What's a sweet boy doing in this place?

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.