Chapter 1: A fine fix

It was a fine fix I was in, as Oliver might have said to Stan. I am 66 and my wife, if she had lived would be 37 today. Our marriage lasted ten years. The first nine were glorious. But cancer ravaged her that last year. We had just made the move back to her homeland, the Philippines; I had just retired from my job of the last 23 years. We had sold our home in Thousand Oaks, California for less than we had hoped to get for it ... oh if we had sold in 2007 and not 2010! But that along with a great deal more was water under the bridge, (or was it over the dam?). She, my wife, had been a stunningly lovely 27 year old, when we married. I was 56 and beating myself up for thinking I could/should marry a woman so young. I knew she would out-live me by decades. I felt as if I was a con artist and she was the mark. How could I do this to her? Still I loved her and she really did love me. That love held us tight and happy for most of a decade. And then the cruelest of God's tricks, he took her first! That should never have been. It should never have happened. It was beyond unfair.

In the years prior to my retirement, we had bought land, in her name, as I was not a citizen of the Philippines. We had built a home, a wonderful home. And now, rather than living out my retirement with the love of my life, I was inconsolably ... alone.

We had sold off everything we had in the States. There was nothing to go back to. I rambled around our house in General Santos City, without a plan, without an agenda, without companionship, and without a damned idea of what to do next. I did create a daily routine, partially just so I didn't go nuts and partially because things still needed to be done and there was no one else to do them.

Shopping for food was one of the daily things. Shopping in the Philippines is qualitatively different from going to Von's in the USA. You don't buy for the week and more at a time. You buy for the day or maybe two days at most. Fish is best when consumed the day it is caught. The fresh produce is best eaten right away. There are no preservatives coating things, no special packaging keeping triple washed salad green and good for a week.

Maybe just maybe something might be wrapped in cellophane, but mostly it wasn't wrapped in anything and you had better wash it before you ate it when you got it home because of the dirt not the chemicals. The quality of the food, with the exception of beef, was wonderful. So a trip to the market each day was the best policy. Sometimes that meant a trip to the open-air markets; sometimes it meant a trip to a supermarket. Sometimes it was a trip to both.

Bill paying also required trips. Bills had to be paid in person, not by mail or automatic debit card. I could pay the Socoteco (electric) bill at KCC mall. The PLDT phone and internet bill I paid at the PLDT office downtown, one block off Pendatun Street, right by the BDO bank and Jollibees. The water bill was paid at their office. I had to travel down Salvani Street cross the last paved road before the street becomes dirt, and then over the rutted route until it hits a paved cross street, where a right hand turn takes you to their office. Once inside, the guard gives you a number/ticket. There are rows of chairs and tellers behind cages for the average person and there is a separate window for Senior Citizens ... I qualify for that. Payment for the cable TV is at the SkyTV office on my way to two of the malls, the KCC and Gaisano. For most things, I prefer KCC but there are times when Gaisano is the better option. There is a new Robinson's mall that has opened but they seem too expensive and for some reason the place is off putting. SM is building a mall but it isn't completed yet. It will be closer to home when it is finished.

I'm rambling ... sorry. I tend to do that a lot these days. Anyway, as I was saying, I do get out of the house. It has been just forty-four days since I buried my sweet wife. We, she and I, knew that day was coming, but knowing hardly made it easy.

If you have ever been in a country with real and pervasive poverty, you have seen beggars. Such people are not unique to the Philippines. I gather it is far more of a problem in places such as India than it is here. Still you will find them. They will approach you on the street, when walking to store and even at times, when you are stuck in traffic, or parked or waiting for someone, like I used to do when waiting for my wife at the BDO office. It is mostly kids, ragamuffins, their hands out and hoping for a peso or two. If I had a peso in my pocket I would, if there were not too many of them, give a peso. If I had no pesos or there was a crowd of them, I would say, walá, which is Tagalog meaning 'nothing, ' or I don't have anything to give you. Unfortunately, many of those kids had never been to school and do not know Tagalog. I guess they might know Cebuano, but I don't know any Cebuano.

To say that these beggars are dirty is only to point out that they have no way to wash themselves. It is not a comment on their values or their standing before God or Man. The beggars in the Philippines are very dark skinned. That is not a racial matter. It is caused by the fact that they are constantly out under the sun. Caucasians tan, but Filipinos vary from a light café au lait, to dark, dark brown. Not every Filipino is as light skinned as the next one, but none are as dark by genes as a beggar appears to be. So, while the beggar is visible in a number of ways, none of the reasons are a matter of race or caste. The reasons are economic. Regardless, of the cause, they are desperate, but I cannot be every man's keeper and I can't raise every beggar up. That is the work of governments and NGOs, not a single human. And so while I might feel sorry for them, I do walk by them without stopping frequently.

I have been speaking of the past. It is my past, but not the long past. Day forty-three was yesterday. I need to talk about yesterday. I need to talk about how I got to where I am today. I need to do that because, for the life of me, I don't know what I was thinking and what the fuck I'm going to do now.

I had been to the supermarket at KCC Mall, which is either the basement or the first floor depending on your way of thinking about it I guess. Anyway, I had parked in the lower level parking facility from which I had close access to the supermarket. If you go there after 1:30PM and before 3:00PM it is generally possible to find a parking slot. Go earlier and you will be out of luck.

I picked up eggs, bread, tocino, beer (San Miguel Premium, ) fresh pork, garlic, onions, salted black beans and ampalaya. For supper I would fry up the pork, black beans and ampalaya in a light broth. Of course, it is served over rice, but I had a 20 kilo bag of rice at home.

With the groceries in the back of the Toyota Corolla Altis sedan, I traveled through the outlet drive underneath the mall, handed in my parking receipt (there is no money attached to the process but you get one when you enter and have to surrender it when you leave) and turned left onto the street as I exited.

As you do so, almost immediately you can turn left again, and drive by the front of the mall, or you can continue on and turn left at the cross street half way between KCC and Robinsons (and just shy of my car mechanic's shop). I drove to the cross street and turned left. A short hop to a light brings you to the Asian Highway where by literally going straight at the light I join the Highway going west through Gensan (General Santos City). That is my regular path to go back home. This was yesterday. It was 2:30PM and I was stopped at the light. Next to me on my left was a large delivery truck. Not a semi, but not a van either. He couldn't see me and I could only see his fender. Ahead of me were two large trucks. My windows were up and the air-conditioner was on.

I must have been in half a daze, waiting for the light and the trucks to move. There was a knock on the front passenger window. It startled me. She, it was a she, of that there was little doubt, could not have been much over 135cm (that's about 4'6" for those of us from the USA). She was beyond dirty. She was almost black. Her hair was a rat's nest. I was pretty sure the person was a 'she' for the simple reason that standing out in broad daylight on a city street, she was as naked as the day she was born. There on the other side of my window were two puffy little breasts and a completely hairless, if dirty, vagina.

Chapter 2 »