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

through the doorway, small bony-framed Cambodians with sparse moustaches, plastic sandals. Booze. Greasy undershirts. One man walks directly for the wide-nose girl – a torrent of Khmer – he grabs her arm and pulls her towards the back room. Wide-nose screams, her fingernails flared into his shoulder. She yanks away from him, runs and drapes her arm around my neck.
    ï£§Tonight you stay with me! You stay. That man no good! Say you stay with me!
    Undershirt-man pauses, then totters over to me with blood-shot eyes, his dark skin oily from the heat and unwash. He spits and brings his face so close I see the concrete dust clinging to the fibres of his moustache. Stink of long camel teeth. The smell of his armpit, cough, a phlegm wad chewed then spat. He ask if you have weapon. No weapon . Not in the saving business.
    Shlomi says – That’s west of the lake. I hear you aren’t supposed to go there. No thanks, I’ll stay here – he licks the Rizla closed.
    ï£§Where’d you hear that?
    ï£§That’s what all the guidebooks say. You should pay more attention to what they write in there. They’re trying to warn you so you don’t get yourself hurt. This is my vacation and I don’t want to get rolled up in a lot of shit. Here it’s not like Israel, or Canada, wherever. Things can get serious. You can’t walk around at night and trust people’s manners will keep you safe.
    ï£§Piat is taking me.
    ï£§And what do you think he’ll do for you if you end up in shit? You think he’ll put his ass on the line to keep some tourist from getting killed? Nice guy, sure, but not about to lose his skin over you. Yeah? You smoked this weed before?
    ï£§You think I shouldn’t go?
    ï£§Go if you want, just don’t forget where you are. This stuff is great, smells strong as shit.
    Twenty-two, fresh from mandatory army service, tanned with near-black Israeli scruff, a shaved head, shirtless, red jogging shorts. He lights the joint and passes it to me – You’ve been to Angkor?
    ï£§Brilliant, yeah, but crowded with touts. Not even a moment to just let it soak in without some kid trying to sell you postcards. Everyone scrambling on top of the temples for the sunset, rich ones on elephants, beggars lined up with all their amputations displayed. You’ve got to see it but the place is a circus really.
    ï£§Why you think that?
    ï£§Siem Reap is like a giant theme park. Five-star hotels, limousines…
    ï£§I mean, why must I see it?
    ï£§See Angkor?
    ï£§Yes, why must I see this thing everyone tells me I must see? Why must I take a photo of something everyone else has the same photo of?
    Pause.
    Pause because he’s right. Because he’s twenty-two. Because it all suddenly hits me that memories end up piled and forgotten like postcards anyway, because it’s just another form of capture, because I’ve got a right to go wherever I like in this sad little country.
    ï£§Because it’s Angkor – I say – And you don’t come to Cambodia and not see Angkor…
    ï£§Fuck it – Shlomi says.
    ï£§What do you mean, fuck it?
    ï£§Fuck having to go to Angkor. Do I really miss out on anything besides what everyone else has already seen?
    Cheap Charlie, he’s right. I’ve been conned. Sucker.
    The Killing Fields plays for the third time in the background. Shlomi looks over his shoulder and then lays his head on his arms on the table.
    I say – Fuck, that joint did me in too. What’s it like in Israel anyway? Ever shoot a man with your gun? – and then stub the roach out in the plastic lid of the water bottle.
    A knock on my door grabs at the edges of my sleep. The clock reads six-thirty, the voices of the women murmuring through the walls, already in the kitchen for hours. I open the door and a small girl with dirty feet is standing in the doorway. Fourteen, maybe twelve.
    ï£§Hey, mister. You let me