Jalan Jalan Read Online Free

the unexpected and simple beauty of the song.
    There again it might not just be the call to prayer that makes me cry; it could partly be due to the close call to vomiting from a few hours ago. Maybe too much beer on spicy noodles in an unsteady stomach, maybe too much grass. That could the reason for my tears—strong, strong grass. This is yesterday:
    Pak takes me to my new home. He introduces me to Kim and Kim to me. Kim is a man. A Californian man, mid-thirties, tall, in a brown flower-patterned shirt. Pak leaves as soon as he can. He has to be somewhere else. Kim closes the door behind him. My new house is open-plan and cool, white tiled floor, big-cushioned armchairs with wooden armrests, a muted TV showing a small and chubby Asian-American beating up four men in suits with swift and precise movements of an umbrella. There’s a kitchen along one wall and a dining table in front of a window and door to a concrete garden. Four more doors lead off the main room. This is my home.
    â€˜Fuuuuuuccckk. That man is such a fucking fuck, man.’ Kim sits in a chair and puts his long legs out over the small table in front of him. He hits the volume on the remote. ‘Make yourself at fucking home, man.’
    I drag my travel-tired rucksack across the tiles, opening doors until I find a room that isn’t a toilet, a shower or a bedroom with Kim’s dirty underwear sniffing the floor. In my room are two single beds; only one is made up, the other still has a plastic cover on the mattress. I lay my rucksack on the unmade bed. Fumbling deep inside one of its pockets I find the pebble. It is smooth and comfortable in my palm. It’s the only thing I’ve allowed myself. The only memory I’ve brought. No photos, no other souvenirs of her, just this pebble. I turn it in my hand, swallow down hard on the two of them who stir at the feel of it and return it back to the pocket. I give my bag a pat.
    â€˜Sleep well.’
    I go back and flop in an armchair next to Kim.
    The chubby Asian-American on TV is now giving life-changing advice to a small blond American boy, while Indonesian subtitles translate along the bottom of the screen.
    â€˜Yeah, go Sammo. Tell that white boy how to be good. I fucking love Sammo. Beats the shit out of people with toilet rolls and fucking bananas and things like that and is sooo fucking wise.’
    I nod. Sammo does look wise.
    â€˜Do you smoke?’ Kim asks me.
    Not much. Not recently. Not since Laura.
    How much pain have I been in? Too much to remember I’m an addict. I have never once thought about smoking again. Now I remember I am an addict, I want one.
    â€˜Yes. Are they Marlboro?’
    â€˜No, not these, man.’ He waves his brown cigarette under my nose, and for some reason the pungent smell of it makes me think of apple pie. ‘But you can have one if you want.’
    â€˜Cheers.’ I take one and light it. The return of a forgotten comfort, long-time banished. Too pissed off and demented to remember the deadly old habit. It hits my throat like a saw and I cough. Smoke swirls around us like a mist. The sweet smell of scented tobacco hangs in the stillness of the warm and humid evening.
    â€˜Kretek cigarette, man. Strongest cigs in the world.’
    â€˜Tastes like it.’ I know why the smell reminds me of apple pie. Cloves. The taste is surprisingly strong and it’s suddenly soothing my throat, taking the teeth off the saw. My coughing subsides. ‘But very good.’ The clove coats my tongue while the tar slides into my lungs.
    â€˜Anyway I didn’t mean smoke man, I meant smoooke. Do you smoooke?’
    I look blankly at Kim.
    â€˜Smoke smoke. Smo-o-o-ke?’
    â€˜Ah. Yes.’ Comprehension arrives as I look at the roll-ups mixed in with normal butts in the ashtray. ‘Sometimes.’
    With this Kim pulls a Frisbee from under his chair. It overflows with dangerous-looking green-brown foliage.
    â€˜I don’t