Grey’s Anatomy

April 18, 2007 9:00 pm., Pier One, SM Mall of Asia

Grey: So, what’s next for you? What do you want now?
Jay: I want a beer.

So there, two hours after we’ve met, was a pitcher of draft beer and a palayok-full of vegetable sticks between me and Grey at the bar alfresco that hot summer evening.

Jay: Now that’s what I’m talking about. Frosted mugs- no ice, no hangovers. One less thing to worry about.

Grey sit silent with that perpetual dumb look on his face. He was cute in the ugly but tolerable sense (well, ugly was an understatement, more like horrible). His eyes and mouth were like holes that stare through endless blackness in contrast to his gray inverted-teardrop-shaped head. He looked like a freak Kermit the Frog mutation of some sort that emerged from collected gray gunk that long-time smokers cough out in the morning after a night of chain smoking. I thought of South park and cows and started giggling modestly.

Grey: What’s so goddamn funny?
Jay: Moo-moo (giggles).
Grey: Huh?
Jay: You remind me of someone. Haven’t I seen you on TV before? X- Files, right?
Grey: Nah, that was my cousin. I was from Dark Skies.
Jay: You freaks all look alike.
Grey: Well, we do reproduce asexually, so we’re all basically clones of each other.
Jay: Asexually? Beh, where’s the fun in that?

I lit up a cigarette and chugged down my beer. Grey noticed I was breathing heavy sighs before I myself did.

Grey: You really were disappointed, weren’t you?
Jay: I guess I really was.

Four hours before, I was denied admission to get a Fine Arts Degree in a state university somewhere in Manila. As their mission-vision states, their priorities are those students fresh out from high school and belongs to the not-so-fortunate classes who can barely afford to go to college. Double-degree fanciers like myself (and one from a prestigious university for that matter… and a money-earning one to boot), as the dean implied, should get a number and get in line in the waiting list- which is a good twelve thousand potential iskolar ng bayan’s.

Grey: Why can’t you go to their school again?
Jay: Apparently, I was too rich for them. Imagine the irony. The dean said I’m better off getting my degree from other private universities, since it looks as though I can afford it anyway. Bollocks. If I can afford it, I wouldn’t have gone to their school in the first place.

I lit myself another cigarette.

Grey: What do you need that stupid degree for, anyway? You already have one, and you have a job. You’re more than capable to acquire studies on your own, and given enough time, you can be competitive enough to move on and get a better job.
Jay: It seemed like a great idea at the time.
Grey: Better to save yourself the trouble now than waste years of precious time over some overrated title and a piece of fancy paper. You’ve always been the non-conformist; I’ve never thought you’d be the one who would bawl over rejection from social conventionalization. The so-called experts said you’re way out of your league- big deal. Pick up your shit and move on. Besides, I doubt you would last a month back in school.

The fucker actually had truth in his words, I thought as I took a sip of my beer.

Jay: Pretty big words for someone named after a fucking color.
Grey: That coming from someone named after a dude from the BIIII-BBBLLLEEE?
Jay: Psssh. Touché (another sip). Hell, why do I even bother listening. What do you know about me? I’ve only met you hours ago. I bet you don’t even have a degree yourself.
Grey: I’m psychic, remember? And I don’t need your earthly primitive notion of deg-rees to sustain our needs of survival and amusement. My people have twice the size of your puny little earth-brains and optimize 100 percent of its capability. Half the sweat, twice the profit.
Jay: Seriously…what the fuck are you talking about?
Grey: I’m talking about my people, back in my home-world, how we are all naturally geniuses.
Jay: What home-world? You are made in china. The tag said so.
Grey: Exactly.

The git had a point. Miles away from relevance, but a point nonetheless. Maybe it is all a little superficial.

Grey: What exactly gets you down? Surely it’s not just the gratification and pride of having accomplished something that you’re digging for…
Jay: I thought you were a psychic…

Silence.

Grey: What’s the big fucking deal about having gray hairs?
Jay: You read my mind?! I felt desecrated, bastard.
Grey: Gray hairs are sexy. Look at Richard Gere.
Jay: Okay, so now you’re a faggot?
Grey: I told you, we’re asexual.
Jay: So if I told you to go fuck yourself, you can actually go and do it?
Grey: Not in the same context, but pretty much, yeah.
Jay: Freak.

For the first time since the sad tiding was broken, I felt a smile crawl up to my lips. Maybe everything really is going to be alright.

Grey: So, I ask you again, what’s next for you?
Jay: Same as it has always been (sip). Tomorrow.

I took a last puff at stubbed out my cigarette, lit another one, poured a mug-full of beer, and raised my glass to a toast.

Jay: To the great bloody potentials.
Grey: Cheers.

I took out the book I bought from Powerbooks on the way to the bar and started flipping through the pages, and by the time I finished reading a couple of pages, the blues has started to wash away. Grey was right. Gray hairs doesn’t mean shit.

And he was right about another thing- it wasn’t the end of the line for me. It’s not like it’s a great loss for my career. I just have to propel my helm to a different direction. Not necessarily inferior ones, just different. I went home that night with a good buzz and a light heart. Once again, Grey, with the perpetual dumb look on his face, sat silently beside me, keeping his hush until the time I required his company again.

Yeah, I guess he’s cool-

     For a 45-peso [ukay ukay] beanie baby, with a head filled with cotton and guts filled with beads, he was one heck of a good conversationalist.