Street 172
So Ray decided he was better off not working drilling for copper, oil and for gold. He was telling me how much money he used to make, “1500 dollars a day, mate”.
I was in Phnom Penh after a few days in Bangkok, India Air took me to BBK from CPH, and it was just so so.
Frozen chickpeas, unflavoured chicken curry, a piece of bread and a dessert made of unknown berries on top of a custard with Indian chocolate. The TV-screen didn’t work, the lamp didn’t work and I was stiff as a mannequin for a longer time that should be considered legal or not, and the seat wouldn’t recline. Teleportation seemed to be far away.
In Phnom Penh now and as I’m staying in street 172 I’m repeating a pattern - I have this comfortable bed upstairs and the food and the drink downstairs. It is like living inside of an incubator.
Who are these guys walking aimlessly back and forth? No shoes and the socks on their feet are dripping of water because it is raining outside. Ray says,
“They are on drugs.” He takes a sip of Cambodian draft and lits a cigarette.’
“Usually joints”, he blows a pillar of Winston Night Blue, “And there is ice. Tried it, don’t like it.”
He spoke of the mysteries with drilling and his local wife was laughing at his stories. They looked like a happy couple and they had been together for 14 years now.
“Every time I take my wife to Australia she thinks there are no people there, it’s all empty, supermarkets, restaurants, parks …”
“Well, it’s a big country.” I realised what I spoke about had nothing to do with what he was saying.
“Bloody big!”
As we were having one draft and cigarette after the other I asked him about the prices for beer and smokes back in Aussie, and that is what started a lovely conversation - he knew things about digging into the ground, he knew things about mining, should have asked him about fracking but forgot.
Jade was here. She had closed the shop, The Wild Rover was a place for the diplomates and the highrollers and, I don’t know - lowrollers?
“Is that a word?”
“Of course it is, there is an opposite to every concept.”
“I thought you loved your job?”
“I do, I love it and hate it at the same time - simultaneously."
“What’s the problem?”
“I think I have a problem with authorities.”
“How about another beer?”
“Sure.”
Now, the clock on the wall showed 8.25pm, a young girl was playing around the pool table, the darkness had changed Street 172 into neon and Ray was sitting at the front thinking about another cold one. And so was I.
Jade explained it to me, “You get money every month, I get nothing.”
Because you blew your pension by singing on cruise ships for years. I did not say that.
Jade let her hair out and sighed, sighing was her favourite position while calming herself down after A Hard Day’s Night … don’t get me started on that one.
She wouldn’t laugh but later she did. And we never discuss politics. She is just such a lovely person.
