Chapter 11: "COMICS" IS A RELIGION
It was one of those days when everything seemed to be wrong. My friend Juan Tabagwang and I had nothing better to do but waste our time aimlessly walking along a dirty, noisy, busy, and crowded street. And along with that the air was full of smog, the people looked morose, and the honking of cars was very annoying. Even the trained, talkative, foul-mouthed, cursing, and blasphemous parrot, Periko, which we used to annoy in the bird shop, “Mga Ibon Ni Adarna,” did not return our greetings as we passed by it. We noticed that the shop owner had tapped its beak. Unable to curse us, the bird gave us a malevolent look instead. We ignored it and continued with our desultory walking. Suddenly, we heard shouting and commotion. We saw the guy who was always cursing us, the great Kurso, running very fast and carrying a big, bulging bag. His face looked almost white with fear and his dogs were running with him. Right behind them was an angry crowd.

    

“Hey, what’s the big hurry?” I asked one of the men chasing Kurso.

    

“Kurso, our shepherd  and congregator, stole the money of our congregation!” the man answered as he ran with the crowd.

    

Juan turned to me as he scratched his head. “He’s a congregator!?” he said in disbelief. “Unbelievable!”

    

“Yeah!” I said. “He blesses his god in the morning, steals money from his faithful in the afternoon, and curses us in the evening.”

    

“Great guy!” Juan remarked.

    

“Indeed!” I agreed. “He’s not Kurso, The Great for nothing.” Juan and I then chuckled.

    

“I think we can go back now to Tomadors’ Tavern,” Juan said. “Kurso and his dogs are not around.”

    

We jogged to go to Tomadors’, excited at the thought of drinking again the strong drink, the ambrosia of wines, the “agua de pataranta,” which we haven’t tasted for quite a while. It was the only good thing that happened that day, or so we thought. At the tavern entrance we were met by Maria D’Kapri, or Super Kapre as she was popularly called.

    

“What apocalyptic winds brought the two of you here?” Maria greeted us in an unpleasant voice. She must be in one of her moods again.

    

“C’mon Maria,” I said. “By now you should know that it’s the spirit of the ‘agua’ that beckoned us to come here.”

    

She pouted at us. Anyway, we discreetly went into the tavern so as not to upset her, and we ordered 11 bottles of “agua.” After we got the drinks, we immediately chugged two bottles and became tipsy. That was when Juan started to talk about religion.

    

“I am averse to religion and everything about it,” Juan said. He looked serious.

    

“Oh, you’re just jealous of other religions,” I remarked nonchalantly.

    

“Why should I be?” Juan asked, a bit agitated. “Why should I be jealous of other religions like that of Kurso’s? He’s despicable!”

    

“I know,” I said. “You two are of the same kind, but of different religions. Yours is 'comics'.”

    

“Comics!?” Juan exclaimed in amazement, unable to comprehend by what I meant by it.

    

“Yes, comics!” I said as I looked at him straight into his eyes. “ 'Comics' is a religion, your religion.”

    

Juan pushed his chair away from the table to get a good look at me, and then he put his hands on his hips. In a sarcastic voice he said, “I think you’re drunk!”

    

“You’re the one who’s drunk with your obsession with your comics religion,” I countered. “Let me elaborate. You’re a comics ‘creator,’ a comics ‘god.’ You created the Super-Butt. Your comics stories were compiled into one big book and became a ‘bible.’ Your Super-Butt is a superhero with superpowers to help the oppressed and battle the bad guys. He is one of your ‘canonized saints.’ Your ‘believers’ or fans love your saints and idolize them. They go to comics convention pilgrimages as a kind of gathering of the faithful.”

    

Juan looked at me with his mouth open, aghast. 

I continued with my sermon, “The comics stores are your ‘churches’ where your believers ‘donate’ to get a copy of the Super-Butt comics. Actually, you are similar to Kurso. You also stole the donations from your believers since you give them trashy and worthless stories. Your diehard believers become your ‘disciples' and 'preachers’ who propagate your comics stories, your ‘teachings.’ Other comics creators are your rival gods. Not only their comics religions but other spiritual religions are competitive to your religion. That’s why you don’t like them and are jealous of them. In other words, you’re protective of your comics religion.”

    

Juan was exasperated and unimpressed with my preaching. “How about you?” he asked. “What’s your religion?”

    

I did not answer him. Instead I said, “Actually, anything that becomes an obsession becomes a religion. For example, the love of money is another form of religion.”

    

“I am not interested in those things,” Juan remarked. This time he was really losing his patience. “What’s your religion?”

    

I chuckled. “My religion is also another one of your religions,” I answered.

    

“I don’t have another religion!” Juan countered.

    

“That’s the problem with you,” I said. “Yours is a case of ‘agua’ induced amnesia.”

    

“What!?” Juan said with a confused look on his face.

    

“You desire and obsess over something and you practice it, but you’re not conscious about it,” I explained. “That’s because of the effect of the spirit of the agua in you.”

    

“Whatever,” Juan said, impatiently. “Let’s go back to your religion.”

    

“This is my religion!” I said proudly as I put a bottle of “agua” at the middle of the table. “Agua de pataranta! It is also your other religion.”

    

“I think you’re really drunk this time,” Juan said as he looked at me through the corner of his eye.

    

“Hah!” I exclaimed as I gestured my hand to brush Juan off. Then I pushed the bottle of “agua” closer to him and said, “Drunk or not drunk, this is our religion.” And I quickly emptied the contents of the bottle, wiped my mouth dry, and reclined on my seat. Then I burped, farted, and let out a contented sigh as I slid down the seat. “That, Juan, are the blessings of the ‘agua’,” I said with a smile. “Aside from the hangover and swirling head that I get as the side effects.”

    

“Are you a moron or what!?” Juan remarked as he gave me a blank stare. “The ‘agua’ probably fried your brain already.”

    

“Far from it! It’s you, the ‘agua’ reduced your head to a pinhead,” I said a bit irritated. “Let me explain it to you in simple words. You see, the Tomadors’ Tavern is our church, the spirit of the ‘agua de pataranta’ is our god, and these good for nothing drunks here, including us, are the faithful. And our donations are the money we paid for the ‘agua’.” I then turned to the drunks around us who were listening to our conversation and asked them, “Right?”

    

“Absolutely!” all the drunks answered in chorus. Then they raised their glasses of “agua” and roared together, “A toast to ‘agua,’ our religion!”

    

“See Juan!” I said as I looked at him with my glazed eyes and pointed at the drunks around us. “And Maria ...”

    

“What about Maria?” Juan asked nonchalantly.

    

I moved closer to him and whispered, “Maria is our religious minister.”

    

I did not realize that Maria was behind me. She overheard what I said and gave me a whack on my head. “Idiot!” she exclaimed.

    

I turned to her as a I rubbed my head. “What did you do that for?” I asked meekly.

    

“You are not only blasphemous like Periko, you are also trying to influence all those half-wit drunks here,” Maria remarked angrily.

    

“It’s just a harmless joke, Maria,” I reasoned.

    

“Silence!” she said forcefully. This time she really lose her patience with us. “You two pay up now and get out of the tavern!”

    

“B-but...,” Juan complained.

    

“I said pay up now!” Maria insisted.

    

“Juan, pay up,” I said. “Hurry!”

    

“How come I always end up paying for our drinks?” Juan said sulking. “For once, you pay up and change your bad habit.”

    

“Remember, I am an absolute fool,” I said, “and absolute fools don’t change.”

    

Anyway, Juan paid for our drinks and we were expelled from the tavern, “excommunicated” by Maria for our irreverence. However, we did not easily give up. We belted our out of tune, drunken, penitence song for forgiveness in front of the tavern. It made Maria angrier. She came out of the tavern and threw empty bottles of ‘agua’ at us. It missed me but hit Juan. He woke up in the hospital with stitches on his head between the eyes.

    

“W-what happened?” he asked wondering.

    

“You were hit by Maria’s ‘celestial lightning bolt’,” I answered.

    

As we walked home, from afar, we looked like repentant sheep. But up close we looked like humiliated drunken goats humming the “comics" is a religion song to somehow lessen our longing and desire for “agua de pataranta,” doused by Maria’s “excommunication” of us from the tavern. For a time after that, we were branded by most drunkards in the neighborhood as the “atheistas de agua.”