Jack

Jack was a friend of mine that I didn’t know.


I met him in the hills of Java of Indonesia waiting for a bus to Borobudur.
We were gong to see the headless Buddahs, which is one of the 6th, 9th or 12th Seven Wonders of the World.    
I forget. No one can keep the list straight. 


Jack was tall, blonde and looked like an actor.
He walked back to my seat at the back of the bus and we talked as if we hadn’t seen each other for years.
We hadn’t.


He had gone to the University of Oregon, graduated and moved to a commune to build a boat to sail the Pacific.
They smoked too much weed and never built anything.
I have days like that.   Do you?


Jack lived in Indonesia growing up, where his father was an oil company executive.
He studied Indonesian martial arts and spoke fluent Indonesian.
He had what draws people to them.


We traveled all day on the hot bus, sweating through our clothes until evening.
We shared a lightless road hut waiting for the next bus the following morning.
He told me that the three Indonesian guys we were with were going to rob us.


When he told them in Indonesian that he understood what they doing they slunk off like wet dogs.
I appreciated Jack.    
I didn’t want to be robbed in the black Java jungle.


We drank beer that night until the sun came up.
The nights are shorter at the equator.
I made that up.    The beer was cold and the night humid.


The bus left us off at Borobudur, which was the end of the dirt road.
No hotels, no retaurants, no tourists.    
Just decapitated, silent Buddahs and the smell of burning wood from the jungle. 


Now there are Borobudur hotels, Borobudur resorts and Borobudur 10 best restaurants.
We drank warm beer and ate hard bread from a hut in the trees.
I never want to go back to Borobudur.


I had a Yeshica camera that I bought in Berkeley.
The insides melted in Bali.
Cameras disappoint me.


I visited the village of Trunyan on the eastern shore of Lake Batur in Bali.
In Trunyan Cemetery, the dead are placed above ground, exposed to the elements.
This unique burial tradition involves placing the dead under a large taru menyan tree.


The guide, who was a toothless villager, told me not to take photos under any conditions.
I took photos.   
I find complex instructions difficult to follow.


The inside of my camera looked like melted black rubber.    
It was made of metal.
That was odd.


Jack said it was the Bhutan or buta, which are malevolent spirits considered to bring misfortunes, illness and other negative effects.
I wondered if they sent three thugs to rob me.
I wondered who sent Jack to save my ass.


We spent the day on Borobudur with the headless Buddahs.
Sitting alone.    And together.
Night fell and we rolled out our sleeping bags on the hot stones and slept under the stars with 504 headless Buddhas.


Where did the heads go?
There is one at the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York.
It is still there today.

“Head of Buddha, Indonesian (Java) Central Javanese period,
Borobudur style, 9th century, Andesite”

The Met has no shame in stealing heads.
Neither has the Tropenmusem in Amesterdam, Muse Guimet in Paris or the British Museum in London.
I have shame as if watching a child taken young from its family.


Jack was going to Jakarta.
I was going to Yogyakarta.
We exchanged addresses and promised to meet again.


I never heard from Jack.
He never hear from me.
I lost his address.


Life is like that.