My Father Goes To Court (Carlos Bulusan)

When I was four, I lived with my mother and Sometimes we wrestled with one another in the
brothers and sisters in a small town on the house before we went to play. We were always
island of Luzon. Father’s farm had been in the best of spirits and our laughter was
destroyed in 1918 by one of our sudden contagious. Other neighbours who passed by
Philippine floods, so several years afterwards our house often stopped in our yard and joined
we all lived in the town though he preferred us in laughter.
living in the country. We had as a next door
neighbour a very rich man, whose sons and
daughters seldom came out of the house. While As time went on, the rich man’s children
we boys and girls played and sang in the sun, his became thin and anaemic, while we grew even
children stayed inside and kept the windows more robust and full of life. Our faces were
closed. His house was so tall that his children bright and rosy, but theirs were pale and sad.
could look in the window of our house and The rich man started to cough at night; then he
watched us played, or slept, or ate, when there coughed day and night. His wife began coughing
was any food in the house to eat. too. Then the children started to cough, one
after the other. At night their coughing sounded
like the barking of a herd of seals. We hung
Now, this rich man’s servants were always outside their windows and listened to them. We
frying and cooking something good, and the wondered what happened. We knew that they
aroma of the food was wafted down to us form were not sick from the lack of nourishment
the windows of the big house. We hung about because they were still always frying something
and took all the wonderful smells of the food delicious to eat.
into our beings. Sometimes, in the morning, our
whole family stood outside the windows of the
rich man’s house and listened to the musical One day the rich man appeared at a window
sizzling of thick strips of bacon or ham. I can and stood there a long time. He looked at my
remember one afternoon when our neighbour’s sisters, who had grown fat in laughing, then at
servants roasted three chickens. The chickens my brothers, whose arms and legs were like the
were young and tender and the fat that dripped molave, which is the sturdiest tree in the
into the burning coals gave off an enchanting Philippines. He banged down the window and
odour. We watched the servants turn the ran through his house, shutting all the windows.
beautiful birds and inhaled the heavenly spirit
that drifted out to us.
From that day on, the windows of our
neighbour’s house were always closed. The
Some days the rich man appeared at a window children did not come out anymore. We could
and glowered down at us. He looked at us one still hear the servants cooking in the kitchen,
by one, as though he were condemning us. We and no matter how tight the windows were
were all healthy because we went out in the sun shut, the aroma of the food came to us in the
and bathed in the cool water of the river that wind and drifted gratuitously into our house.
flowed from the mountains into the sea.

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 agree that you have been stealing the spirit of
the complaint’s wealth and food?”
One morning a policeman from the presidencia
came to our house with a sealed paper. The rich
man had filed a complaint against us. Father
“I do not!” Father said.
took me with him when he went to the town
clerk and asked him what it was about. He told
Father the man claimed that for years we had
been stealing the spirit of his wealth and food. “Do you or do you not agree that while the
complaint’s servants cooked and fried fat legs of
lamb or young chicken breast you and your
family hung outside his windows and inhaled
When the day came for us to appear in court,
the heavenly spirit of the food?”
father brushed his old Army uniform and
borrowed a pair of shoes from one of my
brothers. We were the first to arrive. Father sat
on a chair in the centre of the courtroom. “I agree.” Father said.
Mother occupied a chair by the door. We
children sat on a long bench by the wall. Father
kept jumping up from his chair and stabbing the “Do you or do you not agree that while the
air with his arms, as though we were defending complaint and his children grew sickly and
himself before an imaginary jury. tubercular you and your family became strong
of limb and fair in complexion?”

The rich man arrived. He had grown old and

feeble; his face was scarred with deep lines. “I agree.” Father said.
With him was his young lawyer. Spectators
came in and almost filled the chairs. The judge
entered the room and sat on a high chair. We “How do you account for that?”
stood in a hurry and then sat down again.

Father got up and paced around, scratching his

After the courtroom preliminaries, the judge head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I would like to
looked at the Father. “Do you have a lawyer?” see the children of complaint, Judge.”
he asked.

“Bring in the children of the complaint.”

“I don’t need any lawyer, Judge,” he said.

They came in shyly. The spectators covered

“Proceed,” said the judge. their mouths with their hands, they were so
amazed to see the children so thin and pale.
The children walked silently to a bench and sat
The rich man’s lawyer jumped up and pointed down without looking up. They stared at the
his finger at Father. “Do you or you do not floor and moved their hands uneasily.

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 “Thank you,” father said. He strode into the
other room with the hat in his hands. It was
Father could not say anything at first. He just
almost full of coins. The doors of both rooms
stood by his chair and looked at them. Finally he
were wide open.
said, “I should like to cross – examine the
complaint.”

“Are you ready?” Father called.

“Proceed.”

“Proceed.” The judge said.

“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your

wealth and became a laughing family while
The sweet tinkle of the coins carried beautifully
yours became morose and sad?” Father said.
in the courtroom. The spectators turned their
faces toward the sound with wonder. Father
came back and stood before the complaint.
“Yes.”

“Did you hear it?” he asked.

“Do you claim that we stole the spirit of your
food by hanging outside your windows when
your servants cooked it?” Father said.
“Hear what?” the man asked.

“Yes.”
“The spirit of the money when I shook this hat?”
he asked.

“Then we are going to pay you right now,”

Father said. He walked over to where we
“Yes.”
children were sitting on the bench and took my
straw hat off my lap and began filling it up with
centavo pieces that he took out of his pockets.
He went to Mother, who added a fistful of silver “Then you are paid,” Father said.
coins. My brothers threw in their small change.

The rich man opened his mouth to speak and

“May I walk to the room across the hall and stay fell to the floor without a sound. The lawyer
there for a few minutes, Judge?” Father said. rushed to his aid. The judge pounded his gravel.

“As you wish.” “Case dismissed.” He said.

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Father strutted around the courtroom the judge
even came down from his high chair to shake
hands with him. “By the way,” he whispered, “I
had an uncle who died laughing.”

“You like to hear my family laugh, Judge?”

Father asked?

“Why not?”

“Did you hear that children?” father said.

My sisters started it. The rest of us followed

them soon the spectators were laughing with
us, holding their bellies and bending over the
chairs. And the laughter of the judge was the
loudest of all.