As soon as I saw the name Dr. Louis La Fayette blinking wildly on the caller ID I developed the sudden compulsion to whine, throw the phone on the floor, pour boiling coffee on it, and give it one exasperated stomp. Or, for less drama and wastage, reject the call. A major conference would be held in a few months, and Dr. Louis La Fayette had been actively scouting the hospital for organizing committee members. I composed myself and answered the call.

                  “I want you to be the head of the committee,” Dr. La Fayette declared.

                  “No, sorry,” I replied.

                  I was surprised. First, for my forthrightness. Second, for not stammering. And third, for my ability to think clearly and decisively in an instant. I had released a cold, sharp “no” like it was a guillotine blade, and I could hear Dr. La Fayette’s head plopping and rolling on the French cobbled street, leaving tracks of blood and tears. Or not–he actually just said “ok!” and proceeded with the next person on his list. Still, I was pleased with this unusual showcase of resolve that did not involve mega-histrionics. This was probably because I was in a nice cafe, the latté and pistachio panna cotta were delicious, and Somewhere Only We Know was playing in the background. Maybe if I was auscultating a patient at the time, or dodging swerving motorcycles, or the Somewhere Only We Know that was playing was a bossa nova cover I would have stumbled on my words and unleashed a string of unintelligible animal sounds that would culminate with a regrettable “Sure!”

                  Smoketh and Mrs. T congratulated me on this as we were shoving spaghetti in our mouths. It was Mrs. T’s birthday, and we decided to celebrate at her home in Farview, which,  on a Friday night, was a 3-hour drive through SLEX and Quezon City traffic. It took a lot of effort, and I made sure to remind Mrs. T of it by exaggerating near-death encounters with tanker trucks along Commonwealth Avenue. But as Smoketh, in her infinite wisdom, said: “You have to make an effort to meet your friends, because if you don’t make an effort to meet your friends, then you won’t meet your friends.”

                  Mrs. T remarked that Dr. La Fayette could be inviting everyone for the job and not just me in particular so I wasn’t particularly special, but that it was still a cause for celebration.

                  “Yes. I told myself that it would be better to endure a few seconds of discomfort saying ‘no’ than go insane with additional work for months,” I said.

                  After graduating from hellowship training and starting private practice Smoketh, Mrs. T, and I received administrative assignments in our respective departments. Many positions were up for grabs, except that nobody really liked to grab them, like the Coordinator Sub-Czar For Pharmaceutical Research and Facilities, or Internal Medicine Residency Program Training Officer Olé, or Data Privacy Master and Commander. In medical societies one may also be given membership in a committee, for example, the  committee that conducts outreach activities, or the committee that drafts the board exams. As newbie consultants all we could do was secretly whine, bemoan the clinic hours that would be chomped up by a non-income generating work, and accept the work anyway. Of course, there are many doctors who genuinely thrive in these leadership positions, and we super love them so and hope that they won’t ever retire.

                  “Congratulations on being firm,” Smoketh told me. “I myself will be replaced in the training committee. I have successfully groomed Dr. Shalimar Andersen to succeed me!”

                  Mrs. T and I clapped and cheered, which was, apparently, premature. Smoketh explained that as soon as this door closes another door leading straight into a death trap will open. Just a few days ago, as she was washing her baunan in the college office, senior consultant Dr. Vernon de Ungria walked into the kitchen. She pretended to not notice him, but as he was refilling his water bottle he started to initiate small talk. A back and forth of pleasantries ensued, then Dr. Vernon revealed that Dr. Joselito Indarapatra III would be unable to organize the upcoming alumni program due to emergency family matters in Wisconsin. As soon as the small talk veered towards this familiar direction Smoketh felt a lump in her throat. Before Dr. Vernon could even finish “inviting” her to take over the job Smoketh uttered a very resistant, very defeated, “Yes, sir, thank you.” We judged Smoketh severely for this weakness.

                  “We have become so conditioned in training that even the hint of an utos would make us ask for the specifics and thank the utusera for it,” I scoffed

                  Mrs. T, however, reminded me that I shouldn’t feel so superior as I don’t really have the best track record when it comes to saying no. She had known me since the first day of college decades ago, and one of our favorite activities after class was fortifying our gut microbiome by regularly eating isaw. Our favorite spot was the one near Ilang-Ilang dormitory, where all the bright orange skewered innards were placed in a plastic cup full of sterilizing vinegar. By 4 PM the place was crawling with UP students, visitors from nearby schools, Quezon City locals, and the occasional public officials and famous people. Nobody was as lucky as Smoketh, though, who once saw Tiya Pusit eating isaw and had a photo opportunity with her.

                  One afternoon after Physics class I was supposed to have isaw with Mrs. T but she texted that she was going to be late. I stopped by the Sunken Garden to ruminate on life, love, and sufferings–in particular, thermodynamics and other Physics 71 concepts. I must have looked so crestfallen because three cheery boys suddenly approached me, and I recognized that one of them was Ryley, a classmate in Physics. Initially I thought they were from a fraternity, and immediately my brain skipped to the prospect of getting dragged blindfolded into a room and paddled until the chemicals in my muscles spread into my bloodstream and zap my kidneys. Back in high school everyone had warned me that in UP I would get recruited either by a fraternity, communists, or the Opus Dei, but so far I had not been invited by any of them. Fraternity-related violence, however, was top of mind at the time. A year prior one of my classmates in ROTC did not show up during Sunday training, and his best friend tearfully revealed to us that he had just died during his fraternity initiation rites. A few months later, while we were in our Humanities II class in Palma Hall we heard gun shots. We were told that a journalism student, Niño Calinao, was killed near the Office of University Registrar after being mistaken for a member of a fraternity.

                  “Hello, my name is Richard,” Boy Number 1 said as he extended his hand for a handshake. “Can we invite you to listen to the good news?”

                  “Good news…” I stammered, stopping myself from saying “… that you’re going to paddle me?”

                  “The good news!” Richard exclaimed. “The good news that Jesus loves you!”

                  Richard, Ryley, and Rainier, all smiles, sat with me and told me in various ways that I only need to accept Jesus, that I need to pray, that I need to spread the Good Word. But mostly they asked questions about my life, and in my docility I answered all of them.

                  “Or maybe you really wanted to have new friends,” Smoketh said as she munched on her Banoffee Caramel Crunch Cake.

                  I missed my isaw rendezvous with Mrs. T that afternoon, and the day after that, and many days thereafter, because I did Bible study with Richard, Ryley, and Rainier. At first the Bible study seemed routine, nothing too different from what the Catholic sisters had taught me my entire life, until Richard said, “Will, I want you to write on this piece of paper the number of times you masturbate in a day. Me? I masturbate twice a day. Whenever I see a hot girl in the jeep in the morning, it really gets me hard. I also masturbate at night. Now you indicate how often you masturbate.”

                  “Specify as well what makes you hard,” Ryley said.

                  “Uhmm… okay…”

                  Of course I wasn’t aware that they weren’t Catholics because I didn’t bother to ask, but I was starting to have my suspicions. These suspicions were only confirmed when Richard said that if the Pope tries to jump across a sea of flames to get to God he would fall into the fire, burn, and die.

                  In a span of two weeks I was able to attend four small-group Bible studies and a worship event with their pastor. The whole time I was asking myself why I was doing those things when I wasn’t enjoying any of it. I tried to convince myself that maybe I really wanted to join, or that it was providential, or that my second thoughts were manifestations of dark forces, but the simplest explanation was that I was stupid and didn’t know how to say no to their kind faces.

                  “Okay, Will, now we go to the Sunken Garden,” Richard said sternly. “We are going to approach a student, and you are going to ask him to join us in our Bible study. I’m going to observe you. It’s time.”

                  It was time, indeed. Time to leave. And I did, imagining that I was removing my robes and flower crown and other cultish accoutrements as I walked away.

                  “You could have said ‘no’ so many times,” Mrs. T said as she drank the remaining vinegar in the isaw cup. I told her everything because she was starting to get worried about my absence. “You have to know what you want, Will. And if there’s something that you don’t like you have to say no! Say it with me: No!”

                  In my final years in the university I had made it a habit to sit forlornly at the Sunken Garden with the sole purpose of waiting for members of the religious group to approach me. I looked contemplative, dejected, lost. Many would take the bait and use the same opening lines and flash the same bright smiles.

                  “Hi! I’m Trixie from the College of Engineering. Can we invite you to…”

                  “No,” I would say.

                  “Hi! I’m Nancy, have you heard the good…”
                  “No.”

                  “Hi…”

                  “No!”

                  It reached a point that if nobody was approaching me I would look around and flash half-smiles to students who gave off that church member vibe, hoping they would mistake me for someone in need of saving. Sometimes I was right and they would walk towards me and I would coldly say my rehearsed “no”. Sometimes I just looked like a pervert who should be reported to the police.

                  I smiled at Mrs. T, Smoketh, and the other birthday party guests who had arrived, accepting their congratulations, proud of myself and the origin story of my superhuman capacity to say no. Of course I didn’t tell them what happened recently.

                  As I was browsing through books in Solidaridad I received a text message Dr. ZS. He was my mentor during my PGH fellowship training, and as a learned response I always assumed that the text message “can I call?” meant that I did something wrong. Possible scenario: one of my patients had asked him for a second opinion, and he discovered a gross mistake in how I managed the patient.

                  “Hey,” Dr. ZS said. “If I remember correctly, weren’t you involved with teaching in a med school before?”

                  “Yes sir!” I said, relieved that I hadn’t committed a crime.

                  “Great! Listen, can I ask you to join our board exams committee? It’s actually a very easy job. Basically we will just write three hundred questions and meet periodically the entire year to workshop the questions.”

                  “Uhm… yes sir?”

                  Damn it.

_{Has nothing to do with the story, but I’m hungry and thinking about Coco Ichibanya}

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