Those Who Feel Nothing by Peter Guttridge Read Free Book Online

drinks.
    Your pizza is pretty ropey but you ordered it for energy, not for taste. You approve of the fact that the vodka comes from the freezer. It is viscous; you take your time. Although you know it’s the custom, you’ve never understood why anyone would want to down vodka or any other drink in one.
    In the days when things had meaning for you, you loved a Hart Crane couplet: ‘Some men take their liquor slow and count the river’s minute by the far brook’s year’.
    The two men are joined by two more, equally scuzzy, mean-looking westerners. They shoo the women away and huddle round a table. One of the new arrivals keeps his eyes on you. He looks handy. You focus on the television behind the bar. Or rather the mirror beside it through which you can watch the men.
    It’s depressing that these four men look such stereotypes of those who come to Cambodia for sex and drugs. Paedophiles, pimps and pushers. You have no doubt these men are all three. You wonder if they might lead you where you need to go.
    Your plan is as yet ill-formed but before you head for Siem Reap you need to see how the land lies.
    The two women are outside in the alley, talking quietly but rapidly, sucking on cocktails through straws, fiddling with their cheap-looking mobile phones. They are solemn-faced, unless they notice the men looking, in which case they break into big, false grins.
    You don’t speak Khmer, the main Cambodian language, but your French isn’t bad and these women may have a smattering. You’re not sure whether they are Cambodian or Vietnamese, but it doesn’t matter as both countries were once
Indochine
and the French influence persists.
    You pick up your cigarettes, lighter and vodka and step outside. You nod at the women. They give nervous smiles and glance at their men inside.
    You ask in French how they are. They look anxious. A man is suddenly by your side. The handy one who was keeping his eye on you.
    â€˜Help you, mate?’ he asks with an accent that belongs somewhere in Bermondsey, not here in a back alley in Phnom Penh. Though maybe in the global village there’s not much to choose between them.
    â€˜Just passing the time of day with these ladies,’ you say.
    â€˜Wrong
ladies
to pass the time of day with.’ The man gives a simulacrum of a smile. ‘They’re spoken for.’ He edges closer to you. ‘Might be able to help you out if you’re looking for other female company, though. To pass as much time with as you can afford.’
    You offer him a cigarette with a tilt of the packet. He shakes his head, the non-smile now a rictus.
    â€˜You might be able to help me at that,’ you say.
    â€˜What do you need, brother?’
    â€˜Paradise.’
    He snorts. ‘We could all do with a bit of that. But are you meaning drugs, girls, boys or congress with a hairy fucking gorilla to reach that particular destination?’
    â€˜Sal Paradise. I assume he still runs this town? I need to see him.’
    The cockney’s eyes are hooded so you can’t read anything into his blank stare. However, you see the women exchange rapid glances then look down.
    The man shrugs. ‘Never heard of him, brother. Sorry.’
    Sal Paradise. Nobody knows his real name – at least, you don’t. Italian possibly. Maybe French. Maybe not Italian or French at all. Nobody knows why he chose the name Salvatore ‘Sal’ Paradise. You know it’s the name French-Canadian Jack Kerouac gave to the narrator of
On The Road
, his one good novel. Though Jack’s Italian wasn’t up to making the last name ‘Paradiso’. Maybe the Paradise you’re interested in was a Dharma bum who ended up here on his hitchhiking trail.
    There is no way this man has not heard of Sal Paradise. In Cambodia Paradise has been The Man for damn near forty years. Home-grown
criminales
have tried to take him over; the government has tried to shut him down;