Strangers In The Evening

 So it's early evening and I've stopped by a coffee cafe, as I usually do on Wednesday to read the latest edition of the Sanur Weekly, when a woman passing by on the sidewalk stops, stares at me for a moment, and says "Hi." 

I think at first that I must know her, as it happens often enough that someone will greet me and yet fail to arouse any recognition in my MS damaged brain. I have problems with facial recognition. 

"Hi," I chirp back, hoping that she will say something that will touch off some connection in my brain. 

She begins to talk about some guy named Jimmy who is an Australian and has a nice smile, and she wants to know if I know Jimmy.

I don't know Jimmy. I don't even know her. 

Nonetheless, she takes our conversation about Jimmy as an invitation to join me at my table. 

"Does Jimmy live in Sanur?"

"Yes." 

"Whereabouts?"

"I don't know." 

"So ... you're just walking around thinking you might bump into him?" 

But she has lost interest in Jimmy. She is more interested in me now. 

We talk about where she is from, which is some island here, I can't remember which, and where I am from, and so on and so forth. The usual stuff. She asks for my number. Maybe we can meet for coffee sometime. Yeah, I think, no harm in that. My good friend in Jogya is always saying I should make more friends. It's not good for people to be alone. 

"Do you walk here or drive?" she asks. 

I point out my motorbike across the street. 

"Oh! Um, sorry, but could you give me a ride home? I'm not far from here." 

Yeah, ok, no problem. Not far is a good distance for me. 

As the conversation continues, she becomes more friendly--friendly to the point of placing her hand on my leg or on top of one of my hands, squeezing, kneeding. 

"Okay, I can drive you home now. Are you ready?" 

"To your place?" 

"My place? My house? Why?" 

"You know, hang out, chat, use the AC." 

"Oh, um ... no, I'm not going there. I'm meeting some friends later." 

As if. 

"Oh? Who?" 

"Well, you know, just some friends." I think of adding that Jimmy is not one of them, but I don't. 

"Where?" she says.

"Oh, I don't know. I have to call them." 

I get up, pull my keys from my pocket, and off we go, through back streets, bumpy little cobbled roads, until finally she tells me to pull over. 

"This is it," she says, dismounting. We seem to be parked in front of a Balinese Banjar (a local government building), but there are some apartments to the right as well as behind the Banjar.  

"When will I see you again? she asks. 

I'm thinking never would be a good time. 

Now instead of heading for any of the apartments, she sets off walking up the street. I watch her disappear into the fumes of the traffic and the dimming evening. 

There is a word for this sort of woman. Pelacur. I don't want to say it. You can guess at the meaning. A woman who within ten minutes of casually meeting you wants to come to your house and "chat". A woman who, one will soon find, often needs a free taxi, or money, or a drink, or a place to "hangout". 

The next day at 7:30 in the morning, she rings my phone. 

I block the number. 

I don't know where people find the sort of "friends" my friend in Jogya is talking about. I swear, ninety percent of the people I happen to meet are strange in some way, or false, or downright crazy. 

I'm just lucky that way.