THE KNOCK

Chapter 1: The Space Between

My name is Jonah Reyes. I’m seventeen. Orphan.

Not the violin-music kind of orphan. The government-paperwork kind. Mama and Papa died in a jeepney that went off the Marcos Highway bridge when I was six. I don’t remember them. I remember the smell of the orphanage: bleach, rice, and too many kids in one room.

Bahay Pag-asa was home, then it wasn’t, then it was again. I did three years with the Delos Santos family in Concepcion. They were good people. They just had four kids of their own and I ate like a grown man by age twelve. They sent me back with a hug and a Jollibee party. I didn’t cry. You learn not to.

I’m not dumb. The school writes “below average” on my card, but that’s not right. I’m slow. Like, my brain is a tricycle and everyone else has a motorbike. If you give me time, I get there. Math takes me three tries. English essays come back looking like they bled to death. Science? Sir Ramos once told me, “Jonah, maybe focus on PE.”

So I did. I’m 5’11”, 175 pounds. I run 100m in 11.2 seconds. I can lift a sack of rice with one arm. My face is… okay. People say “gwapo,” but that’s just because I keep my hair clean and my shirt tucked. Girls smile. I smile back. Nothing happens. I’m too tired to flirt and too poor to date.

Roosevelt High, Marikina. That’s my world. I sit at the back. I don’t join clubs. I go home to the dorm and help the younger kids with their homework, even though I’m bad at it. It’s fine.

Except for Miguel.

Miguel Santos is 4’9”. He weighs maybe 40 kilos soaking wet. He wears glasses with tape on the bridge. He stutters when he’s nervous, which is always. But his brain? His brain is a typhoon. He reads books with no pictures. He does calculus for fun. He wants to build robots that clean the Marikina River.

Everyone calls him “Ipis.” Cockroach. Because he’s small and hard to kill.

I met him in the boys’ CR. Three Grade 12s — Karlo Mercado and his dogs — had stuffed Miguel’s bag in the toilet. I just needed to pee. But I saw Miguel standing there, shaking, trying not to cry.

I fished the bag out. It was soaked. “That’s dirty, man,” I said. Not to them. To the toilet.

I handed it to Miguel. He looked at me like I’d pulled him out of a fire.

“W-why?”

“CR is for ihi. Not books.”

Next day he sat with me at lunch. He didn’t ask. He just sat. Opened his baon — tuyo and rice — and started talking about wormholes. I didn’t understand. But he didn’t laugh when I asked dumb questions. He’d say, “No, bro, think of it like basketball. Space-time is the court.” Then he’d draw it. Sometimes I’d get it.

We were friends after that. The orphan and the cockroach.

Karlo hated that. Karlo Mercado’s dad is a barangay captain. Karlo walks like he owns the hallway. He’s varsity basketball, 6’2”, and mean because he can be. He picked on Miguel because Miguel was weak. He started picking on me because I wasn’t.

“You his bodyguard now, Reyes?” he’d say, bumping my shoulder.

“Leave him alone.”

“Or what? You gonna read me a poem?”

I didn’t fight. Fighting gets you kicked out of Bahay Pag-asa. Fighting means no college, no job, no future. I had nothing, so I protected the nothing I had.

But Wednesday, June 8th, rainy season, changed that.

The covered court was packed. Make-up class for the power outage last week. I was by the bleachers, tying my shoes for PE. I heard it first — Karlo’s laugh. Then Miguel’s stutter.

“G-go away, K-Karlo.”

“What, Ipis? You gonna code me to death?”

I looked up. Karlo had Miguel against the post. Two other guys, Paolo and Jem, were blocking. Karlo was holding Miguel’s notebook. The one with all his robot drawings.

“Please,” Miguel said. “That’s my—”

Karlo ripped a page. The sound was loud.

Something in my chest went hot. Not smart. Not brave. Just hot.

I stood up. “Hoy. Tama na.”

Karlo turned. His smile got bigger. “Ay, the orphan. Come to watch?”

“Give it back.”

“You want it?” He held it out. When I stepped forward, he pulled it away and laughed. “Too slow, Reyes. Like your brain.”

Paolo shoved me. I didn’t move. I’m bigger than Paolo.

Karlo didn’t like that.

The punch came fast. I saw it, but my body is slow, remember? His fist had a ring. Or brass knuckles. I don’t know. It hit my left temple.

Pain like lightning. Then the ground. Wet concrete. Shouting. Miguel screaming, “JONAH!”

Sky. Gray. Rain starting to fall.

Then nothing.