A Call to Battle
The night felt different as I returned from Jetty 5. My visit to SMK Negeri 1 earlier that day had given me conviction, but the conversation with Rara and Iqbal at the Readers' Circle had given me something more valuable: a communication map. The air in our house, usually heavy with a cold war, now felt like the stillness before a storm. I knew there was no turning back or delaying. I had all my data, my heart was set, and I held a strategy to reach Father's heart.
The opportunity came after Isya prayer. I heard Father's voice in the side workshop—not the sound of a repaired engine, but the sharp hum of a grinder sharpening a drill bit. He was alone.
As I approached the open workshop door, the sharp scent of gasoline mixed with the thick, sweet smell of used oil hit my nose. Father was there, under the flickering neon light. His hunched shadow loomed large on the wall, and the cold from the cement floor seemed to creep through my shoe soles.
The workshop, with its low tin roof, was his domain. But tonight, it felt like the only honest battlefield for our conversation.
With my plastic folder of "weapons" in hand, I stepped forward. My heart pounded, but my feet felt steady. At the workshop's threshold, Mother appeared from the kitchen, as if her sixth sense felt the tension in the air. She looked at me, then at Father, then back at me. No words were spoken, but I knew she'd be a witness, a mediator if this war grew too fierce. She stood at the doorway, leaning against the frame, a silent spectator to my greatest gamble.
Laying the Map on the Engine Table
"Yah," I said, my voice trembling slightly.
Father switched off the grinder. The noise stopped, replaced by a silence a thousand times sharper. He turned, his face flat, still carrying the exhaustion of a day's work.
"What is it?"
I took a deep breath, recalling Iqbal's advice: start with understanding, not demands. "I want to talk for a bit. Not about the past," I said quickly. "I… I just want to say, I know you work so hard for us. I see you come home tired every day, your hands dirty, all to make sure we can eat and go to school. I know you're scared I'll have a hard life like you."
Father's face didn't change, but I saw the tension in his shoulders soften slightly. I seized the moment. Stepping into the workshop, I placed my plastic folder on the workbench cluttered with bolts and wrenches.
"That's why I'm not taking this lightly, Yah," I continued, opening the folder. I handed him the sheets I'd gathered. "This is the job placement data for SMK Negeri 1 graduates. This is the salary data, and this is a story of a successful alumnus."
I paused, meeting Father's eyes. "I know, Yah, this isn't a guarantee," I said, my voice softer but firm. "I've also read that some struggle to find jobs, and not everyone succeeds right away. I know this path has risks too."
"But it's a real path, Yah. A path I want to fight for. A path where I'm ready to fail and try again, because this is my world. Not a path that feels empty, where even starting it makes me feel defeated."
Father glanced at the papers without interest. He grabbed a dirty rag and began wiping grease from his hands. "Those are just papers," he hissed.
Father's Final Fortress
I'd anticipated this, as Rara warned. I had to be ready for his counterattack.
"A real path?" Father scoffed. "That's in Sepinggan! Do you know how much time you'll waste getting there? And if there's traffic, or if the angkot lingers? You'll be exhausted! The fare might cost as much as your current school, but your energy will be drained! A hassle!"
This was his final fortress—his most logical, practical argument, one I'd prepared for.
"I've calculated it, Yah," I said, handing him my cost breakdown. "As for exhaustion, I won't complain. This is what I want. And if we crunch the numbers, the pesantren's entry fees and monthly dues are far higher than these fares. In the long run, this is a smarter investment."
The Breaking of the Dam
Father flung the rag onto the table. His face hardened, and this time, I saw something else in his eyes—not just anger, but a deep wound.
He slammed the rag down again, his red eyes glaring with buried pain.
"You think this is just about money? About school?" his voice trembled, rising like a crashing wave. "This is about my entire life you're trampling with your choice!"
He raised his rough, blackened hands. "Look at these hands, Yid! Look closely! Black, calloused, never clean no matter how hard I scrub with a steel brush! I've worked myself to the bone from dawn to dusk, silenced by suited people who know nothing, just so my son doesn't have to feel the shame of being a 'mechanic' like this!"
"And now you come," he continued, his voice breaking with suppressed sobs. "You shove these papers at me like you know better. You say you want to dive into the same pit where I'm buried alive every day?"
"That name… Muhammad Rasyid…" he pointed at me with a trembling finger. "I gave you that name with prayers and tears, to lift our family's dignity. Not for you to drag it into a workshop and stain it with cheap oil!"
The dam finally broke. This was the heart of it all. His trauma.
My tears welled up, but I held them back. I stepped closer, looking straight into Father's wounded eyes.
"You hate your blackened hands," I said, my voice trembling but firm. "But to me, those black hands… they're the same hands I held crossing the street as a kid. Those hands fed me. I've never been ashamed of them. I'm proud."
I took a breath, gathering my remaining courage. "So when I say today that I want to enter that same world, it's not because I'm belittling you. It's the opposite! It's because I respect that world in a way you might have forgotten how to."
"I don't want to be someone else. I just want to be me. And the real me… finds peace in the smell of oil. Just like you did once," I paused, then unleashed my final ammunition. "…just like you, who was once so skilled at drawing engines."
My mention of his hidden past hit him hard. Father's shoulders slumped. He sank onto a small wooden stool, elbows on his knees, covering his face with his rough hands. He didn't cry, but his whole body trembled, holding back decades of buried turmoil.
A Hard-Won Truce
Mother slowly stepped in. She didn't approach me but went to Father. Her gentle hand stroked his shaking back.
The silence stretched long—five minutes that felt like an hour. Finally, Father lowered his hands. His eyes were red, but his gaze was sharp now, appraising me like a mechanic inspecting an engine.
"Your words are big, your plans look good on paper," he said, his voice hoarse but no longer explosive. "But I don't trust paper. I trust hands."
I held my breath.
"Fine," he continued. "This class-break holiday gives you two months. Before you touch that registration form, you intern here full-time. Every day. Morning to evening. You'll learn to clean carburetors until your hands are pitch black, learn to weld, learn to feel the right bolt. No complaints, no messing around."
He stood, looking me straight in the eye. "I want to see it myself. Is your passion real, or just a spoiled kid's fantasy? If by the end of the holiday I see you have talent and seriousness, we'll talk about that form again. But if you give up halfway…" He didn't need to finish the sentence.
It wasn't a "yes." It was a challenge. A practical test far harder than maintaining school grades. Father didn't give me permission; he gave me a work contract.
But to me, it was an opportunity. A chance to prove myself in his arena, on his terms.
"I accept the challenge, Yah," I replied, my voice steady.
That night, the war in our house ended—not with a warm embrace, but with a work agreement sealed under the tin roof, amid the scent of oil and a hope I'd just fought to claim.
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