Jalan Jalan

by Mike Stoner

  I pull on dirty clothes that stick to my body like gritty cling film and leave the room.

  The lounge stinks of overflowing ashtray and a sweet smell of burnt exotic plants. Kim has left a packet of Indonesian cigarettes on the table. I accept my re-addiction and take one. There’s a lighter down the back of the chair. I go out the front door. A small tiled garden, hemmed in by a white wall and black metal gate, separates the house from the small and traffic-free road. The sun has risen quickly and the sky is white-blue. Lines of silver sunlight pour between the leaves and branches of a tree that holds yellow-green fruit. Mango, maybe. I pick one, roll it over in my hands and take a bite. Whatever it is, it isn’t ripe. I spit it out, put the cigarette in my mouth and light it. The taste of clove and bonfires. I’m not keen on clove, it ruins apple pies, but the bonfire is OK. It sets fire to my lungs and the coughing rattles the dope hangover out of my head.

  ‘Keep it fucking down, man. Fuuck.’

  The voice comes from the window behind me. Kim must be in there somewhere behind the mosquito mesh. There’s still more coughing to come so I open the gate and step onto the street where I let it out. I look at the cigarette.

  ‘You evil bastard.’

  Putting it back in my mouth, the cloves do their job. The back of my throat is numbing and the cough rolls over and goes to sleep.

  Noise is still dormant in this street of white walls and small houses and trees. It is a cul-de-sac that stops at a wall to my right. The sun is already blanching my face and the air is stuffy. Sweat bubbles up on my forehead. I’m going to like this heat. It’s going to bake me into something new. I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun. New Me is going to be brown and sun-bleached and blond-haired and careless. He’s going to smoke and drink and argue and live and Laura will not have anything to say on the matter. Nothing.

  —Nothing?

  —Nothing.

  —Well that’s not nice, she says, ignoring the fact that she’s dead.

  —Sorry, but me and you were one. We were one and you’ve gone. What does that leave? What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to be?

  —I don’t know.

  —Exactly. So be quiet. Please.

  I open my eyes before she can say more, go back in the house, pull a towel and bag of toiletries from my backpack, take a pee, shower under cold water, dry myself, put on a pair of pants, smoke another of Kim’s cigarettes, go back to my bed, lie down, watch a pale-green lizard no bigger than my little finger crawl across the ceiling. I sweat, sleep, wake up, sweat some more, sleep some more, wake up, tell Laura to be quiet and go back to sleep, sweat, go back to sleep.

  She dies. Nothing is linear, everything is flat. Nothing continues in perfect expectation and succession; there is no beginning, middle or end.

  She dies, and the moment that lies nearest to this amongst the countless moments laid out like photos on a bed is the bus stop, the farewell. I pick the photo up and turn it so the whole moment is made clear. Studying it, I see that a little gathering of hair has come out from behind her ear and hangs against her cheek. The scent of the sea and fish and chips is being blown from the seafront down through the streets to here. A little white speck of cotton is caught on an eyelash. I remove it with my thumb. She smiles, but there is awkwardness between us that feels alien. She turns away and checks the timetable on the post again. Around us people walk by, unaware of the importance of this moment. Cars carrying families with picnics and buckets and spades roll up and down the street sniffing out parking spaces. At her feet is a suitcase with a shoulder bag sat on its top. In the top of the bag a passport, tissues and her camera taunt me. She is wearing cut-off jeans with straggly white threads hanging over the tops of her calves. A thin ivory cotton top shows a half-moon of her back with lightly tanned skin pulled tight over vertebrae and delicate shoulder blades. My hand goes there. The backs of my fingers stroke gently down between them. She turns and throws her arms around me. Like a fly-trap I close around her.

  ‘Tell me not to go,’ she says into my ear.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I say into her hair, breathing in the scent of fruit and bottled freshness.

  ‘I have to.’ She puts her nose to my neck and I hear her breathe in.

  ‘You smell like shit. I’ll miss it.’

  Through wispy hairs that tickle my face I see the white National Express coach waiting at a set of lights down the road, waiting to come and destroy me.

  ‘Don’t go,’ I say again. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘I’ll be back. It’s not exactly far. And you go enjoy yourself too. Go find yourself somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t need to. I’m happy with me. I’m happy here, with you.’

  ‘Well, no doubt you’ll sneak a visit out to see me, even if I say you can’t. You lovesick puppy.’ She holds me tight to her, arms reaching far around my back.

  This will probably happen. I can’t believe I’m letting her go. I will have to see her somehow. I will have to. After more than three years together, I can’t understand how I’ll go for so long without seeing her, listening to her, watching her.

  The lights have changed to green and the bus is moving towards us. My hands pull at the base of her back, pull her nearer.

  ‘I guess that means you can see my bus.’

  ‘No. It means I’ve got a boner.’

  ‘Sicko.’ Her hands grab my buttocks and her nails dig in. She grabs a piece of my neck with her teeth and pulls.

  ‘Ow. Hurts.’

  She releases.

  ‘Don’t forget me.’ She leans back in my arms and locks my eyes with hers. ‘Do not forget me. I’m doing this for me, but I love you. And I am not leaving you. You’re just a yappy puppy going into kennels and I’ll be back for you soon.’

  I howl at the approaching bus.

  ‘Calm down, Rover.’

  ‘Nine months isn’t soon.’

  ‘Nine months is this,’ and she snaps her fingers at the end of my nose. ‘And anyway, I know damn well you’re going to come and find me, because you’ll miss me too much and you won’t be able to resist it.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ I do see. I see me pacing around the flat sipping malt whiskey, sniffing her old cushions and the one pair of knickers she leaves on the bed as a farewell present, looking from the phone to the clock to the phone to see if I can call her yet. I see this as a nightly routine until I finally break, get on a plane, a bus will be too slow, and go and grab her by every bit of her I can.

  ‘I can’t just leave. You know I can’t. I can’t pack in the teaching already.’ I kid myself and am not really sure why I say it or why I’m doing it. Of course I’ll leave. ‘You’ve made it clear you don’t really want me there. Not really.’

  ‘Yes, but you need me, numbnuts. You won’t cope. Don’t deny.’

  I read VICTORIA COACH STATION on the front of the bus as it pulls up beside us. It stops and lets out the airy fart noise buses make when they stop.

  ‘I deny. I don’t need a woman, for god’s sake. You’re never any good at cooking, or cleaning. So be gone.’

  The door opens and suddenly everything is going at hyper-speed. How have we come to be here already? Why is she lifting her shoulder bag up and sliding it over her arm and looking at me like that? And her eyes are sparkling with wet. Her eyes never do that. And she becomes blurry because mine are doing the same and I’m a man and I don’t do that. Then as the driver is putting her suitcase in the luggage compartment under the bus we’re hugging and then kissing and then she strokes my face and says something and I nod and she climbs on the bus and my insides fall out and splash across the road and the bus pulls off, squashing them under its wheels.

  And she is waving from the back window and I stand there with my hand in the air unable to move it, shocked by the speed of everything. The bus flashes an orange light at me and it turns. And it’s gone.

  And I throw the photo of this moment back amongst the others; a lifetime of snapshots mixed up and in no order, demanding that I loo
k at them, from here, in this place he’s shoved me, with his life, hoping I’ll be forgotten.

  PEBBLES

  ‘Y ou can’t just get on any sudako, man. You’ll end up in fuck knows where and you don’t wanna do that ‘cos you’ll end up fucked knows where.’

  ‘Sudako?’

  ‘Those little yellow buses. Sudakos. We want number 23 or 34. Then we get off and get number 65.’

  ‘What about taking a cycle-rickshaw?’

  ‘They’re called becaks here. Nah, not today. The buses are more fun and dirt cheap.’

  I look at the traffic coming down the road. Yellow minivans and becaks overtake, undertake, swerve, pull over and slow down just enough for people who flag them down to jump in the back. Horns beep, buses and becaks spew black smoke out of broken exhausts. People stand along the street looking for their buses. We stand with them but I can’t see any numbers on them.

  ‘Here comes one. Watch and learn.’ With this Kim steps onto the edge of the potholed road and waves his hand at a minibus coming down between two other buses. The one nearest swerves towards us and Kim shakes his head at it. The middle bus speeds up, cuts across in front of the inside one and then pulls up beside us. I see a small number 23 taped to the bottom of the window on a scrappy piece of paper.

  ‘Get the fuck on, man. I prefer sitting up front with the driver, but for you, new boy, we’ll do the back today.’

  I follow Kim through a doorless opening at the rear and into the back of the minivan. Nine people turn sideways to look at us. They are seated on two benches attached to the inside of the van facing each other. A row of windows runs along each side. There is room left for about a bum and a half on the seats. Kim aims for a space furthest from the door. We are both hunched over and now being thrown against the other passengers’ legs as the bus pulls off.

  Kim sits down and the people on the bench opposite him wiggle about a bit and make space for me. I slide into it between the end of the compartment and a grumpy-looking man with a wispy chin. There is a letterbox-sized hole that shows the inside of the driver’s cab and the road ahead. It also allows the driver a look at us with his rear-view mirror.

  ‘Eh, bule. Where you go, mister?’ His clove cigarette smoke swirls through the slit as he asks his question.

  ‘That, my friend,’ Kim says to me, ‘is a question you have to get used to.’ He then lights his own super-strength smoke.

  My right thigh is on intimate terms with the grumpy man. The rest of the passengers sneak sideways and sometimes blatant looks at us, whispering and laughing while they do.

  ‘Fucking celebrities, man. That is what we are. Only a few bules in this city and for us to be on one of these buses is a real fucking treat for these guys.’

  I raise my eyebrows, indicating Mr Misery to my right.

  ‘Well, some of them hate us of course,’ Kim says without lowering his voice.

  I turn to smile at Grumpy, to let him know he doesn’t need to hate me, but as I do so he puts his hand on my thigh and pushes himself out of his seat and makes a wobbling dash for the back of the bus, banging the metal side as he does. The bus stops for a second to let him off and three more men on. They all somehow manage to get their arses on the benches.

  ‘Eh, where you go, bule?’ comes the smoking question from the driver again.

  ‘Work. Teaching.’ I shout through the slit.

  ‘Ah, English teacher. I speak English. David Beck-haaam.’ The driver laughs.

  ‘Manchester United,’ Kim yells through the hole and the whole of the bus yell it in agreement.

  ‘Manchester United.’

  ‘Fucking Beckham,’ shouts Kim.

  ‘Fucking Beck-haaam.’ They’re all laughing and slapping each other and me and Kim on the thighs in praise of Beck-haaam.

  Kim is giggling.

  ‘I fucking love these guys.’ Kim pulls his pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and hands them around the bus, ending with me.

  ‘Terima kasih,’ say some.

  ‘Thanks,’ say I.

  We continue the first leg of our journey to work in this bouncing, close and friendly moving sauna that spews clove smoke out of the back doors like the world’s slowest dragster. The rest of the conversation consists of ‘Beckham’ and ‘Manchester United’ said at various pitches and decibels with accompanying laughter.

  When we get off the bus some ten minutes later my shirt is stuck to my back, my linen trousers are stuck right up my bum and my second cigarette of the journey tastes good. We hand the driver about three hundred rupiah each through the slit. Kim says ‘Selamat tinggal’ to everyone we’re leaving behind. I guess its meaning as goodbye, and say the same.

  We’re off the bus at another mad and busy road that appears to be the connecting stop for many different buses. They are pulling over, doing u-turns, beeping, and swerving in every direction. The street is lined by coffee, sugar-cane and coconut juice shacks with rusting corrugated roofs. We’re also surrounded by about a hundred kids in the white shirts and grey trousers or skirts of school uniform. They line the road for about thirty metres.

  ‘We just got to walk a little way up here to the next junction. We can stop a bus there,’ Kim tells me.

  We walk along the edge of the road. Every other teenager says, ‘Hello mister,’ or ‘Where are you going?’ or both.

  Kim just keeps repeating the same answers, ‘Hi,’ or ‘Jalan jalan.’

  Once we’ve passed all the kids we stand at the street corner where it’s a little less manic. We squint eyes for the number 65.

  ‘What does jalan jalan mean?’ I ask.

  ‘Just fucking walking, man. Out for a stroll. Going no-where in particu-fucking-lar.’ He runs his hands through his dark hair and breathes in noisily through his nose. ‘Comes from the verb jalan meaning to walk. It also means street and about a dozen other similar meanings. It’s the answer they wanna hear and it saves you having to explain yourself and say what you’re really fucking doing.’

  A becak pulls up next to us and the rider points to his empty seats. Kim waves it on.

  ‘And you’ll hear, “Hey mister, where you go?” so many fucking times a day you’ll wanna buy a gun and kill yourself or them or both. But you get used to it, man.’ Kim throws his head back and stretches his arms out to the sides, as if worshipping the sky. ‘Fuuuck it’s fucking hot, man.’

  ‘It is. Fucking hot.’ I look up to the sun burning a hole in the cloudless sky. I close my eyes to it.

  Bake me new. Bake me new. I can feel the ingredients starting to cook, standing here on this street corner where no one knows me and I know no one and a thousand different people travel past me in little yellow buses and on motorbikes and becaks and in the occasional black-windowed four-by-four.

  ‘So why you here, man?’ Kim asks.

  I look at him. He’s also turned his face to the sun with eyes closed.

  ‘Jalan jalan,’ I say. ‘That’s what I’m doing. Just strolling, minding my own business, trying to get on with nothing. Going nowhere in particu-fucking-lar.’

  ‘Good fucking answer, man.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me? Fuck, I dunno.’ He opens his eyes. ‘I don’t seem to fit in back home. I may be American, but all those flags flying outside every fucking house. Too much nationalism. All that “‘American People”’ shit the government has started using. Brainwashing us into believing we’re in a great nation together. Leave me out of your generalisations, fuckers. I’m just me and great on my own, thanks. And it’s only gonna get worse if Bush gets in.’ With that he steps off the pavement with his hand in the air. ‘Here’s ours, the 65.’

  It pulls in at a diagonal, wobbling stop, ignoring anything else on the road. We climb in. This bus is quieter but the other passengers still steal glances at us. A couple of young guys give us big white smiles.

  ‘Why do you say that about Bush?’ I’m not even sure who he is, but I’m guessing a candidate for Presidency.

  ‘F
ucking nationalist loon, man. Scares me what he’ll do to keep the “‘American People”’ happy. Probably declare some sort of war to boost the economy.’

  ‘And he’s the reason you’re here?’

  ‘Nah, not just him. It just wasn’t my country, man. I feel more at home here. Different sets of values here. That’s all.’

  We all hold on as the bus lurches to a quick stop and two more men get on. They squeeze in as close to us as they can and nod at us in greeting.

  ‘Where you go, mister?’ asks one.

  Kim looks at me and smiles.

  ‘Jalan jalan, my friend. Jalan jalan.’

  Fifteen minutes later we’re at the school and I’m being introduced to the other staff. Their names are told, they enter my ears and are lost in the melee of muck that swishes around between them. I forget everyone’s in admin as soon as Pak says them, although I remember fat Albert from two nights ago. I also forget everyone’s in the teaching department a second after being introduced. Considering there are only four of them here this morning including Kim, my mind is being extra feeble.

  I’ve got two classes this morning and then I’m back in for a six p.m. class. Split shifts are the newbies’ tough shit, according to Kim. ‘And you’re the fucking newbie.’

  It’s eight thirty and my first class is at nine. I’m feeling uncertain of myself and anxious about the parasites in my gut. I’ve had a day of relaxing, sleeping, looking at my teaching file and settling into the house and the heat, but things still stir within me. I will them to stay sunk while I sit at my desk and look at the array of weird names on my first class’s register. The teachers in the room throw random questions and bits of information at me.

  ‘Where you from?’ Australian accent with a beard.

  ‘Why the hell did you choose this shithole?’ English thirty-something with big breasts, frenetic fingers and wide eyes.

  ‘The little kids are fun. Don’t bother teaching them anything, just fucking play games with them.’ Kim.