A street holdup, and the kindness of strangers

Joseph Kirschke, Contributor, Jakarta

It was one of those moments that every foreigner -- expat or tourist -- dreads.

My rickety taxi was making its way from my home in Kemang, South Jakarta, to a Jakarta nightclub when it stopped in its tracks in front of Blok M.

A man in his twenties with a black T-shirt on circled the cab while pounding on its windows; I reached over to lock the door opposite the driver's seat; mine was already locked.

It was 11:30 p.m.

"I break my leg," shouted the man through the driver's seat window which my cabbie had conspicuously rolled down. "I break leg so I need some money!" he demanded, standing without the assistance of crutches, pointing to his clearly unbroken leg.

"Go to a hospital!" I shouted back, my temper boiling with frustration.

"No, you give me money!" he continued.

"You want police?" he asked.

"Yes!" I replied. "Where are the police?"

"Over there," he said, gesturing to a dark corner of the nearby mall which had been blackened out for the night. It was not a promising option.

I turned my attention to my bone-thin taxi driver and demanded that he drive on. "Go!" I growled repeatedly. It was all in vain. He shook a handkerchief at me.

At that, I emerged from the cab, noticing a larger group of people gathering around me, among whom I saw no potential allies. I paid the cabby and began to walk away, hoping to hail another cab, but black T-shirt wouldn't give up, grabbing my arm insistently. "You give me money!" he said.

Sensing a whiff of violence in the air, I retreated to the very relative safety of a nearby bajaj (three-wheeled motorized taxi), where I lit up a cigarette with the hope that the situation would just fade away.

Needless to say, the driver, while casting me a sympathetic glance, wouldn't budge either, perhaps out of the fear that he, too, could fall prey to the thugs if he were to attempt to deliver me from their grasp.

"You give me Rp 50,000!" insisted the leader of the gang. At last, I complied.

"No, two more!"

A total of Rp 150,000, at that point the bajaj driver took off down the street, with black T-shirt following in his path. My feeble attempt at retribution was to give him the finger as I trailed off in a smoky cloud.

True, I should have known better than to be taking such a dodgy cab so late at night.

"You got off lucky -- they could have pulled a knife to your neck and taken you to an ATM machine," said a friend and fellow journalist. "You've gotta know who you're dealing with. You have to check out the cab driver; especially at night."

Another expat had a different take.

"No, no," he said, shaking his head while staring into a half- empty beer at a bar in Jl. Jaksa. "You give in like that."

"You have to say hey, hey, my girlfriend's father is a cousin of such and such (insert name of mafia kingpin here), and if you don't get out of my face right now, you are going to have big problems. A big gang will come down here and beat you up."

If nothing else, it was food for thought.

The next day, in what can only be described as ineptness, I left my wallet in my taxi, perhaps still unsettled by the events of the day before. The fact that I left my wallet behind dawned on me after I had ascended to the 10th floor of the information ministry where I went to renew my visa.

In a panic, I raced downstairs, punching the number of the taxi company into my cell in the hope that my wallet would be returned. I have been the victim of identity theft before, and wasn't keen on reliving the experience.

To my utter relief, the taxi driver drove right up to me arm extended, wallet in hand, with a broad grin on his face, grateful to be of help. I immediately gave him some cash for his kindness.

After shaking the driver's hand vigorously, I turned and went back into the building.

My faith in the Indonesian spirit had been fully restored.