Friday 16th March
Short time
It’s Friday night and I’m down to my last couple of blue ones, so I dismount at Blok M Pasaraya and ambush an ATM to squeeze the last bit of cash out of my bank account. Now all those good people militating for the legalisation of gambling in this wonderful country are forgetting that almost every main road street corner in Jakarta has its own little casino - their bank’s ATM.
As you punch in your PIN you experience a frisson, a mix of dread and anticipation, because you never know if it’s going to be accepted or not. Perhaps the machine is empty, bereft of banknotes - a common occurrence at the end of each month. Perhaps the mechanism has jammed - a frequent problem with the older ATM’s. Perhaps the central computer has crashed or got its digital knickers in a twist - par for the course in the Alice in Wonderland world of Jakarta network systems.
And now, the Scenario From Hell. It’s late at night and there’s the Sweet Young Thing of your dreams hanging on your arm, lazily chewing gum and staring vacuously at her hand phone as you stand at the ATM poised to get the ready for a naughty night. Then things go horribly wrong. The machine doesn’t want to know you, and rejects your PIN. With sweating desperation and muttered prayers to every known deity, you tap in your number again - but to no avail. You know that it’s ‘three strikes and you’re out’, so you’re suddenly faced with a terrible dilemma: try a third time, get it wrong, and lose your card - or find another ATM.
The Big Question is, how do you scrape yourself out of this dire quandary? I’ve known guys dash back to their last watering hole and blag a few hundred thousand off whichever of their mates is sober enough to understand the request and still physically able to locate his wallet and count out the banknotes. I’ve known guys empty all their pockets and grope frantically through their wallets, scrabbling together whatever loose cash they have on them. I’ve known guys grab the first taxi and hare off on a frantic search for another ATM. But I’ve also known guys suddenly wake up to the fact that they come way down their Sweet Young Thing’s scale of priorities - somewhere between her hand phone and her chewing gum, in fact - and ask themselves if she’s worth the candle.
There’s nothing like a hard heavy dose of shock-induced adrenalin to restore the critical faculties after a heavy night’s carousing. All of a sudden that gorgeous, peerless angel appears a bit plumper, a lot older, more heavily made up and less alluring than she did when she draped herself over you in the bar just as you’d drained your umpteenth beer. The gentlemanly thing to do, of course, is give her the taxi money to return to the bar where she picked you up, and go home to lick your wounds.
My wallet replenished, I breathe a heartfelt sigh of relief as I stroll out of the Pasaraya complex and across the front of the bus station. Now if the ATM is like a mini casino, the Blok M bus station is like a massive pinball game. Buses tear in and out at random, the drivers treating policemen, traffic lights and pedestrians alike with lofty disdain - their bruised, scraped and battered vehicles silent testimony to a sublime disregard for the laws of both traffic and nature. Negotiating your way between these battered behemoths requires nimbleness, nerve, and the sangfroid of an SAS trooper.
Crossing the Busway lane, there’s the Club right in front of me. Shall I nip in for a quick shufti and a pint with the old girls? Shuddering as I recall what happened the last time I went in for a quick one and was inveigled to the Dark Side of the bar, I decide that discretion is the better part of valour and give the dear place a wide berth.
Walking into Pelatehan from the south end of the street, I see the place from a different perspective. Oscar and One Tree are eerily quiet and the only transport in site is a huddle of ojeks on the pavement and a couple of lone cars. G-String is all lit up and there’s music drifting out of the door; a couple of the staff are sitting outside trying to lure in passers-by - but I’m not tempted. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to sit, eat and drink with convivial conversation going on around me rather than be forced to listen to some band of hopefuls pounding out the indigenous interpretation of Western popular music.
Strolling towards My Bar and Top Gun I’m reminded of the Wars of the Roses, that long and bitter rivalry between Yorkists and Lancastrians that eventually erupted into civil war in 15th Century England - a war in which disinformation, slander and propaganda played such an infamous role. My sympathies have always been with Richard the Third, the most tragically misunderstood and maligned king in English history - a victim of Tudor character-assassination in contemporary history books, and even in Shakespeare’s play of the same name.
I now hear murmuring that the poor old Reveller has really dropped his marbles this time, burbling on about far-off events in English history when he should be reporting on Blok M. But there’s a historical echo in the propaganda war that’s raging on the street. “My Bar is bankrupt”, “It’s been taken over by the African Mafia”, “It’s become a late-night drugs scene”, and other such slanders are whispered around the bars. One also hears very nasty rumours about Top Gun being behind the trashing of My Bar, of instigating police raids on the place, and putting heavy pressure on the girls not to go there.
These are all unfounded accusations, hawked around the bars without a shred of proof or evidence. They may, or may not, be true - but their very persistence lends them a spurious legitimacy. “There’s no smoke without fire”, one guy pontificates; “Confirms what I’ve always suspected”, another smugly intones; “Just goes to prove what a bunch of greedy wankers the new breed of bar owners are”, opines one guy who’s been around for many years.
I know guys who don’t come to Jalan Falatehan any more because of this internecine battle and the effect it’s having on the place. I know girls who prefer to ply their trade in the bars and hotels up north, and only come to Blok M late at night if they haven’t scored elsewhere. I get messages from guys asking what the hell’s going on down the Blok. Let me say this loud and clear - Blok M is still a great early-evening social and drinking venue, it’s one of the safest night-spots in Jakarta, but unless it puts its house in order it may soon be history.
As I walk into Top Gun my old friend David Jardine is just on his way out, so he does an about-turn and joins me at the bar. Over a pleasant beer we catch up on news and gossip, swap yarns and compare notes about the bars. Now apart from his literary and intellectual proclivities, Dave is a keen and very knowledgeable ornithologist who brings to his observation of the Sweet Young Things a detached and scientific viewpoint.
While we’re chatting, a frumpish floozie of uncertain age and pedigree parks herself right next to us and tries to muscle in on our conversation. She’s not one of the regular girls and clearly knows nothing about bar etiquette - and as she doesn’t respond to our glances of annoyance we have to say the Two Magic Words to make her move on.
Dave then recounts a bizarre episode that happened the last time he was in Top Gun. It’s early evening and there are only a handful of guys in the place, when in walks one of the off-the-Blok OEM types. She’s a hefty harpy, an ageing femme fatale who flirts from guy to guy and gets the brush-off from each of them in turn. Then she walks up to Dave, eyeballs him and sits down next to him - but with her back turned towards him.
While Dave perceives this in behavioural terms, I see it as a problem in semiotics. For him, it’s at odds with the usual courtship and pre- nesting ritual displays - for me, it’s an inexplicable symbology, an icon without a point of reference. Mulling it over together we agree that it’s best described as an anti-courtship device. Knowing that she’s likely to be rejected, she pre-empts his response by refusing to let it happen - a bit like the proverbial ostrich putting its head in the sand, I reflect.
Regular readers will remember the booze-raddled Ancient Mariner who used to accost folk in Top Gun with those immortal words, “I’m on the piss tonight. Am I on the piss tonight!” Just as Dave departs to catch the last TransJakarta bus for his homeward trek northwards, this guy comes in right on cue and suddenly stops in front of me. A faint glimmer of recognition flits across his face, and he seems to recall me from the deeper recesses of his consciousness. But this time he’s stone-cold sober, and a more charming bloke you couldn’t hope to meet in Blok M. As we chat he asks me where I’m from, and tells me he’s Scottish. He asks me how long I’ve been in Jakarta, and tells me he’s been here for 23 years. He waves cheerily to several groups of guys in the bar, who wave back in warm greeting.
This pleasant encounter leads me to take a closer look at the guys dotted round the bar. They’re the usual mid-evening crowd of middle-aged carousers, with a handful of youngsters to leaven the mix. Interestingly, I recognize a couple of erstwhile D’s Place regulars, and a guy whose usual haunt is Everest. There’s also a trio who I’m pretty certain are Sportsmans stalwarts. The message seems to be that Top Gun is reclaiming ground as an early-evening watering hole for a lot of the guys who’d given up on the place after it went down the tubes.
Most of these guys drift out soon after ten, and there’s a lull in the action. But within half an hour Top Gun is filling up with the late shift - guys who used to frequent D’s Place upstairs bar, or could usually be relied on to be getting primed in My Bar at this hour. The place is now replenished with potential customers, and within minutes a whole crowd of Indramayu Sweet Young Things pour in - the word has gone out down the street and around the food stalls that there are guys aplenty.
For the dedicated follower of fashion jeans are now out, and long straight hair is definitely passé. A lot of the Sweet Young Things are wearing long dresses and high-heeled shoes, and their hair is slightly curled. Our favourite deaf-dumb Indramayu girl has adopted the new hair style, but still sports jeans and a tight top. Very wise, I reflect - the thought of such a well-endowed and buxom beauty in a long dress and high-heeled shoes gives me the shudders.
Inexplicably, I hit a winning streak at the Top Gun pool table and clock up six games in a row. My wilder wallops are still sure-fire losers, but my opponents seem to be playing even wilder and more hopelessly optimistic shots than me and I win two games in a row by default as the black goes down prematurely. All in all, a most sociable and a very enjoyable session for everyone.
But alas, shortly after I’m off the table having reverted to my usual standard of play, the band strikes up and launches into its routine of hackneyed renderings of western pop stuff. To add insult to injury, the staff bump up the volume to the point where conversation is impossible and it’s painful to the ear. Exit Reveller stage left, in theatrical parlance; I pay my bill and tell the staff exactly why I’m going, but I might as well be shouting at the Man in the Moon.
In spite of the sour ending, it’s been an enjoyable evening down the Blok, as good it ever got in the old days. Good company, plenty of ale, lots of eye candy, exciting pool - an excellent time all round, and I’d like to follow through with a bit of late night action in a darker, sleazier setting. But where do I go? Even if I wanted to go to My Bar, I’d be sitting around listening to loud bad music for a good two - or more likely three - hours before any action started. So it’s off back home in my regular bajay, to catch up on my writing and enjoy a good book.