Magnet & Steele

by Trisha Fuentes

  An open Jeep called a “Jeepney” took her along a dirt road and then a dirty path towards her new home. The Jeepney was an abandoned hover vehicle that had been used during WWII. Her future home was now a small cottage with chipped paint with patchy overgrown grass. Ian arranged for them to stay near Subic Bay in Olongapo City.

  The U.S. Naval Base Subic Bay was a major ship repair, supply, rest and recreation facility for the United States. Located in Zambales, Philippines, it was the largest U.S. Naval installation in the Pacific. The Vietnam War placed a tremendous workload on Subic Bay. The base became the service station and supermarket for the U.S. Seventh Fleet after the Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964. From an average of 98 ships visiting a month in 1964, the average shot up to 215 by 1967 with about 30 ships in port on any given day. A new record was set in October 1968 with 47 ships in port.

  This was why they were there in the first place; Ian tried to explain to her, too many lost souls…too many lost soldiers that needed aid and spiritual guidance.

  Their home wasn’t so nice though; Ian said he wanted to prove a point and couldn’t be seen as tourists, they needed to be seen as normal and part of the countryside. So why couldn’t he save the sinners in their own country? Francine asked him the day after they got married. Eight more months of his tour, Ian replied, and off they went, practically leaving all their wedding presents back in the states with just the clothes on their backs to their new life overseas.

  That evening, Francine was looking out at all the breathtaking bamboo palms, palm trees and grasses when she felt her skin crawl for the very first time. Ian began touching her from behind and it truly felt odd and uncomfortable with his arms around her waist, up and down her back, freely touching her bottom at will. He couldn’t wait to make love to his new wife and touched her bosoms with both hands from the rear. Yes, they had waited. Waited until he could get her a visa out of the U.S. and into this religious life he wanted to carve out for himself. Waited until they were finally alone with no outside distractions and no one to care or judge them.

  Carefully exploring his newfound territory, he waited for approval from Francine but she didn’t react. Instead, she closed her eyes out in front of her and remained immobile. His hands inched their way up towards her nipples, but there was still no response from Francine.

  She thought about Derrie at that moment; Derrie and his new wife…with their new home…blissful and comfortable. She closed her eyes even harder, bit down on her lower lip and swung her body around to receive this new husband of hers and attached her mouth to his, kissing and folding him in as well when Ian led them both back into the cottage to make love.

  A month later, Ian escorted Francine out to the U.S. Naval base; out to where he used to spend time, he told her one night after making love. It was during those weekends without her, he confessed, or rather before her and before he found God.

  The naval base in Subic Bay was surrounded by a strip of nightclubs that ran along one particular street. It was a sight of colorful, welcoming and enticing sinful places and all around the base, practically in a full circle, there were theaters, eateries and hotels; the 24-hour kind, with ceiling fans and double beds. To be honest, it was actually disgusting to Francine and she didn’t ingest the secret by telling Ian how she hated it every other five seconds or so.

  It was life before ‘you-know-who’, she started calling him now. It was life after you-know-who and Francine was finally starting to feel comfortable in her surroundings and with her husband. He was beginning to grow on her with his gentleness and love, waking her up with tiny little kisses on her nose in the early sunshine of the morning and making her squirm for pleasure at night a few nights a week. It was nice…it was normal and unexciting and she was beginning to settle into her new life of being a Naval Chaplain’s Wife.

  *****

  Beaching their boat one night and anchoring it in the deep sand, they sailed out to the ‘100 Islands’ and the twosome were lying out on a blanket on the white sand when Ian took out a sandwich from within a duffel bag. The islands (124 at low tide and 123 at high tide) were scattered along Lingayen Gulf and covered an area of 18.44 square kilometers (approximately 4,557 acres). They were believed to be about two million years old but only three of them had been developed for tourists: Governor Island, Quezon Island, and Children's Island. The islands were actually ancient corals that extended well inland, in an area previously comprising the seabed of an ancient sea. Lowering sea levels had exposed them to the surface leaving some of them to create a “beach-like” area for the tourists to visit.

  Beaching themselves after swimming from one island to the next, Ian and Francine laid on the sand to soak in some of the sun.

  “Your cuisine my love,” he gave to her, smiling.

  Francine grabbed the sandwich away from him and sneered, “Thanks, but I’m not hungry though. I just want to enjoy this wonderful breath-taking view! Look at all those stars!” She marveled, throwing her head back and gazing up at the twilight. The sun had just set leaving a gorgeous array of twinkling stars up above them in the early evening.

  “It’s nice here, isn’t it?” He asked, bending his body back and lying on his elbows in the sand.

  Francine looked behind her and lay down with him in the sand. “It is nice, Ian, thank you for taking me here.”

  Ian smiled within, “You’re welcome.” He then reached out for her hand and held it within his.

  Francine held onto it for a few more seconds and then released it quick to spring up to her knees to stand back up. “Want to go for a swim?”

  “It’s pitch black out there in the water now, the moon is barely lit.”

  “Yeah, I know, but that will be the fun in it.”

  Ian got up on his feet as well and then wrapped his free arms around her backside, bringing her body in, “First, a kiss.”

  Francine pushed his nearing body away, “You have to catch me first!” She challenged him, sprinting away from him and hopping into the water. Step by high step, she inched her way into the deep water and away from him. Not another kiss!

  October, 1971

  Ian and Francine had a couple of villagers over for dinner one night. Trying to convert the devote Catholics was thwarting. Their religion was deep-rooted; ages and eras had gone by with the Spanish culture reigning over everything in general: their food, their language, even their names. Ian was constantly disappointed and regularly frustrated. He thought in the beginning that having the Lord bring him back to the Philippines was going to be easy. That Jesus was going to make it effortless for him, but he was wrong, Jesus was testing him, he realized one day, seeing how much of a teacher he could really be.

  There were a hundred chairs laid out, a large tarp hung over a pulpit to protect it from the heat and the sun’s rays. Ian was getting ready to address a sermon one Sunday and Francine was in the back sitting on a chair, nervously waiting for the soldiers and villagers to arrive; for anyone to arrive, for that matter.

  When word went out that an outreach was being held in a nearby field, Ian became worried. This was his chance, perhaps his last chance. Would anyone show?

  Francine eyed a couple of citizens sitting down on chairs a half an hour later and they opted to take up the last two rows. Would they listen? Would it matter?

  She walked over to a nearby table with a pitcher of water, and after pouring herself something to drink, she walked back to her chair. She looked out from behind the tarp again and to her disbelief; there were hundreds, no thousands of people occupying the chairs now; sitting on the grass, the dirt, rooftops, even in the palm trees!

  It was hot, humid, and sweaty hot, perspiration dripped off each and every forehead. Handkerchiefs wiped away, pamphlets swayed repeatedly, blowing hot air onto heated skin. People were starting to get restless and fidgety, some even began to get up and walk away when Francine heard her husband yell…

  “HELL!”

  With his hair partly wet and eyes tired from too much read
ing the night before and his back sweating; Ian continued to say, “A lot of you here are going to Hell.” He paused to watch the people rush back to their seats for they were intrigued now. People were always intrigued with the devil. “And I don’t mean that in the cursing aspect of the word.” He strategically went on, “I mean Hell…burning, fire, pain, anguish, torture bearing Hell. And a lot of you here have first class tickets! Satan is cheering you on, he likes when you sin, and the more you sin, the more those doors open for you.” He stopped again on purpose and turned the pages in the Bible. “In John, Chapter 5 it reads, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again…”

  He paused to wipe his brow and then looked down throughout the crowd of people. Hundreds of faces were enthralled now, staring up at him, conscious and aware. “God loves you,” he stated lovingly, “…The Lord Jesus Christ wants you to do something in your life. He wants to change your life. Sin brings forth death, but the Savior brings forth life! Don’t you want to live?” He stopped and turned another page. “There was a man over my house the other evening; many of you know this man. He’s in the government, he’s affluent and he was stubborn. He asked me, ‘do you think that there’s more to life?’ He asks me! Me! If there’s more to life; he’s got everything material, but he wants more. More to life…”

  Ian then looked across at the men in the trees barely hanging on. “I said to him yes…yes, you’ve been living my brother, you live, but haven’t experienced life. You will never know the purpose, the meaning here on earth. He wants you to devote yourself to Him. I continued on by telling this man what he did not want to hear. I said to him, do you realize that when you die, you will be standing before God? The man shook his head ‘no’. He was considerate of me now; I caught this man’s attention. I said do you believe that God’s going to overlook those sins of yours?”

  Ian turned to look at Francine and his wife gave him a small smile. Ian changed his voice, changing it deep as in a way to portray God: “Oh mister so-in-so, I see that you’ve given a lot of your money to charity. You’re nice to elderly people and you’ve never hit your wife. You’ve given jobs to those who need them, and you’ve even fed the hungry. You’ve done everything good, you were a good person. But mister so-in-so, you’ve never given your heart to Jesus. I’m sorry mister so-in-so, go from my sight for I know you not.”

  Francine was speechless now and wiped away the tears that had unexpectedly fallen down on her cheeks. Barely turning her head, she looked around her; they were all looking up at her husband now. Ian, her husband, she was so proud to know him at that moment; to share him, to partake in his life!

  “Please join me, come stand with me, if anyone here wants to know Jesus,” Ian stated next. And to his surprise, or maybe his religious vision, crowds of villagers and soldiers, almost everyone stood up and began walking towards the front to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.

  Several weeks later, the wealthy man Ian brought to the Lord had a church built for him. It seated nearly a thousand people, and it did.

  *****

  Inside her tiny kitchen, Francine was making breakfast. This was her life now. One year, turned into three years of living overseas and Francine was no longer holding onto any desire to be with ‘what’s his face’, she called him now. What’s his face was just a distant memory to her now in a lifetime far and away in the states. What’s his face was just part of a fantasy she had on a high school crush, and, like high school crushes, they seem to fade away with time and only brought up when someone else remembered them. Her life at present had been occupied with days of helping the needy and counseling the other naval wives, and helping out her husband’s constant toil. This was her life now…this was her existence and Francine was finally at peace.

  Oil popped inside the frying pan where Francine once cracked and opened an egg and poured it into the hot pan accidentally taking a few shells along with the yolk.

  “Crap!” She yelled going for the eggshell, not quite retrieving it and burning her finger on the side of the hot metal. “Ah, crap!” She yelled again, sticking her burnt finger inside her mouth on instinct. Running over to her dinette set, she stuck her finger into the cube of butter that was placed already on the tabletop for breakfast. With her finger still in the melting butter, Francine quickly noticed the mail on top of the table as well. She reached over to pick it up when her Filipino maid peeked around the corner and rushed to her aid.

  “Magandang umaga,” the maid expressed, tilting her head down in submission.

  “Good morning to you too,” Francine smiled, through clenched teeth.

  The maid looked queerly at Francine with her finger still stuck in the cube.

  “I had an accident,” Francine said, trying to explain.

  The maid just smiled and left back around the corner. Francine then went for the mail and grabbed the first letter. It was a bill and she tossed it aside. The second, in Filipino, and put it aside for the maid to translate for her later and the last, an ambuscade. Looking down at the return address, her heart sunk into the pit of her stomach. It was addressed from Notre Dame, Indiana. She got sick again, it was a sick feeling, not knowing what was going to happen, just knowing that it was.

  “Shit,” she said under her breath, “It’s from what’s his face.”

  Sitting down with the unopened letter in her hand, Francine took her finger out of the butter at last and wiped it on the bottom of her shirt. She then slowly ripped open the letter and read: ‘Dear Fran, how’s the Philippines? I hear it’s quite different there. Did you hear that our parents will be getting married? You’re coming to the wedding, right? I can’t wait to see you, there’s a lot to talk about. First off, Donna is pregnant…’ Francine then dropped the letter as if it were on fire. A tidal wave of emotions came flooding back in one quick punch. “God damn you Derrie!” She yelled down at the letter as if it could hear her. “A baby, Derrie…a baby? Oh, why do you have to keep coming in and out of my life like this? Why! I forgot all about you! You were gone, outta my life for good! Damn you!”

  Francine then ran out of her cottage as fast as her feet could take her and ran down the dirt road towards an empty field towards the ocean. It felt like a knife, she thought while clutching her stomach in constant pain. It felt like a Goddamn knife being pushed into her heart as well! Damn him! Damn Derrie to Hell!

  Later that same evening, Ian and Francine were alone eating dinner. Ian hadn’t bothered to take a shower and was still dressed in his fatigues when Francine waited until the maid left before she conveyed, “I’m flying back home tomorrow.”

  Ian stopped eating. “What?”

  “My mother is getting married,” she quickly acknowledged, thinking that it was a good enough reason to pick up and go.

  “She’s getting married?”

  “It’s all been kind of sudden,” she jokingly stated.

  “Really…”

  “Yes.”