SUMMARY

- (first encounter with death)

Once he was a boy he had saw his mother died while giving birth to his
younger brother, at that time his mother was struggling and frantically kicking
due to the pain while delivering and died after. It was his first encounter with
death and leave him a thought of why does his mother need to die and for his
little brother take her place to live.
-(second encounter with death)
He was ten years old then when he met his 2nd encounter with death. He and his
father were plowing together with their Carabao while it was raining hard at that
time. And because of tiredness the carabao balked at moving so his father started
beating and hitting the animal with fury, the Carabao run in the field while his
father raced the animal but when they reached the edge of a deep pit the Carabao
stopped and looked back at them but because of sensing the anger of his father
the Carabao jump into the pit. The carabo broke all his legs and after his father
saw this he started striking the animal again. He close my eyes and when I look
back the Carabao was already dead and the pool under our feet was already red
as blood after witnessing this he ran as fast as he can to their house.
-(death en route to America)
Because of hard life he decided to fly and work in the US and on the way he met
Marco and befriended with him. He was an uneducated peasant boy from the northern
part of our island who wanted to earn a little money in the new land and return to his
village. Marco have a picture of girl who is waiting for him and ten dollars he had saved
up to have it enlarged when we arrived in the new land, he always hiding some apples in
his suit case for him. One time when the other passengers were stirring in their bunks
and peering through the dark to see what was going on, he sat up and suddenly there
was a scream and someone shouted for the light. He ran to the corner and clicked the
switch and when the room was flooded with light, he saw Marco lying on the floor and
bleeding from several knife wounds on his body. He knelt beside him, but for a moment
only, because he held his hands tightly and died. When the steward came down to make
an inventory of Marco's suitcase, the ten dollars was gone, they shipped back the
suitcase to his family, but kept the picture of the girl.
-(first encounter with death in the America)
When he arrived in the US he started working filthy jobs to another and after many years
had passed he met Crispin in Seattle he let Crispin stayed in his room cause Crispin has
nowhere else to go. Crispin was educated and he always recited poetry about the
goodness and beauty of the world. And then one night when they had not eaten for five
days, he got out of bed and ate several pages of an old newspaper by soaking them in a
can of water from the faucet in our room. Choking tears came out of his eyes, but the
deep pain in his head burst wide open and blood came out of his nose and finally went to

sleep from utter exhaustion, but when he woke up again he saw Crispin was already
dead.
-(death in the labor fields)
He was in California in a small agricultural community and lived in a big bunkhouse of
thirty workers with Leroy, he was always talking about unions and unity. One evening
they were eating when several men came into the bunkhouse and grabbed Leroy from
the table and dragged him outside. The men burst into the place and struck Leroy
viciously on the neck with thick leather thongs. Before Leroy realized what was
happening to him, a big man came toward him from the darkness with a rope in his left
hand and a shining shotgun in the other. He tied the rope around Leroy's neck while the
other men pointed their guns at them, and when they had taken him outside, where he
began screaming like a pig about to be butchered. There was some scuffling outside,
then silence, and then the two men slowly withdrew with their guns, and there was a
whispering sound of running feet on the yard and then the smooth purring of cars
speeding away toward the highway and then there was silence again. They rushed
outside all at once. And there hanging on a eucalyptus tree, naked and shining in the
pale light of the April moon, Leroy was swinging like a toy balloon. They cut him down
and put him on the grass, but died the moment they reached him. His genitals were cut
and there was a deep knife wound in his chest. His left eye was gone and his tongue was
sliced into tiny shreds. There was a wide gash across his belly and his entrails plopped
out and spread on the cool grass.