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16. What'is the miracle of the author's life? :

17 , Evaluate the entire selection.1 8. Compose a similar essay on "A House Full of Sons.

LIFE IS A THREE-RING CIRCUS

Jose A. Quirino

Jose A Quirino was born in Bayombong, Nueva Yizcaya, on April 27 , 1930.He finished his law degree at Far Eastern University. At present his majoroccupation is writing. He has also taught English in the Philippine Women'sUniversity, Philippine Normal College, artd Manuel L. Quezon T:,Jniversity.'Hehas won three Stanvac awards. for journalism in fcature writing. He was alsonamed Most Prolilic and Most Valuable Contributor of the Philippines FreePress tor nine consecutive years. He hosts a popular weekly television.program,

J. Q. Specials. He has published in all the major Philippine journals and hisshort -stories are collected in these books: Night Song and Other fales,Loniinrs Is a Volcano and New Stories, Nocturne lor Piano and Heartstringlsand More New Stories, and Modern Loue Stories. N. V. M. Gonzalez has welldesmibed Mr. Quirino as "the writingest writer of the Philippines."

' About a.lozen years ago, I got my first job as drumbeater for a German-Itali'{circus., I had cubbed for two or three obscure provincial newspapers, had'finally bpcoc;a real McCoy of a reporter for a'more stable paper in the big city; and I was swooufwith the glamour of the journalistic life. I bought a hat just so I could wear it on the bacilof my head. People followed me for blocks to see if the hat would fall off. illl/lllqg.l

I also learned to smoke cigars with one side of the mouth but never leained to t'llifrom the other unoccupied side. The tone would have been wrong anyway; naturegiven me a falsetto voice. I began on the police beat but did entertainment features on thi:side, mostly interviews with starlets who were as wet behind the ears as I was. d

Those movie items were rvhat dumped me into the publicity route. One dgy th{promoter wiih a stable of starlets most of whom I had done, interview-wisc; asked mjout to lunch. I thought it was just a thank-you lunch but it turned out that the fellow wa{branching out. He was importing a European circus, And he wanted me-me!-to dolthe publicity work. I told him I knew nothing of pro work but he said if I could write, IfJ

could drumbeat. :

He named a fee. It sounded like a fortune to me in those days. But my heart was pura lI told him I'd have to consult my editor first and find out if this was honest.

My editor, a tearful souse, wept over me; I think he was mourning his lost innocence..i

But he did give it to me straight: where legitimate news ended and sly propaganda;

began. If I could walk the brink without falling off, he didn't see why I shouldn't accepq

the pro job. As I said, my heart was pure and I had the strength of ten. I had not the,i

least doubt I could toe the perilous line between being a newsman and being a:.;

Propaga ndist.The sideline looked dull at first. The promoter dumped a load of publicity material on r;

me aV6 told me to cull out a few items from them. It was mostly a rewrite job. I just 1

changed the adjectives and put the verbs in the future tense. But I must have done 4 goodl{

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job because most of thp papers I sent the itcms to, published them.The prgmoter wasn't satiihed, He wanted more-spccilic writeups, espccially on the

stars of the show. Thc top clown was supposed to be a very famoui onc and he wantedme to do a lushjob en that clown. I sifted through the publicity material bqt more or less

kncw how I was going to do thc clown. I was young then, rcmember, and had thcltereotyped notion.of clowns as being vcry gloomy, cven tragic staturca' when notbcfore the footlights.

How many movies had I sqen about clowns laughing while their hcart brokc. So I didthis writcup that I entitled "The Grin Is Only Painted On." A real tearjcker.Evcrybody atc'it up. I and thc clown bccamc namcs in people'r mouths. It was niy lirrtsmall tastc of fame.

Then the circus arrived and I met thp clown in person. I.could have died of shamc.

This was my firrt lesson in the diffcrcncc betwecn lii.r"t*. and life, bchrecn the clichcand thc reality. The clown was not thc kindl had read aboul in bools'or walchcd in'thcmovies. In rtreet clothcs he was jurt ap ordinary man, vcry relaxcd, and earygoing,eventdmpered, rather indolent. It nccded only a fcw minutes with him,to ree he warn'tthe mqody typc or a prima donna. He was a grcat clown all righ!, as I found out atrehearsal, but hc didn't call it art, *hat hc did, it was just his line of,work, a iraft passcd

on to him.by- his father and grandfather,,and if they had bccn carpenters he would hade

been as cheerfully.a carpenter too.

Gorg[o his name was. IIc didn't use his surnarnc. He was a lforth lurlian but thefamily had movcd up fmm somc dreary village to a swanky sriburb of Milan. The lirsttime wc wcre"togethcr he spcnt the first ten minutes showinf off photor of hir villa inMilan, the two ears hcowned, and hisfamily.

The wife was a fat peasant but he told me she ordered her clothes from Romc. His fivechildren were all in iassy schools in Switzerland. In the wintcr he took his family tosouthern Spain. He was pushing 50 thcn and was thinking of retiring. Hc boastcd he

had saved cnough money to retire in style. Milan was nice but too cold. Hc was thinkingof buying a place in Capri. Hls family had been in the circus for gencrations-but nocircus for his children; the tradition war to end with himl no grease-paint for his sons.

Thcy would be professionals, businessmen, solid citizens.My heart sank lower and lower as I listened to Gorgio. It wasn't merely thc

embarrassment of having painted a wrong picture of him, in. a writeup that had caused

so much splash it demanded a follow-up. There was also the problcm of how to makethis old squarc interesting

Again I bcg you to remember that I was young. It just didn't oocur to mc that ihereality might bc.a hcll lot more interesting than the acrepted cliche. I never. got thebright idea of shattering a superstition, of coming up with a piccc that said: Look,you've got.thc wrong slant on clowns. They're not all gloomy. Hcre's one who laughsbecause he's happy, not because hir heart is breaking; I had rct ideas about life.Evcrything followed.a patternl Newsmen were tough on the outside, prostitutes hadhearts of gold, movie stars were discovered in rags, and journalism wat a glamorousprofession. Clowns had to follow the pattern sct for them too.

I asked Gorgio if hc had read what I had writtcn about him. Hc said he never'read hig

notices. He didnlt say that to hurt me, he wasjust telling thc truth. He had good Englishbut if he read at allhe read in ltalian. I told him about having drawn a picture ofhim as

a Hamlct of a clown.He laughed and made a [ace, then shrugged. Yes, so many had written so about him,

386

as being melancholy, moody, morose. The world had a certain picture of clowns that it,didnlt know was spurious. So he never contradicted those wrileuqg a,pg.uqnim, I*rE$.,ncticause to worry. He would not contradict me either. FIe would go alcing with the gaiiie if ,:

such publicity would dra* uowds to see him. I could say anything.Now, what could you do with a guy like that? ,

Gorgio kept his word.tri nis first general conference with the press he wore black, .spoke in curt

monosyllables, scowled at cameras,'went into a.tantrum, then broke down and said thcgentlemen of the press were to forgive him, he had so much on his mind, emotionaltroubles, affairs of.the heart.

The follow-up piece I did on him pulled out whatever steps were left. I hinted'at aseries of tragic live affairs. Now, in middlc age, he had fallen in love with a youhg jirlwho was merely playing with him. Every time he rolled into the ring -to play thc tlown,he was doing it to punGh himself for playing thq clown in real life, fof allowing his.heartto be kicked, punched, buffeted, and tripped by a little hard-hcarted wench. All Manilacrowded to the circus to see this clown who was so funny becausi he was ro pitiful. I tookto drinking.

Gorgio-was a hit, and so was the circus. It had been contracted for a month, was hcldover for two weeks, then got contracted to appear in Cebu and Davao. Abou! two orthree days before the troupe left for the SouthJhe promoter paid me'off-the stipulatcdfee plus a'bonus. lle said I had donc a terrificjob. Next time \i imported a show I wasio. be its drumbeater again. I told him he could give thc job td somebody else: this wasmy lirst and last try as pro.

I had to resist an urle to give away to charity the money I had earned. I was verymuch the idealist in those days and I felt I had been "false to my public" !

The promoter must have talked to Gorgio about how I felt bccause,thc day beforc thctroupe.left Gorgio invited me out to dinner. We went to the Euiop€an restaur4nt onIsaac Peral anJ Gorgio showed his cosmopolitanism by ordering a rare meal, eachcourse with the proper wine. Since there werc only the two of os I i+,as rather puzzled byall the attention. Over the demitasse and the brandy Gorgio opened up.

He said he could understand my feeling so upset for having "invented'l a story, btrteveryone in show business was used to that sort of thing. In timc I would learn to tirkc itin stride and not be so scrupulous.

"You must learn," he said, "to separate your prol'essional life from your other lives;or you'll never be able to live for yourself, You will have a ver], narFow world.

"Look at me,'1 he continued. "My life is a three'ring circus. In one ring I am Gorgiothe famous clown. In another ring I am the father of a highly respected family with anelegant villa in Milan. And in the third ring I am myself alone, in person. This personthat's me likes good food, likes to drink, likes pretty girls, likes to live it up. He can bevery wild but he is wild only on his own time. He is never allowed to mess up the workof Gorgio the clown or to disturb the reputation of that respectable father of thc family inMilan. I live, therefore, three different lives that are more or less independent of each.

other. And because I can keip them separate, each in its own ring,'I enjoy a much'largerworld than I would if I were merely entirely engrossed in being a circus star or the headof a family.

"You must learn'to do the same, boy. Right now you are merely the newspaperman.You have allowed your profession to absorb your €ntire life. That is bad. In my businesswe would rate you as just a one-ring circus. The big stars are in the three-ring circus.That is what you must aspire for. It is good to be serious'about your irocaticin but bad to

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must right away start setting up two. 6ther rings

I have put down as much as I. can remember of what Gorgio said_that night, and Iremember them so well because they made such an impression on me. In every.man's'lifethere's one particular moment when the right advice hits home-and.that night was thernoment bf orientation for me.

The very next day I told my editor I was getting tired of the police bedt. I had an ideafor a series of articles on life in the provinces..Would he take a charice on-me'and send

me as a roving reporter all over the country for two or three months? I must have spokenforcefully because an editorial conference soon after decidcd it might not be bad to have aseries on provincial life. And I was tapped to do the series. It wasn't the series I was lfterbut the enlarging of my horizons. I was taking Gorgio's advice, I was setting up a second

ring in my circus, I was iri quest of experience.I left for the Batanes a week later and it was there I read, in a day-old paper, of

Gorgio'g actident in Davao. One part of his act has him parodying a tightrope walker.The rope is supposed to break and spill him to the floor. That night in Davao, the-rope.had broken as usual but Gorgio had landed on an iron bar the strongman had left ih thering. Gorgio had bruised his back againstthe bar. He had stood up right away and gone

on with the act but was absent from the show the next day.When I came back to Manila abdut two months later, I callgd up my'friend the

promoter for news about Gorgio. The circus had long left the'country; as far as thepromoter knew, Qorgio was all right. He had been absent only rine night during the tourand had arrived iri Manila looking fit. I told the promoter'I had changed my mind; if he

imported another show I was ready to be its drumbeater. He put me to work on acoming ice revire at once.

All.this was a dozen.years ago. Eaily this year I was approached by some fly-by-nightcompany that wanted me to publicize a circus. They felt rather apologetic forapproaching mei this circus they were importing was only a small one'ring circus, butthat was why they needed me.

Maybe I could do wonders even for such a minor show.I was busy with a lot of big deals, but for some reason I was interested in this chicken-

feed of a proposition, After-all, as I told myself, I had started in the pro business as

drumbcater for a circus. So I told the promoters to send me the materials and I would see

what I could do with them.Among thc publicity stuff they sent me was the usual writeup on the top clown,

somebody called Peppo. I grimaced as I read about this clown. He was said to be agloomy fellow, to have had a tragic life, and so forth-all the old cliches about the downwlro laughed when his heart was breaking. I was wiser now (maybc cynical is the betterword) and I could see through the cliches.

So I did a piece that blastcd all this nonsense about clowns being melancholy. I said

that this Peppo was most probably a healthy, wealthy member of the bourgeoisie bacJ< inhis country artd owned a villa, and two cars. I said hc was most probably the head of arespectable family, sent his children to the best schools, and had a fat, comfortable wife.This piece of mine also created quite a sensation. My blase line had thc right hook for

"i|**'ffiff:tffffi:flill,fli,il;,.us arrived, and when r came back to Manila itwas just ending its run. I heard it was a rather dreary show' Well, what could vouexpect from a one-ring circus? I went to catch it on its last night.

ft'388

When the clowns came in, one'of them seemed familiar. Birt I told myseu it wasimpossible. I couldn't possibly have seen the fcllow before. He was

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clown; -I

could sense he was old-you can't thell with all that paint on. And I scnrcdsoqrcthing else-that he'w_as suffering and that his two .o*p"r,ion, were deliberately,maliciously making him sulfer.

There was intent, there was eqjoyment in the way they tripped him and whackcd himand jumped.o,n hil

1nd kicked him. He had two companions, both obviously youngjaboy and a girl. And I began to bc horrified with- whaithey were.doing to that poo"ltaclown; I could sense he was old-you can't tell with al.l that paint on. And I sensed

Toward the end of the act, the boy and the girl gave poor pcppo a whack with a boardthat sent him sprawling to thc sawdust. The. audience .o"r.i-", he strove to rise butcouldn't, falling down on his facc after each effort to push himself up. I leaned forwardin my chair. Wehe thosc real tears in the clownis eyes?

I felt positive he wag weeping florn p-ain. The audience guffawed when the boy andthe girljumped on his baclc, then picked him up by the shoulders and draggcd him out of

.the ring.I jumped fror.n my seat and hurried backstage. I asked the way to pep.po's dressing

room' He was alone in the room when I entered. He was lying on a cot. -I

introduceimyself. Thc eycs that were dead under thc paint flickered for a iroment. He sat up witheffort 4nd leaned loward me.

"We have met before," he said. tI asked him who he was and he rose and got a towel and began wiping away thc paint

from his face: Then hc took offhis wig and turned around to show me his facc,

It was Gorgio, Gorgio grown vcry old.Hc told me what had happened to him, After that accident in Davao he had begun to

feel a pain in the back. The pain grew so bad he had to leave the circus he was with andundergo an operation. It was the first of a series of operations that had completclyexhausted all his savings. The villa in Milan had to be sold, his children had to migrateto America. His wifc died. He had to beg for circus jobs. But managcrs were reluctant tohire him now, he could not move as nimbly as before,.every movement was pain.

I was aghast. I told him how shocked I was by the r+'ay his companions tormented himin the ring. Why did he allow that girl and that boy to treat him so roughly if the least

movernent was Painful to him?"The girl is my wife," he saidI did not know where to look.

"And the boy is her lover," he went or1, in his dull voice.

know they enjoy making me suffer. But I can't do anything.my life now, all my world."

"I know she's unfaithful., II can't leave her. She's all

I reminded him about what he had told me long ago: that life should be a three-ringcircus. Nothing should absorb your whole life by itself,

He made a horrible grimace.

"That was another man talking," he said, "All I want now is a one-ring circus,however small, however cheap. But it's hard to get even that now'"

And suddenly he began to cry. I was embarrassed, I rose to go, wanting only to leave

him alone in his misery, I had twice been wrong about this man. When I opened the

door, a news photographer I knew was standing outside. I delibcrately blocked his way,

not wanting the photographer to see the man sitting on the cot weeping.

But Gorgio had heard us and was asking who it was.

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l'somebody wanis to takc your picture, tr called out over my shoulder, stiUilockingthe doorway.

"Let him'in," said Gorgio.The photographer stepped in and I said goodbye,

, "Smile,n' I heard the photographer say as I walked out. I glancid back. The clownwas laughing

Questions:

1 . Which mannerisms of a reporter did the author.adopt?2. Discuss thethin line bct*ccn bcing a Rewsman and being a propagandist.3. What was his stereotypcd notion of clowns?4. List some tt.r.otyp.d notions that people have about clowns and other typcs of

people.5. Whlt was the author's first lesson in the differenct between literature and life, the

clichc and the reality?Comment on tbe line, "Again I beg you to remember that I was young."Discuss how riality can be more interesting than the acccpted cliche.What were the three-rings in Gorgio's life?What wasGorgio's advice to the reporter?What did the reporter noticc about Peppo's performance?.'Is the ending of the stoq/ plausible?What is thi author trying to say in this story?Discuss the title of the story.What reaction is caused by the last line of the story?

IN DEFENSE OF YOUNG MEN WHO ARE LAUGHED ATBECAUSE THEY INSIST THEY'RE POETS ATTHOUGHTHEY HAVEN]T WRITTEN AI{YTHING BUT SIGNS

Ricardo I. Patalinjug

Ricardo I. Patalinjug has written a number of short stories and poems fordifferent national magazines and weiklies. He frequently dials withcontemporary themes and national issues. His short story "The Exile" wonthird prizc inthe Graphrc Award Contest for 1970.

The young who let their souls wail on walls

Are poets, too, frantic for recognition.

Signs are poems: gaPing wounds to fondle.

Latest vintage architecting syllables,

Native strangers alienated from the womb'

The young who let their souls wail on walls

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