I need a beer, some conversation and maybe a hand to hold

I started feeling antsy around 7 last night. I needed to do something. There wasn't enough food in the fridge and there was no liquor in the house to squash any of the rising emotions. So I called the girl I had most recently slept with in hopes of going out for dinner or perhaps some dessert. Anything to get out of the house. I felt like having some company, some conversation, to practice my Khmer, to flirt, to chew the fat with anybody to feel like a normal human being. I can only watch so many Youtube videos about universal consciousness, the hidden agenda of the New World Order, aliens and the vibrational patterns of water when exposed to different frequencies. It's all interesting and engaging stuff and I prefer to research, read, watch and write alone, but at some point I need some human interaction. It's good to be alone, but too much time alone and I need to be with people, for like thirty minutes.

Do it.

I was feeling antsy.

So I called the girl, but it was already too late. Calling someone right before you want to go out and expecting them to be available is like thinking that every light should turn green as you approach an intersection. The world revolves around me! Fortunately I didn't have those expectations. Tomorrow, tomorrow. I didn't know what to do now, but I still had to eat or get a beer. I didn't really need a beer, but the more I thought about it, the better it sounded. So I drove around pondering my options and settled on bar 136, a hostess bar near the riverside that I had frequented occasionally in the past, but not recently made an appearance. I thought I was over it.

Hostess bars, everywhere you look.

It had been a few months probably. I really don't like hostess bars, but there was a girl at this one with whom I was particularly smitten. She wasn't a prostitute. Yeah. She told me! I know, I know. You can never believe what you are told in these parts. So many lies! A part of me did believe her story and I wanted to think that some of these places harbored some innocent minds. That they were there only for the tip money and the social atmosphere. I had this crazy fantasy that I would marry this bar girl, teach her my language, protect her and save her from a life of poverty and prostitution. I'd already seen the movie. I'm pretty sure every male expat has had some sort of similar fantasy. Most of us know better than to actually pursue this reality, but some still do. But this one's different!

Will I create the sequel?

Anyway, I will always recall that one evening I sat there at the bar imbibing my second Angkor draft, that nasty local lager that happened to taste like sweet nectar of the gods while my hand was holding hers under the table. It felt real, or maybe it was just about the riel [Cambodian currency], but I am capable of fooling myself. It was all I needed at the time. I had high school flashbacks to when I held hands in the kitchen with my then girlfriend and I was as content as could be. Very similar situation and it hadn't felt like that in a long, long time. Powerful stuff. That was reason enough for me to become a repeat customer in hopes of reliving that experience.

The joy of holding hands.

I hesitatingly walked through the doors last night and sat down at the bar. I avoided looking around and figured that the girl-who-will-remain-anonymous would come to my attention sooner or later. I chatted briefly with the 40 something year old Vietnamese lady I had spoken with before. The dim lights make it harder to accurately determine someone's age and also made everyone a notch more attractive. I order my beer and wait. It seems that the girls behind the bar recognize me, but I realize later they are just making me feel welcome. I am just another patron to them. A girl behind me asks me if I'm looking for the girl-who-will-remain-anonymous and proceeds to tell me it is her day off. Not meant to be.

Bar girls.

Maybe that's why I hesitatingly walked through those doors. Slowly waking up from that dream. I took another sip from my beer and started to realize a) that this place was depressing and b) they didn't give me any peanuts. I was the only customer surrounded by twenty young women who were waiting for someone to buy them a drink or be taken home for the hour or the night to earn some money to help support their baby and/or their family. I silently wished them well while paying for my beer. I took a final sip, slid off my stool and took a deep breath as I got outside. Made a wrong turn there, I thought. Now where?

I decided to head for the beer garden. Nothing new there. I could have a couple cheap beers in a place where you never really feel alone and then head home. I made an intentional detour down street 172 where a friend, obviously female, works at a recently opened pizza shop. Obviously craving some conversation, I stopped to feel some semblance of a connection with humanity before heading to my final destination. I was buzzed after one beer and no dinner and enjoyed this three minute "heart-to-heart." I thought if it wasn't for the makeup, the daily self-portraits with her iPhone on Facebook, her lisp and the fourteen year age gap, we could have something.

Onward. I buzzed up street 172 avoiding foreign pedestrians ambling in the street, gingerly crossed street 19 and on up to Norodom where I quickly looking both ways on this busy boulevard and blasted across the street as fast as I could with an aging 100cc Honda Win. I crossed street 51, home to the infamous Heart of Darkness and past Pontoon, the other flagship nightclub, pulled into the parking lot, over the speed bumps, past the toilets and waited for the quiet kid with the tickets and the stapler to give me my end of the ticket while he stapled the other end to my handlebars. I parked the bike, set her in neutral and walked to the beer garden. I've done this before.

So you can follow along, of course.

It wasn't crowded at all. A very quiet Sunday night. This was both good and bad. Good because I could sit nearly anywhere I wanted, but bad because there wasn't much to capture my attention. Not much to look at and little choice in conversation besides the girls who worked there. But whatever, I was already there. I ordered a jug of Angkor. At 2.50 a jug, it's the stingiest drink on the menu. I even got peanuts. So I sat and watched the Filipino cover band, an aging couple who sounded better than they looked. Halfway through my jug, they disappeared. They may have been there, but I no longer saw them. Strangely, I have no recollection. I think the formaldehyde in the beer causes memory loss.

That's a jug of piss, approximately four glasses full.

The beer was going down much quicker than usual. Perhaps because I hadn't eaten and there was nothing slowing its passage. Like a ground up mass of rice and saliva, for example. There was surprisingly no lack of conversation despite the lack of customers. The waitresses were still there and had little to do. I talked to the super friendly girl with the big boil on her face. I talked to the ultra thin one who always smiled even when she wasn't happy. She taught me the difference in pronunciation between the words gon-laing (place) and jom-laik (strange). I hope I never have to say 'strange place' because I'm bound to fuck up that combination. She even taught me how to say 'stingy man' in case I ever wanted to describe myself, I guess.

From there it was more conversations or flirtations with another girl who speaks very little English, another girl who wears high-heeled sandals, hair extensions and too much makeup and the divorced curly haired girl who used to live in the states and sort of walks like she just got off a small horse. There was nothing going on, but so much going on. This all intermingled with the glances of a local dude who couldn't stop staring in my direction. Uncomfortable after the fourth time, but I was in a jovial mood and almost started flirting with him just for kicks. I was almost feeling too straight. Before I knew it, my jug was gone. One more? No, thanks.

Before I could get on out of there, one of the three sisters asked if I was going to say hi to her younger sister. I had met her at the market while shopping for an electric kettle and I considered her a friend, but nothing more. Not yet. I figure soon I'll be asked if I love her or if I can give her some money. That's the way it seems to work. My answers will be no and no. I proceeded over to the kitchen to say hello and immediately all eyes were on me. Everyone, including the owner, who sat at the bar, the sister who led me over there, the chef and three bartenders watched me and presumably thought I was about to drop to one knee and pop the question. They were disappointed. Maybe next week.

I can feel your eyes.