A FEW OKAY MEN
Man, this place is a hole. I heard this place used to be a broom closet. I can't say I'm surprised. Peculiar Disturbances and Incidents did get the worst last year's budget cuts, from what I've heard. I just didn't think it was this bad. Three detectives—one of them fashionably an hour late for work—and, their MVP, an actual pet cat manned this so-called office (I use that term as loose as my grasp on reality).
"No, I'm not doing the interview," the younger of the two detectives mumbled into the phone. "The reporter guy asked for the squad leader… Right. Yeah. Oh, and he says he knows you."
I did know the squad leader. Paula Santos and I grew up in the same neighborhood. Also, she rearranged my face with a firetruck when we were in daycare.
We've been friends ever since.
"Alright, be seeing you, Sarge." His lanky arms slammed the phone down and signaled for me to wait a while. Staring the phone for another dead thirty minutes? Hard pass. I figured the cat trying to catch the red dot on the floor should keep my mind busy.
This old gentleman—a mountain of a man—made sure to keep the red dot out of the cat's reach. Not old old; in his mid-fifties if I took a guess. Maybe he's just one of those people that have been old since forever, like Charles Bronson or Hulk Hogan. In Detective De Jesus's case, most people would probably wonder why this guy wasn't at home spoiling grandchildren with sweets and a more flexible bedtime. Instead he lounged in this trash-pile, playing with a cat and an under-barrel laser sight like your garden-variety pulis patola.
Renato De Jesus was anything but.
As any halfway competent journalist should, I did some digging on our city's very own Peculiar Disturbances desk before poking around for an interview. De Jesus had been in the force since the early seventies, but politics kept him from moving up the ranks. It was not the incident with a certain councilor's son that landed him here, though. Aside from being a good cop, it turned out that he had a gift that qualified him as a paranormal investigator.
"My brothers always gave me shit for having imaginary friends," De Jesus mockingly reminisced. "Well now the joke's on them. My childhood friends were real. Just… not real enough for them to fully realize a physical manifestation in our world—Santos set me straight on that. Anyway, I know all too fucking well that I wasn't playing hide-and-seek with a bunch of imaginary friends like some bozo."
Experts in the field verified De Jesus's gift, ensuring him and his family that he wasn't schizophrenic or simply coping with the loneliness of having been the only kid his age in the village he grew up in. But his unique abilities brought him to this sinkhole. In a dimly lit office, he spent half his days staring at an unmoving clutter of paperwork, and the other half playing with Hugo the cat.
(Alright, "playing with Hugo the cat" doesn't sound so bad but with a service record like his, De Jesus would be of greater use anywhere but here.)
The rookie blindsided me with a cup of coffee which I mistook for something else. "Road widening up National Highway held the Sarge up," he explained as he handed me the cup. "Or… she didn't know that it started today. Eh, either way, it could be a while before she gets here. And you got here so early, you probably skipped breakfast. Pandesal at the desk, help yourself."
"Thank you, sir," I said with a grin, perhaps fainter than I intended. Detective Luis Ricafrente Jr. went back to his side of the desk and immediately resumed whatever he had been working on with his typewriter. Interesting tidbit: Ricafrente was an aspiring writer. Nothing I can use. I just found it interesting that I, a writer, used to want to have his job. He ended up joining the force because of his father who wanted a successor.
Unfortunately for Ricafrente, his occult gift surfaced right before he graduated from the Academy in 1993. His sense for the supernatural wasn't as keen as De Jesus. But he is said to be blessed with an unusually high level of spiritual fortitude which he exhibited during an incident in the Academy.
One of his classmates had been possessed, forcing the campus chaplain to attempt an exorcism sans prior experience. The demonic entity ended up disemboweling its host as it exited trying to get away from the chaplain. It then took another body—Ricafrente's. That was its undoing. Conflicting accounts circulated, but all of them led to Ricafrente's body chewing the demon up and puking out the bones along with whatever else he had for lunch and dinner.
Ricafrente grew up in a religious household but then again, the same can be said about most children from Filipino households. And nothing about him screamed "chosen one" or anything remotely similar. He's like Paula, in the sense that he's the last guy anyone would peg for a superhero.
To this day no one has been able to explain his condition. Not that it mattered. Cases barely come their way if ever.
"Traditional healers. They close cases faster than we make our coffee," De Jesus chuckled.
"As they should," I told him.
De Jesus kept his eye on Hugo rolling around still trying to catch the red dot. "Besides, nobody really considers the paranormal factor unless there's evidence so blatant it might as well moonwalk into the crime scene."
"You don't seem too bothered about it."
De Jesus put down the laser sight on the desk and picked Hugo up for a cuddle. "Apart from slapping around the occasional troublemakers scaring kids for laughs, and turning over a few runners skipping court, I say we leave the real work to the professionals," he said, looking at me for the first time since we've spoken. "It's not like I'm going anywhere. Ricafrente's pop couldn't keep him away from this fucking bodega. Someone like me don't stand a chance."
My heart fucking tap danced when the door beside me suddenly creaked open. (I have got to lay off the coffee).
Paula barged in their office like she had just walked out of a vintage sitcom. A comically oversized night dress, likely scrounged from the evidence room, draped over her blue corduroy and jeans. Curlers nestled in her bob cut. As if the clothes weren't forward enough, she made sure to wear around her neck a cardboard sign that read: confused elderly woman.
"Hello, my name is Soledad. I believe my husband is sleeping with my sister's ghost," Paula announced with Hartmanesque enthusiasm.
(As for that scenario, what the hell, Pau?)
Ricafrente and De Jesus exchanged glances like they were deciphering a particularly tricky sudoku puzzle. A dreaded occasion but welcomed by me. (Because, let's face it, I badly needed material for my piece).
De Jesus's testimony of boredom and Pau's reluctance to do the interview diluted what little motivation I had from the beginning. Whatever the hell this was ought to spice up my article.
"Have a seat, madam," De Jesus broke the silence with an eagerness I didn't think he was capable of. "Tell us everything that happened."
Paula's mock statement ripped into his men like machine gun fire. Gossip, half-truths, and derogation sprayed across the room. Each shot ejected one fraction of a second after another. I doubt she memorized and practiced that entire sermon in the mirror. It clearly wasn't the first time this had happened.
"...and they were roommates," she concluded her assault. Spoken like a true Marites.
The trauma of last year's audit apparently conceived these impromptu drills. Ricafrente touched on the subject right before Paula rang the office for arriving late (which we now realize what for).
Surprise inspections struck them at every corner. Auditors would materialize armed with equipment straight from a movie set—film cameras, boom mics. They followed the detectives around during investigations with a bizarre checklist of metrics.
"Efficiency of poltergeist containment procedures, ghostly apparitions captured, psychic premonition accuracy…" Ricafrente muttered.
His fingers didn't stop beating on the keys. Realizing that he started typing in the same words that came out of his mouth, he scratched the paper he had worked on and fed a fresh sheet to the typewriter. "They even introduced quotas for apprehensions of supernatural entities within a ridiculously tight timeframe," he continued.
The paper I worked for caught wind of the audit as soon as it hit. But only now did Boss Man decide to push through with the story. More than a year had already passed. At the time, I was able to squeeze some of my former classmates who worked at Sanggunian. Apparently, the people who came up with the metrics didn't bother with any research on the supernatural. Everyone thought PDI was just a waste of space. Literally nobody would miss them if they failed to meet the quota for "ghost apprehension" and "recorded hauntings."
"See, spirits—ghosts—exist on a different spectrum," Ricafrente explained. I probably knew more than he did but in the spirit of fair journalism, I indulged him to share his list of fun facts. "Parallel to ours but different. They manifest as energy in our plane of existence. Every now and then, by some cosmic fluke, our eyes catch them but that's it."
We didn't know enough about these other planes of existence to understand, in Ricafrente's words, the cosmic fluke. "You said they manifested as energy. Wouldn't cameras pick up on that?" I feigned ignorance, unable to resist banter. "I can snap a picture of a lightning bolt. Why can't I take one of my dead father's?"
Ricafrente hesitated. "I guess they can interfere with electronic equipment to some extent. But they don't reflect light the same way as you and I do."
Fair enough. It would be like trying to snag a radio signal with a camera. Cameras captured light within a specific range of wavelengths. Spirits existed as a form of energy that fell way outside that range. The subtle presence they embodied didn't register within the visible spectrum that cameras operated in.
"Sorry about your father, by the way," Ricafrente continued. Think of him like a gentle breeze passing through this room. You can feel the breeze, but it wouldn't be possible to take a photo or get it on film. You just know it's there, you feel it, maybe see a bunch of stuff flutter around."
De Jesus looked like he had just finished running a marathon writing the last line of his notes. "Okay, Madam. My colleague here, Detective Ricafrente, he's going to check your pockets for, uh, evidence. Are you wearing anything that may have belonged to your sister?"
Ricafrente did not wait for an answer and slipped his right hand into the gown which did, in fact, have a lonely pocket at the hip. He retrieved a calling card of sorts and handed it to De Jesus. The older detective positioned the card at an arm's length and equipped his reading glasses.
I skipped toward the scene unraveling before me and snuck a look at the card. It read:
Dimalimot, Soledad A.
09-21-1921
Dadiangas City, Philippines
Silent Haven Nursing Home
"How long has your husband been missing, Madam?" De Jesus asked.
"Since the wedding," Paula (alright—Soledad) deadpanned.
The act eventually fell apart as Ricafrente spiraled in frustration trying to explain that the living and the dead couldn't engage in carnal knowledge. It played out like a surreal play. As Paula exited the stage, I interjected with my observations, taking the opportunity to draw De Jesus into a brief conversation.
"For someone who thinks they're stuck in a rut working behind this desk, you sure were into roleplaying in the office." I said to De Jesus.
"When your kids feed you toy soup, you don't refuse. You play along and taste the damn soup," he explained.
"So you're humoring her?"
"I could give two shits wherever they send me. But not Santos. She'll make the most out of whatever crap job the brass straps on her. This dump could use more people like her."
Perhaps Paula, in these unorthodox approaches, cracked the code on how to keep her department from flatlining. There was a method to her madness, a deliberate choice to embrace even the faintest sheen of competence in the abyss that was the PDI. I soaked in De Jesus's insight, recognizing the loyalty and determination behind these bizarre initiatives.
After consoling Ricafrente who couldn't quite get over the loss of his cool, Paula shed the night dress and curlers with dissatisfied grunts. Finally acknowledging my presence, she asked, "What's this about?" Paula sighed and rolled her eyes at me (What is up with that?)
"Right. You want to do this another time?" I asked. "You look like you've got a lot on your plate."
Paula let out a small chuckle. "I work PDIs. What plate?" (Fair point).
"Just your take on the state of the PDI desk here in Dadiangas as of late would be much appreciated."
"Seriously? Who would want to read about us?" Paula asked.
I treaded carefully with the next few phrases I would use. "That's… kind of the reason why I'm writing this article, Pau—I mean, Detective. We, uh, have always turned to the albularyos and the babaylan for paranormal incidents. Naturally, the public is questioning PDI's place in law enforcement, Detective."
"The public? Really now?" Paula folded her arms.
"Well…" Words jammed up at my throat. "Alright, you got me there. I don't think most of the public even know that your desk even exists."
Paula has a look on her face that tells me she could kick me in my nether regions at any time. Should that happen, I would have to write an article on police brutality while recuperating in the hospital. "Look, you guys did a super job when the doomsday scare broke out a couple years—"
"I wasn't in the force then." She unfolded her arms and put them on her hips. Most definitely loading up a front kick.
"They already were." I motioned my arms exaggeratedly towards De Jesus and Hugo. "But you not being a cop then isn't the point here, um, Detective. All I am asking is for a senior officer to sound off on the unit's state of affairs."
She folded her arms back up again. My testicles would stay intact for the rest of the day.
(I think).
Paula paused and scanned the office, most likely considering if anyone else could do the interview instead. "Listen, the Captain asked for me. I'll be back in a few. We'll talk then, okay?" The tension above her eyes faded.
"Alright, Detective. I'll be waiting right here, Detective."
"And you don't have to call me "detective" all the time. It's fucking annoying." Her voice trailed off as she stepped outside the office.
Good to see you too, Pau.