October Diary
Blok M diary, October 2004
Fads and fashions
Sitting in My Bar one pleasant and bustling October evening, the Reveller casts his eagle eyes around the assembled company as the lights dim and the big TV projection screen is rolled up at ten o’clock. A group of girls trip in and head for the dance floor - a typical mix of Sweet Young Things, he reflects. There’s a couple of older ones, three youngsters, and two tiny chicks trotting along behind them.
What interests the Reveller is their attire. First off, they’re all dressed in dark colours - mostly black. The older girls are wearing figure-clinging dresses that enhance the cleavage, but what intrigues him is the sloping and jagged hemlines that look as though they’ve been trimmed by a drunken tailor wielding a pair of blunt hedge clippers. Another thing that strikes the Reveller is that this style requires the cloth to be cut on the bias so that it hangs nicely - but these outfits are slash-and-stitch affairs that are inexpertly tailored and hang like empty flour sacks.
The youngsters are sporting dark tights and loose black tops, outfits which look rather cheap and tatty and do nothing to flatter the figure. And when they move their arms about to the music, they resemble bats doing aerobics.
The fledglings are dressed differently. One, a bit on the podgy side, is wearing a tight black strapless mini that pinches, pulls and bulges in all the wrong places; the other, slim and petite, is wearing a plain, straight black skirt with a Ruritanian-peasant style frilly white blouse over a tiny black bra. The overall effect is disturbingly sexy, and she’s clearly marked out as one of the up-and-coming Sweet Young Things. The Reveller will follow her progress with interest.
As one tall and quite shapely girl strides past, the guy who’s chatting with the Reveller smiles warmly at her and nods a greeting. "Went with her a while back", he announces. "Found out she wears a Wonder Bra". Puzzled by this cryptic comment, the Reveller asks what make of bra that is. "When she takes it off, you wonder where her tits have gone!" ripostes his friend.
As the bar fills up, the Reveller notices that most of the girls’ togs are variations on the theme modeled by the group he’s just commented on. He reflects that many of the girls are sartorial unsophisticates as they’ve spent most of their lives in the kampong, dressed in plain working clothes. It takes time to acquire dress sense, and some never will.
No, we’re not talking about The Force in Star Wars, but one of the most sinister and dangerous places in south Jakarta - the dimly lit rear bar area in the Club. Now for those who don’t know the layout of this venerable institution, the bar is a hairpin loop that bisects the place. As you go in the door you’ve got the Safe Side of the bar on your right, and the pool tables to your left. But if you swing hard right immediately after the cash desk next to the inside door and then veer sharp left, you find yourself in the twilight zone that is the Dark Side of the bar.
One fine night, after quaffing rather more beer than is good for either his moral well-being or vertical stability, the Reveller decides to drop in to the Club for a nightcap before crossing the main road in search of a bajay. The first thing that strikes his fuddled senses is that although the place isn’t very busy there’s an inexplicable shortage of bar stools, and those that remain are uncomfortable and unsafe. One has no foot rest, so his weary legs are left dangling most uncomfortably. Another lurches from side to side with all the predictability of a supermarket trolley, making it a death trap for anyone with more than a couple of beers inside them.
With a niggling but inchoate suspicion of the folly of his next move, the Reveller takes a few unsteady paces down the bar and round the corner in search of seating. And what does he see as his eyes gradually adapt to the darkness? Why, all the missing stools neatly lined up at the bar. Vaguely suspecting that this might possibly be a trap to lure unwitting victims away from the safe side of the bar, the Reveller is too far gone to worry about such niceties and plonks himself down on a stool at the bar.
Within seconds, shadowy figures emerge from the darkness and close in on him. One launches into the shoulder massage routine, two slip their arms around him and pinion him with their ample bosoms, while another makes a distinctly unambiguous movement in the direction of the Reveller’s Naughty Bits. Dimly aware of the sound of a zip being opened as he prises an arm loose and takes a swig of beer, it dawns on the Reveller that his virtue might be in danger. Just then another figure appears, dangling a key in her hand and beckoning the Reveller towards the stairs at the other end of the bar.
Frantically trying to invent some faintly plausible reason for his immediate departure the Reveller breaks the news that he’s most regrettably unable to take up their generous offer as he’s got a sick cat at home. Even as the words die on his lips he’s embarrassingly aware of what a pathetic excuse this is, and is allowed to escape the harpies’ clutches only after tendering a modest donation. As he slips out of the door he breathes a heartfelt sigh of relief, then shudders at the thought of the predatory ravages that almost certainly awaited him if he’d been foolhardy enough to take the proffered key.
Epilogue
The latter part of the month sees the beginning of the fasting month, about which the Reveller writes at length in the October Update. But one thing that is immediately noticeable about Ramadan this year is a marked shortage of girls down the Blok. The word is that many of them are staying in the kampongs as there’s not been much trade of late, and they want to avoid being gathered up in the inevitable police swoops that will take place in and around Blok M. Last year, the sweeping of girls in Blok M (and also down in Buncit, where many of them live) was such a nice little earner for the underpaid local police that it’s been repeated this year.