set in Bandung, Indonesia
“Follow me. Keep up. This isn’t a walking contest. You can’t run anymore?”
“Bisa,” Father says, but he is pushing himself. He is only running because he wants to look good in front of Ipin. His actual calves feel like they are burning off of his legs. He is heaving more than breathing. He remembers how they made fun of him in his childhood days for his inability to cut the rice properly with his father’s sickle, and it gives him the energy to run forward.
“Bisa, bisa begitu,” Ipin says, jogging in place on the red granite of the track. He’s wearing a black cap, along with a black jogging suit. The suit is dark and covers most of Ipin’s sandy-coloured skin, just as the cap covers the thinning parts of his scalp. Ipin has a lanky and tall build, just like Father when he was a teen, but now he has a significant belly and fat on his legs. Ipin has the excuse of being a mechanic by trade who works every day at a garage, but still, if one takes a look at him, one would think he is nearing forty, not seventy.
Father can improve. He was fit growing up, and he can be fit now if he makes the effort. He looks at the blossoming banana flowers in the park and then at the skyline. There are short water jasmines and Fukien trees all across the green of the walkway. People a quarter of Father’s age are jogging rapidly past him. They embody youth in their dress choice, body language, and speed. They have probably run loops around him in the time that Father has completed one. He smells the frangipani blooms around them and thinks of the future. This is Bandung, the Paris of Java, one of the great cities of modern Indonesia. He sees the young gossiping while holding bubble tea in their hands while he takes Mother out shopping on Jalan Brava. He notices the youngsters reading books in foreign languages when he takes the DAMRI. Dago, where they live, is full of nightlife. From the noise that doesn’t stop until three or four o’clock in the morning, he knows that these clubs and pubs are thriving.
He is getting old, but he is part of a vibrant city with a bright future. If they can keep going and trying, why can’t he? He’s not aiming to dance until the sun comes up or learn a new skill. He just has to jog three rounds in the park and keep up with Ipin.
To keep his mind focused on the goal in mind, rather than on the aching of his body, Father decides to engage Ipin in small talk.
“Maria baik?”
“Iya,” Ipin responds. “Pratiwi bagaimana?”
“Baik, baik,” Father says. It doesn’t distract him as much as he’d like. His calves are really burning. He talks to himself as if he were still a doctor talking to a patient. He reminds himself that this sort of pain is normal. People who are out of shape need time to get back into these habits. He will feel some pain, but then he will rest. Tomorrow, most likely the pain will be excruciating and it will take some time to recover, but in some days he will be ready to jog again. He’s unlikely to injure himself in any serious way. He ought to at least be able to run with Ipin for twenty minutes. He can’t be that out of shape.
He tries to think of another small talk question to ask.
“When was the last time you went back home?”
“Towards Garut? Years ago.”
“Years ago? But why?”
“My mother is dead. My father is dead. My brothers are in other cities in Indonesia. Why would I go back?”
“That is true,” Father said.
“Will you go back home now that your mother is gone?”
“Towards Garut?” Father takes the time to think on it, but in reality the answer comes to his head almost immediately. “No.”
And he doesn’t give a reason. This is actually because as he is about to speak, he feels a web of mucus in the back of his throat. He spits it into a bush, next to a bench where two teens are sitting. The two give him an annoyed glare which Father cannot understand, given how much people here spit or throw things all over the place anyway.
“Are you okay?” Ipin asks.
“Iya,” Father says, mostly because he doesn’t want to be teased by Ipin again. He was happy that he completed one round around the track, but halfway through his second, it feels like his legs are going to cramp. And if someone is going to tease him, it is going to be Ipin. Not that he ever had that habit when they were little boys. Quite the opposite. Ipin was one of the few who never made fun of him, partly because they were close back then, two like-minded boys who, despite being from different families, stuck together over a shared dream of leaving the village behind and pursuing a better quality of life in the city. It changed once they both moved to Bandung, but inhabited different worlds inside of it. Father was a hospital doctor and Ipin was a mechanic, and while they met once in a while because their wives ended up becoming best friends, they barely talked otherwise. There was very little trust between them anymore, nor the truth they had earned for each other during their formative years.
But they are still friends because they have known each other for so long, and they still live in the same city. Now that Father is retired, he has time for Ipin, and Ipin is happy to take advantage of it.
“We’re almost about to finish the second lap,” Ipin says. “You promised me at least three.”
“I know,” Father says. He puts on a smile, but the exhale he has to heave interrupts it. He wonders how much longer he can keep up this charade of being fit.
It ends up being not for very long. The moment Father finishes the second lap, his right leg jolts into a spasm. It’s as if the calf muscle has just snapped off the bone of his leg. It is excruciating. Father has to crouch to try to stop the pain, but the pain isn’t stopping, and his face is twitching.
Ipin rushes towards him, shouting all sorts of questions, but Father puts his hand up. He doesn’t want Ipin to know the pain he is in. It will embarrass him. Plus, Father is a doctor. He knows what he is doing. He can treat himself as he would any of his patients. Father crouches fully into a standing version of the fetal position and tries to hold his muscle in place. He hopes that the cramp will subside, but he feels his muscle convulsing in his fingers.
In the meantime, Ipin watches him with a pained look on his face.
“It is okay,” Father says, not wanting to indulge in any of Ipin’s sympathy. “Aku baik. You can keep jogging.”
“Bisa lari?”
“Bisa.”
Ipin leaves, though Father gets the sense that he is doing so to give Father his privacy. He probably should have taken his help, but how could he have helped? It’s a muscle spasm. It has to go by itself. As Ipin retreats farther and farther, lost behind the thick green vines of the nearby trees, Father lets his facade disappear and allows his thoughts to intrude. Why did he agree to go on a jog with Ipin? Whenever they had met previously, they would just go for a walk and catch up. Father knew Ipin took his fitness seriously, while Father next to never did. He always just had too much work in the hospital to care about the state of his body. And he liked all those fried snacks they served at the canteen. He had had no issue letting himself go. It didn’t confront him while he was working because he had his duties, but in his retired life, because he was mostly on his couch or eating heavy meals with his wife, he was gaining even more weight. He was seeing his own stomach bulge outwards as he sat on the toilet or when he lay down on the bed. His double chin was growing to the extent that it was visible in any picture he took with his wife. His elbows and wrists were starting to look bulbous, in a way that he would be cautious about if he were to see it in any one of his patients.
Knowing all this, why did he decide to go on a jog, of all things, with his friend? He wasn’t even thinking about his fitness when he said yes. He just wanted to enjoy some time together with an old friend. Now, he is humiliating himself in front of someone he has known for most of his life.
He doesn’t like it one bit.
The cramp isn’t the end of the world, he reminds himself. A cramp happens whenever someone isn’t used to a new strenuous style of exercise. And jogging isn’t something Father does. That is why it is hard. If he did this once a week with Ipin, he would improve. It is a matter of endurance, which can be trained.
Ipin finishes his lap and approaches Father. He asks, “Is it better now?”
Father tries to stand straight and smile despite his leg feeling sore. It doesn’t fully straighten, and he limps as he comes to Ipin’s side. “Yeah, I’m better now.”
Ipin can tell Father is lying. He says, “If you took care of your health better, this wouldn’t happen.” Father doesn’t like this comment, but Ipin continues with with no care for the glare on Father’s face. “You are so fat now. Fat, really. When you were a teenager, you were so skinny. What happened?”
“Because I had work to do,” Father says, wanting to remind Ipin that he was at the hospital sometimes twenty hours in a day, with barely any time to sleep, let alone eat.
“And I didn’t have work to do?” Ipin asks. That is true, Father thinks. Ipin was also working hard, trying to lift his family out of poverty and towards the middle class. Admittedly, his work allowed him to remain in shape, but Father doesn’t want to point that out. He genuinely appreciates Ipin and his struggles, particularly knowing that he raised several children on a much smaller salary than Father’s, putting them into school and now helping them to raise and feed his grandchildren.
Ipin takes out his phone and shares a number with Father.
“This is a guy from my apartment building. He is a physical trainer. He can help you get stronger.”
Ipin makes a weight lifting gesture with his biceps.
“Terima kasih,” Father says, but mostly as a formality. Though he is still pretending to smile, he is annoyed with his friend. Father can barely walk straight, and his friend is already pushing a trainer onto him? It seems rude and out of place.
Ipin must see that Father is annoyed, because he asks Father, “Can I do another round?”
“Pasti,” Father says. He finds himself a seat on the bench those teens were using. He watches Ipin make his circles. Out of curiosity, he looks up the name that Ipin has given him. He is shocked to see that this bodybuilder has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. The videos he puts up of himself are short, but both entertaining and informative.
Father’s belly expands as he sits. It is so big that it’s almost halfway to his knees. He has been sitting for a few minutes, but he still finds himself gasping for breath. It wouldn’t hurt to get in shape, Father reasons. He is retired, and he is a little tired of spending most of his free time with his wife. This would give him something else to do, something productive and useful and good for his health.
Father doesn’t wait for Ipin to finish his exercise. He calls the number he has been given, and enjoys talking to this young man, who is charismatic, kind, and professional in his tone. The young trainer says he is busy for the rest of the month but claims that he will give Father a free consultation. Father likes the idea of anything free and agrees. He ends the phone call, a smile on his face. He can almost smell the frangipani around them now that his breathing has eased. He closes his eyes and imagines himself skinny and muscular, just like this young bodybuilder.