Sugeng Kenthongan

My first encounter with Sugeng Kenthongan dated back when I was still in elementary school and we were still living at Jalan Tengiri house near Teluk Penyu. Like a clock work, day after day he would march the streets of Cilacap, including the one in front of our house, singing while playing his bamboo kenthongan. Hence the name.

In the ancient pre-cellphone, pre-telephone, pre-loudspeaker, and pre-e-mail days, kenthongan was largely used as a mean of communication. It is made from hollowed log and hung in front of every neighborhood watchpost. When I was a kid, every house had the hand-held bamboo version. Beat the shit out that thing with a stick and neighbors, alarmed by its rapid thumping, would gather in no time asking, what happened? what happened?.

It was one of those hand-held version that Sugeng beat rhythmically to accompany whatever it was that he was singing, if you could call it that. Children jeered at him and scurried behind him daring each other to walk the closest to him. The boldest went as far as tugging at his shirt. Adults, having grown accustomed to his patrolling the streets, took no heed. But Sugeng marched along unperturbed. Rain or shine. Day and night. Day in day out.

If there was a parade in town, you could bet your last dime that Sugeng would be there. Clad in his rag shirt and shorts he strode along the colorful uniforms of drumband squads, maneuvering deftly among the flagbearers until he was at the front. Up there with the pretty majorettes with their skimpy skirts, white stocking, knee high boots, make-up that were much too heavy for their age, and silver sticks that they effortlessly threw to the air in circular motions. His kenthongan thumping and tin can singing vainly competed with the drumming of drums and blaring trumpets. Yet he walked with some sort of quiet pride, like it was HIS parade and others merely marched behind him.

His origin had become one of the greatest questions of my childhood. I was never concerned about where babies were from. But where was Sugeng from? Whatever happened to him? Where did he live? Did he have parents? Did he ever stop to eat or pee or poop? He always turned up with different clothes every day so I guess he must have had a home. But where? Rumor had it that he went bananas because he was rejected by the army but nobody knew what really happened.

Many, many years later I was running on an errand downtown with Secondborn when I saw him crouching on the sidewalk, his back against the wall of a abandoned building. So he did stop to rest. The questions must have been bugging Secondborn as well because he nudged at me and we walked up to him. Secondborn offered him a cigarette which he accepted gratefully. After the second puff we started asking the questions in native Banyumasan. He never gave satisfactory answer. He told us that he lived ‘just over there’. He never went to any schooling and was very unclear about the whereabouts of his parents.

On our way home Secondborn pointed out that Sugeng was indeed the luckiest bastard in Cilacap. Look at him, he said, he did nothing but sing and march all day, a thing that he apparently loved. He’s well fed and never had to worry about flunking a class, getting a job or getting trampled upon by girls. Classes, jobs and maybe even girls simply did not exist in his world. He lived in a world where he created his own reality. And because people didn’t understand his reality and thus dubbed him a looney, he could do whatever he wanted. No hush, no fuss. People would just shrug and walk away. Very convenient.

The reason I’m writing this is that a couple of weeks ago during my trip home, I saw him again. His thin figure among the traffics. The rhythmic beating of his kenthongan and the rough, high-pitched singing, which was a Banyumasan nursery song now that I listened closely. The casual but proud march. The unconcerned way that he walked. The luckiest bastard in Cilacap.