Jakarta City Blues: #1 – Do Werewolves Have Fleas?

Jakarta it was then: a decent bet as a place to find a new job. I had lined to stay with Ross, my mate who’d I done cotton chipping with years before in NSW. Vain comparisons have their part to play when you haven’t seen someone in a decade; so at our reunion I observed with relief that his early thirties had brought Ross some grey and a receding hairline.

Ross’ girlfriend was Indonesian Chinese. She worked in her parents shop even though they were loaded. Her name was Giovanni. Having a Italian name was not uncommon in the Indo-Chinese community, but I never discovered why. Giovanni spoke Bahasa, Javanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, whatever damn Chinese they spoke in Medan (Hokkien) and excellent English. In contrast Ross, a pom, tried to use some Kiwi phrases on me but failed miserably. His lack of linguistic ability didn’t really matter; I could see he’d become focused in life, a more together character than the old days. He was working as a teacher on what was called an International Foundation Year. Most of his students were nineteen or twenty, what they had been doing since secondary school was in many cases unclear. They love Justin Timberlake, Ross found it fit to reveal. Well, I couldn’t blame them for that, ‘Cry Me A River’ was a good song.

The company which ran this foundation year was partnered with a conglomerate of British universities; so the students planned to get their degrees at institutions from Aberdeen down to Southampton. Completing the foundation year (paying its hefty fees) came close to guaranteeing them entry somewhere. They were split into two groups: stream one was Science, studying Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Maths and English. Stream two was Business, studying sweet fuck all and English. Some of the students were very capable and knew all the stuff on the curriculum already, others didn’t have a clue – money was the only prerequisite for being on board.

In addition to English, they let Ross teach music as an extra-curricular option, a position he guarded jealously. He was a living kick in the face to the theory that the musical are good at languages. I was hoping he would come through with a lead for me on the work front, possibly even with the foundation program. I’d taught a few classes at one stage in Shanghai, and well, for the business stream surely my experience would be of value. Ross was vague about it at first, but about a week into my stay he became more generous: alright mate I can probably get them to look at your CV next week. I subsequently had an interview, in which they loved the way I explained my work experience – or it maybe they struggled to find people? The pay was by no means terrible, so I signed up. Yes, it was as easy as that. They not only let me teach English and business, but biology too.

To celebrate my getting hired Ross arranged for the two of us to have a trip out of the city. After a long bus ride we found a guesthouse, hired mopeds and set out to explore. In the late afternoon we found a restaurant where magic mushrooms were on the menu. We couldn’t stop ourselves from ordering them. The owner of the restaurant introduced us to his huge pet lizard, whose scaly company we enjoyed, but thankfully parted from before the shrooms kicked in. We spent the evening at the guesthouse laughing our arses off. After the usual stellar sunset, we sat on the balcony fixated on a drooping branch before us. The branch swayed in the wind and for me turned into a werewolf opening and closing its great jaws. I speculated that a werewolf was likely to have fleas, so what happened to these fleas in the transformation back into a human that werewolves go through? Did they go elsewhere or stay on the human? Ross considered this problem for thirty seconds, then admitted he really didn’t know or care. I put some hard thought into it. He was amused that the issue was of such concern for me. Inside the room we got more the same wavelength, agreeing that the beds were indeed breathing.

And so the next evening we went back for more mushrooms. That second night we stared at ants in the toilet, millions of them – from the ceiling down the wall, across the floor to the drainage hole at the bottom of the opposite wall. You know the story, two idiots standing around saying freaky dude! Wrenching ourselves away from the ants, we went out for a walk accompanied by persistent local dogs. We came across a thirty metre tall inflatable effigy of what may have been a local deity (later googling revealed nothing). The effigy stood on a raft tied to the shore of a lake. The dogs got on the raft to sniff around. If the raft drifted off with the dogs onboard, what would we do? Ross asked.

I had the answer: You would let them drown without a problem and I’d deliberate and jump in to save them when it was too late. I thought I was on the mark, a nice insight into our personalities – if a little unkind to Ross. The only problem? The glaring issue here I’d missed? Dogs can swim.