Beth

My name is Beth, short for Maria Betelguese Socorro Santos.

A dull-witted student as my parents describe me. I already accepted it since ages because I never had good grades at school.

Unlike my smart younger sister, Jana.

Her prowess in academics attracts their attention to the point they place a halo around her head. To them, her future success will improve our economic status. Especially if she graduates college with flying colors.

In five years.

Yes, she is still in senior high school. But the pressure has been a burdent. In fact, she hates it.

As for me, I don’t know.

I don’t have goals in life.

I enjoy being petty and mundane. School. Home. School. Home.

Others see me as an easy-going, ignorant fool at school or the lady at the back. Since I sit at the corner most in the last row in class all the time.

I only have a handful acquaintances, which I call friends. No stress.

Yet, that peace will turn upside down once I return home when my parents rant and compare me to Jana.

But amidst, there is one thing that keeps me going. I love codes.

They didn’t know I steal newspaper articles from the dining table and cut them like an amateur sleuth.

A pathetic idiot, that is.

This is a hobby for me. Nothing serious but a past time activity. After solving one crime to the other, I throw each piece of the paper I used for my investigation. Then, move on to the next one.

I hear a loud slam at my back.

I stop writing my notes and turn my face to see my mom, still in uniform, frowning at me. “What are you doing? Get the hell out of here and we’ll eat together,” she sputters and leaves to the kitchen.

I sigh almost throwing my notebook. Annoyed by her habit of trespassing after she arrives home. She never knocks on the door when she needs me or my sister.

She always thinks she’s the master of the house because she works at the Bureau of Corrections. A place here she lives with the country’s most notorious criminals.

Murderers, at least.

And that work demands a lot of mental toughness.

Feeling forced, I push my chair with my butt to stand and head outside my room for dinner. When I step outside, I see my mom sitting in front of the television to watch the daily night news.

The news anchor sounds like a damaged vinyl repeating the same headlines every night.

And she doesn’t care and treats it as fresh news.

I scoff, roll my eyes, and face the dining table, where my father places the plates .

He wears his favorite ruffled pink apron. His white shirt underneath and a white towel wrapped around his head.

He may look brusque and tall enough for others to feel intimidated. Yet he is a sweet, charming man.

The more I study his features, the more I assume he was once the most popular good-looking young man in his twenties.

Although he’s aged, his good looks remain a standout quality. Underneath his wrinkles that spread across his face is an attractive man.

Why he married my mom. Opposites attract?

Before I sit in front of the table, my sister heads out from her room. She looks distressed at her upcoming examinations.

She sits and grabs the spoon and fork immediately without saying a word or at least waiting for mom to sit down with us.

While scooping some rice in the rice cooker placed on the table, she glances at me, raising her eyebrows. “What?” she says in a cold tone as if she feels uneasy. I shake my head and lean against the back of my chair waiting for dad to sit.

When he did, mom stands from the couch with her usual frown walking towards us, and sits. “Those scumbags never learn.” She utters, clucking afterward while grabbing the bowl of viand my dad cooked.

Though it steams, she doesn’t seem to bother as she picks it up as if it’s already cool enough in the skin. Her seat gives me a good glance of her beauty. To examine in which angle did my father fall for her charm.

She may look angelic—her face and her slim body as if she’s a demure lady—but she’s the real man in the house.

I gulp seeing her acting like that, while eating my food listening to her nightly rants from work.

“Why? What’s wrong dear?” my dad says as if he’s the mom of the house.

In the Philippines, fathers are the Haligi ng Tahanan (Pillar of the Home). The mothers as the Ilaw ng Tahanan (Light of the Home). He becomes the stronghold and her as the comfort of the family . Yet, in our family, it’s the reverse.

Before she responds to his sweet inquiry, I see my mom eating a spoonful of the plain rice without viand. She speaks without swallowing her food first. I couldn’t understand what she is saying. But my dad keeps on nodding as if he does.

I roll my eyes, instinctively.

When she finishes, he looks at me. “How about you Beth?”

I jerk looking at him. He tries too hard to look okay, although he is not. He’s tired from doing all the household chores while mom is at work.

He does all the laundry. He mops every nook and corner of the house, as well as clearing up our garbage bin, and cooking. Every. Meal. From breakfast to dinner, he does all the cooking.

He does the gardening in the small space in our backyard. He makes sure the vegetables we eat are fresh.

“What about me, dad?” I continue munching the stir-fried noodles while waiting for him to clarify.

Although I’m quite frustrated and annoyed at the same time, I try to sound nice. At least, for him.

“Your project. How was it?”

I swallow the food in a rush to respond because of their stares. I sigh, shaking my head. “No progress yet. It’s hard to find inmates with an interesting story, you know.”

Out of frustration with my week search, I scoop a large amount of rice and eat them whole. My cheek looks round from the food I consume in one swallow.

It’s been a week since I started finding prisoners with untold stories ready to unleash. As if there’s one out there.

There should be one, shouldn’t it? At least one.

I only need one piece of the story for my Philosophy project.

I need a scoop. An amazing. An interesting one. A story that is enough to impress Mr. Dizon to give me an A grade to pass the GPA for graduation.

My diploma. My freedom.

The constant rants about my studies will finally come to an end once I graduate.

One more month. And I’m done.

“How about the ones I gave you? Weren’t those enough for you?” Mom asks.

I shake my head while chewing. “I’ll check on my colleagues tomorrow. They still have something to help you out. I’ll go to work early for that. So, better not slack off, Betelgeuse.” I nod out of respect.

But deep inside, I hate her pronounce my name /Beetlejuice/ in sarcasm. It isn’t intentional. But the way she utters it sounds commanding compare to how she talks to Jana.

At the back of my mind, there’s no way out. I couldn’t blame her. Compared to my smart sister, I am nothing but a not-so-brilliant Beth.

Because of my oh-not-so-pleasant grades, I am left without a choice. I need of my mom’s help to pass my Philosophy subject.

Once I am released from their invisible dungeon, I can finally be free and move on to the next chapter of my life.

Someday, I get married to any man of my choice. As if it happens in real life.

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

My phone screams many times sprawling itself on top of my small table where my lampshade is.

I wince, in toss and turn, as I stretch my limbs feeling each cracking sounds of my joints. I smile feeling better before I rise from the bed and sit at the side near the table. I grab my phone.

My mom. Sucks.

“Hey, Beth.” She yells my name. “Why didn’t you answer my call at the first moment I called you? Don’t tell me you’re still in bed when it’s already noon.”

I sigh, leaning my torso forward with my elbows on my lap. I scratch my head as if I mower my dark hair rising up like our neighbor’s abandoned grassland in front of his yard.

“Well, I slept late last night. Anyway, my class is in the afternoon. I still have time to fix myself. Why did you call, mom?” My voice sounds a bit slurred, feeling lazy to answer her on the line.

All I want to do is sleep all day and wait for the next hour before I head to school.

I watch the wall clock above and face down, rubbing my hand down my cheek to my lip covering it.

“My colleague gave me a good recommendation you might want to check. Better come now before you go to school. I’ll wait for you.” She ends the call without even saying goodbye.

Is it hard to say, ‘Have a nice day, Beth.’?

I blink for a second and raise my face seeing the beams of broad daylight reflected on my windows.

I stand to see the children playing games with friends. I smile hearing their chuckles and constant bickering. Watching them makes me remember my best friend, Kaiser. How is he?

After I wash up and fix my look— keeping my make up simple—I head out to meet my mom at her workplace.

For the twentieth time. No, fiftieth time.

My hopes to meet that special inmate are high today. I sigh while I head to the kitchen and kiss my dad before I leave home. “Bye, dad.”

He smiles and continues humming while washing the dishes.

An hour of jeepney ride. An half-an-hour walk underneath the scorching sun have me more annoyed. More annoyed than a disrupted sleep.

I enter the rusty gates without problems. The guards know I am their warden’s daughter, guarded with men in uniform.

They invite me to the main white building, shaped like two lighthouses conjoined. In front of the gate, I see the words Kawanihan ng mga Bilangguan (Bureau of Corrections). Below is a line ‘New Bilibid Prison.’

Big rusty metals surround the hallway that functions as a fence for the visitors. Behind me are two guards and one man is an officer in front of me, guiding me to my mom’s office.

I glance around the see a countless number of prisoners wearing an orange shirt with a black P sign at the back.

Some play basketball. Some talk about trivial things. They seem to have a good time inside the modern hell. Although they’re clueless about their future while their cases are going on.

Until I arrive at one small office with a white door.

I step inside without hesitation and saw aisles of tables in an array, arranged. There are other inmates talking to civilians. I assume their relatives or closest family members.

At the other end, two guards stand to guard the door with a high caliber gun around his waist. I approach my mom sitting beside an inmate and in front of another officer wearing the same uniform as hers. “Beth, this is Officer Montero and this is the prisoner I talked about.”

I smile, waving my hand but the officer didn’t respond and shows a dead stare instead. The inmate smiles in response. At least, he knows how to be nice midst his dreading situation. I scoffed. Mentally.

I seated beside the officer, listening to my mom’s explanation.

“So, what’s his story?” I ask to interrupt my mom, who likes to talk too much. I’m sorry, mom but I couldn’t spend more time here. I have to attend my first class in the next two hours.

“He has an ongoing murder case…” Blah blah blah. His situation is somehow the same to the rest of the fifty cases she introduced me.

While listening to her, I find nothing from his story. It isn’t something enough to spark Mr. Dizon’s interest in my work.

After her explanation, I nod, scribble notes in my small notebook, and keep inside my bag and stand in front of them.

“Anyway, thank you for your time officer.” I extend my hand to her, which she did and shook it. The same way with the prisoner. “Thank you, Simon. For sharing your story. I’ll take note of that.”

To my mom, I nod and turn away. I walk further without glancing back at her.

‘Thank you, Mr. Mrs. Ms. For sharing your story. I’ll take note of that.’

I couldn’t count how many times I have said that to anyone since I started the project last week.

With more than fifty prisoners, no one has something worthy of my attention. Worthy of my A grade.

I cluck while waiting at the corner of the street for a long hour jeepney ride.

Heading home from school, I receive a phone call. “Kaiser?” I whisper while pressing my phone screen to accept it. “Hey.”

Having my best friend on the other of the line since a year excite the hell out of me. At least, my day ends great.

Who wouldn’t be?

I keep meeting prisoners. I listen to the sad stories of their crimes and their life inside the prison for seven days straight. That somehow been affecting me and if I keep doing this for more days, I could lose my sanity.

“I want to meet you at the usual spot,” Kaiser says with excitement. He does sound thrilled to see me again after he returned to his homeland Germany.

Kaiser Fuchs. /Fuks/. He’s at the same age as me. He’s also twenty-one years old. And we grew up together since as-long-as-I-could-remember-when.

He’s my only best friend I met since childhood. Although we are from different countries, those things didn’t hinder our friendship.

The only thing that sucks is we have to separate every three to six months. Even to one year to avoid citizenship problems.

Unlike me, he’s a smart guy.

Though he rarely studies a particular subject in class, he always manages to get a high score. Compared to those who studied well. Like now, for example, he skips classes to travel with his mom and meet me.

For sure, when he returns, he still copes with the lessons taught without problems.

I wish to have his brain. At least, half of his lobe. I don’t.

“Sure, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Alright. See ya,” he says.

I end the call and wait for the jeepney ride again. An endless commute.