The Nipa Hut

The nipa hut in Teresa's backyard was an exact miniature of the traditional Filipino home. It stood stilted above the ground, was walled and floored with fine bamboo, weaved in checkerboard patterns, and the entire playhouse was roofed with overlapping nipa thatch.

If we tucked our heels back against the seats of our jeans, four of us could sit inside. But if Teresa and I were making out, sprawled naked on the ridged floor, there would be no room for anyone else.



Stilted above the ground

Here's what I wanna show you.
Clouds were moving in.
Are you ready for this?


If she found my history, my background, my parents objectionable, then why were we here together. Or was it that things had suddenly changed?

She went back inside. I held my hand out to Hammersmith, who gave it a brief shake. His grip was limp and cold. He never took his eyes off the kids at the bottom of the yard.

I heard her breaths quicken, and I felt her racing heart against the side of my hand.

I talk off all my clothes.

We were silent again for a while.

It was a small rattaan woven hut in the field behind the culdesac. Terri, she did not care for the locals.

Lying there, you could smell the sweet weave of the floor and the walls. The moonlight shone in through the weaves, dappling Terri's naked body.

The palm grass hanging down from the ceiling.

Although while driving you could find villages of these houses, the Americans on Clark Air Base had miniatures built (kits), which served as a sort of Gazebo, or playhouse.

I chickened out.

Framed in bamboo
Nipa leaves
bamboo floors, smooth and split,

lattice work walls

That night in the Nipa hut while Terri unknotted her halter top, I asked her if she remembered the black airman, Henderson, from the barracks.

"The coon?" she said, bundling her halter top into a ball and stuffing it into the corner of the Nipa Hut.

We laid down next to each other, her breasts against my chest. I kissed her, lightly, and then asked her why she called Henderson a Coon. She seemed annoyed, seemed agitated. "Maybe I should go," she said.

"No. Don't," I replied."

It wasn't like that. Not at all. It wasn't that I didn't care, it was more a feeling of wanting to know. Needing to know.

The coconut palms of the Nipa Hut. Struck a match. If you pushed the window outward, propping it open, the air moved over you.