Without Rice Fields, Without a Fixed Salary: How We Survive on the Edge of the Southern Regency

The sun had just slipped behind the overlapping sheets of corrugated zinc roofs on the outskirts of the regency, leaving a dull, stinging orange glare through the gaps of tattered laundry hanging out to dry. The raspy, coughing roar of an old moped’s exhaust signaled Slamet’s arrival. Perched on a motorcycle seat with peeling leather, he carried the exhaustion that had settled deep into every vertebra of his spine. His face was tanned dark by the scorching sun, marked unmistakably by traces of white cement dust that had dried and hardened in the creases of his eyelids, his brows, and the deep lines of his cheeks. Today, he had just finished casting the second-floor concrete slab of a civil servant’s house in the center of the sub-district—a grand building with high fences that stood in stark contrast to the shack to which he returned. Slamet parked his motorcycle on the narrow terrace, a two-by-two meter space that doubled as a living room when neighbors dropped by. Without a word of greeting, he dropped his battered body onto the rickety bamboo bench (lincak) that creaked loudly under his weight. With calloused, stiff toes, he pried off his rubber boots, which were torn on the side—a weakness that allowed sewage water to seep in whenever it rained on his commute. Sumi appeared from behind the curtain of patchwork rags that partitioned the kitchen from the living area. In her hand, she held a glass of warm water in a tarnished zinc cup. As a wife who had shared a dilapidated roof and hunger-gnawed stomachs for over a decade, she knew her husband’s psychological rhythm perfectly upon his return from work. One must never broach the subject of debt, the creeping price of rice, or neighbors begging for funeral donations before that glass of water was finished and the first cigarette was lit between his parched lips. Without looking up, Slamet fished into the pocket of his canvas coveralls, which had stiffened into a rigid shell from dried sweat and cement splatter. He pulled out a few crumpled bills, creased and damp with the heat of his day’s labor. With rough, calloused fingers, he smoothed the tattered notes out on the wooden table, whose surface leaned heavily to one side. "Eighty thousand," he muttered softly, more to himself than to his wife. That amount was the net daily wage for a freelance construction laborer in this peripheral region—a figure that fell far below the provincial minimum wage so often touted by officials in the daily papers. Yet, in the real world where Slamet tethered his life, the law of the market was dictated by how much a foreman was willing to shell out, not by some obscure government regulation. Slamet’s hands, mapped with small cuts and scrapes, then separated the money into two unequal parts. Four ten-thousand-rupiah notes were pulled back and tucked into his right pocket. This was the "mandatory" allocation, non-negotiable: a pack of twelve-filtered clove cigarettes, the price of which rose mercilessly every month, and two liters of loose fuel from a roadside stall to ensure his old bike wouldn’t die on the way to the construction site tomorrow. To some city dwellers, smoking might be seen as a lifestyle choice or a vain extravagance. But to Slamet, a cigarette amidst the scorching heat of mortar mixing was his biological and psychological fuel—the only thing keeping his mind sane. Without that nicotine, his head would pulse with acute migraines, and his hands would tremble when he had to lift a wheelbarrow full of wet concrete across a narrow scaffolding plank. The remaining four notes—forty thousand rupiah—were pushed slowly toward Sumi. "Here," Slamet said, his voice flat, devoid of emotion, as if that sum were a magic number capable of settling every crisis in their household. Sumi stared at the four crumpled bills for a long time. In her mind, a poverty-stricken calculator went into overdrive, computing a math of survival that bordered on the impossible. Half a kilogram of the lowest-quality rice for their daily intake, three small, individually bought eggs for Rian—their child still in elementary school—a bit of kitchen spice, pocket money for the kids so they wouldn't be mocked by their peers, and... good God, the electricity bill that was already two days past its due date. That forty thousand wasn't just a shortage; it was a scathing mockery of fate, forcing a housewife to perform sorcery every time the sun rose. "Kang..." Sumi’s voice trembled softly, barely audible amidst the afternoon breeze, attempting to bargain with a destiny that felt suffocatingly narrow. "The electricity in front will be cut if it’s not paid now. There’s only a handful of rice left in the bin; what will our child eat tomorrow morning?" Slamet lit his cigarette with a cheap plastic lighter. A plume of bluish-white smoke billowed instantly, thick and opaque, momentarily obscuring his view of his wife’s pale, anxiety-ridden face. With a rough motion, he set the lighter down on the table with a sharp, piercing click. "I don't want to know how, Sum! Whether you twist it, or borrow it first from Mbok Nur’s stall, that money has to be enough!" Slamet retorted, his tone suddenly rising, breaking under the accumulation of exhaustion and deep frustration that was, in truth, eroding his own pride as the head of the family. "I’ve broken my back all day until my waist feels like it’s about to snap on that concrete slab! My job is to find the money out there; yours is to manage it in here! Don't ask me how anymore!" Slamet stood with a harsh jolt from the bamboo bench, leaving Sumi frozen in place, staring blankly at the crumpled bills on the cracked wooden table. Outside the terrace, the Maghrib call to prayer echoed from the small prayer rooms in the corners of the alley, sounding shrill like an alarm, signaling that the time for the small folk to conjure miracles had ended, replaced by a long, anxiety-filled night ready to ambush them once more.