Starving For Genius - Episode 18

Erotic Substance

---

Rachelle, the cellphone-crazed island girl I had first discovered my genius with while diving down into her far and wide, was now sitting by my side in an air conditioned bus as we headed to the northwestern part of the Philippines.

Despite the insanity I had experienced in the meeting, and was continuing to experience, I had managed to enthuse the suits with my pitch, even convincing them that it would be better that I immediately return to the Philippines, where they would FedEx the contract, instead of me waiting twenty-four hours to sign it in person once their lawyers had it drawn up. That by me being in the Philippines for awhile and establishing my name in the local market, it would only help in the fight against our musical being pirated once it opened in the country.

Tracking down Rachelle to enlist her help in finding Gemma hadn’t been too hard. She didn’t have the same cellphone number, but I remembered how to get to the building she had worked at, and even though I found out that she had transferred companies a few years previous, the different call centers in the country were all interconnected by employees who would come and go from one to another. So it only took a few peso bills to open mouths and locate Rachelle, and a few more to sway her boss to let me have her for a few days.

The maid from the five-star hotel didn’t have much more to add from what she had told me over the phone, but just hearing it in person, of how Gemma had cried and screamed to stay and wait for me moved me to the point of nearly shedding some tears of my own.

She had wanted to stay in the suite, even if it meant her mother and little brother leaving her, but the hotel staff had listened to the adult, refunding the payment I had made and leaving Gemma no choice. Nowhere to go but with her family.

A soul on fire. A soul burning for me. And unfortunately, a soul too young to think of leaving a message for me, to let me know where they were going.

Back to the alley. Back to the patched-up tent that was still in the far corner. I knew better than to think they had returned, and was only hoping for information as to where they had come from. Where they called home. The new residents claimed to know nothing, but once the mighty pesos were shown, minds cleared up quickly and recalled what we needed to know.

Zone 7, Rizal Street. Bangued, Abra.

Rachelle knew of the area. Located in a province about eight hours away, we were now travelling by night since I had refused to waste a single moment in not getting to Gemma.

The last order of business in Manila had been to find an attorney that would put a rush on the documents I needed to make Gemma legal. Once again money talked, and within a few hours I had acquired what I needed.

With my guide asleep and her head in my lap I sat there with my headphones on, drowning out the music on the bus with an audio book since I had made the conscious decision, the vow, upon knowingly losing contact with Gemma, that I wouldn’t listen to any music until we reunited. Not only because of a fear that I had lost my talent by losing her, but something else as well. Something that I couldn’t explain.

I think some people call it being in love.

Abra was a provincial valley, and Bangued, its capital, was beginning to awaken with the rising sun by the time we arrived.

Small and overpopulated, the municipality had no taxis, its primary mode of transportation that of ‘tricycles’—motorcycles with covered sidecars-- that were like little infernos from hell buzzing around everywhere you looked. It was in one of these mobile sardine cans that I squeezed in with Rachelle, the ride being the roughest I’ve ever had as I felt every bump in the road jar through the hardened seat below our assess.

Half the roads were dirt, which only intensified the awful experience, and when we finally reached Rizal Street I couldn’t get out fast enough. I felt as though I had been riding a mechanical bull, and told myself there was no way in hell I’d be getting back into one of those things.

Like the rest of the Philippines, Bangued had a top one percent that thrived off corruption, leaving the rest to fend for themselves within different levels of poverty.

The ironic thing about it was, in many cases the haves and the have-nots lived side-by-side, where there would be a family that lived in a large modern house in one lot, with the neighbors being a poor family living in the dirt in a makeshift house made of tin and plywood.

It was to one of these dirt-poor dwellings that we were led by a teenager we had come upon at a small corner store. We only had Gemma’s first name to go on, as well as her mother, Delicia, and her little brother, Francis, since I had foolishly not thought of asking their last name during our brief time together. But fortunately, everyone knew each other in these parts, with the kid even claiming he and Gemma had once been classmates.

He yelled for Delicia, and when she came out and saw me approaching, shock covered her face, followed by a fake smile that was meant to show she was happy to see me, when in reality she was scared shitless.

I, on the other hand, put no attempt into hiding my disappointment.

“Where’s Gemma?”

She stumbled for words.

“Where is Gemma?!” I demanded

“No here. Gemma, no here.”

I turned to Rachelle, and she turned on the Tagalong to get answers.