Cool December breeze 1963, a far place called Olongapo, barely a week before Christmas. It was half-past seven in the evening before Rayel could get rid of his guests. He was fifteen then, and his high school friends were around the house for a good time. He tidied the living room the moment they had gone, sweeping up the crisp breadcrumbs with a brush and dust pan, and burying the empty soda cans under the rest of the contents of the bin. He worked with fierce concentration, trying to get his mind off the vision of purity in Jenny which had been so clear these past few days, but he knew he was failing and her images seem to be getting brighter each passing moment. It was Jenny. His best friend Jenny.

Rayel was just about to go upstairs when he saw the outline of a figure through the window. He heard the key click in the door knob and his mother entered. She looked tired and pale.

"You all right, Mom?"

"I'm okay. Just tired."

Rayel can't help but be worried. He knows the amount of effort his mom puts in her work just to make him go to school. When his father died two years ago, his mother was forced to have a job as a waitress for the pub just around the block. She slaves almost 16 hours a day doing things in the kitchen and always felt tired. From that day forth he promised himself to help his mom every way he can after he graduate from college. He loves her so much.

Because of their situation, he learned to be independent at an early age. Cooking for himself, doing his own laundry, paying the house bills, and pretty much everything else. It was hard at first, but he eventually got the hang of it. Besides, no one was there to do it except him. That's the problem with being an only child.

"Is it something serious, Mom?" he asked worriedly.

She gave a weary shake of her head. "No, Rayel. Nothing serious. Just a little off-color, I guess. You know, ordinary things..."

He didn't probe further. He had a feeling she was talking about the appalling mystery of menstruation. Mrs. Capistrano isn't like this. She's always jolly and on the go. His mother was in her late thirties and there were things going on with her that he did not fully understand or wish to have defined.

He wished his father was still alive, and then it would have been all right. The old man had never had a lot of time for his mother. He's been working abroad since Rayel was five and died of liver cancer because of drinking too much alcohol. His mom never had another love affair after that, and Rayel wasn't happy about it. She's too young to be spending all her life on work alone. But that's not how his mother sees it.

"I think I'll go up and lie down," his mother said. "How's the Crow, is he looking good?"

"Oh, fine, Mom. Always in tip top shape. I'd taken him down Otero Avenue today and he's still as strong as ever!" he said with enthusiasm.

Mrs. Capistrano smiled a weak smile. "Well, I just hope it's doing you some good. And be careful." With her fingers to her temple as a reminder she was not feeling at all well, she went upstairs to bed.

Rayel went out to their garage and walked over to the Ascent Ex Diamond Back bike parked at the corner, touched the handlebars. His father had traded his old Volkswagen bug for this brand new shining black mountain bike and said it was Rayel's to keep if he'd learn how to maintain it. He did and owned it, spiritually and physically, from that moment on. The Crow had taken him down roads he'd never been before. All alone he would drive the Crow some long, lonely roads thinking about everything. Anything.

On summer days, when the Crow waited for night time to come again, there was the jump shot arching through the city plaza's basketball court. People took notice of Raquel Capistrano's boy, said he might be good enough to play college ball. When he scored fifty-nine points against St. Joseph's School his senior year, they were sure of it.

In high school, the girls giggled and talked about boys. They said Rayel had sad dark brown eyes, lonely eyes they can't get enough. They said he was timid but had attractive muscles and looked good in his basketball uniform. They said he sang and played the guitar too good to make them fall in love. They said he had a nice smile when he showed it, which is quite rare to happen. He's the best when it came to high school algebra and everyone in their classroom came to him for their homework and projects. He worked with his mother at the pub and played the guitar at summer, practiced his jump shot at the city plaza until it became a thing of magic. The Crow, the jump shot, the guitar, algebra and Pythagorean Theorem --- they were all the same spices that made this universe a better place to live in and he was good at all of them. He wasn't quite good with girls or rooms full of people, though.

Rooms full of people he didn't care about. But he wondered about girls who would become women. Somewhere out there was a woman with whom he would make love for the first time in his life. And what would that be like? To be with a woman? Not sure. Not sure, but wondering. Would she be pleased with him, and what would he do? Not sure yet. Would she be his best friend Jenny? That he doesn't want to think about.

The jump shot took Rayel down roads where the Crow couldn't go. On an August night in 1967, his grandpa leaned close to his Panasonic portable radio and adjusted the tuning, trying to catch DZRH in Manila. The announcer's voice came and went. Long way, weak signal. He swore at the radio, and Raquel Capistrano looked up from across the kitchen table. "Tatay, it's only a basketball game, not the end of the world. Have they said anything more about Rayel's knee?"

"No. He'll be okay. He's a tough kid." Grandpa Capistrano took a sip of old Master's Choice and bent closer to the radio. He was proud of his grandson. Never doubted Rayel could go that far.

A little adjustment on the radio's movable antenna with the rain quieting down a bit and the announcer's voice came back roaring: The Red Lions are rollin' now, on top of the Mapua Tech Cardinals, sixty-three-fifty-eight, with just under three minutes to go. Capistrano brings the ball up court for the Cardinals, still hobbling on the bad knee that took him out of action in most of the first half. Over to Cardeño, back to Capistrano, half court trap by San Beda. Capistrano fakes left, drives right, double screen for him set by Cardeño and Brian Datu..."

"Go get'em, boy!" grandpa stamped his feet on the yellow linoleum and pounded the table so hard the radio bounced. Raquel Capistrano looked at him knitting and shook her head slowly back and forth, wondering about men and what drove them onward to such insanity.

Miles away in Manila, smell of sweat, Coca-cola and cheeseburgers and the crowd screaming their lungs out and the coach signaling play number one which he called "The Superman Special" and you're moving right and burying your left hand into the chest of the bastard who's trying to grab your jersey and you're setting-up a shot for the double screen formed by Edgar and Brian and a camera flashes from the sidelines and your right knee is swollen to half again its normal size from blood in the tissues and you see Jenny watching at the bleachers... and you've done this a million times before... maybe even more than that.. . and the power in your legs and shoulders in full strength and the finesse and ballet-like movement still there and you're high into the air, left hand cradling the ball from underneath and right hand pushing it in a long, steady and gentle arc towards the ring... and the ball slices through the net without touching the rim just the way it used to in the backyard of your Olongapo home and the crowd screams louder and you land on a knee that crumples into nothing and you fall down on the floor with six-foot-two two-hundred-thirty-four-pound Datu stumbling over you on his way back down the court...

and you scream...

and you lie there...

and you know it's over...

and you're sad it is.

And high above at the bleachers Jenny bows her head, tears rolling down her cheeks.

Two days later, Raquel Capistrano got her copy of Sports Atlas in the mail. She'd subscribed to it while Rayel was playing college ball and would drop the subscription now. On the front page was the headline:

WHAT NOW, SUPERMAN?!

Capistrano Suffers Career-Ending Injury

She cut out the article and put it in with her other clippings about Rayel. Raquel cried as she looked at her son's picture. Crying maybe because of the pain she knew he was feeling, or crying maybe with joy that he never had to do it again.

Rayel finished his degree at exactly five years and had good grades. Well, good enough for a former varsity player and a sports editor of a campus newspaper. Rayel wrote for their school paper after the injury. He did not discover his talent for writing until he tried. The scholarship's what forced him to try. His mom couldn't handle his tuition with her job. Out of the basketball team and with still two whole years to go in college, he should find another way to have a scholarship, and writing was the answer.

Being an athlete himself, he never had a hard time writing sports articles. It seemed like he was born with that kind of talent but that it was only released from its cage just now. But he truly missed what it felt like to move up and down the basketball court and let others write about him. Especially when he was assigned to cover championship games and he would tell himself, I should have been there. Now he knew how it felt like to be a spectator. A spectator of the game he dearly loves.

Back in Olongapo after graduation, he spent the summer with Jenny again. However, their time now was limited. Jenny had a boyfriend and she'd been spending most of her time with him. But she and Rayel still managed to have some quality time together, enough to make them "a little bit" more than friends. She made a dozen poems for him and he made novels for her, and their relationship grew deeper and deeper as each day passed. But Rayel can only secretly love Jenny because he knew what would be the consequences if he would confess how he truly felt towards her. The two of them lived Jenny's remaining time in the Philippines as friends. He couldn't tell her. Their friendship was too precious for him to tell her the truth.

Jenny left for California on May 20, 1969. "It's probably better this way," she told him. "You're an only child, and from what I knew about your life, I'm beginning to feel that only children are raised to be alone."

"But I wasn't. I grew up with you. You've always been around," he said teary-eyed.

"It's been good, Rayel." She held back the tears. "You've taught me a lot about a lot of things. I'll miss you. Stay in touch." She kissed him goodbye and walked towards the airport's tunnel.

He stood there and watched her walk away. He was thinking. Thinking of how he would live his life without her. Thinking of what he could do without Jenny. He missed her already, but she was right: he liked being alone and had been trained for it. Only children understand it will ultimately come to that. But for now he has to accept the harsh reality that Jenny's gone, out of his life. And Superman had just lost his powers.

As she walked by the corner and waved her final gesture of goodbye, he whispered: I will never forget you, Jenny, even if we never see each other again. I love you. There's no one else. You're the love of my life.

In my solitude, I hear a song

     A slow sentimental melody.

It reminds me of our long walks,

     Serious talks that lasted an eternity.

Remember when it was a fun thing

     To sing all the songs of love?

Two souls bound by an invisible string

     Tied by the angels above.

I have no regrets, none at all

     Because we shared a golden song.

It lingers still despite our fall,

     After all the many things gone wrong.

In my solitude, I hear a song

     It reminds me of the past.

The long walks, serious talks,

     Our songs --- they were the last.