That Savage Water by Matthew R. Loney Read Free Book Online

on them with the binoculars and says – Every day for hours and hours. What will they do when it starts to rain?
    ï£§Cover their heads and paddle to shore. Our definitions of risk are different. They ride six to a bike here.
    Piat strolls into the guesthouse with deliberate footsteps, his keys twirling. Wild eyes, high, sunken cheekbones, gestures he throws beyond his body limits into the surrounding air – On my life, man! You still here? I come from the market, you know, I meet my honey, eat noodles. You want to buy some skunk?
    A recovering glue sniffer, a street kid who’s found a profession, he must be. His face doesn’t twitch but stretches into the most crazed and opened expressions. His laughs string enormous bridges of saliva across the corners of his lips. Selling skunk to stoner backpackers earns him a few thousand riel to buy noodles for his girlfriend at the market and a few tabs of M. He’ll take you on his motorbike to Choeung Ek and wait around as you tour the fields and collect souvenir photos in high-def – skulls towered in pyramids, thigh bones stacked like timber, torn fabric still sprouting from the soil. Just like in the movie. Ten thousand riel for the day, S-21 prison included – Before, Cambodia no good, you know? – Isn’t that what I want to hear?
    Beside the bar, the blackboard reads: Tonight – Killing Fields 7 pm . Ceiling fans whirl and scatter threads of smoke unravelled from hands in sagging hammocks. A few travellers eating eggs watch CNN, compare the routes they took to Angkor, how much they enjoyed Laos. Beyond the deck, the morning sun has not yet risen into the bank of grey clouds.
    I say to Piat – Where you been? Stay out all night?
    Laughing, wild eyes with morning hair – No, man, I get this! Fresh today, you see? Best weed grows in Battambang, but in Phnom Penh you can only buy from me. No buy in Siem Reap or Sihanoukville. If you want, buy now. Later, I don’t have, you know. I smoke too much!
    ï£§I dunno…
    ï£§Why not! Come on, man, just buy my skunk!
    A little weed for the coming weather isn’t such a bad idea. The guy’s price is high, but he’s so damn charming I feel I owe him the business.
    ï£§I’ll buy skunk and you take me to S-21 prison today for free.
    His mouth stretches open in a huge gulp of laughter, his eyes disappear and those constant tendons of drool – Free? Come on, man! Now gasoline is very high price! Now Cambodia no good! Skunk already good price, you know, friend price. On my life! How much you pay?
    Bag of skunk, Tuol Sleng prison, and tonight a trip to his favorite girlie bar – only couple thousand riel. But if he’s happy with it, I know I’ve gotten screwed. Here it’s always this push–pull: Don’t rip or get ripped off. Cheap Charlie peeling bills from a sweaty money-belt, his peripheral vision on vigilant lookout for thieves. The sucker white guy with bottomless pockets of dollars.
    Piat pitches his skunk deal to an Australian in a hammock. The Israeli walks across the deck over to my table, looks down at my milkshake and says – What is that, coconut?
    Girl with the flat nose shouts over to Piat and their thick Khmer tumbles over the bar. He hands her a CD to put into the portable stereo in the corner on the floor by the stage. She bends over, a hole yawning open in her stockings – the upper thigh near the crease of her ass. Cambodian rap punches through shitty speakers. The lesbians sit brooding on the bar stools in silence. The two girls from outside sidle up to us.
    Piat says – See look, my honeys!
    The wide-nosed girl says – What you like, handsome? You want to see my menu? You want see how we do for you? We play, we do fun. If you want, we can do more. If you no like girl, maybe you want boy?
    ï£§No boys.
    She leans in, her tongue playing at her lips – You want to watch friend eat my pussy?
    Two men walk