Endy looked less than enthusiastic about the prospect, but nodded his acquiesce anyway, and I went and got my stuff ready to meet Pak Neil out the front.
Pak Neil brought his car round, and I was a bit taken aback. I don’t know what kind of car I was expecting Pak to own, but this wasn’t it. He was driving a Kijang hatchback, which is a kind of jeep-type vehicle with five doors, and it is a perfectly respectable kind of car but not one you would expect a captain of industry to be seen in, let alone driving. I was also surprised to see Pak Neil driving himself, as I had assumed he would have a driver. I thought it best, however, to keep my thoughts to myself at this point and just climbed in.
We drove in silence for a while with Pak Neil concentrating on manoeuvring the car out of the small car park and onto the main road. Other than checking my address, our silence continued for the next few minutes before Pak Neil finally spoke.
‘Jack. Sorry for being a bit, ah, unbecoming before.’
‘That’s OK, sir.’ I managed in reply.
Pak looked sideways at me as he drove. ‘Please, call me Neil, and anyway, as I said, sorry about that. I’m just a bit tired and nervous, maybe.’
This was a surprising admission to say the least. ‘Nervous Pak? How come?’
Pak Neil didn’t immediately answer. ‘Umm?’ he finally offered.
‘You said you are a bit nervous. About what?’ I asked.
‘Did I? Ah, sorry Jack. I’m not with it properly tonight. Just ignore me.’ This was said in a somewhat resigned tone of voice if anything, and did nothing to allay my suspicions that something was not quite right with Pak tonight.
‘OK.’
At that response from me, at least, Pak Neil gave a little grin and we carried on in silence once more. He dropped me at the top of my road, and other than a cheery, ‘See you, buddy.’ Not another word was exchanged between us.
After this strange little encounter with Pak Neil, I carried on working and within a very short time working with Endy, I started to find my feet and then I moved around the club spending a little time in each of the areas as directed by Yusuf.
During that time, I worked behind the bar, in the reception, as one of ‘the lads’ (although thankfully for only a couple of days) in the kitchen, and in the offices as ‘management’.
I found all aspects interesting, and in the main most of the employees were very friendly and helpful. I guess I found ‘the lads’ work the most interesting and varied but the least suitable for me. What they had to do, basically, was the security work and the running around that fell into no-one else’s direct remit.
They would have to watch out for unruly customers both inside the club and out, help with the manual work such as fixing the barrels onto the bar and carrying out small repairs around the place, look after the girls in the karaoke lounges, and then generally be at the beck and call of all the other departments.
The management area of the club was also interesting. It involved making sure the security laws and regulations with respect to things such as overcrowding, fire escapes, kitchen and bathroom cleanliness, etc., were being complied with, as well as controlling employee matters such as complaints from and about them, absenteeism, tardiness and general staff well-being and unhappiness.
After about six weeks, Yusuf called me into his office and I had the longest conversation with him yet: it lasted 15 seconds.
‘You have done ok. We are keeping you. You will work in management. Your salary is now three million a month. See you tomorrow.’
Not much I could say to that, except, ‘See you tomorrow.’
During this time, I was still seeing a lot of Heri whenever I could although I had moved into my own room at a slightly more upmarket boarding house a mile or two closer to the club. He seemed to be pleased for me and kept imploring me to make sure I continued to work hard and keep ‘my nose clean’.
‘You can do it, bro. Make us all proud of you,’ he would say.
That was all I ever wanted to do: to make him and my parents and other siblings proud of me. I was determined to do so one day and repay their faith in me.
Time went by as ‘management’ and I grew into the job. There weren’t really that many problems on a day-to-day basis and I found the work interesting and varied rather than truly challenging.
I got to know all the club employees naturally, and most of the regular customers too. They were, in the main, gentlemen who worked in the business and industry sectors in downtown Jakarta. They were not a young crowd and tended to edge towards early middle age in years rather than anything else. This meant that there was rarely ever any trouble in the club, because the clientele came looking to relax and unwind at the end of a days’ work rather than in search of a punch-up.
I also got to know the girls in the karaoke sector fairly well and began to understand them better. They told me similar stories to the one Devi had told me; namely that they were poor girls from the villages who came to the city looking for work and for one reason or another ended up working here. Some of them were quite open in admitting they slept with the customers if they liked them and if they felt there was a good chance of getting a decent pay-off from them, while others adamantly refused to ever go with a man no matter how much money he had or offered them.
They were almost all without exception nice girls, though, and I came to like
