Every time we performed, we had to rent a set of Tagonian musical instruments from Pak Djohari, a man from Kosambi. I thought it would be much better if our youth group had our own set.
I reached out to the youth of Karees, and they enthusiastically agreed to contribute. In a short time, we managed to collect a substantial amount of money. I estimated that it would be more than enough to purchase a brand-new set of Tagonian instruments. Since I didn't know where to buy them, I entrusted the money to Pak Sholeh, our Quran teacher, asking him to make the purchase for us.
A month passed, but the instruments were nowhere to be seen. Two months went by, then three, and still, nothing arrived.
The neighborhood kids began to question the whereabouts of the instruments. I told them honestly that the money had been handed over to Pak Sholeh.
Curiously, around that same time, Pak Sholeh's wife—who made her living selling lotek (vegetable salad with peanut sauce)—suddenly started wearing a gleaming set of gold jewelry. She wore a new necklace, bracelets, and rings.
We couldn't help but suspect that our money had been used to buy those pieces of gold.
Eventually, we agreed that we had to get the money back. But the question was, how?
We decided to stage a drama. We would fake a street fight.
On the designated day, as I was walking home from the mosque, Dedi Ochol suddenly struck me hard. It was supposed to be a fake punch, but it actually hurt. Stung by the pain, I retaliated by hitting Dedi back as hard as I could. What started as a staged performance instantly turned into a real, brutal fistfight. Before I knew it, Dedi Ochol and Udin Bako were ganging up on me.
The neighborhood girls began to scream in terror. Hearing the commotion, Pak Sholeh came rushing out in a panic. He threw his body into the fray, using himself as a shield to protect me. Seeing the teacher intervene, Dedi Ochol and Udin Bako finally backed away.
"What happened, Ujang?" Pak Sholeh asked, breathless.
"They were demanding the money for the Tagonian instruments, Pak," I replied, catching my breath. "I told them the money was safe with you, but they refused to believe me. I insisted, they insisted, and it turned into a fight."
The very next day, the money miraculously appeared. And just like that, Pak Sholeh's wife stopped wearing her gold jewelry.
Looking back, I realize how foolish I was. I didn't have the sense to just ask Pak Djohari where he bought his Tagonian instruments. Instead, out of sheer frustration, I simply returned the collected money to the neighborhood kids. This move deeply disappointed everyone.
As days passed, the thick cloud of disappointment hung over our group. Ultimately, I decided to leave the At-Tawakal assembly and move back to the Al-Fatwa group for my religious studies.
I invited the others to come with me, but most refused to move. The only ones willing to join me were Dedi Ochol and Udin Bako.
When the day came for us to move, we discovered that the Quran teacher at Al-Fatwa, Pak Solihin, was not there. He had traveled back to his hometown in Garut.
Left with nothing to do, we ended up just fooling around, playing a traditional game called Melak Cau (planting bananas).
While we were playing, Pak Sholeh suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
"So, this is all you do now?!" he barked at us.
We were all startled.
"Go on, get back to At-Tawakal and study!" he ordered as he turned around and walked away.
Defeated, we followed him back.
Even though we returned, our deep-seated disappointment never truly faded. The religious study group could no longer sustain itself. Eventually, it naturally fell apart and disbanded on its own.
2. The Love Story of the Beautiful Girl, Aryati
One day, Anes came looking for me. His full name was Cornelis. He was a highly feared figure on the streets because of his sheer ruthlessness. Physically, he and I were of the same stature—a matching twelve-to-twelve build. However, what struck terror into everyone's hearts was his bizarre hunting habit: while normal people hunted chickens, Anes hunted stray dogs and cats to roast. While eating dog meat was considered common among the Batak people, Anes claimed that roasted cat meat was a delicacy. According to him, it had a distinct, refreshing sour tang to it.
To make matters more terrifying, he fashioned a necklace out of a cat's skull. That macabre trophy was enough to make anyone break into a cold sweat.
Naturally, I felt a wave of anxiety when he sought me out. I racked my brain, desperately searching my memory for any mistake I might have made against him, but I couldn't think of any.
When we finally met, he didn't even shake my hand. He straight up said, "Ujang, I owe you an apology. I was messing around with a schoolgirl the other day, but she claimed to be your girlfriend."
He was undoubtedly talking about Aryati, the girl with the striking, beautiful round eyes.
"Oh, I see, Nes!" I responded. "That must be Aryati. She is indeed my girlfriend. We've been together for three years."
"Yeah, anyway, I apologize. It won't happen again," Anes said flatly.
"Apology accepted, Nes!"
I couldn't help but feel a surge of pride. The person who had backed down wasn't just any ordinary guy—it was Cornelis, alias Anes Jeger, a notorious figure from the Perlon Gang (Perempuan Loba Diheureuyan / Perempuan Loba Di-goa / Vagina Predator Group), the very gang that the youth of Karees had allied themselves with. In truth, the dark influence of alcohol and drugs in our neighborhood stemmed directly from the Perlon Gang.
[PERBAIKAN DRAF BAHASA INGGRIS: KISAH ARYATI & PUTRI SOLO]
(Catatan: Istilah "Sim Kuring" diubah menjadi "I" atau "The writer" agar sesuai dengan kaidah penulisan novel bahasa Inggris, dan metafora "Black Stallion/Kuda Hitam" diperjelas sebagai julukan romantis).
After that encounter, I returned to the exit gate. Singgih was still standing there, completely dumbfounded. Finally, he broke the silence.
"I have to admit, Ujang... you're good!" he said, lightly patting my stomach.
From that moment on, a fierce determination burned within me to conquer the heart of Aryati—the girl I affectionately nicknamed the "Black Stallion," my elusive, secluded crush. Before my weekly Saturday night visits, I always made sure to take the time to see her. Until one fateful Saturday night, when something entirely unexpected happened.
That evening, after stopping by to see my "Black Stallion," I was quietly drinking a cup of water inside the house when a voice called out from the darkness outside: "Assalamu'alaikum." I stepped out and froze in shock. It was Dedi, a young man I knew well. But what shocked me even more was the person standing right next to him—it was my "Black Stallion," Yeti Aryati. As it turned out, Yeti was Dedi's younger sister. It suddenly made perfect sense why the two of them shared the exact same dark complexion.
Dedi asked for Yeti, and I numbly replied that she was inside. Sensing the awkward tension, or perhaps intimidated by my presence, Dedi quickly said his goodbyes and left. That single, jarring incident completely shattered my courage to visit her again. Perhaps this was the textbook definition of a relationship that was broken before it even had a chance to truly connect.
Having failed to win the heart of one girl, I found myself wandering aimlessly, looking around until my gaze finally landed on a new target: a girl from Sapuran B named Atit Wibawati, whom we all called "Puteri Solo" (The Princess of Solo). Puteri Solo was tall and slender, bordering on skinny, with smooth white skin and beautiful wavy hair. What captivated me the most was her elegant, slender frame—she looked exactly like Twiggy, the world's top supermodel at the time.
However, the moment I wanted to take action, I found myself constrained by a massive cultural barrier. She was a refined, traditional Javanese girl, whereas I was a raw Asgar (Asli Garut) boy.
Desperate for a breakthrough, I came up with an idea. I approached a cute, dark-skinned girl named Iyam, who lived just three houses away from Puteri Solo. When the right time came, I visited Iyam's house. To my surprise, she refused to step outside to see me. Half-startled and half-disbelieving, I called out to her, "Iyam, come out here! I need to talk to you."
She reluctantly approached me, but before I could even utter a word, she cut me off sharply. "To be honest, Iyam doesn't want anything to do with you, Kang Ujang. You're a total playboy! First, you went after Nyai, then you moved on to Ikah, and now you're coming after Iyam!"
I was completely blindsided. Since when did I become a certified playboy? What shocked me even more was how she knew about the other girls. I demanded an answer, "How on earth do you know about Ikah, Nyai, and Yeti?"
"Word gets around!" she snapped.
It suddenly clicked in my mind. This had to be the doing of Aji Hideung. He had a massive crush on Iyam, and out of sheer jealousy because I had visited her, he must have poisoned her mind with those rumors. That was the most logical explanation.
As for Ikah, it was true that every time we crossed paths, she would steal glances at me with a shy, beaming smile. But that was only because Dadang—the boyfriend of Ana's older sister—had once jokingly delivered a message to her, saying, "Ikah, I have a greeting for you from Kang Ujang." I never understood what Dadang meant by that, but it certainly couldn't be classified as dating. My pursuit of Si Nyai had already been canceled, and as for Yeti, well, that ship had sailed. Ultimately, I decided not to push my luck with Iyam any further.
Now, the real challenge was figuring out how to approach Puteri Solo. Giving up was out of the question; the fiery spirit of the Revolution had embedded itself deep within my soul: "Never Retreat, Ever Onward! Forward, never back down!"
That night, inspiration struck. I sat down and penned a poem dedicated entirely to Puteri Solo. It was an acrostic poem—from the first line to the last, if you read only the very first letter of each line from top to bottom, it spelled out her full name: A-T-I-T W-I-B-A-W-A-T-I.
Out of the entire poem, I can only recall one specific line today: "Tell me a story, brief yet immortal..."
I handed the poem to her younger sister, Tita, to be delivered.
The moment I had been anxiously waiting for finally arrived. Dying to know her reaction to my poetic confession, I plucked up the courage to visit her house. Fortunately, she was home. She welcomed me warmly, and we began to chat. The ease of our conversation brought a wave of relief to my racing heart.
However, one thing deeply baffled me. Throughout our entire conversation, she acted completely normal. There wasn't a single hint, a blush, or a reaction to suggest that she had received or read my poem.
Right in the middle of our chat, Tita suddenly popped her head into the room and blurted out, "Kang Ujang, your poem was shredded into pieces by Mba Atit!"
"Tita!" Atit snapped, her face flushing.
That was it. That single sentence was enough to tear my heart to shreds. Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I promptly took my leave.
Months rolled by, and we didn't see each other until about six months later at an official youth community (Karang Taruna) meeting for RW 04. As usual, I arrived right on time. As the venue filled up, she finally walked in, accompanied by Iyam. She looked breathtakingly beautiful, and for a fleeting second, she glanced in my direction. My heart skipped a beat, and my confidence instantly plummeted.
She leaned over and whispered something to Iyam, but her voice carried across the quiet room. "Look, there's a schoolboy... there's a schoolboy."
I frowned, completely confused. What did she mean? Who was she talking about? Everyone in the room was technically of school age. To clear my confusion, I nudged the guy sitting next to me and whispered, "What did Atit mean by 'schoolboy'? Who is she talking about?"
The guy looked at me and replied, "She's talking about you, Kang Ujang. Look at what you're wearing. You're wearing your school uniform."
Blood rushed to my face. I felt my cheeks turn bright red before draining into a deathly pale. Wearing a high school uniform to a formal community event was incredibly embarrassing and highly unusual.
But I hadn't worn it without reason. My school uniform was literally the only decent piece of clothing I owned. The only other pair of trousers I had in my wardrobe belonged to my father—an old, shrunken pair with frayed, punctured knees where the fabric had torn.
Despite the humiliation, a small part of me felt a twisted sense of gratitude for the uniform; after all, if I hadn't worn it, I might have had to attend the event in my father's tattered, shrunken pants.
And that bittersweet, embarrassing moment marked my very last encounter with the Princess of Solo.
(To be continued...)