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 look 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
