"This Feels Dirty..."

Sunday found us downtown shopping. Christmas is coming, and with corporate visitors in from the U.S., it seemed like a good opportunity to spend a day out with friends.

Except for Jim. He had to go to work, but he did want to make a purchase. Three of us were recruited to purchase DVDs that weren't necessarily, shall we say, legal.

Edwin, who seems to know everything there is to know about getting around Manila, knew the area around the Green Hills mall would be a prime neighborhood to shop for DVDs. Until recently, he said, DVDs were actually available at the mall but that, well, because it's illegal to sell pirated DVDs, mall management had evicited the vendors from their stalls.

But they haven't, apparently, barred them from sending touts into the mall. We were peppered with come-ons from the moment we arrived: "You want DVDs?" "DVD? DVD?" "New releases!"

Eventually, Edwin settled on one of the touts, and off we went, around a corner, through a grocery store, out onto the street, around another corner and down a hill, the tout remaining a constant 10 meters in front of us throughout, with Edwin, me and Shelly following, in a single-file line.

"This feels dirty," I remarked quietly.

"That's because it is," Shelly answered, falling silent again.

Edwin and I must have had the same vibe, because about the time I was thinking there was no way I would be doing this without a Filipino along to help, he stopped to ask a security guard if we were actually heading towards a DVD shop.

We dodged traffic crossing a street, stepped onto a sidewalk, and watched as our tout disappeared down a narrow, shadowy alley full of stands selling produce and jewelry.

"DVD, DVD," a toothless woman smiled at me, jabbing her finger in the air after the tout.

At the cross street, where the alley narrowed, we were met by a large woman in a billowy pink-orange mumu. "You want DVDs? I have them," she said. "Come with me. Trust me, trust me."

Trust me? Trust me, those words tend to have the opposite effect when you're about to purchase pirated merchandise.

We followed the woman and her tout into her store -- which doubles as her living room -- and were immediately presented with four boxes of DVDs. Shelly plopped down on a white plastic chair next to the front door, watching the endless stream of customers pop in and out of the store.

"These DVDs aren't illegal," the woman explained as I leafed through the box. "They're from Malaysia."

Ah, well that explains it, I thought. She's simply located her store in her living room to cut down on her commute.

I kept my mouth shut.

A bit of bargaining later, we finally reached a compromise on the "non-illegal, Malaysian" DVDs, and began running them through the living room DVD player. Edwin collected the working DVDs while I dug discreetly through my pockets, looking for the right amount of cash. Satisfied they worked, we paid our tout and beat a hasty retreat into the alley, looking over our shoulders all the way back to the mall.


Postscript: This shopping trip, with the tout and the ever-narrowing alley, was, without question, one of the most interesting things I've done in my life. It's also the most illegal thing I've done since the night I smoked pot in college. Yes, my life is that sheltered.

I'm glad I went. I'm glad we met the tout, went down the alley and into the store. A good writer cherishes off-the-beaten-path adventures and the expansion of his world. But, as a writer, I earn my living through my creativity, much like the writers and actors in the movies. And the writer in me wishes I hadn't followed through with the purchase.

I feel dirty.