A Pilot, a Bird, and a Gay Doctor in His 50s
Tom Cruise plays Pete “Maverick” Mitchell in the 1986 film Top Gun. I was in college when the film was shown here in the Philippines. I had a big crush on Tom Cruise at the time.
Many years later, I was already openly gay then, I learned that Tom Cruise sued the people who questioned his sexuality. Such homophobia didn’t sit well with me, so I stopped watching films he starred in. I never saw any one of his Mission Impossible films even though he had Henry Cavill (Superman) in one of them.
I took exception with Top Gun: Maverick, the 2022 sequel to Top Gun. It didn’t matter to me that I do not like Tom Cruise now. What matters is for me to see how life has been for the character Maverick through the decades. In 1986, I saw Maverick through the lens of a virgin on the cusp of discovering his true identity. In 2022, I see Maverick through the eyes of a person who has made choices as Maverick has.
In Top Gun: Maverick, Maverick is still a captain when he’s supposed to be an admiral already like his contemporaries. When asked by his superior why that is, he responds, “I’m where I belong.” Being a captain allows Maverick to fly planes. Being an admiral would see him do administrative work and that is not his cup of tea.
I have taken care of flyers through the years. Flyers as in flying birds. My pets. Not pilots. I do not recall having had sex with a pilot, although I wouldn’t be surprised if I had considering the hundreds of men I went to bed with.
Pets generally do not live as long as we do, and I’ve seen many of them pass away.
As of this writing, I have a dying pet bird I named Arcana. Arcana is male by physical features, but since his breed (white-breasted woodswallow) is monomorphic the only way to definitely determine his sex is through DNA testing which Arcana never had. I name my pets before acquiring them. I have a male zebra finch I named Samantha (after Samantha Jones of the series Sex and the City).
I give my pet birds out-of-cage time regularly, so Arcana got to mingle with the crested mynas who attacked him. You see, Arcana was already blind as a baby when I acquired him, so he couldn’t fend off the attack easily. Arcana seemed comatose for 2 days until I treated him. He recovered for around a week but went back to being lethargic later. I gave away the crested mynas which I also handraised like Arcana.
During feeding time these days, Arcana would refuse to eat and would just stay perched on my left hand, mostly on the index finger, and would keep his head in either his left or right wing. I would sing to him “In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning,” the song interpreted by Carly Simon for the film Sleepless in Seattle. Arcana would make noises and cry if I moved him away from my hand or if he thought I was away. He would stay silently perched on my hand, seemingly content, as if saying, “I’m where I belong.”
Arcana is not the first bird to show such behavior. I’ve had hundreds of flying birds as well. My resume is filled not only with hundreds of spitting birds.
Seeing Arcana in his last moments reminds me of human patients dying as I declare their time of death. Dying is an intimate moment reserved for loved ones, and it is a privilege for a doctor or a nurse to be part of such a remarkably terminal event. As I stand aside while family members and friends grieve, I remind myself, “I’m where I belong.”
I didn’t do badly as a student. I was the no. 1 in physics in my first semester of college (in Mapua, no less). I was the no. 1 in biochemistry in medical school (that’s accidental, not intentional). My classmates thought I would be someone big in the field of infectious diseases after graduation. They also thought I would contract HIV and die from AIDS-related complications. I never met their expectations.
I learned Classical Latin, Attic Greek and Biblical Hebrew on my own. I can barely read an alphabet of Greek or Hebrew these days, but I still remember much of basic Latin, probably because much of English is derived from Latin.
I have classmates and friends who have IQs below sea level but who are now successful financially. I have no wealth to speak of. I just have hundreds of scale model cars, DVDs, and thousands upon thousands of books, and a “few” phones. I haven’t seen a mobile phone I didn’t like – imagine Smeagol saying, “My precious.”
I didn’t become rich. That’s by chance, a statistical probability. I didn’t become a specialist. That’s by choice, a statistical certainty. I now practise medicine in a quaint little clinic in Quezon City where we see lots of patients every duty. I do not own the clinic. I’m just a reliever.
I had my own clinic from 2011 to 2016. The government opened a free clinic that competed against mine. I shut down my business while I could still laugh my way to the bank.
Maverick made tough choices along the way. In the end, he got back with the love of his life, Penny Benjamin, and stayed where he belonged. Penny never appears but is mentioned twice in Top Gun.
I’ve made my choices, too. I got my heart broken, while breaking hearts (and crushing a few endowed men’s innocence) along the way. I’ve made friends and enemies, possibly frenemies too.
Apparently, Top Gun: Maverick made me look back. The film asks a question for us middle-aged and aged folks: How has life been? I’d say life has been swell, for the most part. However, I don’t see much of a future for me. I think I’ll just be enjoying my golden years and beyond with what I have.
For now, as with Maverick and Arcana, “I’m where I belong.”
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originally posted in a slightly different form on my Facebook wall in August 2022
Arcana passed away around a week after posting
