Robin
Now I am at the place I really want to be. I’m back to Kangar. The place I belong to. I hate being a bad person, I hate being negative, I hate being a man who keep running, but I like this Asics Gel, the smoothness, it stabilizes me, whether I stand, walk or I run. This place has changed a lot, trees had grown taller, the woods had now changed to heavier wood in grey colour and every ‘padang’ had lost the golden colour. I don’t know if the colour was erased or eradicated or changed to another colour. But nevertheless, so far everything is still the same; I’m still with my Asics Gel.
“Fakri, where have u been!”
Ah, this old chap. I walk away like I heard nothing. It is not that I hate him; I just don’t like people concern about me. If he is she, I’ll stop and I’ll make sure she remembers me, though every person in Kampung Sungai Batu Pahat knows me very well. I’m likely to be awarded ‘the-most-notorious-good-looking-hardworking-lazy-bachelor’ by the village’s chief but because of some small sins I committed, I didn’t get that award.
Born athletic, tall and fair, with Siamese blood in me, that’s the good-looking of me. When every mouth keep chanting my name with ‘teh tarik’ at the right hand at stalls near the riverbank, that’s how notorious I’m. Ima, the most beautiful girl in Sungai Batu Pahat; I like her and I keep flirting and toying with her, that’s the hardworking side of me. I’m an unemployed male, I guess that already explain the laziness of me but I pretty sure that I’m not a bachelor. I was ‘married’ to this girl but I think the pretty face of me made me a bachelor.
I’m reaching this place, my whole gangs are there. We are planning to do something that can help us recuperate our dignity of being a moneyless person. We want to help others, we don’t want to burden our family, and we want to develop a new lifestyle, lifestyle of the rich and famous.
“Mr. Robin Hood, what are we going to do today?” said Lela.
“MaharajaLela, we are going to do Chief today.”
Lela, one of my man, funny thing his parents named him Khairul Lela. The funniest guy ever with rubbish name, he talks a lot, he does nothing. I guess he never knows that action speaks louder than words. Other guys already know what I’ve planned today, and the sweet-talker I bet he already knew it, he just wanted to make joke and praises me I think.
Then night arrives, the moon now is above our head, so clear we can walk in the darkling plain without any sound made even lots of woods lie on the floor. We are going to the Chief house. Today we are going for big fishes. With grinded Allen-keys in each hand, we are going to take all the Yamahas under chief traditional home.
“Damn this ‘Gua Kelam’.” I say with a smuggled Marlboro cigarette flaming like the Sirius star in the sky. I was once to be an astronaut, but today, I’m just a man who loves staring at the outer-space with the grinded Allen-keys, spanners and cigarettes.
I know that he is not in the house tonight, he’s daughter usually comes back home at dawn, and he’s son never care about the lawn, all he cares about is money he gets from his father.
This is Sungai Batu Pahat, the place where snakes resurrect from the earth core. The lawn, with waist height ‘lalang’ probably a place snakes will resurrect. Luckily one of my crew knows how to tame a snake, so he is the one who leads us to the house, to ensure that all snakes in our path will be rid and taken into the gunny so we can make more money by selling those snakes. I think that’s the only honest money we make, though some of the snakes are endangered species. The chief on the other hand, he’s rich, but no one knows where he got all the moneys. I know it, whilst I was selling a snake to a Siamese at the border; I saw his four wheels drive with loaded oil container at the back. And I even saw him with dozens of packaging things crossing the border. Not a good Chief he is, so I decided to continue my Robin Hood legacy, but tonight is the real Robin Hood thingy.
As we are below his wooden palace, all of us are taking one bike each, there are six of them. As the leader, the ‘taiko’, I am the last to stay, and the one to bring back the biggest fish. Just as I’m going to get away from the lawn to leave the house, a King Cobra appears, and the Chief suddenly comes out from the house. I really don’t understand how he can be in the house, and I really don’t know that he knows how to train a snake to act like a dog.
“You bastard, stay where you are! So you are the one who created all the nuisances!” he looks like a King Kong, and the King Cobra threatens me a lot. Hastily, with the Asics Gel I’m wearing, I run back to my house, I don’t want to get caught. I know I am a troublesome bachelor in the village. I know I’ve troubled my family, but it is Robin Hood things I did. Why Robin is praised by his pilgrim? Why do I get mocked? My family, though I love you guys, I’ll be back sooner or later, and I promise I’ll change. I’ve embarrassed them several times, but I’m still staying at Dad’s house. But tonight is different, I see radio cars coming, I kiss my younger sister forehead, she’s still sleeping, and so I hastily run to a place I never been, to the state Dato’ Maharajalela killed the English Man, another Robin Hood thingy in Malaysia history.
