God Bless Cambodia

by Randy Ross

  I lean toward Ned. “What’s a ‘Lady Drink’?”

  Before he can answer, the waitress saunters over and sits on my chair arm.

  “Waz you name?” Her black hair drifts past her shoulders.

  “Randy.”

  “Where you from?” She smells like cinnamon.

  “The US. What’s your name?”

  “Me, Betty.”

  She has slender brown legs. I imagine her rubbing them together to produce a chirping sound.

  “Where you from?” I ask.

  “Phnom Penh.” Everyone at the table is watching us.

  I can’t think of anything else to say, so I dust off my usual pickup line. “Having fun?”

  “Eh?”

  At the table next to us, a waitress is parked on the lap of a Western guy chugging a Beerlao. She takes off his baseball hat and puts it on her head backward. She pokes his ample gut and says something that sounds like “Tohm. Tohm.” She tickles him. He tickles her back. She kisses him on the head and then stands up to go. He yanks her back, and she lands in his lap again. She laughs. “You bad boy.”

  Another guy at the table snaps a photo of them. “The next pint’s on you, mate, or I send this to Phoebe.”

  The lap girl laughs again: “You marry? You very bad boy.”

  I sense Betty perched quietly by my side, waiting. My arm is pressed against her thigh. Chirp, chirp. But I’m not really in the mood. I’m still on hiatus from women.

  Moody introduced me to the dating hiatus five years ago. I was in a dry spell and hadn’t had sex in months.

  “Finding a girlfriend has been too high a priority for you,” Moody said one day. “For the next three months, I want you to give it a rest. Instead of going out, go home, read, find a hobby. No spreadsheet, no dates.”

  Four months later, I was still on hiatus. I liked the discipline, the depravation. It was like dieting, jogging, or saving money. A week later I met Maxie on Match.

  Since then, it’s always been clear when to start dating again: A slender, edgy woman would come in over the gunwale like a flaming game fish.

  Betty gets up and drifts away. I let her go.

  “Another Beerlao?” Ned asks me, winking. “Don’t worry. There’re plenty of others.”

  “Sure, thanks,” I say, both for the beer and the promise of plenty of others. “So what’s a ‘Lady Drink’?”

  “It’s a drink you buy for the girl if you want her to hang around with you. She earns a dollar for each one.”

  Jorani is sipping a red can with a black straw. How many lady drinks has she had in her career? How many has Ned bought her?

  I join Ned and toast with the tohm-tohm guys.

  At midnight, Ned suggests moving to a bar called The Apocalypse for some dancing. “Same owners, same menu, same cheap prices,” he says to me.

  “I’m not really dressed to go out,” I say.

  “Where you staying?”

  “The Bang Su.”

  “Got to love that name. No problem. We’ll visit Su and you can change into something more comfortable—we can wait in the tuk-tuk.”

  Jorani grabs the check and pays. I overhear Betty at another table, “Waz you name?”

  It’s after midnight and the Bang Su lobby is secured by a locked metal gate. I can just see a night watchman snoozing in a hammock draped with a ripped mosquito net. I tap on the gate. The man jumps up to let me in. I tip him a dollar. He gives me a little bow and climbs back into the hammock. As I start toward the darkened stairs, something lumbers around a couch, bolts past the hammock, and settles under a melamine end table. The creature is too large to be a squirrel and too small to be a Rottweiler.

  I crouch for a better look: It’s a half-bald rat.

  I follow the guidebook’s advice for encounters with Cambodian wildlife and look for threatening gestures: teeth gnashing, hair bristling, back arching, foot drumming, growling, ear flattening, tail between the legs, backward earth flinging with hind feet.

  The night watchman snores. The rat remains still, watching me.

  I check for foaming mouth, cowering pups nearby, teardrop tattoos around the eyes. All clear, but the bald spot bothers me.

  I rub my smooth-shaven head and tiptoe to the staircase, giving the rat a wide berth. “Sit, stay. Moon bong,” I whisper.

  The night man doesn’t stir.

  When I return in a collared shirt, Ned says: “You look pretty sharp.”

  “Handsome mans,” Jorani says.

  The two cousins, as usual, say nothing.

  I mention the bald rat.

  Ned says. “Yeah, I heard The Su has all the charm of a kennel. You should move to my hotel, the Tamarind, tomorrow. It’s new, clean, cheap, and near the waterfront where all the action is. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

  Ned’s scalp glistens under a streetlight. His knee socks and Velcro shoes seem whiter. Who is this guy? Is he a pushy scammer or a friendly Midwestern weenie?

  The doorman at The Apocalypse recognizes Jorani and invites us to the front of the line. He runs his walnut-colored hands around my sides, down one leg, and up the other. He gives the head of my penis a little tweak and waves me in. I give him a little wave with my index finger. “You very bad boy,” I say. He winks.

  Once inside, the sound system jolts me like a rifle butt to the chest. The crowd is a seething mix of overmuscled white guys, sullen locals, and stunning Asian women in lacy tank tops and short-shorts. Any minute, I expect people to start fighting or fucking.

  We shuffle through to a corner. The walls are made of large stones, the kind found in medieval prisons. Jorani points to some locals playing pool on the other side of the room. “No go there.”

  Ned shrugs, “There was a stabbing in here a few years ago. But it’s OK now.” I decide not to let Ned out of my sight.

  Jorani slices through the crowd and returns with a twenty-two-ounce beer for me and a James Beam for Ned. Then she and her two silent cousins hit the dance floor.

  Ned’s cell rings. “Hi, Ma,” he yells into the receiver. “He’s coming to fix it tomorrow? . . . Here’s one for you: We met a guy from Boston and we’re showing him the sights . . . Yeah, I’ll tell him the Patriots only win because they’re lucky . . . And the Celtics . . . And the Red Sox . . . And the Bruins. It’s kinda loud in here. I’ll jingle-jingle tomorrow.”

  Ned gives my wrist a squeeze. “I got divorced in 2003. Then a buddy invited me here on a trip. That’s when I met Jorani. Amazing, no?”

  The dance floor is wand after wand after wand; sleek, fast, and tight. Sweaty collarbones, little-boy butts, heart-shaped calves in tiny flip-flops. Nothing sags, droops, or jiggles. If Lenny could see this.

  “Compared to what I’m used to back home,” I say, “this is like being in some kind of alternate universe.”

  Ned pokes my arm. “I hear you. I tried online dating, InaHeartBeat.com. The women outweighed me. Then I came here and thought: Why am I banging my head against the wall in the US? Sure Jorani’s a bar girl, so what? I was married; let me tell you, the guy always pays for sex, one way or the other. Here you just get more for your money.”

  Jorani appears with another round of drinks and heads back onto the dance floor.

  I watch a girl dancing alone. She has delicate features except for Angelina Jolie lips that give her a naughty, feral look. She smiles. I smile. I try to imagine visiting Cambodia a couple of times a year.

  “Yeah, life can be good,” Ned says. “Anyhoo, I brought a bag of cheap jewelry for Jorani to sell to her bar-girl friends. We plan on hitting the classier clubs this week,” he says. “You should join us.”

  “I’m in,” I say.

  Back in my room, my stomach and the duck tongues are having a disagreement. I decide to start a daily Pepto-Bismol regimen, something I should have been doing since I landed in Southeast Asia three weeks ago.

  In the morning, my stomach feels better, but my mouth tastes bitter and rubbery like a bicycle tire or a pickled cobra
. I head out for a palate-cleansing breakfast.

  A nearby bar advertises a “Western Special” of eggs, toast, bangers, and a can of Beerlao all for six dollars. The bartender is clearly a Westerner: rolling gut, pink face, and pointy gray beard. He takes my order, puts his burning cigarette in an ashtray, and clomps off to the kitchen. A few bar stools away, another Westerner, who looks slightly younger, reads a Khmer paper. His arms are adorned with large angry tattoos, the kind found on Polynesian warriors preparing for battle. He’s smoking a cigarette; two cans of Beerlao sit open in front of him. It’s ten A.M.

  When he glances in my direction, I ask, “Is there a health club or gym around here?” realizing too late that he might not be the best person to ask.

  “I belong to the Mekong Club by the Japanese bridge. Nice accent.” He sticks out a hand to shake. “Mickey from Alabama.”

  “Randy from Boston.”

  “I lived up north for a while, Alaska, that is, and then moved here ten years ago. I run motorcycle tours to the Cambodian countryside for Western visitors. You interested?”

  “Maybe another time.”

  “No problem.” He hands me a business card.

  He goes on to tell me that he’s married to a Cambodian woman, has learned to speak Khmer, and has a child. “I didn’t meet her in a bar if you’re wondering,” he says.

  I am wondering, but don’t admit it.

  “Do you miss the US?” I ask.

  I am conscious that Mickey is staring at my mouth. He smiles. “Did you spend last night licking some bar girl’s asshole?”

  “What?”

  He points to my mouth. “Your tongue, it’s black. Either lay off the bar girls or lay off the Pepto-Bismol.”

  Before I can come up with a response, the bartender reappears, and then Mickey asks, “Serge, do I miss America?”

  “Your wife is better looking than any Miss America,” the bartender says.

  “Serge, do I miss hanging out with soft, saggy guys who have to be fiddling with some toy every minute like a four-year-old?”

  Serge heads back to the kitchen. I get the impression he’s heard this rant before.

  Mickey turns up his volume. “Serge, do I miss a country where you can’t say ‘boo’ to someone without violating their civil rights, but kids can say ‘fuck you’ to their parents and teachers?”

  Serge returns, serves Mickey another Beerlao and says, “Remember, you told me to shut you off this morning after four.”

  Mickey ignores him: “Besides, if I took my wife back to the States, she’d just spend money like every other American woman. That would be it for our cheap and easy Khmer lifestyle.”

  “So did you give up your American citizenship?” I ask Mickey.

  “No way.”

  On the half-mile walk from the Bang Su to the Tamarind, I observe the cheap and easy Khmer lifestyle. On Srei Krom Street, a mother holds her toddler’s penis as he pees on the sidewalk. Turning down Samnang, a wild-lipped girl calls out from a karaoke bar, “Hey handsome mans, come sing me.” On the corner of Street 140, tuk-tuk and motorbike drivers mill around, smoking. One shouts to me, “You want Cambodian girl, small-small?” He makes a tiny OK sign with thumb and index finger to indicate the size of the woman’s vagina.

  The area around the Tamarind is populated by middle-aged Western guys like me. Out front, a middle-aged guy is patching out on a little motorcycle. On the balcony above, a middle-aged guy is eating breakfast. Across the street several middle-aged Western guys are shopping at an outdoor market. A few are accompanied by young, pretty, local women, their money-honeys.

  The night Ricki and I got back together after our first breakup, she made me dinner and served my favorite beer. During dessert, she leaned over and whispered into my ear: “Daddy, can you loan your baby a hundred dollars for contact lenses?”

  Ricki was a terrible credit risk. A month earlier, she had maxed out her charge cards and began swapping the balances to banks that offered interest-free deals. And she continued to shop. “This is my take-no-prisoners number,” she’d say, modeling an Armani jacket for me.

  “Is there any more beer?” I asked.

  “Don’t be cheap. I’ll pay you back next week.”

  “Like when? Like exactly when?”

  “Like next Monday, high noon. I’ll stop by your office. Here, you can check my credit scores.” She pulled up her tank top.

  Her breasts were orange halves with dusky nipples the size of figs. Perfect size, perfect shape, and I often told her so. I lent her the money.

  Later that weekend, I noticed a new pair of shoes in her closet.

  Monday, I didn’t mention the cash and neither did she. Tuesday, still no money. Wednesday morning, I answered her phone call with an e-mail: “Buried at work.” She stopped by my office that afternoon.

  “You look awful, what’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Stressed, got a big deadline tomorrow,” I said. “How are the new contacts?”

  “Are you going to bug me about that money? You’re such a cheap fuck, I can’t stand it!”

  I think of Jorani paying for all the drinks. I bet she would never call Ned a cheap fuck. Maybe the Mickeys and Neds of the world know something about women and money that I don’t.

  The Tamarind is a block from Phnom Penh’s Sisowath Quay, a boulevard along the Tonle Sap River. Restaurants, shops, and bars line one side of the quay; the other side has a two-mile promenade with palm trees and flags from countries considered friends of Cambodia.

  I opt for a twenty-dollar room without a view or even a window. It is slightly larger than its full-sized bed. But the room is clean and new and, so far, rat-free. While I’m unpacking, someone slides a note under my door:

  Hey, Tom Brady

  Meet us in the lobby at 8 for drinks and dancing at a classy club.

  —Fran Tarkenton

  That night at eight, I find Ned and Jorani in the lobby as he is handing a wrapped gift to the front-desk girl. She smiles and traces the package corners with her finger before unwrapping it. Inside there’s a stack of Hershey’s chocolate bars.

  “Oh, Mr. Ned, you nice man. Jorani, you lucky girl.”

  Jorani smiles and grabs Ned’s arm. They’re wearing matching Hawaiian shirts.

  Ned turns to me: “Hey, Randy, you ready to rock?”

  Out at the curb, a tuk-tuk driver swings around. “To the Gin Club, Mr. Suk,” Ned says.

  The entrance to the Gin Club is an accordion-like garage door located on a side street. The doorman frisks us, but this one doesn’t try to cop a feel. Nearby a legless man rocks in a small wheeled cart and begs for money. Ned gives him a dollar and a high five. I give him a dollar and a high five.

  Inside we pass a corridor of food stalls with the words “Pizza,” “Chinese,” and “Hamburgers” scrawled on them. Patrons circulate among the stalls and vendors call out bazaar-style.

  I follow Ned and Jorani to the disco room. Along one wall is a long bar and a large-screen TV. Instead of local toughs, the pool tables are occupied by Western guys and Asian girls. Not exactly classy, but a step up from The Apocalypse.

  A tall woman with Texas-sized breasts and muscular shoulders is ripping up the dance floor in time to Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean.”

  “Ladyboy,” Jorani whispers to me.

  Ned leads us to a high-top table. He pulls out a chair for Jorani and then another for me.

  Instead of sitting, I go to the bar for a round.

  When I return with the drinks, Ned is holding a stack of bar napkins.

  Jorani giggles, pointing to her tongue, and then to my mouth.

  “Black,” she says.

  Ned hands me the napkins. “Pepto-Bismol, right? Son, you’ll never get a date with that tongue. Stop taking that shit.”

  “Actually I’d heard that some women like this look,” I say, recalling the Boston vaccine nurse in her black hoodie.

  I use a napkin to swab off my tongue and then open wide to show off my
work. Jorani gives me a normal-size OK sign.

  I ask Ned, “How does this bar girl thing work?”

  He offers a five-minute discourse, punctuated with wrist squeezes and arm pokes.

  The gist:

  • In hostess bars like the Luau, you buy the girl a couple of Lady Drinks, negotiate a price with her, and then pay the bar five dollars to take her for the night.

  • In freelance joints like the Gin Bar, if you click with a freelancer, you buy her a real drink, and then negotiate a price. There’s no bar fee.

  • Want something longer term? Wire the girl $300 a month so she doesn’t have to work in a bar. When you visit Phnom Penh, she will barter at hotels and stores to get you the local prices. This is Ned’s arrangement with Jorani and the reason she typically buys the drinks. “We don’t talk about what we do when we’re not together,” Ned says. “It’s all good.”

  • What do young Asian girls want with middle-aged Western guys? Money, mostly, but the girls also think our white skin and long noses are exotic. According to Ned, Khmer men don’t make good husbands: They gamble, beat their women, whore around. And young Western guys have too little dough and want too much sex.

  One of the girls drags an old Western guy onto the dance floor. The guy’s bifocals hang on a neck lanyard and bounce in time to the music. Soon the dance floor fills with old Western men and hot Asian girls.

  When I make eye contact with a girl standing alone by the bar in jeans that must be size 00, she immediately comes over and puts her arm around mine. Her skin is smooth, soft, and warm.

  Click.

  Jorani exchanges smiles with the girl on my arm and reaches for Ned’s hand. Ned prattles on ignoring the girl on my arm, like she’s supposed to be there. “These girls aren’t like New York streetwalkers,” Ned says. “The girls kiss on the mouth, act like a girlfriend. And if you talk fast, they can’t understand a thing.”

  The girl smiles vacantly and rubs my back. Ned talks faster.

  “Think about it. Isn’t it better for them to work in a bar than to spend nineteen hours a day in a sweatshop for two dollars?”

  Concerns about sex tourism, sex trafficking, and 60 Minutes special reports recede as I look closer at the girl on my arm. Her cheekbones form little crescents when she smiles. Her lips are thick and wild. She’s wearing a sleeveless red and black T-shirt and those jeans of mythical proportions.