on Castles of Sand

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
~Pablo Neruda

I hit a new low, even for myself. You gotta admit tho, Jakarta International Airport is a pretty ugly place.

We landed at some ungodly hour, slipped a few notes and got the fast treatment through a special gate but still had to wait for our luggage. We traveled often enough together but not for a good while. Things have changed since and the exposed hall was not the most comfortable of places. I was exhausted by the Singapore heat wave and badly needing a cigarette. She had a brand new passport.

I had jeans and a beige Converse. My hair is at the moment rather long and unkempt. I used to keep my hair long years and years ago and I called this my Jim Morrison look. I probably look like a junkie too. Everyone knows I don’t do drugs so I don’t really care for the mindful stares but custom officials always make me nervous.

She wore a hat and a loose dress, looking more like a disheveled fairy than a princess, both ear buds plugged and oblivious to the world. She pretended to play with her iPhone to keep her face down and not look at anyone. I took a far corner, lit up a cigarette and enjoyed the view. To my disappointment, they’ve closed down the duty free shops by the luggage collection in CGK. There was a sweet looking girl in uniform standing in front of its shut front. The name tag said Nadia or something, she later told me to call her Cindy. She told me they closed down the shops last month and now all the duty free shops were upstairs at the departure lounge. I asked if she could sneak upstairs and conduct a little shopping mission. She was positive about it and I asked for her number. She hesitated for two seconds before taking her phone out and took down my number. I asked her to send me a txt and my phone buzzed two seconds later. Just in time to put my trusty phone back in my pocket one of her uniformed colleague appeared and asked for my luggage tags. I pointed at the girl in the hat and crumpled dress. She had our tags. Cindy took a look at my passport anyway and helped me find my bag. I broke one of the wheels and it stuck for a second but I got it to work and helped Princess with her bags. Our minders arrived and we were taken out quickly enough, neither of us had anything funny. We just looked funny and we paid in cash.

Welcome to the city. A cultured minister from the more illustrious years erected a massive pole depicting tribal group homoerotic sex in the arrival lounge to greet visitors at Jakarta International Airport, our car was waiting beneath it with the air condition on. The driver rolled down my window so I could continue to smoke and she didn’t take the earphones off until we were on the highway. I asked what she thought of the space pen I bought in Singapore and she sneered. I bought it for Chris’ son, the kid just broke his arm and probably could do with presents. She probably thought I wanted kids.

The uniformed girl was from Magelang or something. Some little dot on the map in Central Java. Her daddy was just recently moved up to the capital and found a somewhat more promising career in the big city. She drinks and was curious of the metropolitan debaucheries. Her hair drops down all the way to her waist and she promised to let me have a look at it next time. She had it kept tight above the neckline when on duty. She had cheap two inch heels and clearly badly needing a cultural adjustment.

Princess asked if I was going to ask her out and I just shrugged. She could get me stuff out of the airport and we’ll take it from there. She cracked a laugh and I loved it.

She got bored of the Chemical Brothers and asked if I managed to get the girl out yet. I said not to get her hopes up. Things were totally weird – still are. We call and chat like people do and yet we do nothing that other people do. Like Neruda said, we’re short on love and long on forgetting. Princess asked if the kids were worth the trouble. I told her I never knew the kids, from what I knew, they’re lovely. I changed the subject, it was getting uncomfortable in the car and the traffic was bad. She said if I was going to work on anyone, she ought to be a new name. She wanted me to stick with airport staff and herbal life merchants.

I reached for her little toes and asked that she keep us out of trouble. I don’t want trouble, I can’t afford trouble. I’m not a prince with nine lives. I also had two tickets for Nine Inch Nails ten days before my birthday, in Singapore. She suggested I brought chocolate for my airport lady. I wondered if she was the last 20 year old virgin in Jakarta. The Princess put away her iPhone and put on a pair of hotel slippers. Her little toes hurt. She put some on oil thingy and they now smell nice. I saw her underwear. It took us twenty minutes to get out in Semanggi.

We stopped at the Japanese at the Meridien. She switched the iPhone back on and got tons of smses and put it away. We ordered salmon and talked about it for a good hour til traffic gone away.
She asked if it bothered me, my inability to keep to commitments. Promises and ashes, something Candi said when she told me she slept with someone else. I asked for a different warm sake and she put a pillow on her back. P asked if I thought the girl was for real.

It was all too blinding fast for me, I never quite got the whole thing. At the present memory, everything I remember about Candi isn’t what it really was and I don’t really trust my own head. I didn’t think she meant it. I think she wanted to have fun and I wanted to have fun. I had fun. I just thought I never told her that. There was no making a big deal of it. I’d be sad if I’d ever asked but the truth is, she never really offered anything. There was something about your girl going to bed with another man. Maybe I’m just a conservative. She threw an olive at me for sleeping with her best friend. That was a new low, even for me.

Life do as it pleases, you eat it and drink it or get the fuck out of it but you’re stuck on it for as long as it’s good.I swallowed the olive.

I told her the first part of the story, what happened before everything else happened and everything got so boringly predictive. She was beautiful but she wanted to die and the knight in me wanted to save her. Except that she was never going to die and I could never do save her. We live like everyone else do.

Our waiter knocked on the door and slide in with the credit card slips. She took it and I left some tips. She asked for salads to take home and tickled me while we waited. The hotel called us two taxis, she took the Silver Bird home and I asked for a regular one. I wanted to smoke in the car. I missed my dog and wanted only to go home.



...Have a happy weekend all.