Dr. Frank Einstein (34 page)

    
The porch stored Noeme’s store.  Through the front door is a blue living room with white tiles.  This kind of tile laid in most of the rooms.  The living room measured nine square meters.  It contained a set of navy blue plush sofa, a coffee table and two chairs.  A four foot tall console that is topped by a forty eight inch flat screen television.   My living room appears on our church‘s website at [email protected]. This website has pictures of this room in use during church services.    On the left appeared the entrance to our bedroom.  This is a bit small.  The walls painted yellow.   The floor is an exception with a brown square pattern.  On the west wall is a mahogany wardrobe.   It opposed to an iron frame queen sized bed which stood against the wall.  A smaller older type television on top of a small wicker table.  The lower level of this table held a DVD player.   Back to the living room. Opposite to the front door is the way to the dining room.   A dining sets prominented in the room.  Again at this left is a smaller bedroom that is reminiscent of a prison cell.  A bunk bed stood on one side and a blue plastic wardrobe stood at the other. Connected to this room is the narrow pink tiled bathroom with a portable heater on the shower.   Back of the dining room is the kitchen.   The floor was vacant .A sink amongst cabinets lower and upper.  On the cabinets held a small white microwave oven.  This Kitchen contained a refrigerator, stove / oven and washer/dryer combination. On the south side of kitchen is a bedroom for Mutyah.   The bed oversized the room.  It had two wardrobes.   Noeme’s family had a smaller rudimentary house a few doors down. 

       When I spoke not only did I have garbled speech, my face screwed in to such distortion. 

  I w
ould speak these words out loud. Noeme still felt these actions seemed crazy.

   
   “I’ve seen you talk to yourself.”  I cited.  We stood in our bedroom.  She caught me with these words.

   
   “Yeah but not as much as you!” she exclaimed.

    
  “This is how I organize my thoughts.”

  
    “You yell.’

    
  “Because the United States   government is killing stealing from and destroying Americans.”

     
Over the months she accepted my way I organized my thoughts.

      
The Filipino banks started charging a two hundred pesos fee for every time one withdraw ten thousand pesos. That is, a four and half dollar fee for only a two hundred and twenty dollars withdrawal.  Additionally my American bank charged another two dollars for the same amount.  To give Noeme her allowance of fifty thousand pesos cost almost thirty dollars in fees. This is just another way for the banks of the military industrial complex to get pay a lot for doing almost nothing.  There was an alternative: Deposit a check in my Filipino account for   no fees.   However it will take twenty three business days to clear all accounts.

      
Noeme did not want to wait for twenty three business days.  To her a need always necessitates more money now.  In the Philippines Sy headed the small list of Filipino billionaires as in United States Dollar.  He owned SM global.  The Filipino mega business that owns, among others, SM malls.  They also own my bank.  With all of billions he and his fellow stockholders have, why does he need such a large fee for such a small expenditure of resources?   Why is the maximum withdrawal only ten thousand pesos? Why not fifty thousand?  A two hundred peso fee for fifty thousand pesos would be so much more fair.  The maximum withdraw for my    local account, which has no fees, is twenty five thousand.  why not at least that?  But why should they be fair when they can gorge me.  Every time I walked up to an atm. In the Philippines I felt the same type of violation, but to a lesser degree, as I did as when a parent wrote a false complaint at work just to get rid of me. Noeme never care about Sy’s greed.

       
“You’re so kariput! “Noeme exclaimed to me. Filipinos never want to the word stingy to emphasize their disgust.  This conversation located in our bedroom.   We lounged on the bed.

    
    “No, it’s these billionaires are always coming up with ways to rip off people.  I refuse to be victimized.”

    
    “I’m tired of saying that over and over.”  She punched me in the arm, though not very hard.

     
   “Please do not hit me.”

   
     “I want you to hit me.”

  
      “I’ve never had and never will.  Besides, you just want to entrap me.  I’ll never fall for that.  Why don’t you treat me like I treat you?”

  
      She fell silent.  She always fell silent when I said it.

         “You won’t do it because it too hard.”

         
"I like my ex better than you.  He’d beat me and then go off and get drunk.  But you --it’s talk talk talk talk. You never stop talking.  Hours and hours.  Don’t you ever get tire of it!”

    
     Time passed through months.  She opened a general store and café.  Now people of the neighborhood could get whatever they wanted here and not tread the three kilometers to the center of town. My investment caused the creation of her enterprises.  Then a Savemore Supermarket in Sorsogon accepted credit cards without fees.  She bought wholesale for her businesses in this method.  She became less dependent on the ATM machines.     

     
   People lined up most mornings and evenings with a steady stream through the day.  With the exception of a few tiny sari sari stores, she was it on the beach. She had warm bread.  She made little doughnuts.  Customers loved her homemade pichet-pichet.  An orange cellos pastry with coconut sprinkles.

    
   I entered Centro, a small three story department store in Sorsogon city looking for Noeme.  Noeme said she would eventually shop there I thought she might be there at that point of time. Coming in there, the Filipino security guard glared at me.  After a couple    of minutes of this glaring he approached me and said, “Are you drunk!”

    
  Several times, security guards in the Philippines, have gotten on my case about my gait.  Even commanding against me, “you’re drunk, you’re not allowed in.”  I had enough of being harass   so ripped on him.

    
What right do you have to say I’m drunk?”  I rebuked him harshly.  "I have disabilities, you bigot!  I walk differently because I have brain damage.  I have a gait.   You’re prejudiced! what! My ugliness is not good enough for your snotty store. 

     
He stood there silent. I should mention that I’m six feet and weigh two hundred and ten pounds.  He was about same age as me but about five feet three and one hundred thirty pounds. I continued my tirade.

      “Did they not teach you any etiquette at security guard training?  Oh I see only people who walk like me must be drunk. There’s no e
xception.  Because of the way I walk is so wrong there’s no way to be sensitive to me.  I’m beneath human.  The only thing that’s important is to keep the likes of me from the customers was finished with him.  I turned to resume my search for Noeme in the store. I took the escalator to the third floor.  I found her amongst the girl section. I recollected the incident that just occurred in the store. She reacted calmly to my recollection.   “I’m sorry he treated you so badly.  You did what you had to do.”

       Two police officers appeared saying that I disturb the peace.  Noeme told them in Bicol, the local dialect in a pleasant voice m
y situation and what happened from my perspective.

      They were no
t buying it.

     One officer, who was much bigger and thirty years younger than the security guard, told me, in English, I had to leave the store.
I said no, I did not have to leave the store because the security guard had harassed me.  He said if l did not leave he would arrest for disturbing the peace.  I said I could not be arrested for aggressively scolding someone (because the Philippines had been a United States territory its laws were identical to the United States).

   
I looked at Noeme. She looked unfazed by the verbal exchange.

   
The police officers gave up and left the store.

                                  Chapter For
ty Seven

      The salt water waves embraced our feet.   The intense sun beamed through the cloudless rich blue sky. Our Filipino beach is closer to the sun than those in United States because of curve of the earth.  Therefore there exists a greater fullness of the sun.  I sat down in churning water; my eighteen month adopted son, Justin, sat in my lap.  Muytah stood near me splashing gleefully at the waves sprayed all around her.  “swimming !”  She exclaimed as she took a jump.  Justin laughed with the waves. This is our routine.  Minutes went by then we walked among tied up anchored boats. Muytah found a hollow log to float on the shifting waves.

       
I looked out to three bumps of islands in the far distance to the left.  An island up close revealing a small fishing village stood on the right.   Noeme came on the beach and called out for us to go home.

        
“Mama!” Muytah and Justin exclaimed gleefully at her call.   They ran into her arms.

  
      We all walked up the beach amongst dry docked outriggers.   We tracked the Sandy roadway path; each parent holding a child in their arms.   Strolling through the provincial way.  We entered the house.  We washed our feet against the spicket.

        ‘’we must not use corporal   punishment against our children.  Never yell at them but use an authoritative voice. By giving our children lots of attention we will establish a loving relationship with our children which they will never want to break by misbehaving.  At the same time put them in very structured environment.  The utmost concept our children must understand is they must always do is obey their parents.

         
Muytah climbed on my chest as I relaxed on the sofa in our living room.  She hugged me as we conversed with each other.

          “
Do you remember Santa Rosa?” I asked her.

          
“Yes.”  She answered me.

          
“Do you remember antique?”

          
“No.”

           Noeme asked me to give her more money beyond the allowance.  I did not want to do it. She became angry.

          
“We don’t have savings. We need savings.”

          
“Don’t raise your voice at me! “She demanded of me.

       
  “I am not.  Y’know that my disabilities prevent me from controlling the volume of my voice. Stop using my disabilities against me. “

          
Justin came in; Noeme growled him.  This made him upset.

         
“Do not take it out him.” I scolded her.

           Not much later, I witnessed her playing with him making him laugh.  She always played with her children; many hours a day.

 
         She danced joyfully with Justin to Celine Dion, Prancing and shaking her hips as Justin laugh.

                    Chapter Fo
rty Eight

      While she worked in her store I had nothing to do.  Five days week I would get out my laptop and begin to write on it.  On a particular day wrote an article.

  
To get it straight I vocalized these words:

               Impeach Every President

     Every President has done acts in their tenure which warrants impeachment.  My only caveats being is Presidents William Henry Harris
on and James Garfield because their tenures where too short. The hope of the Founding Fathers was to come up with a way to protect the country from a tyrannical president in a nonpartisan way.  This clearly has not worked.  Tyrannical presidents have gotten away with their tyranny for her because partisan congresses have overlooked their crimes; whilst the only presidents who were impeached were impeached for partisan reasons.

     A president should not be impeached just because (s
)he breaks the law.  The violation of the law should be a high crime.  The United States constitution says an impeachable offense should be "High Crimes and Misdemeanors".  Today,   saying high misdemeanors seems an oxymoron.  The meaning of misdemeanor in this context has been lost to us.  Suffice it   to say, let us just concentrate on the meaning of High Crimes.  What does high crimes means?  It is supposed to mean what the particular congress decides what it means.   However I think it is illegal for congress to decide that a violation of the law is a high crime when it clearly not.  I think is obvious after two hundred years what is a high crime: treason, sedition, graft, violating checks and balances, violating civil rights.  In short, not an act that violates the law but an act that violates the Constitution.