What's a sweet boy doing in this place?
By Aida Greenbury
JAKARTA (JP): So there was Sarah, killing her after-office hours one Friday night. She was standing across a pool table in a Blok M sports bar, feeling bored to death after watching her male buddies amuse themselves around the sacred green table for more than two hours.
She said that she isn't any good at ball games. She didn't know why. Maybe she felt intimidated by their bald, shiny appearance - promising nothing but uncalculated, unsystematic and unpredictable rolling movements, which only seemed to increase the possibility of her becoming a loser in the game.
Sarah glanced around to find the small face of a teenager carrying a wooden box full of shoeshine tools peeking behind the club's main entrance door. He vividly caught her eye. His name was Ucil - the sports bar's shoeshine boy.
Ray, a good friend of hers had made him one of his charity projects. Every time Ray visited this place he gave a generous amount of money in exchange for the boy's service (polishing his shoes).
"I just want to help him out," Ray used to say. While Sarah's other friend, Jenny, is a bit cynical about it. "Right, give him more money so he can use it to gamble or to buy drugs and God knows what else," Jenny frequently bickered.
Sarah nodded when the boy approached - asking if she wanted him to polish her leather boots. Curious, she asked him to give an on-the-spot service. "Let's talk here while you're cleaning them," the 30-year-old woman said, offering him her beef nachos at the same time.
"No Miss, I find western food to be rather ticklish in my stomach," he replied while suspiciously staring at her plate.
The 14-year-old boy has been working as a shoeshine boy in the bar for almost a year, so he explained. He left school and his hometown when he was only eight. Armed with a broom he started his career as a train sweeper.
"I used to ask the passengers if they wanted me to clean the floor between their seats. You know, in economy class trains, people sleep on the floor so they can stretch out. They usually gave me about a hundred rupiah (about one U.S. cent) in return. It wasn't a lot - but enough to survive. I used to sleep in the toilet cabin and the train's waiters gave me some water and leftover food. I basically lived on a train that went between Surabaya - Jakarta back and forth," mumbled Ucil, his hand vigorously brushed the tip of the boots. Gee - talk about a frequent flyer!
His story gave Sarah a shiver. There's no way in the world that she, a well-educated and respected Jakarta citizen, would send her children to face such a harsh life so young. Money was definitely the issue in this case. Ucil's mother was a housewife. She stayed back home in Kerawang with her husband who worked as a seasonal construction worker.
Ucil also said that he could earn up to Rp 1 million a month. This was surprising, not bad for a boy his age. He made far more money than a government official's basic salary.
"What do you do with your money?" Sarah asked.
"I buy clothes and food. I send some money to my mother at home too. The foodstall owner at the front has been very kind to keep my money for me. But mostly I use it to buy clothes. Living in a cardboard box hardly big enough for an adult, with not a single lock - my clothes often get stolen. Like now, I only have two sets of clothes left," he shrugged. He was telling his story in a tone, that a "normal" boy would use when describing a football game. No pain - no grief.
Living and working in a dangerous area such as that particular street in Blok M - which seethes with prostitution, drugs and alcoholics would prompt any normal person to feel concerned about his safety. But he said it had never been a problem for him. His so-called "protector" - a street hoodlum Ucil met whilst working on the train gave him his recent job - and was also the person who always made sure he came to no harm.
"My protector...(he mentioned his name) is the head of all the gangsters in Blok M Plaza. He's in charge of that area - the Plaza itself is as large as 50 hectares of paddy fields," Ucil said proudly naming the protector.
He works as a shoe shine boy from 2 p.m. until sometimes 3 a.m in the morning. With those extended working hours, the kid knew all kinds of weird stories happening in his dark neighborhood. From how to find a safe taxi in no time for his frequent customers; to how many times a week Mr. X visits certain places, which are occupied by many night butterflies - or even how much those light skirted girls charge their clients.
"Not a lot of foreigners give me enough money for my service though. Some of them don't even have the heart to give more than 500 Rupiah after I work hard for half an hour to clean their muddy shoes. But my worst experience was when I mistakenly used black polish on a customer's brown shoes. I apologized of course, but he still threw his shoes at me and called me stupid many thousands of times," he explained.
"So, what do you want to do when you grow up?" Sarah asked again, carefully checking her boots - hoping he didn't make the same mistake.
"I want to work for this sports bar one day. Nothing fancy - because of my lack of education. I want to earn decent money from a decent job. Not like those lost street kids who spend their whole day stealing stuff and sniffing glue," he was staring blankly at the floor; carefully he placed Sarah's shiny boots in front of her feet and smiled. It was a smile of a young boy who tried to make an honest living within this harsh city.
Sarah's attention was back to her cheering mates. Tonight, instead of chalk-caked hands and a hangover, somehow she knew that she would go home with slightly different perspective on life.