Hear My Train a Comin'

There’s an agonizing 45-seconds of something that sounds like Jimi fed through a steel drum, opening riffs setting up a “YEAH” and a…. “yeah..” before steering away from something that sounds suspiciously like Voodoo Child… I

t’s 910 and I’m hard right & immediately left by the kali lima and roadside tire surgeon, accelerating past the 3-in-1 suckers biding their time behind smoked glass.

Well, I wait around the train station / Waitin' for that train / Waitin' for the train, yeah / Take me home, yeah /From this lonesome place
Drop a gear and throttle seamlessly left onto an empty six-lane strip, ignoring the pack of cops’ spidery mirrored eyes, aware the DOT half-helm, Hendrix on the ear-buds and speed are all very haram: bite me, boys. Accelerating hard into the rise above the grungy Blora strip, past Sudirman Station, and now we’re four, running hard in formation, gatecrashing the Landmark Tower bottleneck.

Dig / The tears burnin' / Tears burnin' me / Tears burnin' me / Way down… in my heart

Scooter girl’s lime green jilbab is streaming beneath her Hello Pussycat dome as she forces the wedge between the Metro Mini idling across two lanes and the army green TLC who’s hard against it’s bumper, and we compress to follow her, one-two-three-four, zip-zip-zip-zip… swarm theory in action.

Well, you know it's too bad, little girl / it's too bad / Too bad we have to part (have to part)

The posse splinters as the KTM climbs into 3^rd and 4^th. A middle-aged moto bekek wingman pulls into my blindside in busted flip-flops and GoJek green as we hit the dangerous patch of busted cement and gravel by Plaza Marein where a Kopaja shark’s magic hand signals the rusted green beast is gonna take us out and I run outta room and testicular fortitude trying to break right and watch the GoJek force the bus to a shuddering stall & sail on through to the other side. Dahm…boy can ride; must be something about the whole ‘surrender’ thing…

Dig / Gonna leave this town, yeah / Gonna leave this town / Gonna make a whole lotta money

Past the stalled bus, the road opens and I click up fast through the gears, 0-60 in three seconds “…hear my train a’comin/ hear my train a’comin” carving sweet lines through the puttering 125s and aging Road Kings. Wismet and WTC coming up fast on the left, an ugly, angry 100m strip where bankers inch into the parking lot, Beemers inch-out into bike & bus traffic and try to break right to enter the fast lane.

Gonna be big, yeah / Gonna be big, yeah / I'm gonna buy this town / I'm gonna buy this town /An' put it all in my shoe

A cherry red CBR250 whistles past on the right, the rider’s palms are hard on the bars to keep ‘er steady as the front end catches and wobbles, caught in a nasty seam in the road; “Get yer eyes up, man,” I’m thinking, as he locks up the rear and starts to slide. “Look where ya wanna go or you’ll end up smeared on the back of that cube truck”.

Counter-steer into a fast left up the hill behind the Sampoerna tower mosque just as twin Sukhoi, wing-to-wing, split the sky above, working out the kinks ahead of tujubelasan, Independence Day fly-over next Monday. Past warung city a side-street falls away beneath a neighboring tower into a dimly lit corrugated cement parkade choked with lines of parked bikes. The KTM finds her berth in a far corner; she’s lean & ticking, shaking off the heat as I pull off the dome & shades and head for the elevators.

Might even give a piece to you / That's what I'm gonna do / what I'm gonna do / what I'm gonna do