We invited our buddy R to stop by our place any time. But he mentioned to Dian how awkward he’d feel explaining to the ‘guards’ at the Jayakarta front gate that his friends lived at Jayakarta and that he’d like to pop by. That really, he’s not a terrorist and really, even though he owns next-to-nothing, that he won’t go snooping around and violate the sacred space of the people with white skin.
I thought for about a second that maybe giving him a note from me would get him ‘in’ — of course it’s crazy, how demeaning. Maybe I’ll write a note and silkscreen it on to T-shirts and give them away to all my Indonesian buddies from the beach.