are family
		-----------------------------------------------------------

		parjiyem say it: par-jeem and arif and subardi
		are one family.  they are meester mike's servants.
		i suppose strictly speaking arif isn't but he comes
		with mike's territory.  arif is eight and goes to school
		and comes back at eleven thirty like all the other kids
		on java.

		arif eats rice and plenty of other things many more than
		his friends likely -- his mom cooks and cooks very well
		for meester mike.  subardi is the gardener and pool master
		and man around the house.  many a house in the far east is
		a fenced-in compound: a gate a wall edging in razor wire.

		when you arrive well you arrive on wheels and there goes on
		some honking.  so that your people get up from the shadows
		and open up: slide the gate in: drive the van in: slide
		the gate out: clink.  then there is a kind of festivity
		in a quiet cheery way.  subardi is our people or arif is.

		the look of consternation:  a sign to go with parjiyem's
		perfectly complected face display -- when she catches me
		for the first time for the second for the third fourth at
		the sink doing the dishes.  my own look of discomfort is
		not hers to see no way i just smile -- and that's me --
		but it is there on my face when alone when i realize no
		user-access washing no dishwashing machine available
		here:  keep up the charade of an egalitarian.
		
		my full hypocrisy mirrors in resplendence at the plastic
		gob of my lavish bathroom's small laundry basket.  pitch.

		it wears on me to be the white man in a class-based economy.
		not enough to embargo my clothes.

		by the time i leave with tees immaculately pressed so much
		so one is amazed at my cotton embracing such severe regimen
		by the time parjiyem frets face in full grimace over the
		president taxi not the blue bird taxi: blue much superior!
		broiling me alive already on the grindway to soekarno-hatta
		runways.

		i a "bouli" albinoman streetkid for european meester
		no not meester or it's gonna be meesees parjiyem marek
		on whose behalf a religious rite of moundmaking-icemaking
		keeping replenishing even marquiza passion fruit juice
		mixing was instilled at a household formerly flowing with
		chilled water bintak pilsner and hot tea

		by the time i leave i heave a slightly bittersweet relief
		of going home namely:  a) i get to do my own servanting in
		chicago or at least fall back on blood-relatives in ohio
		b) it will be cold and obtaining seltzer won't be a dream
		and c) streets will actually hold one vehicle per lane one
		vehicle! all going someplace visibly mostly ostensibly
		quickly.

		by the time i leave i leave short of a new friend my new
		underverb'd underenglish'd full of wonder observantly
		javanese mother to one a wife to another a servant to yet
		a third man all the while unobtrusively privately muslim.

		by the time i leave my smiling storyteller of stories such
		as how it was with mees diane of australia who never ate
		vegetable or fruit or ekk or feesh and never left house.

		as endang the architect:  parjiyem is a graceful parjiyem
		is wise they are equal friends both are slender of body
		soft of foot

		leave short of a short friend -- leave rich of another
		humbler place.  to write to.


			Marek Lugowski
			18 December 1995
			Chicago Illinois and Simpruk
				             Jakarta Selatan Indonesia