trigger warning: blood, self-harm

The story always starts with coffee. A humble roasted coffee—using a broad wok, a long wooden spoon, and a wood fire hearth as the stove. Ground with a simple, self-made machine into finer bits, yet not so fine, you can still feel the human touch. My grandpa likes his coffee black and dense, and my grandma always comes through with chunky coffee beans that she always grinds and roasts at home. My grandparents are not baristas, but I always remember the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans, powder, cut wood, and bamboo.

I was only five or six at the time. I just arrived from Ujungpandang, and my parents haven’t got their own place yet. Every morning, I woke up with the whispery sound of adhan and again with the sound of stirred coffee beans roasting in the kitchen. I always find my grandma there, while my grandpa is nowhere to be seen. My grandpa then shows up by the door on daybreak with freshly brewed coffee and a cigarette. And atop his ear is a pencil.

My grandpa was many things. He was a carpenter in the morning, making desks and chairs. At noon, he was a barber and friend of many elderly. He rode his jengki bike into the only Primagama in our small town and opened his wooden shop. He was there until four or after ashr. Sometimes, he cut hair, but most of the time, he always chatted with his fellow elderly. Everybody knows his name and where he usually is. Ask any people in the town market where Pak Mustari is; he is always there.

My grandpa was a tall man. He has an ‘M’ balding pattern on his head like you would see in mostly old gentlemen caricatures—or like, Alfred Pennyworth of The Batman. He is tall and muscular despite his age. It is as if chiseled by mere hard and menial works. Despite his stature, he moves incredibly calmly. He walks with almost no sound. The only sonic presence he left was his rattling jengki chain every time he came home. He smells like black coffee, kretek, and sawdust. He is usually quiet. After four, he usually went to the bengawan near our home, fishing for some. He didn’t sell any of his catch. We almost always ended up having river fish for dinner. He would be back at six or seven, around maghrib, and saw my grandma watching the latest episode of whatever sinetron episode played that evening.

For years, he has stuck to his routine. Even after my parents moved and got their own place. My grandparents’ house is still frozen in time. The only time it changed was when the 2007 great floods hit their home. Along with my childhood photos, swept up into wherever the river went.

I made many big moves in my years. Among the first ones was in 2010, when I decided to attend a high school two provinces away from my house. Up until then, my grandpa always cut my hair. And it is always the same model: kuncung, with a bit of tuft of hair above my forehead and gradually thinner around the back. I hate that model; I always cover it up with peci or something similar. My distaste didn’t stop there.

I was only eleven. I just moved into a new school after almost a month of being in a hospital bed. My tummy—and, moreover, my diet was weird. What would you expect from leaving an eight-year-old kid running around alone among other kids—whose oldest is only 12? After living my Lord of the Flies era, my parents decided to move me into a local Islamic school. Clean slate. New crushes, new people to impress. After around two weeks, I made a name for myself in that school.

My grandpa took up his scissors. It was time to cut my long, curly hair. The school forbids any students to have long hair—teachers deemed it too disrespectful (but the juicy thing is; apparently, it is as disrespectful as having an affair with their fellow teacher?). I was already in an abysmal mood. I saw his hands trembling. He was coughing the whole day. His fingers are stenched with coffee and kretek. One of his index fingers is plastered with hansaplast because he cut himself before while making a birdcage for his neighbor. I sensed something was going wrong, and my mood fell further.

Between sneezes, he laid out his hair-cutting instruments. He unfolds his protective white sheet while I anxiously sit in my chair. He tried to talk to me, but the stinks of the sickness, along with strong coffee, sawdust, and kretek, as his perfume repulsed me. My mood met Lucifer himself down there. I refused to talk to him, and that broke his spirit. He went to work.

He accidentally cut my ear lobe.

I felt something sticky and warm coming out from my right side. I touched it, and I saw red. I cried. I hastily got up and running. I went to our kampung’s little mushala and tried to wash off the blood and disinfect it. I cried while putting my ear under the running water.

I didn’t come home that day. I was angry. Didn’t exactly know why I was angry. All I know is that it hurts. I was weeping on sajadah, failing to understand my feelings that day.

I saw myself sleeping in the backseat of his jengki. I saw myself sleeping under the heat of Ngawi in his wooden shop after school hours. I saw myself playing with plastic dinosaurs while he was making a desk for his neighbor. I saw myself having a comfort that I didn’t find in my close family.

His love was extended, quiet, and contained multitudes. I cried because I didn’t expect he would be the person who would actually bleed me. I didn’t know. I was only eleven.

Ten or so years later. I find myself in and out of the therapist’s office while surviving heartbreak and low-paying jobs. My mom called me, “come home,” she said. I said no. My mom told me a couple of years later he was dead. He has been dead for quite some time. My mom didn’t even shed a single tear while telling me. My dad said her tears were emptied out on the day of his funeral. I was silent. I was numb enough to not even grieve. I had been cutting myself off from time to time. Years later, I remember him while sitting close to my co-workers’ stench of coffee, kretek, and sawdust. I excuse myself to the toilet. I cut my ear, and I wept.