Slingshot
“Hey, make me one too!” I screeched at Kuya Charles, my eldest cousin.
He was making a slingshot, for himself and all the other young boys in the family. I was four years old, and spending the summer with my grandparents in the Bulacan province of the Philippines. As the youngest of eleven grandkids at that time, I was very much the baby, and I certainly acted like it.
“No, TJ” Kuya Charles responded as we all sat in the farmhouse’s backyard while surrounded by branches and random tools, “You’re too small and your mom won’t allow you to play with a slingshot”.
Everyone - kids and adults alike - was a little scared of my mom, so I sat there quietly and watched my cousins take Y-shaped branches, carve them down, and attach them to square pieces of leather with rubber straps. I was envious as they tested out the slingshots, yet I still laughed with them when the small toy actually worked. Once they each had one, they ran off to enjoy their new playthings. Left in the backyard, I found myself surrounded with residual pieces of the materials they were using just a few minutes before.
Not one for self-pity, I decided to make my own! I did my best to remember what my older cousins were doing, and naturally, it was all turning out very, very crappy. Some time into my little project, my grandfather walked out of the house and asked me what I was doing.
“Making a slingshot,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because everyone else has one”.
He chuckled under his breath at my matter-of-fact attitude as he walked back into the house. Upon re-appearing, I saw that he was holding a machete and a small knife.
“Come on. Let’s go and make you a slingshot,” he declared.
Yes! I smiled, dusted off my little hands, and followed him. At that point in time, behind the house was a large expanse of farmland, full of banana and guava trees. A small cement structure, which served as the pigpen, stood nearby and I can still remember the squealing of the pigs as my grandfather explained what we were doing.
These trees are bananas… B-A-N-A-N-A-S. Actually banana trees are classified as plants. Very big plants.
“We need to find a strong branch, shaped like the letter Y. It can’t be too big. You need to be able to hold it properly”.
This was all the explanation I would get for a while as we walked from tree to tree, with my grandfather carefully examining each potential branch. Once in a while, he took the machete and chopped one down and it was quickly discarded because he didn’t deem it right for me. After what felt like hours, I started to feel bad that my grandfather was wasting so much of his time on me. My mom raised me with her values, and efficient use of time was something she instilled in me while I was still an infant. I began to feel very anxious, and was afraid that I would somehow get into trouble for this.
So I told him: “Tatang, we can do this later. Let’s go back to the house.”
“But we’re here now. You need to be patient, anak.”
“I was! But it’s taking so long.” I looked back worriedly.
“We have to choose everything carefully,” he said, “so that you can take the perfect shot”.
Soon, he found a branch that he liked and he started carving it down to a comfortable size for me. All of a sudden, the shrill voice of my grandmother was carried through the trees: “Villano! What are you doing out there? Come back to the house!”
I tugged at my grandpa’s shorts, “Let’s go”.
He winked at me, “Your nanay needs to learn patience too”.
So I waited. He kept carving the branch and soon he was attaching rubber straps and a piece of leather to it. I thought that we were finished and he insisted on testing out the slingshot first.
“We have to be sure that it works”.
So he picked up a pebble, placed it in the slingshot and aimed it at a banana tree. Success! My slingshot worked! I laughed with joy when the pebble got embedded into the trunk. My grandpa tried it five or six more times, just to be sure that it was working properly, and I got more and more excited with each round. Then he gave it to me and showed me how to use it. After a few clumsy attempts, I finally fired off a good one and I howled with laughter when my pebble hit the trunk.
My grandfather looked down at me: “See? The perfect shot”.
Years later, as my immediate family moved to Canada, the distance between my grandfather and I increased. Even when he too, immigrated to Canada, the barriers between us remained. I was busy being a spoiled, bratty North American and he was busy trying to understand bus schedules, and coffee makers, and snowstorms, and everything else that came with his new life.
He passed away in 2006. To this day, when my cousins and I get together, we talk about him. We share stories about his patience, his kindness, and the amazing way he managed to stay steadfast and strong within a family full of completely ridiculous people. I get a little sad when I think about those final years and I hope he knows I always loved him.
“We’ll be young forever” - K. Perry -
Currently, my life isn’t the most stable, and has been riddled with false starts and unfinished endeavours. But whenever my dog barks at nothing in particular, whenever my kitchen door opens without anyone on the other side, or whenever I manage to scrape by and somehow pay my rent, I know that it’s my grandfather. Wherever he is – call it the heavens, call it the ether, call it the Sky Realms of the White Water Buffalo – I know he’s still watching me. And he’s sitting silently, waiting patiently, for me to take the perfect shot.
NOTE: This story was written in 2012 - but having said that, life is still kinda messy and that last paragraph still applies.
TJ Borile is a freelance writer, small business owner, and areola model. He has a certification in Disregarding Patriarchal Bullshit, a PhD in the 1994 Miss Universe Pageant, and once, he fell down the stairs and accidentally got certified in Zumba. In his spare time, he likes to sit, breathe, and be a referee for a pillow fighting wrestling league.