Blok M diary, June 2003

Dog days

Well, call it the silly season perhaps, but nothing much has been happening down the Blok this week. I stroll into D’s Place at six o’clock and find it largely deserted, which means I can enjoy a quiet snack and get in some serious pool. I ask for the menu - goodness knows why, as I know it inside out by now - and, fancying something a little bit exotic as a change from my staple shepherd’s pie, I order a San Pueblo. "Satu San Playboy", calls out the barmaid to the kitchen staff. I ask if there is perhaps a surreptitious reference to my good self in that, but no, apparently it’s just that the staff have difficulty pronouncing ‘pueblo’.

The food is palatable but instantly forgettable, so I settle down to a few games of pool after priming myself with a couple of tequilas. Now the measures in D’s Place are robustly generous, so I’m in quite a convivial mood by the time I get into my stride at the table. However, after a blinding victory in the first game I gradually revert to type and by the third game I’m playing my usual hit-and-miss stuff - I hit the ball, and miss the pocket.

After a spectacularly disastrous game I decide to call it a day and go to the upstairs bar a bit earlier than usual. On my way out I bump into my old friend David Jardine, who confides that he’s on his way to the Club to get his trousers washed and ironed by one of the girls. ‘Well, I’d always heard there were lots of scrubbers in there’, I quip.

On to higher things

Settling into my favourite spot in the upstairs bar I’m surprised to hear loud giggles and slaps, but there’s no-one in sight. Peering over the counter I see the bar staff squatting down to eat their evening snack, and enjoying what sounds like a rather risqué joke. There’s a chorus of greetings and more giggles, so I leave them to finish their meal, sit back, and light up my first cigar of the evening.

By about eight thirty the girls start to trickle in , and one of my old friends trots up to me with her hand phone at the ready. She asks me to explain an SMS message from her boyfriend who’s out of the country at the moment. I explain as delicately as I can that he misses her, and in particular certain things that she does with a certain thing, and vice versa. Modesty forbids me from explaining in anatomical detail what he’s getting at, but she obviously understands the gist because she shrieks with laughter and dashes away to tap in a reply. Ah, the younger generation…

The ladies’ lucky draw

Nine o’clock comes, and the girls huddle round the centre of the bar expectantly. It’s time for the lucky draw, one of the enduringly popular innovations of the management. Each girl has a numbered ticket, and John Patten (brother of Darryl, who is the ‘D’ in D’s Place) starts the ball rolling. The management antes up fifty thousand Rupiah and invites the guys to make contributions to the pot. It’s a nice way for the chaps to say ‘thanks’ to the girls for the pleasure of their company, so the Reveller digs into his pocket and chips in with his contribution.

By the end of John’s good-natured banter with the guys there’s 650,000 Rupiah in the kitty. It’s agreed that there’ll be three draws of 150,000 each and one of 200,000, and the draw proceeds. As each winner is announced there are shrieks and squeals as the lucky lady runs forward to claim her prize.

At a time when the pickings are slim around Blok M, a win on the lucky draw can balance a girl’s budget for the whole month. One of my good friends once won the main prize of the evening, three hundred thousand Rupiah. With tears in her eyes she told me that now she could pay her son’s school fees and buy him a good pair of shoes, with perhaps a little left over to treat herself to a new blouse.

On with the show

After the lucky draw the disco winds up into full swing, so the Reveller uproots himself from the bar and decamps to the seats next to the dancing. The girls are on form tonight, making the scene a visual treat for the guys. "It reminds me of an amoeba dividing", remarks a slightly sozzled fellow reveller as the girls move in and out, forming new groupings as they go.

The atmosphere moves up a gear as the music pounds out and the excited buzz of conversation competes with the sound system. Shrieks and laughter come from a nearby table where a couple of my antipodean buddies are exceedingly merry and obviously enjoying the company of three very attractive and uninhibited young ladies. Guffaws echo from another table as a group of friends loosen up, primed by a continuous stream of jars of beer from the bar. They cast lustful glances at a group of giggling young girls who are flirting quite outrageously with them, and pretty soon they’re all off together arm in arm to perhaps continue their revelry in quieter surroundings.

Down and out

At eleven o’clock the Reveller settles his bar bill then heads downstairs and off to Lintas Melawai, to see what’s cooking down the other end of the Blok. Alas, LM is still in its habitual early evening state of suspended animation, so he consoles himself with a steady stream of Carlsbergs at the bar.

The only problem with this solution to the LM boredom factor is that by the time the action starts after midnight you’re too far gone to be of any use to the young ladies. So into the disco to enjoy the ambience and watch the dancing for an hour or so, before retiring gracefully with whatever remains of my virtue intact.