Brat Pig

There is a boy in my neighborhood, a toddler really, who is truly the naughtiest child I have ever met. Or maybe naughty is not the right word. Deranged might fit. My girlfriend calls this boy Brat Pig, I suppose in dubious honor to Brad Pitt. 

Brat Pig's main interest in life seems to be in tormenting the dogs. The boy races up and down the street on one or another of his little tricycles (he seems to have a garage full of the things, bringing out a new model every time I turn around), running over the dogs, or trying to anyway. They are generally pretty good at leaping out of the way. But he pursues them relentlessly, and when they come into the front patio of my house, he dismounts and pursues them on foot. 

For some reason, he is intent upon kicking or hitting the dogs, as if it were they who had been naughty and not him. And when he is not hitting them, he is trying to spit on them instead. It's as if the boy has some kind of demon. 

My great fear is that he is going to get bit, because while the dogs are for the most part heroically tolerant, they are, after all, dogs, and half wild dogs at that, compared to the civilized dogs of America. They are street dogs. They have not a particular home, but go from house to house on the street, seeking food, shelter, companionship, a place to sleep. 

I have tried to teach Brat Pig how to be kind to dogs, how to pet them, how to approach them, when not to approach them (when they are eating, for example). I supervise, and watch him while he pets them for a time, but he soon returns to slugging them again, or yanking a tail, or poking an eye, or pulling on an ear. And the dogs don't really appreciate this. And so off they flee, Brat Pig on their tail like a bat out of hell on a tricycle. 

Sometimes, he just walks up and down the street screaming like a girl. Has something actually upset him, or is this a war cry? Cry havoc! And let loose the dogs of war. Or in this case, the boys.

I keep wondering what's wrong with Brat Pig.. Is there something happening in his home? Is he mirroring a type of behavior that he sees? Is he attention seeking? Or is he just a natural born little fanatic? A budding serial killer perhaps. They say that one thing most serial killers have in common at a young age is cruelty to animals. 

In any case, my patiece, dog-eared, one might say, at the ripe old age of 71, wears thin, and I have taken to merely shutting the door when the Brat is nearby. It's not that I don't care about him. It's just that I care more about the dogs, who indeed often opt for being shut inside with me.

Sleepless in Jakarta

A couple of weeks ago now, I traveled alone from Bali to Jakarta to meet my girl friend there. It was quite the challenging adventure for me (the traveling part, I mean) because I had not traveled alone since 2005. I have been on trips here and there to various locations in Southeast Asia, but these required no more thought on my part than would be required of a suitcase. I just rolled along behind whomever was in charge, first Louis, and then Evelyn. Now, however, it would be necessary for me to navigate the airport alone, pass through the appropriate gates and checkpoints, and to actually arrive at and embark upon the proper flight. 

As it turned out, this went more smoothly than I had expected it would. I discovered that there are actually signs in airports, big, bold lettered signs that tell you where to go and what to do. I had arrived at the airport 3 hours early, just to be on the safe side, and ended up having plenty of time to spare. In short, I arrived in the appropriate city at the appropriate time and met Evelyn waiting for me in the Jakarta airport.

Evelyn herself had been called to Jakarta several days earlier at the request of her youngest daughter, a college student there, who was suffering from some sort of sleep disturbance. I guess separation anxiety might best describe the problem. You see, she is used to being around people all the time, her friends and her boyfriend, and does not sleep alone. But finding herself on her own, her boyfriend and her friends having gone home during the school holiday to visit their families, Monica began having panic attacks. 

So, mom to the rescue. 

Evelyn had rented for us a cheap apartment in a tall building full of equally cheap apartments, not because either of us likes cheap apartments, but because we cannot afford expensive ones. This apartment was very basic, with a small front room, a small kitchen, a smaller bathroom with tiny cockroaches hiding here and there, and two bedrooms, one featuring a horribly uncomfortable bed and the other and even horriblier uncomfortable bed.

On the first night, we were stuck with the horriblier one. I awoke at some hour in the middle of the night and realized that Evelyn was gone. Having someone in the next room had proven insufficient medicine for Monica's night terrors.

I went back to sleep, only to awake early in the morning feeling very uncomfortably hot. This, I noted, was due to the fact that suddenly the air conditioning unit in the bedroom was not running. I pointed this out to Evelyn when she awoke, and she said Oh, yeah, Monica turned it off. 

Hah?

Well, you know, she explained, the motor for the AC is right outside of Monica's room and it is very loud. So she turned it off. 

All righty then. 

The plan for the next night was to move Monica into our room with the horriblier bed, while we would take her room with the deafening AC noise.

All seemed well as night fell and slumber overtook us, and yet in the middle of the night, hour unknown, I awoke once again, this time to a whispering noise. (How I had managed to hear this whispering over the purported roaring of the AC motor remains unclear).

It was a whispering, and then a dim shape in the night--someone, or some thing hovering above my girlfriend's head. As my eyes adjusted a bit to the dimness of night, I could make out what looked like long black hair, the shape of a head, the suggestion of a face, all accompanied by this whispering sound. I don't know why, but I was reminded of the Japanese ghost in the movie The Grudge, which is something that always gives me my own sort of night terrors.

Filled with dread, I sank lower into the already sinking mattress, expecting that at any moment the horrifying apparition might take notice of me, head twitching in my direction. With a hiss from its lips, the thing would advance in the air and hover over me before I could react, before I could scream, before I could flee. Whispering, whispering, whispering. 

My God! What did it want?

And yet next I saw Evelyn stir beneath the creature, mutter indistinctly, and then rise from the mattress as noiselessly as air, and float trance-like out of our room behind the dark and ghastly figure, helplessly captive to its every command.

Stated less dramatically, and in the light of day, the plan for night number two had not been successful, and Evelyn had gone again to join Monica, this time in the other room with the horriblier bed. 

One might have thought it would be easiest by this time, on the third night, for Evelyn to simply go to bed with Monica to begin with. But no, Evelyn had come up with plan C. In this arrangement, the overly noisy AC units in the bedrooms would be turned off while the slightly quieter one in the front room would be left on at the coldest setting. The door to our room would be left open, such that the cooling air from the AC could enter, while Monica would sleep with her light on and her own door closed.

Naturally, this attempt also was in vain, and quite naturally so, really, for the problem from the beginning had always been separation anxiety. 

But aside from these restless night adventures, we had an enjoyable week-long stay in the big city. I mean, as far as anyone can enjoy the stifling heat of the place. It is always cloudy, you know, in Jakarta. Or smoggy, I should say. I'm sure the sun is up there somewhere beyond the gray cotton-like barrier of pollution. We were in the Central Park section of the city, which features a sprawling mall many blocks long and several stories high. This is a particularly convenient circumstance, because traveling anywhere else in Jakarta can take hours in the tangled traffic. They say that the city is gradually sinking, which is probably all for the best. But in the meantime, one may as well enjoy the endless shops and eating establishments in the mall complex.

Jakarta, July 2025

K

Cuckoo Indeed

 It was interesting to reread Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest after all these years. Yes, it's a bit dated, with its emphasis on "the establishment" and other popular buzzwords / ideas of the time, but it is still an entertaining and an essential read, an examination of individuality and conformity, of how people are supposed to be, according to the authorities anyway, and how people really are. And I was surprised to realize that McMurphy is actually a Christ figure, which is something I missed when I first read the book many years ago, because I was quite young then and I was not aware of how great writers fold these themes into their narratives. The translation from English to Indonesian was also very well done and provided footnotes for matters or expressions that might be completely foreign to Asiatic readers. I'm going to share this novel around my Indonesian friends. I think they will find it quite enjoyable.

Faceplant

 I've mentioned here before that I have a problem with the right side of my body. A neurologic problem combined with spinal disc problems which has caused muscle atrophy in my arm and leg so that the right side is significantly thinner and weaker than the left. This causes problems with gait of course, which is exacerbated by balance problems arising  from MS in general. My right foot tends to drag while my right calf freezes up. This combination of difficulties sometimes results in a fall. 

Which is what happened today. 

I had stopped by the cookie store on Jalan Danau Tamblingan, dismounted from my bike and was stepping up the curbing when my right foot failed to raise itself sufficiently high. The forefoot caught on the curbing and I pitched forward into a fall. A full body fall, you know? A total faceplant. 

Now the interesting thing I want to mention here is not the fall itself but the reaction of the people nearby. The bules, i.e. the white people, the tourists passing by deftly stepped around me, such that they wouldn't step on me, and went on their way, while the nearby Indonesians exclaimed "Oh no!" and rushed over to where I lay. Two motorbikes stopped by the curbing. "Kamu ga apa-apa Pak? (are you okay, sir?).

I experience a combination of embarrassment and amazement--amazed still, even after 15 years here, that people care. Some people care. Certain people care. 

And it strikes me that this is in large part what we have lost in the West--a common sort of civility, a shared concern, a sense of community. They move aside, they turn their eyes away, they don't want to be involved. He shouldn't be so clumsy. Maybe he's drunk. In any case, it's his problem, not ours.

Of course I'm okay. I cut my forearm and a couple of fingers, and it looked worse than it really was, given that the blood thinner I have to take makes me bleed very easily and rather excessively.

Injured, embarrassed, but thankful, and newly appreciative of where I am.