To Laki With Love

Larry Henares taught me how to write. He taught me how to enjoy the humanities — art, literature, cinema. Most importantly, he taught me how to live.

- Quark Henares

To me, he was Laki. "Laki" being Pangasinense for grandfather, or "lolo." All these things about Laki's accomplishments I learned later in life, but knowing the man you wouldn't think he was capable of such things. Larry Henares was always so inappropriate. One time I brought my friend, a former sexy actress to his house to borrow suspenders, and he asked her what she did. "I'm an actress," she said. "You're not one of those actresses who likes to show her tits, are you?" She was dumbfounded, and I silently told her "he doesn't know" as I slowly ushered her out. Another time he was talking to my American friends, telling them that he'd been to "all 50 states! I'm more American than you!" He then proceeded to tell them how much he hated Republicans because they were fascists. I'm pretty sure half of them were Republican. To piss him off, I'd tell him that I was thinking of becoming a priest. The first time I did it, he banged the table and dropped his utensils. "You can't be a priest! You're a Henares, you're malibog!" He'd regale the lunch table with stories of my lolo on my mother's side and how they'd all call him "kabayo" because he was well-endowed. One time he asked my college girlfriend about the size of my you-know-what, and she came running to me completely red in the face. When a friend had a sex video scandal, Laki showed up to lunch with a pirated DVD of the sex video and asked my friend to sign it. I was literally rolling on the floor as Laki started asking him things like,