Farsiding Page 7

Just go on Facebook and do a face recognition search.

  It will show every cafe I went to and the people I spoke with.

  A night out in Borneo has never been so much fun, right?

  My mission tonight is to get a better photo of Miss Borneo at Cafe 21, who in the tradition of Hooters, has the biggest knockers in West Kalimantan.

  Here's to wishing me luck.

  I'm stupid.

  If you say it enough, you start believing your own hype.

  Borneo has me under a writing spell. I couldn't ease up even if I wanted too.

  'Me stupid man.'

  It just rolls off my tongue.

  A stupid man with money is better than a stupid man without. It's the hard cash that's sheltering me from the school of hard knocks.

  I just ducked outside, for a little walk. I left all my gadgets on my table at the hotel's coffee shop. I'm the only customer that hangs out at the Green Leaf Cafe. After breakfast is served, you hardly see another customer.

  Four hours later, all my stuff, even my cigarettes are on the table. And my tunes are still pumping out on my blue tooth speaker.

  I passed Daisy who sells lemon tea, in her mid-twenties, Chinese with an adorable smile. A guy was in the middle of the road, just outside her little booth on the side of the road, attacking the plants with a bamboo stick. He was hacking away, lost in his own little world.

  At first glance, it looked like a detail from the local council. Upon a second more scrutinising look, it was a man out of his mind and taking it out on the plants. He was moving in the direction of the church. He had already smashed the shit out of ten plants.

  It's not an easy job to prune the plants on a Sunday in stifling heat, but this shirtless street bum made light work of the job.

  So matter how much I say I'm stupid, there's always someone else on the streets outperforming me.

  Inviting Muslims to eat pork wasn't very smart either. Even Eddy the Chinese seller, who had rotten teeth, got a kick out of that one.

  I know there a lot of people who are stupid but who think they are smart.

  I just wish they would come clean, that's all.

  I surprised myself by going to bed at ten a.m. and waking up just before 5 a.m., in time to watch the Tai Chi brigade.

  This is new to me, getting up before the sun rises, but it seems a very tolerable time to wake up in the tropics.

  I'm in the land of George Orwell. He would have woken up before sunrise too, had a shit, a coffee, then continued the day protecting the Empire.

  My aims aren't so lofty. I'm just up early for the sole reason that I went to bed early.

  Could this be a new career move? Who knows...

  Borne wakes up early, or is it that it never went to bed?

  It's mostly the Chinese out on the streets, power walking or shuffling along.

  One guy bangs a hammer against the light poles. I have no idea why. Is it a wake-up call. I'm still mesmerised by the morning and don't fear for one moment he's going to dong me with the hammer. It's far too early to worry about shit like that.

  The whores on bikes get on their bike after their KFC fix. The tall one on the back is eyeing me up. I'm outside the hotel having a smoke and watching this rare occurrence called the morning. Fuck, it ain't easy. It's even more difficult to watch the old Chinese bend down to the knee and do some piston punches to some old dance style Chinese music.

  I take another deep drag of my cigarette, thinking, will my bowel movement come on earlier than usual. Then the girls leave on their bike and one is giving me the rubberneck.

  'Just a ladyboy,' says the night receptionist.

  Ladyboy or not, I'm still getting the attention. It must be my new white teeth.

  I have a lot to thank Dr. Augusta for, don't I?

  Back to the Chinese aerobics, it takes me back to the motherland, back to the parks and the Tai Chi, back to the cherry blossoms and calligraphy.

  He was from Surabaya. An old man, not much older than me, and with stumps for teeth, I'm feeling better about my teeth every day I'm staying in Borneo, and I chatted with him.

  Then his family arrived, his two daughters and wife.

  We spoke about things, like fucking in a Chinese cemetery in Surabaya.

  I'm really glad some things get lost in translation.

  Then I told the staff at a computer shop that he was stupid for quoting me the wrong price. Even his female colleague agreed with me. If I did this shit in Thailand, I said, I'd be a dead man.

  Minding my own business, eating a bun with pork mince, and boy did it give me the runs, a Chinese customer pulled up in his car to buy some of the tasty treats.

  He pulled me aside, knowing I was from Australia.

  ‘I studied in Monash, Australia, you know,’ he said and patted me on the back.

  Monash is a fucked University and Australia is fucked too.

  He didn’t reply so I repeated myself.

  I’ve been to better Universities than Monash, so I felt qualified in what I was saying.

  The guy sat in his car for five minutes, his windscreen tinted so I couldn’t see if he was eating or preparing his Glock to pop off a fat foreigner who earlier that day weighed himself in at 110 kilograms at a hotel gym. Of course I didn’t work out.

  I kept on waving to him from Eddy’s stall and making jokes with the toothless seller.

  The man who studied at Monash eventually drove off.

  What is it about bragging about studying and working in Australia?

  I just don’t find it worth bragging about.

  It's a few days off from the coffee shops.

  It's hard work consuming loads of coffee and other fizzy drinks then dumping it in dirty filthy slippery toilets.

  If I have this coffee, I say, five minutes later I'll be out the back looking for a toilet. A slippery toilet is treacherous. I ain't no spring chicken anymore and a fall on a slippery floor could be debilitating.

  I've got the floor of the Bali airport to thank for this caution. Two falls, in succession. It was enough to fuck up my neck but not enough to stop me from going to a whore house.

  I should have sued the airport, I'd be a rich man. It's not like they don't have any money.

  It was a big dirty puddle forming on the floor from a downpour. No orange hats warning of a slippery floor or signage, nothing but a big dirty puddle that kicked my legs from under me and decked me, head banging on the floor. Not once, but twice. And the Mad Hindu just fucked off to pick up his guest.

  His care factor was zero. I guess he thought I deserved it. I had a bottle of Bintang in my hand and during the two falls, neither did the bottle break or a drop of that fine beer was wasted. Maybe some of its content spilled on the floor and maybe there was no whoring that night.

  Shit happens hay. I'm still walking, so I better stop the bitching now.

  It just crept up on me, that neck injury. And now that it's entered my life, it's here to stay.

  Ariff my massage guy says it's cholesterol. A fat neck is what he was saying. He was being polite about it.

  One of the Chinese who hangs out at Anton's coffee shop says I can get immediate relief at the hospital that's just opposite the cafe.

  'Laster treatment.'

  He says it only costs 200 000 and that I'll feel much better. Wonder if they cut off ten kgs from my gut, I'd pay a million Rupiah for that.

  I've got one more dentist session. Hopefully, she doesn't spot any more cavities.

  I've got to make a move. Pontianak doesn't' even try but it's drawing me in big time.

  Borneo has no ax to grind, unless you are a Madurese farmer fond of pulling out a kris to resolve an altercation.

  I know those early morning rises aren’t good for me.

  I can’t think.

  Kratom, do you know about it, Mister?

  Isn’t it what the Malays take to get fucked up.

  It’s Borneo Red here and gets you totally shit faced, says my new friend.

  It's al
so supposed to give me great sexual power and keep me awake for hours.

  I’m a sluggish toad in the morning but show interest.

  It’s also served as a tea.

  If it makes me lose weight, I might look into it.

  He can get me one kilo of the stuff for 100 000, a big red.

  I’m having Howard Marks thoughts.

  First, it’s legal and the markup price in the States per tonne is just incredible, says my friend.

  It replicates opiates in the sense that it triggers that part of the brain say Tramadol would.

  Getting up at 4.30 in the morning today has been an eye-opener.

  Now I know why most of the locals at the coffee shops look like they are off their tits.

  I wonder if they have kratom tea on their menus?

  Now where is my fucking coffee?

  That’s the drink of champions.

  We all know why we go to Twenty One Coffee. The coffee is really great.

  The deaf guy who is a regular customer really wants me to feel welcome.

  He even posed in front of the cute staff just so I could get a group shot. He's gone beyond the call of duty. Last time he helped me log onto the wifi, with no success and hinted at the idea of taking photos of the very bubbly waitresses.

  We are here for the ambiance, coffee, and the dim lighting.

  It's only coffee we are talking about here.

  There's no monkey business.

  It would be bad taste too.

  'I have problems keeping the pretties,' says another cafe owner. He only employs guys.

  If he's turning over pretties every month, I'm sure the customers, mostly male, won't complain. New faces add to the allure of the Pontianak cafe scene, don't you know?

  He's a purist and suggests I check out the Siam Cafe.

  'The man makes coffee with his shirt off.'

  I think I'll stick to Twenty One Coffee thank you.

  Another deaf guy is commenting about me taking pictures.

  He's making gestures of me flying and taking pictures.

  Flying and taking pictures, does it get any better than that?

  No it doesn't.

  There are so many coffee shops to choose from.

  I have a predisposition to the ones that have hot waitresses.

  I'll come clean, having a cute sexy thing serving you coffee will make me sit in that chair all night long and keep the orders coming.

  It makes perfect business sense, doesn't it? And I'm a sucker for falling for it, right?

  The Deaf Brigade hang out at 21 Coffee, on Jalam Siam.

  They are fucking hilarious.

  How?

  Well let me go into it.

  The boyfriend of the cashier is pissing her off big time.

  She goes up to his table and deletes some of the photos he's taken of her on the sly.

  This mute is sitting behind me, so close, he can see the crap I'm typing up on my Mac. He's playing a game. He's a harmless Casanova. The cashier is communicating with him with foul sign language.

  It seems the three other waitresses, all hot, are also competent at sign language.

  'Otherwise we'd fuck off elsewhere,' says the Chief Mute. He aint no dummy.

  A few of the waitresses are a bit on the big side with smiles to die for and white skin and laughter that can catch you off guard.

  'Just the way we fucking like it,' says the leader of the mutes. The sexy female mute isn't in tonight. She's elsewhere flashing her hot ass.

  This place is a disability-friendly establishment, another reason why I like hanging out here.

  I'm taking pictures of my superstar. I hint at a selfie. She says something, and it didn't sound mean, which I took as a no. I guess she didn't want problems with her boyfriend who was probably sitting among the crowd of coffee goers.

  The mutes at the front rule the roost. The leader of this group is always asking me to take pictures of the pretties. He'll stand behind them to justify me taking out my camera.

  Works like a dream.

  They might be deaf but not dumb, and where they lack in hearing, they make up for it with bravado and confidence.

  I give him the big thumbs up. See, I'm 'mute' sensitive too.

  I'm snapping away at those curves and flickering lights and 'fish eye' mode is really serving me well.

  I'm a leach and they know it. Every male who comes here are leeches. We enjoy bubbly staff who take our orders. It's just that plain and simple. And the toilet floor is non slip and relatively clean.

  Twenty One Coffee would be a candidate for the best coffee shop in Pontiniak.

  Fuck the famous ones. If they don't have hot chicks making and serving drinks, they can stick their robustas up their arabica asses.

  This is a public announcement, the lady making the drinks, who hides behind counters, was the true Borneo goddess. She hid it well over the course of the evening, but when she graced the front tables, the world stopped a beat, for one moment.

  Ace is one of the few people who knows how kind I am to cats.

  ‘Uhum,’ he replies,’I wouldn’t call throwing a bucket of piss at a cat kind.’

  If the fucker scratches me to piece, I’ll try my best to draw its blood.

  ‘And then?’

  Throwing piss on it is my way of saying I’m the boss. I just didn’t have the heart to stab with it a scew driver. Besides, if I got caught, I’d get jail time.

  I know I sound disturbed but I tell Ace that he ten-tonne tessies of the desert dispose of unwanted cats by gassing them at the end of an exhaust pipe.

  Cats disappear. And I’ve been teaching my stray, avoid that fat slut, or she’ll gas you. It was a case of cruel to be kind and the cat is still alive, I’m told.

  Ace reasons I should write a story from the cat’s perspective.

  I won't bother. Cats are the devil’s spawn.

  I was humming a tune, Diamonds are Forever.

  And echo came back to me, ‘Herpes are Forever.’

  It was a late night run to the Apotek after Ace, a friend who is concerned with my condition, told me to check it out.

  I had a flare-up. I searched google, fucked if I was going to waste cash on a doctor when I could get the name of the antibiotic I needed online.

  ‘How many would you like?’

  It was nearing midnight as the five staff female staff, three of them wearing a hijab, greeted me reluctantly. The hijab just draws you into their face, I thought, ignoring their surliness, and each of them was pretty in their own way.

  Orders were taken by ringing a bell. I'd break them in and soon they'd be eating out of my plam. By hook or by crook, I'd break that morgue spirit that permeated the place.

  The order was then placed on a basket that was pulled up to the second floor. And the basket would come back down a minute or so later with the order. It was a pully system and it just fascinated the fuck out of me.

  They couldn’t find the antibiotic I wanted. I pointed to the name of it on my computer screen. So I showed them a list of other similar ones. They had that, they said. I’ll take that and a tube of ointment.

  ‘It is the right one,’ I asked when the lady handed it over once I paid.

  ‘Yes, it’s very good for herpes.’

  I guess it had to be the right one. I started humming a tune again, ‘Herpes are Forever.’

  ‘But highly treatable,’ said the chubby lady in the hijab.

  I was way behind the times of treatment and thought that you just grinned and bare it. I didn’t get it checked out in Oz, they’d want a full report of my sexual orientation before and then have me call up every whore I ever fucked, before selling me antibiotics.

  Besides, I’m not a big fan of Bangladeshi doctors who want money first before treatment and I’ll go the long yards to avoid paying high doctor and prescription fees. They even put you on a blacklist once you admit to an STD and they even pressured me to have an HIV test. The nosey fucking bastards, I told them. I’ll shop elsewh
ere for my STD’s.

  I had been going along as if I had a common cold.

  But these girls knew their shit. I was here to cure an outburst of my best friend.

  Then proceeded a discussion amongst the girls whether I should take a pill tonight or in the morning.

  ‘Better in the morning,’ said the young chubby lady in a hijab.

  But I wanted to treat the disease immediately.

  ‘But then you’ll have to buy more pills if you take one tonight.’

  Each pill was 24 000 Rupiah and I said I’d be more than happy to buy some more to make sure I took them over a five-day cycle.

  I left the pharmacy to the sound of giggling.

  They had come to their own conclusion. Fuck it, I really didn’t care. I was over being embarrassed. I want the right antibiotics to do the right job.

  It was a win for me tonight.

  I was going to be cured.

  Today I’m running up and down the three floors to and from Green Leaf Coffee shop. Whatever they put in those pills, it’s zapping the virus in a really good way.

  Herpes forever, but with the right pills, it can be managed.

  The Apoteck is open 24 hours. I’ve been there before to buy some painkillers for my teeth. But I gotta admit, this was the best session yet. I’ve never had such a captivating audience.

  ‘Hay,’ I hear one of the Ojeck motorbike boys say the next day to his friend, ‘he’s the guy that’s got herpes.’

  What’s said in Jalana Siam stays in Jalam Sian. I really wasn’t fazed one bit.

  Meanwhile back at my hotel, my Dyak buddy is telling me about the receptionist.

  “Dicky has a big one.’

  His name was actually Dicky. And if he had a big one, well good luck to him.

  I had my battles with herpes, and he had a big dicky.

  Borneo was getting stranger by the minute. All I could do was embrace it. Being consumed by it didn’t really seem fun to me.

  I’m not on the blacklist. My money is welcome at the pharmacy. And they didn’t even want to see any I.D or date of birth.

  ‘Hay, Mr. Herpes.’

  It was another Ojeck driver. News travels fast.

  They are pretty open bunch this part of the world. Even I’m getting a laugh out of this.