Desmond, an English-language expat of uncertain skills, has survived his first gig as music manager at Snuck Bar. Things went well, until the superannuated pop star known as ‘Bong, James Bong’ began to display difficulties in handling his liquor and, many hours later, has been found in the corner of a popular nightclub, where it appears he has taken off his clothes and found a fist to break his nose. Now read on for the fifth part of our exclusive fiction series by Guillermo Wheremount.
The scene was all a bit British gangster movie, but without the guns. Somewhere around the edges of the repetitious, reptilian thumping dance-sound, the drunken moanings of James Bonne could be heard as he was dragged from the booth by two bouncers, following behind the third who macheted a pathway through the crowd. Desmond followed with an armful of leather pants and satin shirt, and an earful of Wyndy promising all manner of tortures in the event of repeated behaviour.
Out on the street again, the moanings became clearer: some mixture of abject apology, maudlin explanations and the name of his hotel, over and over. The tuk tuk drivers stood back and looked the other way so Desmond was forced to bargain hard, but eventually Bonne was sent off into the night. Exhilarated by the action but wary of reprisals, Desmond headed off into his own night, pulling the darkness around him like a cape, warding off evil spirits as best he could.
More apparent malevolence appeared after insufficient sleep the next morning in the surprising form of Phany, who rang him soon after 8am. “You ready come province?” Shiv, thought Desmond. He had forgotten his promise to attend Phany’s cousin’s wedding (actually, it might be the cousin’s brother-in-law’s sister’s wedding, he couldn’t quite get it straight). “Sure, Phany, hang on a minute.”
Rousing himself with a rapid shower, Desmond ran through the previous day’s events in his mind and decided it would be a blessing to get out of the city for a while. When he got downstairs, Phany, wearing a bright pink shirt, was waiting in a tuk tuk with Sopheak and Sophea in pyjamas, and a large number of plastic bags full of unknown unknowns. They set off through the quiet Sunday morning city, down wide boulevards, rattling and shaking and feeling their teeth loosen. With Phany and the girls talking a steady stream.
After about ten minutes they came to a stop on a street corner on the far side of town, where a crowd clustered around and hopped in and out of a dark-coloured transit van, and within moments Desmond was crammed into a fraction of a seat, contemplating how many more than the recommended eight passengers could possibly fit inside. By the time they peeled off and headed towards the highway, he counted 17 people squeezed around him, passing uncategorised fruit and savoury insects back and forth.
The laughter and conversation were deafening rather than contagious and Desmond lay back and thought of England, trying to catch just a little more sleep. And somehow he did sleep, waking up as they left the highway and took a left turn down a road consisting mostly of potholes. The van shifted dangerously from one centre of gravity to another, almost not quite turning over several times, before finally coming to a stop.
“Where are we?” “In province, bong.” “Right. Which province?” “Kampong Speu, bong.” The passengers were leaving the car, but there were no houses anywhere.
“So where’s the wedding?” “We walk now. Road too bad for van. Just over there. You can hear?” And sure enough, there was music on the wind. Very loud, quite distorted and appropriately exotic, Desmond thought. Following the crowd, they made their way in the direction of the music.
A few hours, beers and appropriately exotic plates of food later, Desmond found himself dancing in a circular fashion, twisting his hands about like a good visitor. A young lady in a bright orange dress showed him how to twist his hands better, but it wasn’t working so well for him. She kept smiling at him, though. The other dancers were smiling and laughing. Desmond felt really good. Better than he’d felt in a while, in fact. Fresh air, liveliness. The only barang at a country wedding. And then the phone rang.
Then it rang again and again. Finally, Desmond walked away from the dancing to answer. A torrent of expletive gushed down the line. James Bonne had woken up and was demanding his guitar.
“The bar’s closed, dude, I’m at a wedding.” “I need that guitar. It’s extraordinarily rare and valuable. Paul McCartney lent it to me.” “I’m miles away, dude, I’ll be back tomorrow.” “I need it now. If you don’t come back, I’ll burn the sodding place down.”
Continues next week