Our first day in Phnom Pehn was uneventful. We spent it along Tonle Sap, the major river in Phnom Penh, second only to the Mekong, with which it mingles then splits off from in the north of the city. Here are the hotels and bars built for the growing tourist industry, and a safe and comfortable place to relax on a Christmas Eve. We took full advantage.
Around two in the morning, it was time to call it a night and we shuffled the three or four blocks to our hotel. Not twenty meters from our destination, just after we turned off the main riverside road, we hear a strange sound behind us. I see Jeff’s face as it registers what is approaching, and it is a mask of surprise, disgust and maybe a little fear. I turn to find out what’s the deal.
And there she was, or, there he was. A skinny frame dressed in dirty, slutty rags, face smeared with a mess of eye shadow and lipstick. There was no trace of a smile in the visage, only a half crazy look of destitution and deceit. I am reminded off a news article I had read earlier in the Cambodian Times about the brutal beating and murderer of an accused sorcerer somewhere in rural Cambodia. There was something supernaturally evil about this person.
“What the fuck?” Jeff was a little ahead of me and began to increase his speed. “That’s fucked up!”
Being fairly drunk I was less worried than he was, and did not run, as I should have, when the wretched harpy approached me at this devilish hour and offered sex for $5. Then she was holding me by my waist, in a disgusting pantomime of flirting. Her grip was stronger than I was comfortable with, and I twisted away. I spun around, and she lost her hold on me. I was now facing her, an eerie sort of showdown under the dim street lights. What was her deal? Then it hit me. She had taken my money. I must give credit where credit is due, and had it not been for my front left pocket being slightly pulled inside out, I probably would not have noticed.
“Oh, fuck. She took my money!”
Jeff looked at me without too much surprise. He had known she was trouble from the minute he spotted her and the fact that I even entertained her sorcery for a moment was to him idiotic and well deserving of my fate.
I then made a pathetic attempt to regain the money, which totaled to about $8.50. It was strange because even though I could tell it was a man, the soiled dress and the sorry make-up acted like a force field and held me back from any physical reprisals. She just kept walking as I demanded she give me back my money. Her bold disdain for my demands angered me and eventually influenced me to step in front of her, blocking her path, from where I then shouted at her to return the money. Up until now, she was playing innocent, and maintaining a feminine aspect. But as the confrontation came to a head, she reared up like a cornered animal, and her face mutated into a horrible specter of bared teeth and burning eyes. Then she bellowed in a low, horrible roar, “NO!” Even if she had not suddenly bolted down a dark alleyway I think I would have let the matter drop. It was early morning, Christmas day, and I had just met the Cambodian Grinch.
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