By Sahib Nazari

An APWT Publication

‘We’re vampires,’ said the young barman when I asked if he had a day job, ‘we work after dark and sleep before sunrise. My wife work day time.’ He brushed his black whiskers as thin as his eyelashes. ‘I work night time.’ His slim eyes enveloped dreams and hope, said he had three children, and his parents share their tiny shack with them.

A few hours ago I walked from my hotel through the dark and dimly lit streets, crossed the bridge over Siem Reap River navigating the narrow lanes of a night market, and pit stopped in Street 11 when I spotted Camel cigarettes at a pop-up bar. Along the kerb, in front of the long line of shut shops, stood a train of make-shift bars between trees, trash bins, and tuk-tuks.

I cracked the pack of Camel, and ordered a beer Cambodia, the cigarette tasted like a lost teenage memory when I used to be a vampire living by night.

‘Must work,’ said the industrious barman as he refilled a tiny fridge with beer bottles, ‘must make Mrs happy.’

Most of the few dozen tourists hanging by the bars were having a golden time enjoying the cheap alcohol and smoke, the stir-fried platters, the chitchats. Hustlers and hookers, hardworking barmen, travellers and tourists mingled around the tiny make-shift bars that once were push-carts or two-stroke tuk-tuk engines customised to meet the multipurposed demand of an otherwise dead city.

Two young Khmer girls announced their arrival, ordered two beers, they and the barman seemed to know one another.

‘Hey Mr,’ said the talker to me after their customary Khmer greetings, ‘what do you do?’

Usually, the first thing I’d get asked was where I came from, or what was my background, and how and why the hell was I so skinny?

‘I’m a writer,’ I said unhurriedly, ‘I write stories.’

She conversed with her curvy Khmer girlfriend, took a puff of her slim cigarette, then turned to me. ‘Write my story,’ her face glowed as a tuk-tuk raced passed, she was gorgeous. They were having a good time I thought, it must be a funny story, I played along. They laughed louder, and the barman joined, the joke was on me.

‘What do you do?’ I asked the talker, the barman’s whiskers arced with a smile.

She huddled with her shy friend, talking in Khmer tongue, and the barman’s smile vanished.

‘I’m a fucker,’ the girl said with a dead serious face, eyes staring deep into my soul. ‘I fuck.’

Then she turned to her girlfriend, skulled her beer, and their wasteful laughter washed away the lousy music and the loud hums momentarily. I couldn’t have guessed, I staged a smile, smoked my cigarette to curtain the air.

‘That indeed is a hilarious story,’ I remarked, ‘but only one of us will get to tell it.’

The barman had fallen silent, no bending brows or whiskers, he knew that I knew.

‘You mean you’re a hooker,’ I said with a straight face, testing the waters with the courage of alcohol in my tiny cubical body.

‘Yes Mr, I’m a hooker, and this world is a whorehouse. I fuck for money, you write for money, same same. I sell my body, you sell your brain, we are all hookers.’ None of what she said was untrue, and the unconcerned raised her glass to toast her girlfriend, clink.

When the talker saw two men walk towards the vendor, her eyes brightened, gleaming like the streetlights against her glass of beer and a pair of golden bracelets.

‘Welcome Mr,’ called out the talker, ‘come drink with my friends.’

‘Thank you love,’ said the old school, he ordered two beers and paid for them. He was medium-built but masculine, in a murky black and silver man-bun, trimmed beard and moustache. He resembled one of those travelling healers who claim to heal everyone but themselves, wearing a junk of jewellery, and rings on his rugged fingers. His younger counterpart resembled a handsome man-whore who frequented two places meaningfully – a gym, and a jar of gel. He had a pumped-up body, round face, and his short black hair seemed to have been asphalted onto his head. He poked his long narrow nose with each puff of his cigarette, and every now and then blinked his big, reddened eyes three times in succession, as if he had sniffed some protein powder through his nostrils. The duo seemed to be the best of mates, a team of two solid beasts who had suffered and sinned together, and been through heaven and hell under the same skies. The man-whore stood next to the mute girl whereas the old school rounded them up like a sheepdog, shifting in the space between the talker and myself, he wasn’t here to muck around.

‘Let’s talk alone,’ said he to the talker, and away he walked towards the dark empty shop front across the street. The girls huddled, exchange some quick words, the talker gulped her beer and gleefully followed the old school’s footsteps like a sheep. The man-whore sipped his beer, smoked and pinched his pointy nose, next to him the mute girl smoked in silence. The talker walked back, she spoke to her friend, then picked up her bag. The old school strolled up, whispered in his withdrawing mate’s ears, he stood up. The silver haired healer walked towards a nearby tuk-tuk, the young blood dragged himself along with his beer bottle and gel-glittering hair, and they started chatting to a chubby tuk-tuk driver.

‘They want one girl only,’ said the talker after confiding to her friend in Khmer, ‘pay good money.’

‘Don’t go alone,’ the barman reminded her, ‘remember last time.’

‘I am okay, she stay here,’ the girl pointed to her girlfriend.

‘Don’t go with them,’ I said without thinking, ‘you’ll find someone else.’

‘This my work,’ she said with a smile, ‘first customer tonight and I don’t change my mind.’ She walked towards the tuk-tuk where the pair of predators were waiting impatiently, the old school and the young blood made sure she had the middle seat, and the tuk-tuk took off like an old steam engine leaving the street in smoke and haze. When the horizon cleared, her mute friend looked at me, she laughed talking to the barman.

‘No problem,’ she said smugly, ‘same same every night.’

‘I bet it is,’ I inhaled a big ball of smoke, then stuffed the Camel in the ashtray. Decided to go for a walk, I stood up, thanked the barman and the mute girl.

‘Stay here, wait for your friend,’ I told her.

‘You sit here,’ she pointed to the stool, ‘I make you happy.’

‘I’m quite happy,’ I said unhappily, ‘but thank you. I just want to walk,’ I waved, ‘walking makes me happy.’

‘Okay’, she screamed, ‘you come back’.

It was midnight, and people still moved about in waves in Pub Street, the neon-lit hub of Siem Reap’s nightlife scene. I dragged my drunk dehydrated shadow following the footsteps of a bar-hopping bunch of European boys and girls who, saturated with sweat and alcohol, stopped at every single bar and danced to every deafening beat. But no song sounds stupid, and no dance move feels silly, when the amount of alcohol exceeds the sum of blood in one’s body. The waves made way as I moved towards the end of the hundred-meter strip, I turned right strolling south all the way to the Riverside Park, then I crossed the bridge to my hotel.

I should have stayed in my room, I said to my unsober self as I passed the hotel reception, then hopped into the elevator. I could’ve watched a movie, drunk beer, or played billiards. I could read or write, or go for a swim, or smoke the bud I scored from a Canadian dude the day before at the hotel bar.

In the pale breathless afternoon, the fans had been buzzing full speed, and the bar playing reggae which was always a last resort. I had the cue queued right behind the white ball pointing at the green one, I was ready to fire when I saw him rolling, his head bouncing with the beat at a nearby table. I was playing against myself, and obviously winning, so I abandoned the game and walked over to say hello. He was cool like Canada, suggested I shouldn’t buy if I wasn’t sticking around town for long because they sell in big amounts and it costs enormously, and I won’t be able to smoke all of it.

‘Not even in a week,’ he said, ‘and you can’t resell it.’ He shouted me a big fat bud, I offered to pay but he respectfully refused and said, ‘buy me a beer next time you see me.’

I chopped the bud semi-blindly, chucked out the contains of a cigarette, using the book I’d been reading as a bearer. One pinch of tobacco, added to spin, three pinches of herb. Refilled the cigarette, emptied the stomach of another, and repeated the ritual one more time. I secured the spare blunt in a safe haven, somewhere I’d not forget, even if my memory dodged me for a day or two. I smoked the blunt on the balcony, between sips of beer, and I could hear the deadened deafening music and human noises coming from afar. It was by far the best bud I’d smoked in ages, and I took off, flying higher and higher with every huff and puff. 

In the early hours of the morning I decided to go for a walk again, so I picked up my pocket essentials and an ice-cold beer from the fridge, and I was back in the streets. I walked across the bridge, smoked a cigarette in the park, then made my way towards the night scene. The streets were still packed with girls and boys, locals and visitors, locking heads and laughing aloud over the portable alcoholic bars and the bizarre music. How many of these girls work by night, day and night, work by will? Keep walking, smoke, don’t think. You won’t be around in three days, I said to myself, this circus of life will go on in circles. It has been going on since before Angkor Wat was a flourishing kingdom, since the day the demand was created, and supply was deemed legal. I kept walking, tired and tipsy, until I saw the bar in Street 11.

‘You come back,’ said the mute girl, smiled the barman. I ordered a beer, put a cigarette in my mouth, and mimed as if I had a magical lighter. The barman flashed his fire stick, I inhaled the chemically charged smoke, exhalation.

‘You come back,’ the mute girl repeated, ‘you want be happy?’

‘I can’t sleep,’ I told her, ‘and you cannot make me happy.’

The talker was back, a tuk-tuk pulled over, and out she walked. She was drunk before she left, now she could hardly drag her body, she was limping. She sidled up to her friend, they spoke Khmer, then started arguing loud. She came and stood by the stool, I followed her gaze but she avoided mine, she wasn’t the same girl as hours ago. She seemed sick, drugged, and disoriented. She was quivering, as if she’d been crying, her friend gave her some medication. She swallowed the pills to kill the pain, and sipped from a beer to tackle the exhaustion, but that hard-earned money had left a deeper scar on her soul.

‘Two persons pay me,’ she broke down, ‘five persons fuck me. Must go hospital,’ she said sobbing, and the barman shouted to a stationary tuk-tuk.

My hotel was only few blocks away, and I had a blunt waiting for me but I was so drunk I got lost once I walked out of the lit streets and into the dark alleys, and it cost me a few Camel cigarettes to a rubbish collector, to point me in the right direction. I didn’t have a SIM card since I was only around for few days, so I used my phone as a torch to track my way out of the dark, and to keep safe from the stray dogs I gripped my beer bottle. I smoked my way through the ghostly littered streets only to pass through Pub Street again, I realised I’d stumbled in the opposite direction to my hotel. The empty bars resembled a haunted postapocalyptic place with plastic cups and glass bottles and plastic bags all over, neon bar signs beamed upon the overfilled rubbish bins, and the stray cats chased street rats. I must make it back before sunrise, I said to myself, I cannot be a vampire anymore.

I opened the book when I got back to my room, but I did not start reading, because that was the safe haven where I kept my saviour blunt. I burned it on the balcony washing it down with beer thinking about the two girls, the two men, and how one person’s pleasure is another’s pain. How one’s heaven is another’s hell, I didn’t know how to feel, what to feel. I walked back, cracked the window, and smoked half the blunt staring at the blank Word document on my laptop screen. Thought how to write, what to say, and why? I burned a Camel, drank the beer Cambodia, but the words wouldn’t come. More smoking and staring at the screen must have followed because, late the next morning, I woke up with my numb face in my dead laptop.

I drank bottled water semi-blindly as I peed orange juice in the toilet, usually it’s the other way round, then jumped in the shower. Thought I’ll have breakfast downstairs, maybe a swim, but I wouldn’t say no to a game of billiards against myself. Decided to take my dead laptop downstairs to charge it up while I ate, so I could resume the staring contest I’ve been losing for a long time, and I settled at a cosy corner table. A brunch and some coffee later, I was smoking a cigarette when I saw the Canadian dude at the bar.

‘This one is on me,’ I announced as I approached the bartender, she smiled.

‘Excuse me,’ he seemed offended, ‘how do I know you?’

‘You shouted me a bud,’ I reminded him pointing at the corner table with my thumb over my shoulder, ‘you said to buy you a beer next time I saw you.’

‘Did I?’ He had no recollection. ‘Did we smoke together?’

I shook my head, ‘you gave me a bud, told me not to buy.’

‘Fucking stoner aye,’ he laughed from under his heavy facial hair, ‘I don’t remember shit bro.’

He thanked me but didn’t let me to pay for his beer, I walked back to my table, and powered up my laptop. The blank page from last night was still on the screen, white and waiting, staring at me.

Sahib Nazari studied Bachelor of Arts, creative writing and literature, in Griffith University, Gold Coast. He was born in Afghanistan, and lived in Pakistan before his family migrated to Australia in 2005. In addition to his mother language Hazaragi, and adopted language English, Sahib also speaks Dari, Farsi and Urdu. Sahib voices his words in the form of short fiction and occasional poetry. He’s currently working on a collection of short stories. His short fiction has been published in Bengaluru Review, Meridian, TEXT Journal, and Talent Implied – New Writing from Griffith University in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

The banner image of Vietnam is by Kashish Grover and downloaded from Unsplash.com