Sorry it's been so long for this last installment. I have been enjoying family time at my Aunt & Uncles new lake house. It's hard to get Howie out of the water
Here goes the last installment of this particular story for now
The Thirteenth Disciple III - Dream Warriors
Luther is a creature of habit. While I am positive he is Bipolar, I think there is a healthy amount of OCD mixed in for good measure. He does things according to what day it is. His week is planned months in advance and any deviation causes panic. I’m not sure what day he does what, but I know that he goes into town – Panabo City, where Gerlie’s parents live – on a certain day every week to check his bank account and do internet related stuff at one of the internet cafés.
My wife is very protective. God help you if she doesn’t like you! Unlike many other Filipinas I know, my wife was raised to be outspoken and must make her father very, very proud
If she thinks you’re a douche, pretty much you’re gonna know she thinks you’re a douche. LOL With the funeral shenanigans still fresh in her mind, she decided that Luther is a jerk. If the rest of her family was willing to take it, that’s fine, but she would not. So she reprised her role as the voice of her more timid – more respectful, deserved or not – relatives. She didn’t see him a lot, but when she did, she was less than charming.
She had about a week to get everything in place before classes began. She bought a computer, signed up for DSL, got a landline installed, bought a futon to sleep on that doubled as a couch during the day. She was busy, but still managed to have some fun while completing her tasks.
A couple of weeks into her semester she calls me spitting mad. I guess the second Luther found out that Nanay and Tatay had a computer and internet connection he began coming there, while she was at school, and using it. Not a major problem except that he downloaded a bunch of his own crap, rearranged the desktop, telling Tatay not to let anyone mess with it, and managed to infect the computer with a nasty virus. On top of that, once again, he was ignoring protocol. With Gerlie’s family the rule is, you come to visit, bring food to share. You’re gonna get fed, but you need to bring something with you for the potluck. Anything social in the Philippines includes food. Maybe that’s why I am so fond of the culture
LOL
So here’s my boy… Using our computer whenever he likes, getting fed whenever he stops by and making Gerlie’s parents feel like they are villains when they finally ask him to kick a little in. Free lunch, no more internet café bills, privacy… it’s good deal for him.
After Gerlie got the computer fixed they had it out. Supposedly, he agreed to pay for the DSL when the bill came in return for the convenience and hospitality he received.
I thought everything was worked out and then I receive an email from my esteemed uncle. He was ranting about everyone in the family hitting him up for money all the time. He was on a “fixed income†and “not made of money†and “tired of being constantly asked for loansâ€, etc… He was asking me to get my in-laws to “stop asking him for loansâ€.
Wow! This is kind of scary for me. Because I have no real way to communicate with the her parents. I don’t know enough Visayan or Tagalog and they only have very basic English skills. With her Brother Russell in Kuwait – OCW – there’s no one there to translate for us. I have no choice but to talk to Gerlie and try to find out what he is talking about.
In the interest of being fair – I am not naïve to the way things work over there – I give Luther the benefit of the doubt and try to get to the bottom of everything. After several conversations with different relatives and my wife I found Luther’s complaints to have very little merit. In most instances it was a case of someone having a conversation with him, neither side completely knowing what the other was saying or asking for and then confrontation. Either they would appeal to Jovie, she would agree to get him to do his fair share and he just wouldn’t or he would make a colossal fuss and reluctantly agree. In most cases they were just trying to get him to do what they thought he had agreed to do. In his defense, there were a couple of “business opportunity†requests mixed in there.
I can imagine being bombarded with people asking for hand outs. I imagine it’s not fun at all and you end up feeling more like a piggy bank than a family member, but, as usual, Luther made his own bed. Jovie had a great job. I’ve mentioned it before. She worked in the offices of the city of Panabo as a permanent temporary worker. Basically, she has a full time job as long as she wants it, but because her status is temporary, if she ever leaves, she has to go through the process all over again. The process takes years. Anyway, when they began trying to have a child Luther demanded that she quit her job to be a stay at home mother. We all told her that she was crazy. We told her that she should at least wait until she was pregnant, but her husband insisted. Finally they reached an agreement that he would give her the p8000 she was making with the city per month to manage the household and live in the fashion she was accustomed to, the fashion she WORKED for. We still told her she was insane and putting herself further under his thumb, but she trusted him and did what she was told. Notice I say “toldâ€. If he would have just let keep her job, no one would bother him for money, she would handle it.
It was fall and Gerlie was back in the U.S. after completing her semester and clinicals. I heard her on the phone and she was obviously upset. When she got off the phone she told me that Jovie was in the hospital. It seems that fibroid tumors are common on Gerlie’s mother’s side and Jovie had two whoppers. She had been seeing the doctor for months dealing with the inability to conceive and known that she had these tumors growing. Taking her age into account, and the size of the tumors, the doctor recommended a hysterectomy. The odds were against her becoming pregnant anyway and she had let the tumors go so long that they didn’t think they could remove them and leave her reproductive system intact. Unless she agreed to a hysterectomy, they wouldn’t go in at all. When she discussed this, long before she was bleeding uncontrollably, with her husband, he urged her to wait it out and try just a little longer to get pregnant. He what??? She could DIE from this! She knew she was taking a big risk, but Luther wanted her to wait so she did.
By this point it’s pretty obvious to everyone that Luther is either the most selfish person on Earth, doesn’t fully understand the gravity of the situation due to his diminished mental capacity or he just doesn’t care. This is not an error in judgment. This is just stupidity. I don’t even want to know his side anymore. I just wish he would go away.
Eventually, Jovie had the surgery and came out fine. They decided to try and adopt a child instead. On went the process until one of Jovie’s brother’s got his wife pregnant. Danny and his wife already had two kids and were struggling to get by. Jovie and Luther offered to help with the expenses and adopt the baby when he was born. At first it seemed like a good idea and Danny agreed. Over the course of the pregnancy – 9 more months of Luther’s crap – Danny had second thoughts. I have been told that his wife liked the idea and with a little persuasion from his beloved sister he went along with the plan.
Like everything else, Luther is weird when it comes to parenting. Jovie calls Gerlie every so often wondering what I would do in a certain situation and it’s never anything close to what Luther does.
A year ago or so Jovie wanted to know how close to Portland, Oregon Detroit was. Luther’s family was having a big family reunion and they were planning to attend. She was hoping to sneak over for a visit if at all possible. Of course, she was very excited at the possibility of coming to the U.S. for a visit. Unfortunately, she has an idiot for a husband. Because she was not gainfully employed, they denied her visitor’s visa saying she didn’t have sufficient reason to return. They couldn’t take their son anyway, because they hadn’t legally adopted him. I guess there is a law in the Philippines that you can’t adopt a child if their parents are alive. You can only legally adopt orphans. Since everyone knows who the kid’s real parents are, it’s a no go. Sorry Jovie, no soup for you!
There was one other instance I would like to share. I’m not sure where it falls in order, but it’s worth sharing. I guess Luther and his family are Seventh Day Adventists. When Luther talks to his family he spouts his conspiracy theories about who is out to get him and such. It seems Luther’s mother doesn’t quite realize that her son is a nut and was worried about his safety. She went so far as to contact a missionary in the Philippines to check the situation out because Luther told her he was being held against his will. Yes, those were his words. So this SDRA missionary rides into Mangahan like the Grand Inquisitor and questions everyone in the barangay about Luther, his marriage, her family, etc… Very embarrassing! In the end the missionary concluded that Luther was not being held against his will and that he didn’t need to intervene.
Dear Luther’s Mom,
You’re son is a nut!
Please send your tithing to your local church.
Yours Truly,
SDRA Missionary (Philippines)So that brings us to the present.
Let’s recap.
Here’s Luther, a man who lives on the government dole and can’t seem to function in American society beyond odd jobs as a pizza-boy, now has everything he said he ever wanted. He has a wife, a son, owns a home with property and lives like a king in comparison to his conditions in the U.S. Is he thankful? No. Does he even realize that this is all due to his wife and her family, which he treats like his own personal servants? Nope.
And then there’s Jovie. All she wanted was someone to love her like she loved him and maybe a trip to the United States. Five years in he has never filed for a spousal visa and seems to have no intention of doing so. Why should he? Without that paperwork, he isn’t even legally married here. He can leave here whenever he wants. His life will be the same and she will be screwed!
And now the latest. It seems our caped crusader has become quite the ladies man. One day Jovie came home from the market a little early to find the door to their flat locked. After knocking for several minutes she grew irritated and went to another room. Shortly after that she sees the maid coming out of the doorway! As the maid scurries out she goes up stairs to find her husband in his underwear sitting at their kitchen table. She asks him why the door was locked and he replies, “The door wasn’t lockedâ€.
After pressing the issue farther, he blows his top and begins chasing her around the bedroom.
“You think I’m cheating!?†he exclaims
“Well why was the door locked?†she sobs into her hands.
“It WASN’T LOCKED†he protests, reaching into his underwear. “You think I’m cheating on you? DO you? You really think I would do that?†He persists while pulling his Johnson out. “Here… you think I’m cheating??? Smell it!â€
I am not gonna bother to elaborate on that one any further.
One other time – there have been several, these are just the two Gerlie shared with me – Jovie was in the front yard with the kids and she sees the maid come from the upstairs doorway. I don’t think she thought much of it at that time. Within a few minutes she went upstairs to find her husband lying naked as a jaybird on top of the covers of their bed. When asked what he was doing, he gave some dismissive reply, rolled over and went to sleep. I know it’s hot in the Philippines, but their flat is AIR CONDITIONED! Sounds a little fishy to me
And lastly, Mr. Creature-of-habit now disappears for hours on end. He hops a tricycle off into the unknown and doesn’t return until near dark. Gerlie and her aunt are pretty sure that he is seeing one of the maids – who was let go after suspicions arose on his wife’s part – who lives a couple barangays over. It seems she is quite poor, so he wouldn’t think of leaving his comfortable environment at Mangahan to be with her, but here sure seems to go there on a regular schedule, allegedly. I don’t know why no one has bothered to follow him to confirm these suspicions, then again, maybe she doesn’t really want to know.
So there you have it, the story of the Thirteenth Disciple. Maybe you’re starting to understand a little better why I don’t necessarily buy the concept that “We†are always the prize. I say “We†as in the American men looking for a foreign spouse. I know that most here have honorable intentions, but knowing some of the stories I do, I don’t always assume the guy is the prize before I get to him a little better.
Thanks for tuning in!
Keep the Faith!
The Chronicles WILL continue
H
