#64 – EVIDENCE

#64 – EVIDENCE

One morning in this time before there was clear cut evidence, there was a postcard in my mailbox. It was from my mother, who had stepped up her travels in the three years since my father died. She had been on a fancy cruise to ports in East Asia. On the card was a picture of Manila Bay – an unlikely place for a cruise ship since this was right after the dictator Marcos, with the help of his American allies, had fled. This place of violence where I was under threat of death for what I had written – the death threats coming by phone in Manila and also San Francisco and New York.

On the postcard my mother had written, guess who was on the dock when we arrived. It was, of all people, your brother Peter. And scribbled on the side of the card in my brother’s hand was a line making fun of the people who overthrew Marcos.

My twin brother – and now it seemed like one of us was always meant to kill the other – He had assured me that he himself had had nothing to do with the Philippines – something important for him to say since he worked for the CIA, which was the enemy of so many of the people I have been associated in all these years of roaming, most recently my adventures with the Philippines opposition, which included time with the Maoist New People’s Army.


And it seemed more crucial than ever that I get the story right now it looked like childhood had never ended

And it seemed more crucial than ever that I get the story right now it looked like childhood had never ended.