'He's so talented , don't ya reckon?'
Claire asked through a mouth full of toothpaste, but she knew that Nina agreed. Bob Sick had been a popular topic of conversation over the last few weeks. Claire had confided that his cheeky personality had seduced her, Nina that his naive paintings had intrigued her, and together, they had giggled about running their tongues over his tattooed body.
But it was Claire who had made a move. She and Bob had been chatting casually at the squat where Bob had a painting studio and where Claire sporadically taught English when she mentioned that she hadn't yet seen his exhibition. Bob needed to pick some things up from the gallery, so they jumped on the back of 'Tiger,' Claire's vespa, and drove off together. He showed her the paintings one by one and talked almost cheerfully about the pain that had inspired them. The book of his writings that accompanied the show read . . ."once you appropriate something, it is irretrievably yours and yours truly, so help you God."
Claire wasn't quite sure she understood the 'sickness' that was his namesake. It all seemed a bit like 'coolness' to her, but she had been interested and sympathetic, and either way, she had felt close to him physically if not to 'the rawness of his soul' of which he liked to speak.
'So what now?' asked Nina, combing her hair at the bedroom doorway as Claire tucked herself in. She wasn't jealous, just curious.
'Well its a bit of fun I guess. We're going to Jakarta on Tuesday. He's got another exhibition, and get this, we're gonna stay with his family!'
'Bob has a family ?' Nina laughed, picturing the Sick family: pierced and tattooed standing in front of a white picket fence, staring into the smoggy Jakarta horizon.
After a ten hour train trip punctuated by cigarettes, buskers and the wailing symphony of water sellers, Claire and Bob arrived at the station, took a bus through the slums and traffic jams, and floated into the upper class outskirts of the biggest city in Indonesia.
The last time Claire had visited Jakarta, she hadn't made it to the suburbs. In a post-boyfriend, high-finding frenzy, she had booked into a cheap hotel, put on her sauciest dress, and proceeded to a nightclub. There, she befriended some drug dealers and danced for 36 hours with anyone who could keep up. Inadvertently stepping in to the internal club politics, she had ended up the trophy in an embittered conflict between two warring factions. One group so charged on the dirty ecstasy they sold that they had become collectively obsessed with Claire's long brown hair, taking turns stroking it like a gang of four-year olds with a Shetland pony. The other group, whose merchandise was more along the lines of cheap amphetamines, had taken an aggressive fancy to her dancing style and encircled her yelling 'yeah Claire! Yeah Claire!' throwing their bodies around in an effort to keep up with the gyrations of her long limbs. It's not often that a woman takes herself out on the town in Indonesia, especially a woman as tall and stunning as Claire. Despite their best efforts to be hip, global ravers, the boys couldn't help expressing their excitement.
Overwhelmed by the attention, Claire eventually excused herself and quietly escaped by the back door in search of a darker spot where she could reclaim her anonymity. After three more clubs of varying success, Claire found herself back in her hotel room half-conscious and half-naked with a cute boy called Ruli. After awhile she reluctantly became conscious of a loud banging at her door and a collection of vaguely familiar voices demanding she come back out and play, or more accurately, be played with. Since Ruli was moderately attractive, she almost convinced herself that she was imagining the noise and opted for continued one-on-one fondling. But soon, the commotion had most definitely killed the mood, and Claire realised she had no choice but to face the fans. Wondering how these obsessive hooligans had found where she was staying, and who in the name of Allah had let them up to her room, she untangled herself from Ruli's embrace and went to the door.
Ruli went to take a cold shower. Discovering a man crouching behind the bathroom door looking through the keyhole, he screamed just as the drug dealers came tumbling in at Claire's feet. The man, the hotel manager, had been so outraged (aroused) by Claire bringing a man back to the hotel, that he had taken it upon himself to enter the bathroom via a manhole in the roof and 'monitor' their less-than-halal activities. After two hours of watching clumsy kissing, he realised it was going to be a long night and went downstairs to close the hotel and get refreshments. In the lobby, he had found the speed gang arguing with the ecstasy gang over whether Claire's room number was 402 or 204. For a small bribe, he showed them to the room, which was actually 420 and settled down again at his peephole.
Claire looked around at the confused faces, and in a rare moment of come-down clarity, she decided to pack her bags and get the next train back home to Yogya. She considered giving Ruli her email address but instinct told her that this adventure was best left unfinished and she opted for a quick kiss on the cheek. Brushing aside the groping hands, barging through the wall of bodies, and blocking out the hotel manager's sermon on the evils of sex before marriage, she took a deep breath and left Jakarta.
This trip was different. She hoped that in the suburbs, she would see a marginally more wholesome side of Jakarta. On the train, there had been plenty of time for stories, well, Bob's stories anyway. Claire hadn't really minded being the listener. His life story was a good ten years longer and was a lot more interesting than 'growing up in Port Lincoln' seemed to her.
Bob had been painting since he was a child, when his name was Agus. The walls, the neighbourhood car, his little sister's face, just about anything he could reach got coloured. He got his first tattoo when he was eight years old, a crude figure on his right foot. According to the artist, who was eleven at the time, it was meant to be a Sumatran warrior with a spear, but there was an earth tremor during the procedure and it looked more like a monkey licking its own stomach. At eighteen, Agus realised there was no way he could be reconciled with this insane world and he made a self-diagnosis: 'mentally ill,' changing his name to Bob Sick. He was accepted into art school and the following month married another painter who was also a prostitute. He had been married twice more, fathered four children, been naked on stage sixteen times (that he could remember), had a total of eighty-six tattoos, had put together twelve solo exhibitions, one of which was entitled 'I hate my Mum,' and had been at art school for thirteen years. His mother still loved him.
Bob's family house was huge. There was barbed wire, a complex security system, and no white picket fence. Then again, Jakarta was no Port Lincoln. A servant met them at the front door and led them to the guest room and Bob's mother. She was a short, plump, elegant lady. Her shiny black hair was swept up in a tight bun at the back of her head and her skin felt smooth and soft as she took Claire's hand and introduced herself warmly. She ushered them through the hallway to two adjacent guest rooms, muttering along the way as she tried to smooth down Bob's rowdy dreadlocks. She ordered them both to shower and excused herself to 'overlook dinner preparations.'
Later that night, Claire lay in the strange bed, in the strange house, in the strange capital of this strange country, and thought about how little she really knew about the man in the next room. In his family home, Bob seemed like a different person. He had sat quietly through dinner and let his family discuss the lack of sophistication of the working class. He had laughed at his uncle's sexist jokes. He had respected his elders. He had eaten all his vegetables, and he had almost completely ignored Claire. Despite being a self-proclaimed atheist, he had faced Mecca and prayed three times that day. Still, she was fascinated and in her head, she dismissed her confusion as 'cultural difference.'
There was a soft knock at the door and before Claire had even wrapped a sarong around her naked body, Bob had quietly let himself in.
'Good evening darling.' He locked the door behind himself and gave her a cheeky smile. Within five minutes he was scrounging around in his jeans pockets for a condom. Within ten more, he was already dressing again.
'I can hear someone coming,' whispered Bob.
'Well, it's certainly not me.' Claire complained quietly, listening half-heartedly for the noise. 'I can't hear anyone.'
Bob pulled his T-shirt over his head. 'There's definitely someone awake. Could be mum. I'll see you in the morning ok?'
With that, he was out the door. Claire reached for a cigarette. Jakarta had not been good for climaxes.
A week later, back in Yogya, Claire was relaying the incident over iced tea. Nina was not impressed.
'The sleaze! And we had such high hopes for him. So its all over then?'
'Well, that's the problem. He's apparently really into me. I told him he was no good in bed, well you know, that 'we weren't compatible', 'that I didn't want a relationship', that kind of stuff, but he just doesn't get the picture. He keeps calling me, coming to my house, looking for me in town, says he loves me!'
'Jesus, we've got ourselves a stalker.' Nina shook her head. 'Now you mention it, Jack said he saw 'I love Clare spray painted around the place. I figured it was a different Clare because of the spelling, but that's obsessive!'
A few days later, the situation had not improved. The graffiti and Bob's drug use were both on the rise and so was Claire's desire to avoid her obsessive suitor. Nina was waiting under a tree at the squat. The girls had an appointment at the immigration office. Across the garden, she noticed Bob's colourful figure walking slowly towards her as though he might topple with every step. She saw that he had two new tattoos, a thick stroke down the cleft of his chin and a rather unattractive green rosary on his forehead.
'Where's Claire?' He slurred.
Nina ignored the question. 'Hi Bob, nice tats.'
'Green's Claire's favourite colour y' know.' His entire face looked rather green.
Nina heard Tiger's unmistakable roar and turned to see Claire driving up the path.
'Well, I'll be off then.' She stood up and gathered her things, hoping to avoid a confrontation.
'It's the woman of my dreams!' yelled Bob, running as best he could towards her. 'Claire darling, I've got something to show you.' His voice and eyes shared a frightening urgency.
Claire quickly registered the anxiety in Nina's face. 'Really Bob, how about later. You see, Nina and I . . . well, I'm coming back later.'
She was trying to start her vespa again but it had an annoying habit of stalling when she most wanted to leave. Nina rubbed its headlight affectionately, desperately. 'Nice Tiger, good vespa, lets go .'
Bob had started clumsily unbuttoning his pants. Nina rubbed the headlight harder. Claire had a flashback to Jakarta, winced, and kicked Tiger.
'What the hell are you doing?' asked Nina, but his pants were already at his knees, Jaggedly etched across the space between his left hipbone and the start of his pubic hair, still scabby but clear as day
'C-L-A-R-E.'
'I did it myself,' said Bob softly, tracing the five cursive letters with his finger.' There was a long pause as the girls looked in disbelief.
'Yeah? Well, you probably should have gotten someone to check the spelling,' whispered Nina