Desmond didn’t really mean to head towards X-Ray-X Bar, but by a long, twisting, turning route he found himself in its vicinity. It was merely a bar, on a street surrounded by other bars, each one promising more sardonically Babylonian pleasures than the last, each with a happy hour, a pool table, a cluster of sequined black dresses with oranged hair laughing and snacking and calling to passing potential customers. ‘Hello, Sir!’ called the sirens, mermaids too skinny for the sea; the sailor, having no mast to lash himself to, chose his port.
In fact, he wasn’t even sure it was the right one. Another damp shower of ‘Hello, Sir!’ splattered on his head and shoulders as he entered. He adjusted himself to the redness of the interior, with the faces behind the bar shining crimsonly like a horror movie, hoping that one or more would start to look familiar; the stomp stomp stomp of the dance music hurt his peering eyes.
One of the women who had followed Desmond in deftly steered him towards a bar stool and ordered the Jameson he asked for, then sat and watched to see how he was going to behave. He slowly scanned the room. There was no sign of Hank. This wasn’t hard to establish: there was far more company than customers. An unshaven character was slumped on the bar a short distance away and he stared at Desmond with withering contempt, or possibly shortsightedness, while two bored-looking women attempted to engage with him. In a booth towards the rear, three off-the-plane corporate types were talking loudly in Korean or something and ignoring the staff clustered around them. A very large man in emphatic shorts waddled around the pool table while a pair of very high heels defeated him mercilessly.
The woman next to Desmond began to look slightly as if he might have seen her before. ‘Hank come tonight?’ he asked. “He bar-fine Srey Lin. Maybe come back later.” No wonder the damned phone is off. Desmond looked down and saw the Jameson was gone already, so he said yes to another. Her name was Theary, she was from Kandal. He complimented her on her English. The waddling man left and so Desmond offered to let Theary beat him at pool. They knocked the balls around and he took another drink. Screw Hank and his shenanigans. Still he held onto the bag; it had become a kind of oversized talisman: he would spite Hank by being honourable in the face of dishonour. Hand back the bag untouched, despite the deceit.
The hazy atmosphere grew slowly hazier. New customers arrived. Someone took control of the computer at the bar and started programming loud American rock music, which compelled some patrons to encourage a couple of the staff to get up on the bar and shuffle desultorily in the general vicinity of the beat. Desmond was occasionally aware of a bleating from his phone, but he knew it couldn’t be from Hank because Hank would be back here before too long. Theary was efficient: there was always another Jameson.
Somehow then he had challenged one of the Koreans to play pool. He beat the Korean but the Korean refused to buy him a lady drink. This caused some commotion. He thought he saw Srey Lin appear behind the bar, but by the time he got there she was gone. So he began talking to the unshaven shortsighted guy and insisted on buying a round. Then he was sick of the whole place and called for his bill and didn’t that seem like it was a good deal larger than he remembered? … and he grabbed the bag and tried to saunter into the night, but stumbled into it instead and there was a tuk tuk and there was going somewhere and then all things turned somewhat black.
Then all things turned somewhat bright: the noonday sun kicked him in the face. It could have been worse: the apartment was the right apartment, the bed was the right bed and he was alone. It was just that he didn’t have his phone any more. Or the bag.
Continues next week