384

16. 17 , 8.

What'is the miracle of the author's life?

job
:

be

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

Th
stars me to knew
stere{
be

LIFE IS A THREE-RING CIRCUS

Jose

A. Quirino

for Hr

this
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 major occupation is writing. He has also taught English in the Philippine Women's University, Philippine Normal College, artd Manuel L. Quezon T:,Jniversity.'He has won three Stanvac awards. for journalism in fcature writing. He was also named Most Prolilic and Most Valuable Contributor of the Philippines Free Press tor nine consecutive years. He hosts a popular weekly television.program, Ever
smal

T
Thir
and mov
evel

J. Q. Specials. He has published in all the major Philippine journals and his short -stories are collected in these books: Night Song and Other fales, Loniinrs Is a Volcano and New Stories, Nocturne lor Piano and Heartstringls and More New Stories, and Modern Loue Stories. N. V. M. Gonzalez has well
desmibed

the fh,

on'
bee
(

Mr. Quirino

as "the writingest

writer of the Philippines."

fan

tin
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 swoouf with the glamour of the journalistic life. I bought a hat just so I could wear it on the bacil of my head. People followed me for blocks to see if the hat would fall off. i I also learned to smoke cigars with one side of the mouth but never leained to t'lli

' About a.lozen

years ago,

MJ
ciisol

lll/lllqg.l

ha

of
cir

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 mj out 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 dol the publicity work. I told him I knew nothing of pro work but he said if I could write, IfJ
could

from the other unoccupied side. The tone would have been wrong anyway; nature given 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

T
et
$(

tl

drumbeat.

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I
I

,
i
i

'?

I { I l.
i

He named a fee. It sounded like a fortune to me in those days. But my heart was pura l I 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{

385

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 wanted me 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 thc ltereotyped notion.of clowns as being vcry gloomy, cven tragic staturca' when not

10.

jot
n's He
lso
ree .m,

I sqen about clowns laughing while their hcart brokc. So I did this 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 lirrt
small 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 clichc and thc reality. The clown was not thc kindl had read aboul in bools'or walchcd in'thc movies. 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't the mqody typc or a prima donna. He was a grcat clown all righ!, as I found out at rehearsal, 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 the family had movcd up fmm somc dreary village to a swanky sriburb of Milan. The lirst time wc wcre"togethcr he spcnt the first ten minutes showinf off photor of hir villa in Milan, the two ears hcowned, and hisfamily. The wife was a fat peasant but he told me she ordered her clothes from Romc. His five children were all in iassy schools in Switzerland. In the wintcr he took his family to southern 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 thinking of buying a place in Capri. Hls family had been in the circus for gencrations-but no circus for his children; the tradition war to end with himl no grease-paint for his sons. Thcy would be professionals, businessmen, solid citizens.

bcfore the footlights. How many movies had

his
t

es,

?gs

'ell

-Italian
become

swoony
he back,

to talk
rre had
i on the

ay this
ked me
ow was

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 make

My heart sank lower

and lower as

write,
rs

-to

do

pure.

,ocence.

,aganda

I was young. It just didn't oocur to mc that ihe reality might bc.a hcll lot more interesting than the acrepted cliche. I never. got the bright 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 laughs because 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 had hearts of gold, movie stars were discovered in rags, and journalism wat a glamorous
profession. 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 English but 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,

this old squarc interesting Again I bcg you to remember that

I accept not the

reing

:rial on

, I just
a good

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$.,ncti cause 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 ,

ben

in tl

I
rem
ther

that?

Gorgio kept his word.

black, .spoke in curt monosyllables, scowled at cameras,'went into a.tantrum, then broke down and said thc gentlemen of the press were to forgive him, he had so much on his mind, emotional
troubles, affairs of.the heart. The follow-up piece I did on him pulled out whatever steps were left. I hinted'at a series of tragic live affairs. Now, in middlc age, he had fallen in love with a youhg jirl who 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.heart to be kicked, punched, buffeted, and tripped by a little hard-hcarted wench. All Manila crowded to the circus to see this clown who was so funny becausi he was ro pitiful. I took to drinking. Gorgio-was a hit, and so was the circus. It had been contracted for a month, was hcld over for two weeks, then got contracted to appear in Cebu and Davao. Abou! two or three days before the troupe left for the SouthJhe promoter paid me'off-the stipulatcd fee plus a'bonus. lle said I had donc a terrificjob. Next time imported a show I was io. be its drumbeater again. I told him he could give thc job td somebody else: this was my lirst and last try as pro. I had to resist an urle to give away to charity the money I had earned. I was very much 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 thc troupe.left Gorgio invited me out to dinner. We went to the Euiopan restaur4nt on Isaac Peral anJ Gorgio showed his cosmopolitanism by ordering a rare meal, each course with the proper wine. Since there werc only the two of os I i+,as rather puzzled by all 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, btrt everyone in show business was used to that sort of thing. In timc I would learn to tirkc it in 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 Gorgio the famous clown. In another ring I am the father of a highly respected family with an elegant villa in Milan. And in the third ring I am myself alone, in person. This person that's me likes good food, likes to drink, likes pretty girls, likes to live it up. He can be very wild but he is wild only on his own time. He is never allowed to mess up the work of Gorgio the clown or to disturb the reputation of that respectable father of thc family in Milan. 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'larger world than I would if I were merely entirely engrossed in being a circus star or the head

tri nis first general conference with the press he wore

mol
1

for
me forr
seri

bul

rin
I

Go

Th
ha'

rir
on Pr Pr
an

\i

in
co cc

al

rt
ft
d

v
s'

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1

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t,

of a family.

,l

"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 business we 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

\t

387 t
)

be nothing else except what you do. You must

right away start setting up two. 6ther rings

t
t.

in the circus of your life. " I have put down as much as I. can remember of what Gorgio said_that night, and I remember them so well because they made such an impression on me. In every.man's'life there's one particular moment when the right advice hits home-and.that night was the rnoment bf orientation for me. The very next day I told my editor I was getting tired of the police bedt. I had an idea for 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 spoken forcefully because an editorial conference soon after decidcd it might not be bad to have a series on provincial life. And I was tapped to do the series. It wasn't the series I was lfter but 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 the ring. Gorgio had bruised his back againstthe bar. He had stood up right away and gone

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 the
on

I was ready to be its drumbeater. He put me to work on a coming ice revire at once. All.this was a dozen.years ago. Eaily this year I was approached by some fly-by-night
imported another show company that wanted me

promoter knew, Qorgio was all right. He had been absent only rine night during the tour and had arrived iri Manila looking fit. I told the promoter'I had changed my mind; if he

to publicize a circus. They felt rather apologetic

for

approaching mei this circus they were importing was only a small one'ring circus, but that 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 chickenfeed 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 a gloomy fellow, to have had a tragic life, and so forth-all the old cliches about the down wlro laughed when his heart was breaking. I was wiser now (maybc cynical is the better word) 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< in his country artd owned a villa, and two cars. I said hc was most probably the head of a respectable 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 arrived, and when r came back to Manila it just ending its run. I heard it was a rather dreary show' Well, what could vou was expect from a one-ring circus? I went to catch it on its last night.

"i|**'ffiff:tffffi:flill,fli,il;,.us

388

ft'

.the ring.

When the clowns came in, one'of them seemed familiar. Birt I told myseu it was impossible. I couldn't possibly have seen the fcllow before. He was drip of a " And clown; could sense he was old-you can't thell with all that paint on.".ry I scnrcd -I soqrcthing 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 him and jumped.o,n kicked him. He had two companions, both obviously youngja 1nd boy and a girl. And I began to bc horrified with- whaithey were.doing to that poo"lta clown; 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 board that sent him sprawling to thc sawdust. The. audience .o"r.i-", he strove to rise but couldn't, falling down on his facc after each effort to push himself up. I leaned forward in 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 and the girljumped on his baclc, then picked him up by the shoulders and draggcd him out of

the
(

hil

wa

a,

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 introducei myself. Thc eycs that were dead under thc paint flickered for a iroment. He sat up with effort 4nd leaned loward me.

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'

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I 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,

"We

have met before," he

said.

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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 and undergo an operation. It was the first of a series of operations that had completcly exhausted all his savings. The villa in Milan had to be sold, his children had to migrate
to America. His wifc died. He had to beg for circus jobs. But managcrs were reluctant to hire 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 him in 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 said I did not know where to look. "And the boy is her lover," he went or1, in his dull voice. "I know she's unfaithful., I know they enjoy making me suffer. But I can't do anything. I can't leave her. She's all

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my life now, all my world." I reminded him about what he had told me long ago: that life should be a three-ring circus. 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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389

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l'somebody wanis to takc your picture, tr called out over my shoulder, stiUilocking the 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 clown

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was laughing Questions:

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. 2. 3. 4.
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Which mannerisms of a reporter did the author.adopt?

Discuss thethin line bct*ccn bcing a Rewsman and being a propagandist. What was his stereotypcd notion of clowns?

ll*
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List some tt.r.otyp.d notions that people have about clowns and other typcs of

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people. Whlt was the author's first lesson in the differenct between literature and life, the clichc and the reality? 6. Comment on tbe line, "Again I beg you to remember that I was young." 7. Discuss how riality can be more interesting than the acccpted cliche. 8. What were the three-rings in Gorgio's life? 9. What wasGorgio's advice to the reporter? 10. What did the reporter noticc about Peppo's performance?.' 11. Is the ending of the stoq/ plausible? 12. What is thi author trying to say in this story? 13. Discuss the title of the story. 14. What reaction is caused by the last line of the story?

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IN DEFENSE OF YOUNG MEN WHO ARE LAUGHED AT BECAUSE THEY INSIST THEY'RE POETS ATTHOUGH
THEY HAVEN]T WRITTEN AI{YTHING BUT SIGNS
Ricardo I. Patalinjug
Ricardo I. Patalinjug has written a number of short stories and poems for different national magazines and weiklies. He frequently dials with contemporary themes and national issues. His short story "The Exile" won

third 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.
F

Latest vintage architecting syllables, Native strangers alienated from the womb' The young who let their souls wail on walls