At last, the day arrived when the old devil finally walked out of detox.
Since I was technically "from the same table," I waited outside the detox gate to welcome him. I kept looking and looking, searching for the legendary figure I had imagined in my head.
But strangely enough, I didn't see anyone who matched that image.
The only person sitting there was a skinny man with long hair hanging down to his shoulders, scribbling something on a piece of paper like a starving ghost.
That couldn't be him.
I stretched my neck and looked deeper inside the building.
Strange. Was I waiting on the wrong day? No one else was coming out.
Confused, I walked over and tapped the thin man on the shoulder.
"Hey, kuya… have you seen Victor come out yet?"
The man slowly turned his face toward me.
Holy hell.
Why did I have to see his face from this distance?
In my entire life, I had rarely seen a face that cold and haunted. His eyes were the kind you'd expect from a shark—sharp and icy, like two knives floating in water.
For a second I thought he was about to kick me straight in the throat.
Instead, he chuckled quietly.
"Brother… if there's still someone inside named Victor, I wouldn't know."
You've got to be kidding, I almost said.
This was supposed to be the legendary gangster everyone feared?
The guy looked like he hadn't eaten properly in months.
But he didn't care about the disappointment written all over my face. He simply waved a hand and said,
"Come on. Let's go. It already feels better out here. Inside detox it's so suffocating I almost wanted to break out."
By the time we stepped into the yard, a line of gangsters was already waiting outside.
A few eager younger guys rushed forward shouting,
"Kuya Victor!"
They fought each other for the privilege of carrying his belongings.
Victor Santos stood only about five foot four, chest pushed forward proudly, walking with a swagger that somehow made him look far bigger than he actually was.
I followed behind him like a loyal shadow.
Then he suddenly turned to me and asked,
"Which room are you staying in? I'll ask the guards to move me there. Easier if we share a room."
I nearly shouted with happiness.
With protection right inside my own room, the only people left for me to fear in this place would be… the guards.
And even they seemed a little cautious around him.
The moment Victor mentioned sharing a room with me, one of the guards quickly dragged some unlucky kid out of my dorm and cleared the bed for him.
Victor acted like it was the most normal thing in the world. He told the younger guys to arrange his things, then grabbed my arm.
"Come on. Let's grab some coffee."
Walking beside him, I suddenly felt my own posture straighten.
After all, I was walking next to a real gangster now—not some fake wannabe.
***
Life started improving immediately.
Outside the center, people respected money.
Inside here, they respected reputation.
Victor Santos had plenty of both.
He came from the Filipino underworld in Manila and his name carried weight in places most people preferred not to talk about. On top of that, he had plenty of followers from the same hometown—my older brother included.
But the strange thing was…
Victor himself was nothing like the image of a terrifying gangster.
In everyday life he spoke softly, almost like he was whispering. He didn't enjoy showing off or acting important, and he always spoke politely to people around him.
During all the time he stayed in the center, I never once saw him lose his temper with another inmate.
Except for one time.
And the person he got angry at… was a guard.
With the younger guys, he treated them like little brothers. He joked with them, teased them, and never demanded they serve him the way other gang leaders did.
Normally, when a big shot entered the cafeteria, he would sit there like a king while his followers brought food to him.
After finishing, he would pick his teeth and smoke while someone else cleaned the table.
Victor wasn't like that at all.
If I overslept in the morning, he would come downstairs himself and drag me to breakfast. Each of us carried our own tray and scooped our own rice.
One time I tried to do both trays for us.
He immediately stopped me.
"What are you doing? I'm not some big gangster who needs servants. If people see this they'll beat me up for showing off."
I almost dropped to my knees and begged him to stop joking.
If Victor Santos wasn't a gangster, then the entire rehabilitation center would deserve a medal for good behavior.
***
The only moment when his gangster spirit truly revealed itself… was in the shower.
Not because he fought over the water taps.
With his strength, he could easily handle two skinny troublemakers.
The first time he invited me to shower together, I was fascinated.
It wasn't because of his body.
To be honest, his build was thin enough to lose a contest against a dried fish.
But on that skinny frame were two tattoos that instantly made everyone fall silent.
Across his chest spread a massive green eagle.
Not the cheap eagle tattoos young punks loved to get, but the kind done by hand inside prison—every feather carved carefully, the claws stretched forward like they were ready to tear someone apart.
Tattoos like that belonged only to true veterans of prison life.
And Victor's eagle was still untouched.
Anyone foolish enough to tattoo an eagle or dragon without earning the right would face a terrifying interrogation the moment they entered a real prison.
"What animal is that?"
If you dared answer, a dragon, you'd immediately regret it.
But if you were smart and said, a worm, maybe they would spare you.
Victor's eagle, however, needed no explanation.
Everyone knew it was real.
But strangely enough, the eagle wasn't even the most terrifying tattoo on his body.
That honor belonged to something much simpler.
A single sentence inked across his side.
"Champion of the Grand Prison."
Rumor said that in the entire southern region, only two men had ever dared tattoo those words on their skin.
Victor Santos was one of them.
***
Inside big prisons, the inmates had a strange nickname for women.
They called them "panthers."
I had no idea why, so one day I asked Victor about it.
He narrowed his eyes playfully and said,
"Don't you have anything better to worry about than panthers?"
Then he laughed.
"You've seen panthers in the zoo, right? Dark, wild, always hungry. Women inside prison are kind of like that."
He leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"And if you're not careful, those panthers will devour you whole."
I almost asked another question.
So what about the girls in this small center? Do they count as panthers too?
But I swallowed the words.
Because there was one girl here who definitely didn't look like a panther to me.
Angela.
Calling someone like her a panther felt like an insult.
If she were a panther, she'd have to be some kind of rare white one.
No one really knew whether Victor was exaggerating or not, but Angela was nothing like the stories about wild prison girls.
She barely talked to anyone.
When she first came out of detox, the entire yard gathered around trying to invite her to their tables.
She ignored every single one.
Most of the day she stayed inside her room.
The perverts inside the center quickly lost interest.
Whenever someone approached her to start a conversation, she simply left her drink on the table and walked away.
If anyone tried to provoke her, she calmly called the guards.
Eventually the rumors started.
The boys whispered to each other that Angela must be a lesbian.
Completely ridiculous.
***
I liked Angela too.
But my courage was… extremely small.
Watching a whole army of thick-skinned guys fail miserably was enough to teach me a lesson.
So I stayed far away, admiring her from a distance.
There was something about her cold, distant attitude that I strangely liked.
When guys sent her gifts, she ignored them.
When it was her turn to clean the dining hall, several eager boys rushed forward offering to do the work for her.
She simply replied,
"No thanks."
And did it herself.
She wasn't easy to bully either.
Even the other girls inside the center couldn't push her around.
And in a place like this, fighting with fists was always the worst solution.
Because the moment you punched someone, the guards would rush in and beat both of you with batons.
A terrible deal.
***
So that was life inside the center.
Gangsters.
Rumors.
Panthers.
And somewhere among all of it…
a girl named Angela who didn't seem to belong here at all.