The Dark Side of the Moon (Part I)
62This is also known as “the far side of the moon”. It is the side of the moon that is permanently turned away from the earth; hence, this side appears in perpetual darkness. This is the side we do not see. But this phrase is erroneous because on the average the “dark side of the moon” receives about the same amount of sunlight as the side we do see. Appearance in this case is deceiving as many things in this life are.
But the truth is: there is light even on the “dark side of the moon”. Yet I know a world that is in darkness, a world that knows no light and all one sees are dim shadows of desperate and shattered lives. This was once my world, a world I was fortunate enough to leave behind. Though that world is far behind me now, it still exists and continues to hold in its grip people in the throes of despair. They are still there in this twilight world of broken men and forgotten dreams.
For many there will be no escaping. They will be battered by the evil; some to the point of death. Others will never find healing, their mental and emotional states mangled permanently without hope of recovery. For a land that holds much promise for happiness, I saw a long trail of misery and pain in this world full of malice and evil. But then this may not appear to be so because on the surface there is an attractive façade for this world. There is excitement, a sense of adventure and the momentary high of drugs and danger and of course the money and the power that goes with it.
The “dark side of the moon” comes to my mind when I think about the time I spent in the United States (almost two decades) and being part of a group of mostly Filipino immigrants who were involved in the desperate world of gangs, drugs and crime. This was in southern California, mostly in the cities of Los Angeles County from the San Fernando Valley in the north to Long Beach in the south; from Pasadena to Pomona, from Glendale to West Covina. But then the extent of this network stretched across all over America even up to Alaska and Hawaii (because of the shabu trade); wherever there were Filipino immigrant communities, this world thrived as it preyed on the weak, the gullible and the lost.
The world I moved in was truly in darkness and once caught in that world escape seemed impossible. There is no stopping: the drugs; the crime; the evil that was freely dispensed and the certain misery that follow in evil’s wake. We often wrongly fear what we do not see and understand but in this case, we should rightfully fear this world.
I had no inkling then in September of 1989, when I stepped off a Philippine Airlines 747 jumbo jet, onto the arrival terminal of the Tom Bradley International Airport in Los Angeles that such a world was waiting for me. Even when I entered this world, I mistakenly thought I could be in control and make things work to my advantage. I would use the drugs, manipulate the people and pursue profit no matter what the cost and end up with the “American Dream”. At first it seemed possible but I was so wrong.
Los Angeles seemed the answer to my heart’s desire. For a man with a family to build a future for, my coming to LA was the first step of making the “American Dream” come true. Try driving on the 110 Freeway headed north, just when you are about to hit downtown LA; especially when the sun is near setting and the glittering skyline of Los Angeles bids you a seductive welcome to the city where anything is possible and you too will be infected with LA’s derring-do. The reflected light of the setting sun from the many glass covered buildings of downtown LA shines golden making one believe there is truly gold to be found on LA’s streets.
The city lends you its optimism and in turn builds your confidence and you start believing that you can be the master of your fate and fly as high as to where your ambition will take you. For a while you could. You soar, but then you will face the inevitable fall of doom very much like Icarus who flew too near the sun and fell to the sea which now bears his name. But then at that time I did not consider any thoughts of failure. I was determined to make my fortune and gain all that my heart desired.
Los Angeles is a city of immigrants where there is no past and the future could be anything you want it to be. There is a heady feel to starting over and beginning anew. Probably because this is where Hollywood is, there is no scarcity of dreams. I too felt I could be anything I wanted to be. I was completely seduced by what this city offered. The “glitter” overwhelmed me: the money, the women, the drugs and of course the more addicting high of adrenaline fueled danger in doing crime.
We had a word for this world: SIRKULASYON. When one is actively moving in this world the term became “nasasirkulasyon” literally translated in English means “in circulation”. Like a coin, to have utilitarian value you have to be “in circulation”. This meant that you have to have a “racket” that pays for your drugs; that gives you the capability to manipulate and use people; that affords you the company of women; that capitalizes your “scams”, that makes money for you, that pays for your drugs and repeats itself……a cycle that digs a deeper and deeper hole for you until your body or your mind (whichever comes first) gives up.
Then there is the possibility of a forcible vacation that the long arm of the law brings. Arrest and conviction does not necessarily mean an automatic pass out of this world except when you are deported and I have seen many enterprising individuals pass immigration scrutiny and come back to the US with predictable ease. But all of these were before 9/11 when security was not a national priority; when the surveillance of ordinary citizens were not as pervasive and intelligence monitoring of communications was still minimal.
More often, serving a prison sentence expands your network as you add contacts that would prove useful; a big drug dealer, a gang leader and “specialists” that may provide you with expertise such a credit card “scam” expert, bank fraud artist, and plain conmen willing to share trade secrets. Jail becomes a finishing school. You could leave jail with a master’s degree in “con management”. Unless there is a true change of heart, you step out of prison unreformed and become more of a menace to American society. Police and federal authorities finally went after the SIRKULASYON with renewed vigor in the aftermath of 9/11 as this odd mix of Fil-American gangsters and criminals became an increasing menace to the public yet it is still there even now.
I did not know why I was so stupid not to see that there were very limited options for this kind of life; for what this world offered: you ended up sick in the head and sick in the heart; suffering the indignities and travails of prison or dead of despair. But I did not know any of these when I first started working for my younger brother Butch. He was in fact responsible for my immigration to the United States. My brother just wanted to give me the opportunity to better my life and make a future for my family.
When my younger brother Butch visited me in the Philippines in 1988, I was already out of work for several months, with two kids and another on the way safely ensconced in the anonymity of Pililla (a remote town of Rizal province) to escape the hounding of people I owe money to after a failed business undertaking. I was then living on the good graces of my mother who supported me and my family even though she was already by that time a resident of Los Angeles and has been for over a decade.
I was living with my in laws who were kind enough to take my family in. My wife too was out of work, in a sense burned out by the demands of the “travel industry” and her anger at my infidelities. Although there was no possibility of my family ever starving (my father-in-law was a hard working rice farmer) the life style change was such a drastic departure from the kind of life my family was used to when I still had the “Midas Touch”.
When my brother saw my situation, he immediately offered to pay for whatever it will take to get me out of my desperate situation. It will be another year for me to finally secure a visa for the United States. I have to say that going through the long and trying process of getting a visa, when I was focused and concentrated on this goal, made me forgo of the drugs that was part of my life then.
This was a time of strengthening my resolve and determination to change my life and take care of my family. My Pililla sojourn made me regain my focus and I reassessed where I wanted to take my life. My relationship with my wife improved and I promised to myself that once in the US I will make up for all my shortcomings to my family. I sincerely wanted to give my wife a better life and my children a brighter future. Alas, sincerity was not enough and my good intentions crumbled into the ground after a few years.
I first saw Tata Ed as he strode in to the office of the A & D Auto Shop, an auto body repair and painting facility owned by my brother Butch. I did not know it then but Tata Ed would have such an effect on the direction my life would take.
I worked for my brother Butch immediately after I arrived. I came on a September Friday to LA and the following day, he drove me to his shop which was in Long Beach, near downtown about thirty minutes away from LA. Butch gave me a quick tour of the facility; an even shorter talk on shop management and left me with a thick pad of written instructions that afternoon. On Monday, my brother with his wife left to vacation in Spain, leaving me (a guy who then did not even know what a fender was) in charge. But I was a quick study and right away began learning the ropes.
Butch briefed me about this guy Ed (I was the one who started calling him Tata Ed which is an address of respect for older gangsters in the Philippines. Ed really liked that. I have to admit I was a favorite of his), whom he said was connected to a law office. Ed apparently referred cars damaged in accidents for repair in our shop and right then our shop was loaded with a least a dozen of Ed’s referred cars.
My brother told me that Ed earned a sizable commission for every car referred, standard practice for most body shops that relied on referrals. But Butch, the always careful businessman that he was, limited his association to Ed only in this regard and even took pains to avoid meeting with Ed personally. He did not want to know of Ed’s what could be termed as “extraordinary ways” of doing business through property damage and personal injury claims.
Butch’s aloofness at times irritated Ed and he would tell me Butch would lose his business if he remained that way. Ed badly wanted to gain a personal connection with Butch, a friendship which Ed believed would help him expand his network but then that’s another story.
What I first noticed about Ed was that he was loud. He came into the room booming his greeting, a wide grin to go with his confident swagger. He even looked the part of a Pinoy godfather, wearing his black, leather jacket and matching black fedora with white trim. Ed really relished in his persona as the benevolent Pinoy version of the young Vito Corleone. He made it appear that he is the solution to your problem, the way out of your difficult situation, the answer to your prayers. It could not be denied the man was oozing with charisma, even if he could barely speak English, although his Tagalog was truly impeccable and had poetic delivery. He was one of the characters that made the dark world of the SIRKULASYON attractive. He was larger than life.
I would not wonder why this once $3.25 an hour TNT fish scaler in a Filipino seafood market would end up, barely five years later, owning an expensive home in the upscale city of Cyprus in Orange Country and driving a late model Mercedes 560 SEL. He also kept a fleet of cars for the use of his gang (this was what we were actually: a gang of fraudsters), a hoard of jewelry and a stash of ready cash to meet any contingency. He also owned a shop that sold oriental antiques and furniture along Santa Fe Ave. on the west side of Long Beach right next to his first modest three bedroom house that was furnished with expensive antiques.
Tata Ed knew that to make money, one needed money but when my association with Tata Ed started we were engaged only in this already very lucrative “hammer and nail” scam (staging accidents) to profit from property damage and personal injury insurance claims but then Tata Ed was very ambitious. When he saw the enormous profits of the drug trade he immediately jumped on it and this proved to be his downfall and mine as well.
He always carried a thick wad of hundred dollar bills in his pocket, flash money he would say to me, to impress a would be prospect he was wooing to participate in his “scam”. At one time we were working with at least half a dozen LA lawyers and one lawyer had in fact imposed a quota on our production at thirty heads a month, meaning we were to sign up at least thirty “personal injury” cases a month.
I eventually became Tata Ed’s best salesman and ended up myself carrying thick wads of cash, with the same swagger and confident demeanor. I was the only one he took in as a partner and we split the profits from every case down the line. Tata Ed worked hard to get me to this world and he literally seduced me with everything this dark world offered. I succumbed to his every temptation willingly. Tata Ed, I found out later had already sold his soul to the devil but I was not ready for that, at last not yet. But I too would eventually sell my soul only on the most favorable terms for me or so I mistakenly thought.
TO BE CONTINUED.
