“This is the receipt for two bunches of young jackfruit and two bundles of water spinach for tomorrow’s event, Mr. Neighborhood Head. The total comes to fourteen thousand five hundred rupiah.”
Mr. Amin placed a dull plastic sheet of paper beside two green plastic bags on the wooden table on the porch.
The afternoon wind blew fairly hard, shaking the leaves of the wave-of-love plants in the corner of the porch.
Inside Mr. Ahmad’s house, the ticking of an antique wall clock sounded in a steady rhythm on Wednesday afternoon, exactly at 4:30 p.m. WIB.
Mr. Ahmad leaned his chest against the edge of the table, studying the handwritten figures Bu Eros had written on the receipt through his reading glasses, which had slipped to the tip of his nose.
“Yes, Mr. Amin. Thank you so much for going to the trouble of bringing it here,” said Mr. Ahmad.
His fingers reached into the pocket of his brown batik shirt and pulled out two ten-thousand-rupiah bills.
“Just keep the change for your grandkids’ snacks.”
Mr. Amin accepted the bills, then brushed away the dry dust clinging to the hem of his sarong.
“Oh, thank you so much, Mr. Neighborhood Head. In that case, I’d better head straight back to the food stall. I’m worried Miss Eros is struggling to serve everyone coming home from work by herself.”
Crash!
The sheet-metal gate at the edge of lane three was shoved hard.
Footsteps scrambled across the hard concrete surface of the front yard.
“Mr. Neighborhood Head! Mr. Ahmad! We caught a wanted criminal from the neighborhood red-handed!”
Mr. Amin, who had just been about to lower his left foot from the porch step, suddenly stopped.
His hand gripped the porch’s wooden post tightly.
Mr. Amin straightened his slightly crooked black prayer cap and glanced in surprise toward the gate.
Mr. Ahmad turned sharply as well.
His eyes darted over the rims of his glasses.
Roni came in first, breathing heavily.
His gray T-shirt hung slightly off his right shoulder.
His right hand gripped the back fold of Lukeman’s shirt so tightly that the fabric was pulled taut.
Behind him, Agus strolled along while wiping his sweaty neck, while Husain followed at the back with his arms folded across his chest.
“God forgive me... What’s all this commotion about?” Mr. Ahmad asked.
He did not get up from his rattan chair, but he straightened his chest.
“Roni, who’s that you’re dragging around like a sack of rice?”
Mr. Amin stood frozen beside the porch steps, blinking at Lukeman, who hung his head miserably, his pants soaked from the knees down.
“Whoa... who is this guy, Ron? He’s not from Sukamaju, is he?”
“No, Mr. Amin! No!” Roni rattled off, his voice high-pitched and his breathing still ragged.
Roni shoved Lukeman’s shoulder, forcing the man two steps closer to the edge of the porch.
“This is a rotten thief! A thief who dared to operate in broad daylight on Sukamaju soil!”
Lukeman only grimaced stiffly, his fingers tightly interlocked in front of his stomach. “Please, Mr. Neighborhood Head... Please...”
“No mercy!” Roni snapped immediately, glaring wide-eyed at Lukeman.
His hand rose and waved in the air.
“Mr. Neighborhood Head, we can’t let this guy off! We need to give him a serious social punishment! Make him clean the drains from Neighborhood Unit 01 all the way to Neighborhood Unit 05 for three full months! Or make him stand at the edge of the soccer field wearing a sign that says, ‘I’m a Thief’! That’ll teach him a lesson!”
“Roni, hold your tongue for a minute,” Mr. Ahmad warned.
He slowly raised a hand and pointed toward the long wooden bench on the right side of the porch.
“Don’t take the law into your own hands at my house. Let go of his shirt. You’re practically choking the poor man.”
Roni snorted harshly, but slowly released his grip on Lukeman’s shirt.
“Man, I scraped up my thumb trying to hold on to this cheap shirt of his... and I haven’t even had a chance to drink hot tea since this morning...”
“Sit there, son,” Mr. Ahmad told Lukeman.
Lukeman swept his gaze around uncertainly, then slowly sat on the edge of the wooden bench, keeping his body as far to the edge as possible, as though he were ready to leap away at any moment.
Mr. Ahmad took off his glasses and wiped the lenses with the edge of his batik shirt before putting them back on.
“Explain what happened first. Mr. Amin and I haven’t heard a thing. You suddenly show up shouting and dragging in a stranger. Agus, you tell the story. If Roni tells it, it’ll turn into a radio drama.”
Agus chuckled softly and stepped forward twice until he stood beside the porch post.
“Here’s what happened, Mr. Neighborhood Head, Mr. Amin...” Agus began as he adjusted the knot of his sarong around his waist.
“It was a little after three, before Asr prayer. We were hanging out at Miss Eros’s stall. Roni was counting Mr. Mursid’s public-minibus deposit on the wooden table. He just left the money lying there.”
Roni quickly cut in, “I didn’t leave it lying around, Gus! I was arranging the bills by denomination!”
“Same difference. It was still sitting on the table, Ron,” Agus shot back calmly without looking at him.
“So, while Roni was distracted looking toward the street because an iced cendol vendor happened to pass by, this guy...” Agus pointed at Lukeman with his thumb,
“...walked slowly toward the table, then his hand snatched Roni’s brown wallet.”
Mr. Amin tapped his fingers against the wooden porch post. “Oh... he snatched a wallet at my wife’s stall?”
“Yeah, Mr. Amin,” Agus continued. “Right after snatching the wallet, he took off running toward lane three. Roni shouted, ‘Thief!’ and I reflexively chased after him. This guy ran incredibly fast into Al-Lathif Mosque. He tried to hide in that narrow passage by the ablution area.”
Mr. Ahmad gave a few short nods. “So he was caught in the ablution area?”
“That’s where it gets interesting, Mr. Neighborhood Head,” Agus replied, barely holding back a small laugh.
“When he tried to turn into the ablution passage, he didn’t see Husain standing there with a bucket full of murky water and a faucet-repair tool kit. Bam! This guy slammed into Husain’s chest hard enough to bounce off. He slipped on the wet tiles and went sprawling. Roni’s wallet flew right into the bucket of water Husain was using to rinse things.”
Mr. Ahmad turned toward Husain, who stood calmly near the gate.
“That’s how it happened, Sein?”
Husain nodded slowly without uncrossing his arms.
“That’s right, Mr. Neighborhood Head. This guy ran straight into me. His wallet fell into the bucket.”
Mr. Ahmad rubbed his chin, which was covered in a thin beard.
His eyes shifted back to Husain. “And what condition is the wallet in now? Is all the deposit money still there, or is some of it missing?”
Husain looked at Roni for two seconds.
“All the money is still there, Mr. Neighborhood Head,” Husain answered flatly. “The total is five hundred fifty thousand rupiah. Not a single bill is missing. Roni has the wallet now.”
Roni reached into the pocket of his cargo pants and pulled out a brown leather wallet that was still visibly damp and slightly crumpled.
He held it up toward Mr. Ahmad.
“It’s all there, Mr. Neighborhood Head... but look at my wallet! It’s soaked! And it reeks of mosque rinse water! The bills are all stuck together now. I have to dry them one by one on the roof tiles!”
Mr. Amin let out a long breath and brought both hands together at his waist.
“Thank goodness the money’s all there. But what he did is still wrong. If Husain hadn’t caught him, that five hundred thousand would’ve been gone.”
Lukeman lowered his head even further until his chest touched his knees.
His slightly trembling hands rubbed at the wet hem of his pants.
“I... I’m deeply sorry, Mr. Neighborhood Head, gentlemen... I was desperate. My child in the next neighborhood hasn’t eaten since yesterday afternoon... I’ve been walking around since morning looking for scrap or odd jobs, but I haven’t made a cent...”
“Yeah, right! The classic criminal excuse!” Roni cut in again, folding his arms across his chest.
“Every thief says the same thing when they get caught! If you let him go, he’ll be snatching Mr. Amin’s wallet at the food stall next! We can’t do that, Mr. Neighborhood Head! Sukamaju has to stay safe and orderly!”
Mr. Ahmad raised his left hand, signaling for Roni to be quiet.
Mr. Ahmad looked at Lukeman, weighing the situation.
The porch fell silent for a moment.
The only sounds were the soft rush of the afternoon wind stirring the rambutan leaves in the front yard and the distant honk of a motorcycle passing along the main road.
“Stealing is obviously wrong, and there are legal consequences, son,” Mr. Ahmad said in an even, neutral tone.
“But since the money is still intact, and you didn’t use physical violence against anyone here...”
Mr. Ahmad straightened his back and adjusted his position in the rattan chair.
His hand prepared to tap the wooden table as he delivered his decision.
“So, my decision regarding this matter is—”
Creeeak... Bang!
The iron gate of Mr. Ahmad’s house was suddenly shoved hard from outside, slamming into the gate wall.
Scrape... scrape... scrape...
The sound of expensive leather soles being dragged slightly across the concrete tiles rang sharply through the yard.
Mr. Omar hurried into the neighborhood head’s yard.
His slick face was slightly flushed with afternoon sweat, and his expensive silk batik shirt fluttered gently in the wind.
Behind him, Mamat half-ran while carrying a thick blue plastic folder and a woven bamboo fan, which he kept waving toward the back of Mr. Omar’s neck.
“Mr. Neighborhood Head! Mr. Ahmad!” Mr. Omar shouted, his loud voice slicing through the afternoon air.
Everyone on the porch—Mr. Ahmad, Mr. Amin, Roni, Agus, Husain, and Lukeman—turned toward the gate at once.