The Glass Eater
By Gerson Poyk
Papacili’s restaurant was approached by a fourteen-year-old boy wearing nothing but a pair of shorts.
“Hungry, kid?” Papacili asked.
“Yes, sir, but I don’t have any money.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lumping, sir.”
“What are you doing in a restaurant with no money?” Papacili scolded.
“How long since you last ate?” he inquired.
“Yesterday morning. I had dried rice for breakfast because it’s famine season during the floods. Dancing gigs are scarce. The last job was a rare celebration after a long period of unemployment. After the dried rice, I ate glass. For lunch, more dried rice, and half a ripe papaya. After lunch, I ran away with just the clothes on my back. I sold my shirt for dinner last night, and slept in a shop doorway.”
“Wait, you said you eat glass? Glass bread, like sotomi’s brother?”
“Not bread, sir. Glass shards.”
“Ah, don’t lie.”
“It’s true, sir. I’m a kuda lumping flat horse trance dancer. I got tired of eating glass and peeling coconut husks with my teeth, so I ran away. My boss is probably looking for me. Don’t tell him if he comes here,” Lumping pleaded.
Papacili sighed deeply, and shook his head.
“Your stomach doesn’t bleed from the glass?” he asked.
“No, sir. I chew it into small pieces, and then eat papaya and old coconut. My boss says the old coconut has medicine in it. That’s why I’ve lasted so long, without any pain or dying, but I got sick of it and ran away from my boss and the kuda lumping troupe.”
“What’s your real name?”
“Lumping. My older brother named me, he used to be a kuda lumping trance dancer. Because of the name, I was accepted into the troupe. Since I was twelve, I’ve been traveling from city to city.”
“Have you ever gone to school?”
“I finished elementary school, but couldn’t go on because my father couldn’t afford shoes and the uniform.”
Papacili called his wife. After listening to Lumping’s story, she was moved and spoke to her husband. “He needs food, don’t ask so many questions, or make cruel jokes about people down on their luck,” she warned.
Papacili called the waitress.
“Get him plenty of food,” he instructed.
“For who, sir?” she asked.
“For a young colt!” Papacili’s mischievous smile persisted.
The waitress, accustomed to her boss’s jokes, smiled and walked away.
“Hey, don’t go yet. His name is Kuda Lumping … ha ha ha!” Papacili’s belly shook with laughter. Ignoring his wife’s disapproval, he said, “Now your name is officially Kuda Lumping.”
After eating, Lumping was told to sit for a while. Then Papacili asked, “Kuda Lumping, would you like to work here as a kitchen hand?”
“Sure, sir. Thank you very much. Not only do I get to eat, but I also get a job. Just don’t make me eat glass, dried rice, or peel coconut husks with my teeth,” Lumping asked.
“Deal. But I want a kuda lumping here to ride an iron horse to deliver food boxes to customers. Can you do that?”
Lumping was puzzled, “An iron horse?”
“A bicycle, I mean, ha ha,” Papacili said.
Papacili asked a man who worked for him handling his photocopy business to fetch a bicycle.
“Excuse me, sir. Can I use the toilet?”
“Oh, sure, sure. But don’t dump your stomach contents in the toilet. Take a hoe, run to the vegetable garden in the back, dig a hole, and do your business there. Don’t cover it until I’ve checked if your intestines come out with the glass. If they do, we’ll go to the doctor straight away.”
Papacili went with Lumping out to the vegetable garden behind the restaurant and pointed out the spot where the glass and coconut husks would come out. True enough, after Papacili checked, there was lots of glass and husks. After burying the waste, they went back to the restaurant, and Papacili told Lumping to take a bath, and change into new clothes hastily bought from the clothing store on the other side of the street.
Lumping turned out to be really clever and hard working. Every day, he washed dishes and kitchen utensils until they sparkled. When the restaurant closed at midnight, he mopped the floors and wiped down tables, chairs, cabinets, and everything else. Early in the morning, he watered the vegetables in the garden. When Papacili’s wife cooked, he helped slice onions, wash vegetables, cook rice, and watched Mrs. Cili’s cook. Mrs. Cili was an excellent cook. Her food was delicious.
One day, when Mrs. Cili and her senior waitress were sick, Lumping took over the cooking. However, every time a troupe of monkey circus performers or cross-dressing performers played in front of the restaurant, Lumping was terrified, breaking out in a cold sweat. He hid in the vegetable garden until they had gone. This was discovered when a under-fed monkey circus troupe put on a show in front of Papacili’s restaurant. Because it wasn’t a kuda lumping troupe, Papacili, who loved animals, asked Lumping to take a hand of bananas to the skinny monkeys being oppressed by the humans.
But Lumping was afraid of all traveling troupes of performers. He threw the bananas into the arena and ran back to the restaurant, sweating coldly. From then on, whenever a small monkey circus troupe arrived, he would hide in the vegetable garden behind the restaurant. Papacili let him be.
Papacili’s restaurant grew busier because all the employees, including Lumping, felt the business was their own. Indeed, Papacili had a natural instinct, intelligence, and intuition for the restaurant business. When tourists came to eat, he talked with them in English and refused payment telling them they were his guests. True enough, some time later, those guests sent money from their distant countries. The restaurant’s chili sauce was so famous that it was dubbed Papacili.
Seeing Lumping quickly pick up English from the tourists, Papacili sent him to school. He attended a private middle secondary school, then senior secondary school, and even passed the national exams. But Lumping didn’t want any other job besides working to build up Papacili’s restaurant. Papacili and his wife, Mamacili, were more than his biological parents had been to him. Mamacili adored him. Their adopted son was taught to cook, and his duties grew until he was even managing the cash register.
However, one night, Lumping had an argument with Papacili because his adoptive father had a girlfriend, and wanted to practice take a second wife.
“Papa,” Lumping said.
“What?” Papacili asked.
“Poor Mama. She confides in all the employees, including me,” Lumping said late one night.
Papacili snapped at him, “Go away, and go to bed!”
“How can I go to sleep, Papa, when I’m sad thinking about how much Mama has struggled, starting out from hawking packaged rice meals on foot.”
“But I provided the capital. Not just the capital, but my ideas and energy too. I planted bananas, mustard greens, eggplants, chilies, and everything, washed dishes, cooked, mopped, did the laundry, and swept the yard.”
“Those were beautiful times, Papa, when you and Mama were in working together in harmony, even though money was tight,” Lumping said.
Papacili just stood up and walked away from Lumping.
A few days later, Papacili called Lumping and said, “You used to ride kuda lumping, then you rode an iron horse. Now I would like you to go on a ship!”
“What ship, Papa?” Lumping asked.
“A National Shipping Line ship. A cousin of mine, a Shipping Line ship captain, who eats here, needs someone to work on his ship.”
“As what, Papa?”
“As a cook, a chef.”
So, Lumping boarded a ship—not to eat glass, but to enjoy delicious seafood every day. Out of love for Mamacili, his adoptive mother who was now a co-wive, he often invited her to travel on his ship to soothe her saddness. Every time he received his salary, he sent some of it to his adoptive mother.
A few years later, he transferred to a ship that sailed internationally. After five years of working, he took his parents on a voyage across the ocean. When they arrived in Los Angeles, they dined at a small restaurant. They were shocked to see a sign that read Papachili Restaurant.
“Papa, Mama, I have shares in this restaurant,” Lumping said. “Experts say Indonesians are hard-working but not that smart, undisciplined, and dishonest organizers, and because of that Indonesian cuisine can’t go global. I have proved that not only McDonald’s can go global, but so can Papachili.”
Suddenly, the restaurant manager appeared. “Haaaa, Papachili, Mamachili,” he exclaimed, as they all hugged and kissed. “Forgotten about me? I ate for free in Indonesia, and Papachili told me no need to pay, no need to pay, you’re my guest. Remember?”
Papacili hugged the foreign manager. “Where are the other shops?”
“In other cities around the world. They’ve opened Papachili restaurants, serving Indonesian food with the slogan, ‘You are what you eat.’”
In Lumping’s bedroom, both on land and at sea, a small poster hung:
When I was hungry
Papacili and Mamacili fed me
When I was naked
Papacili and Mamacili clothed me
When I slept in doorways
Papacili and Mamacili gave me a room and a bed
When I was ignorant
Papacili and Mamacili gave me knowledge
So God will grant them paradise.
(Suara Karya, August 4, 2007)
POSTED BY GERSON POYK AT 12:30 PM
The Glass Eater (Kuda Lumping [Flat Horse Trance Dance]) was published in Suara Karya newspaper, Agustus 4, 2007. Retrieved from https://gersonpoyk.blogspot.com/2008/04/kuda-lumping.html. Posted April 26, 2008, personal blog, Gerson Poyk: Poetry Prose Essays and Travel Notes
Featured image credit: From Enter The Strange World Of Men Going Into Horse-Trances And Eating Glass by Hijanah, Nov 22, 2017 https://www.yp.sg/strange-world-men-going-horse-trances-eating-glass/
For background on the kuda lumping trance dance you can try:
Stories From Indonesia 
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