at me through the restaurant window.  One of them is taking pictures of me with his cell phone. Their posse is straight out of Wringling Brothers 3 Ring Circus. A bearded lady, neck-tattooed strong man, and some sort of she-male trapeze clown in a purple tank top. Of the three thugs waiting outside, I can only be certain that one of them is a dude. The other two are bohemian looking he-she’s; scraggly, tattooed, missing teeth. They mean business. I am not here on business.

Weighing options, I pull out my cell phone. Do I call the police? They might just be corrupt and help the thugs. Maybe throw me in a prison cell where I’ll never grow up feeling like a real man. Feeling my pockets for my cell phone, I glance my directory.

I have two contacts in my phone. Pavlo Llueva was the first, a cool Filipino I had met at breakfast the previous morning but didn’t yet fully trust. The second was JC Slater, a friend of one of my USA friend’s. It becomes time to choose between a guy I didn’t trust and a guy I’ve never met. I opted to call JC, who came highly recommended from my friend who had hosted him as a couchsurfer. The phone rings…

JC: Hello.

Me: Hi JC. It’s Brett. I emailed you once. Remember?

JC: Oh yeah! Hey Brett.

Me: Hey man, I was just chased by thugs in downtown Manilla. They are waiting for me outside a Japanese Restaurant on Adriatico St. What should I do?

JC comes through in the clutch. He tells me to give my phone to the security guard so he can translate directions to him. The guard walks me back the hostel. The thugs’ eyes follow me as I pass.  The guard hands me the cell phone back as I duck into the hostel.

“Hey man. It’s not a good idea to stay there tonight. Stay inside the hostel. Don’t leave. I will come get you in about ninety minutes,” instructs JC. The hostel security guard calls us a cab and we dive in. Whisked away to another province of metropolitan Manila, far away from the brothels of downtown’s concrete jungle.

JC relocates me to the neighboring district of Makati, a wealthier business district of metropolitan Manila. We eat some fried chicken and compare our dishes to the triple portion-sizes of American fast food. JC tells me about “kid flash mob gangs”; homeless packs of children that swarm pedestrians, stripping them clean of all valuables like piranhas. All I want to do is eat chicken.

It was a relatively boring day that quickly became a rush of high-risk thrills. I played out all the potential outcomes of that scenario in my head. Had I gone into the “club”, I would have almost definitely been robbed blind. 5:1 shivved. 9:1 molested, 50:1 chained up and peed on. The doors would have closed behind me and two hoodlums would be there take my wallet, pride and blood.

My second grade elementary school teacher told us to “never talk to strangers with candy.” I think the same can be applied to strangers with prostitutes.