Mustard yellow paint that stuck to concrete walls many years ago is starting to peel off. The state house, or warung, is dominated by a 5-foot-long parlor kitchen. It stands waist-high on four crooked legs and is filled with glowing lumps of charcoal. The pot is made from pieces of a forty-gallon drum that have been hammered straight and then joined together to form a long pan. The state smoke of days gone by clings to the wall like flies to blow up paper.

Fluorescent tubes hanging precariously overhead provide a soft pinch of light. The warung is two rooms; The low-walled dining room also houses the living room kitchen. The second room has more light and a 21-inch television hanging from the ceiling showing an interprovincial soccer game. At the other end of the room, on a dirty wooden table, are a variety of goat parts: ribs, meat, a pair of flaccid penises. It’s too cold for the flies. An old 1938 ex-Dutch green plantation scale is used to weigh the carcasses as they enter. Marble goats’ hooves hang cut and gutted from rusty hooks in the window. Swaying slowly in the wind generated by the rain outside.

In the dining room there are long trestle tables and teak benches. The benches have sat literally thousands of dinners. Polished over the years by drifters sliding in and out, the solid teak has a mirror-clean finish out of place in these surroundings. The tables are marked by a generation of cigarette burns. The white vinyl surface cracked and peeled, showing thick, permanent grease stains underneath. The nails that hold the vinyl in place are rusted red.

The floor was also once white, typical ceramic tiles of the type found in homes, bathrooms, toilets, airports, mosques, and offices throughout the archipelago. In the corners there is white, around the tables where the shoes have cracked the surface, gray is the predominant color. Under the Sate Cooker, a brown varnish has become a permanent fixture.

There are windows that separate the dining room from the room where the TV and the goat meat are. The windows are adorned with a variety of stickers: “The Diploma Rally of Kalimantan”, “FHM Magazine”, “Sutra Condoms”, “Global America Lubricants” and the mandatory stickers of cigarette companies. On the wall are a variety of clocks, again with the sponsor logos. Bank clocks, gas company clocks, none synchronized in any way.

Many bars of sate are being cooked; after all it’s dinner time. The men who cook lazily smoke at Marlboro as they circle the grill like vigilant predators. Square fans made of silver rattan are used to fan the embers, with practically the same action that a ping pong player uses a hidden paddle to exchange the ball. The fan is an art, the fan and the doll merge as one. The embers glow red, the reverse current also accelerates the burning of the cigarette. Often long tails of tobacco ash fall on the embers or on the state. Non-cooks stand around the cooking pot in a semicircle with their hands outstretched. It’s cold up here. Women are not allowed in the group near the hot coals. The Sate tray has the same masculine mystique as kiwis and Australian barbecues.

Inside the room The bottles are lined up on shelves that run along the wall in an orderly fashion. Each group in a row. Red Fanta, Green Sprite, Black Coke, Brown Tea Bottle, Yellow Urine Tea Tebs. The rain traps the smoke inside, curling it up to the ceiling and down to the floor, but leaving the space between clear and fragrant with the smell of cooked meat.

One of the boys who watches football has a shoeshine kit. A dirty rag, a brush made from some kind of animal hair / bristles, and a battered can of Kiwi shoe polish. At quiet moments during the game, he crawls under trestle tables examining the customer’s shoes. Finding scratches or scuff marks, clean the shoes for 50 cents. Other street vendors took refuge inside the rain cup of kretek cigarettes in his right hand, offering to sell bamboo scrapers, glass beads, peci hats and prayer mats. Another softly whispers “Boss … boss …” while offering sugared roti from a steaming, handmade plate.

The clientele is a mix of well-dressed Jakarta Elite, swarthy truck drivers, and Arab tourists accompanied by tall, pale Sundanese brides.

The State House is famous for its Sated Goat, or Kambing as it is called. The sate is prepared so that generous chunks of lamp are spaced between the fat droplets on the sate bar. The cooking process caramelizes the fat, making it juicy and succulently sweet. It literally explodes like thick honey on the tongue when the meat is removed from the bamboo skewer.

The man who cuts the meat wears an apron to his waist over a pair of grimy Levis. He casually wipes his hands not on his apron, but on his batik shirt, brushing his mustache from time to time. Knife carefully cutting the goat meat from the goat bone, his eyes never leave the action of the football game screen.

Lightning illuminates the sky behind the peaks, haunting shapes momentarily appear, jagged blue and black in the distant tree line. Thunder rumbles everywhere, endlessly, groaning like a hungry stomach. The rain that has been falling for hours, thickens.

The Coca-Cola merchandising refrigerator burns more electricity than all the other lights and appliances in the place combined. The lighting produced is white and clean. The refrigerator contains the company’s usual products, as well as a mix of traditional Jamu and honey drinks, with a label depicting a sad and apparently disoriented camel eating a date. The Coke Fridge has its own protector, a man smoking an oily clove cigarette from a long carved bone holder. The bone comes from the hind leg of a Javanese Alpine Hare. He hunted, skinned, ate the rabbit, and then carved the support himself. Your job is to make sure satisfied diners choose wisely: Coca-Cola or Jamu, based on the immediate need to quench thirst or health consideration.

The State House does not have dessert on the menu. The sticks and sticks (and sticks) of sate that are consumed normally satisfy the stomach of most of the guests. However, for the few who are still hungry, there is a shop next door that sells bananas. Just bananas. Small clusters scattered about 10 cm apart hang from the low ceiling. Like walking through a plantation, bananas sway at eye level. The walls have frame after frame of larger clusters. Even the bare calendar on the back wall has a bunch nailed down, tastefully covering the interesting parts of the model.

After dessert it is time to leave the State House. Behind the red lettering on the rain-splattered glass windows, the hanging goats almost look like wax displays. The always full parking lot awaits those who have finished to set out. There is always another guest as Sate Kambing is served, hot and juicy 24 hours a day.