Alif, The guerilla boy,

Based on true story happened in Solo city, Indonesia.
Retold by Mr. Koeaing !

Part I
The dawet vendor’s boy?

I am Alif, I am the third boy of four brothers, Setro is my eldest brother. He was very naughty. The teacher once punished him to stand by all the time before the class. He was mad and soon went to the blackboard; he lifted and handed it over to the teacher’s body. Then he ran away. He did not go to that class ever since.

...if i am not my real father's son then who am I ? do you know itmy friend...?

My elder sister is klentheng, because she is black. Klentheng is the name for the black kapuk button. She is similar in hard-habit with my brother Setro. She often beats me by tenggok a bamboo container for the horse meal. Gabruuk ! It was painful you know, it needed three days to recover....

I have my youngest brother, Sakim. He was the most gorgeous one. That is why he became my mother most favorite’s son, it was OK for me, and even I loved him more. If he faced some problems, I helped him as good as I could. Sometimes when he fought against his friends, I helped him to fight them.

Our father Imam Munawar was a very hard man. No wonder where mas Setro and mbakyu klentheng habits were come from. He was a chariot’s wheel repairer. He studied at famous Tebuireng Islamic Boarding School, East Java Province. He loosed almost all his religion knowledge but not his martial arts, we didn’t now why.

As a chariot wheel repairer, he got so many silvery goods in his warehouse. No wonder so many thieves wanted to steal it anyway. One day a thief came in to his warehouse and then the magical things happened. Up to the mid day this thief just wandering around this warehouse. My father, Imam Munawar just gave him a little shock by his palm “plok"...then that thief aware and gave my father an ovation by turned his back down.

Guerilla boy....

"Give me your mercy sir, I did not mean to steal, but this is my last thing I can do sir, my family is starving to death right now...”

My father did not even get angry at all, he even gave that thief some money to buy his family foods....

"Here it is I give you some money for your wife and children... but remember if you lie to me so let your penis goes to your forehead forever..."
“Thank you so much sir...I give my words to you..." he then hugged my fathers foots.

My father can be a very generous and good person to others but not to his own children, he often acted like as an algojo! I was the one who beaten often, because I was just a little kid not like my brother, Setro. He was a young boy so if my father got mad and wanted to ‘kill’ him he just ran away as fast as young horses. If this happened, he did not return to our house for a couple days. I could not do like that, I could not run anywhere.

Nowhere to go for me, I once had a terrible experience with my father’s anger. He bonded me to a chariot‘s wheel because I swam with my companies in the river. Not to mention when I was bonded to the spike right in the middle of the yard. Then he gave this spike dry grass surrounded and he burned it away! His action was similar with inquisitive armies of Catholic Church who burned the Protestants alive!

That was why I sometimes thought that I was not his real son. When I was saved by my mom from the burning grass, he got mad and gave my mom very bad words, "Why do you bother save this satanic boy? Let him burned to the hell anyway, besides he’s not even my real boy...he is a son of the dawet vendor nearby the market don’t he?”

When my father gave those words my mom replied the same,” you can say any words you like, but you are the one that cheat on my back, I know you have an affair with the bitch widow nearby the river don’t you asshole...!"

As I said before they always fought each other everyday, and the sad thing was, we were the victims.

It was nearby the year of 1942, finally my mom and my father were divorced, and my father then married a new wife nearby the mount of Lawu. We followed our mom still. We lived in Ngaglik village, a little kampong in the northern Surakarta district. A terrible happened in this village when the dry season was come, because we must seek fresh water harder. This neighborhood was very strong in Islamic teachings. Therefore, my name itself is the first Arabic font ; Alif , while my father’s name was Imam Munawar ( Munawar the great leader) isn’t it a great name huh? However, sometimes between name and habit is far away matched. Just like heaven and earth!

After my father was not in our house anymore, the situations became more difficult. Sometimes we ate once a day, sometimes did not. What we ate was just thiwul, the dry flours of cassavas. The corn rice was better than thiwul, because when you eat thiwul often, your stomach face a serious problems, you even could have a bloody shits...

Hide and seek, an Adrenalin game

Every Moslem believes that during the sacred month of Ramadhan, the devil, Satan, jinn, kiddo ghost, monsters, elf, phantoms, evil spirits, ghouls, gnomes, goblins, fairies, banshees and poltergeists are on leave. Allah the Almighty God with the magic chains bonded them all. With those spirit of courage, we as innocent kids were not afraid anymore. We chosen after Maghrib prayer as the right time to have the hide and seek game. The players consist of the mascot-boy and the hidden-groups. The rule was mascot had to find the hidden-groups. As we’ve been told that, no evil-spirits could not disturb us, so every kid tried to show their guts. That’s why I call this game as adrenalin Hide and seek.

...Allah the Almighty God with the magic chains bonded them all...

At the backside of our village mosque laid the graveyard called as Pasarean Ywapati, the Mangkunegarans official graveyard. Pasarean means as the sleeping place for the dead. In this case, the nobles dead. As nobles, their graveyard is so beautiful just like a mansion with the flower garden surroundings. It was such a good views. The peasants’ graveyard lay at the backside of this pasarean, right in the middle of sugar-cane tree plantation. There are two of them, at the south and southeast one.

After we draught the mascot, finally Peyet was chosen one. The rest must run and hide as fast we can. We tried to seek the hardest place to find by Peyet. I myself ran in to the sugar-cane plantation, it was the after-harvest time. I slept underneath the dry sugar-cane leaves. It was in the middle of dry season, called as nJediding, Javanese term for the cold dry season. The night of nJediding time is so cold, chills to your bones. Take this picture; with the half-moon scene and owl’s singing, it was so spooky. Not to mention the clouds were running across the moon...in pairs...one two....

Jendul --the bravest kid among us-- hidden at the southern graveyard. This is the spookiest and isolated peasants’ graveyard. He climbed the giant mahogany tree right in the center of that graveyard. He might get along with owls, or maybe the real ghosts! Then we’ll see Gito. Gito actually was not in our age-level because he was three years old more than we were. His body as big as buffalo the bad news is; he gets mad easily. In addition, when he gets mad, you’d better to get away of him....

Gito was more spectacular on his hidden quest. He slept underneath the unused stone-coffin of the dead, just like the dead their selves! What a spooky kid! Other kids lay between the mosques, the nobles’ graveyard, and the peasants’ one. Mostly they had hidden in the middle of sugar-cane plantation bush.

the spooky mahogany tree....

One minute, two minute we didn’t hear any voices yet from Peyet as the mascot. One hour after two hour, still there was no Peyet’s voice. I was falling asleep under the sugar-cane bushes. While Jendul was still up there, at the giant tree. Gito slept underneath the coffin. We know later about who Peyet really was. He was totally a jerk. You could not trust him at all. Why? As the mascot, he must found us whatsoever. That was the rules! However, maybe because we hidden at the abnormal place, he then walked home and slept! Asshole!

We were up after hear the Barzanzi of grand elder Soma,--our noblest village cleric—and hurried up to the mosque to do the subuh prayer. After we met together, we shared our story on how and where we hide. In addition, that was the time when we know where in the hell Peyet was. He ran away from his obligation as mascot, what a jerk! We felt hate, mad, because this irresponsible boy was fooling us, but what can we do this was the fasting month, we could nod take revenge among Allah SWT’s creatures. We just swallowed those hatreds.

The moral of this story is, if we believe that nothing or no one can do us harm then so be it! It even can lead us to do the bravest things! It was impossible unless in the sacred month of Ramadhan. Who thinks that Gito able to sleep underneath the coffin? Jendul could stays all night long at the spooky giant tree, and I myself slept in the middle of sugar-cane plantation? Those experiences really make me wonder, even up to present...

The tricky Peyet is becoming tailor man now, Gito owns his own sate restaurant, while Jendul is going back home to our homeland and make his living as a daily-goods storeowner after years in Jakarta. What about yourself koeaing? Me? Oh, I become a jobless man whose hobby is writing this stuff to you peoples...

Koeaing!
Still remember the after-harvest sugar cane smell...a very good smell....