Tuesday, 10 AM

The click of a cheap lighter broke the cool silence of a hot day, igniting the tamped end of an American cigarette.

Coal blue smoke wafted from the tip as the shaggy, bearded man forced the smoke into and out of his lungs. He took another long drag, and paused, resisting the urge to flick the long ash on the bar.

He could see the ashtrays stacked neatly on the back rail of the bar, next to the neatly stacked mugs and tall glasses perched next to the register, but there was no one there to help.

With a slow grinding of iron on concrete, the man stood up from the barstool and walked outside, past the green iron gate, and into the sun. He flipped the hood of his sweatshirt up to hide from the intense morning light. A man across the street, who had been idling in the shade next to a motorbike, waved in his direction.

“Where you go?”

The idler checked both ways before crossing the street, flipped the hoodie up on his own sweatshirt, and meandered through the light, across the street, before arriving next a large potted plant and doing a 75* turn to face the same direction as the bearded man.

“Where you go?”

“Dunno, hungry” mumbled the bearded man as he cocked his head to look at his new friend. “អត់មានបា”

The newcomers face brightened. He looked up and pressed on with his line of inquiry.

“What your name?”

“Paul” said Paul, reaching out with his right arm, with his left rested in the nook of his right elbow.

“Dara”

Dara reached up and shook his hand, his left arm resting in a simlar fashion. “You want eat?”

“ខ្ញុំចង់បានស្រាបៀរ” replied Paul, glancing over his left shoulder.

Dara laughed, bending sideways and clutching his gut while he giggled.

“ok go!”

Dara pointed inside toward the bar. Another bearded white man, slightly more portly than Paul, was booting up the laptop next to the shiny new point of service machine on the counter. A hiss and a crack echoed in the concrete room as he plugged in the aux cable.

“Hey, you need anything?”

The bartender turned towards the glow of the street outside. Squinting, he saw a figure walk into the shade and towards one chair at the bar that had been left askew. The figure pulled back the shady hood from his head, and jumped into the chair.

“Can I get a beer?”

“Just turned the cooler on, want a can?”

“Yea that’s fine” replied Paul, with a thumbs up.

The bartender opened the door of a new looking glass cooler, proudly reading “ANGKOR” on a photo of a glass bottle glowing on the head of the fridge. The cooler made a cool cracking sound, frigid rubber on porcelain siding breaking the seal between refrigeration and the real world outside. He grabbed a can from the case, placed it on the stone bar, and sent it hurtling towards Paul.

Paul pulled back the tab on the beer can, peeking at the bottom of the tab. “អរគុណ”.

Now holding a cigarette and a losing beer tab in his left hand, a beer tilted towards his mouth in the right, he looked left without tilting his head so as not to disrupt the flow of beer into the mouth. The bartender noticed and walked towards the tower of glasses. He picked up a glass ashtray and set it down.

“Did you check in?”

Paul of course, had not checked in. It was 2 am when he had gotten out of the taxi and he had had to wake up the night man to get in through the green gate. They had a disjointed conversation, before the night man had handed the keys to his room, returned to his hammock, and left the light on.

“Nah, but all my stuffs in the room”. Two gulps and the beer was gone. “One more?”

The bartender turned and grabbed another beer from the fridge. Paul was already tidying himself to get off of the barstool. He grabbed the can off the stone and strode towards the light.

“Where you go?” Dara grinned. He motioned towards one of the the tuk tuks parked nearby, causing its sleeping inhabitant to stir from his hammock and lift the hat that was covering his eyes. He waved a friendly hello with his cap and stood up.

Paul made a scissoring motion towards his beard. “Haircut!” he said, walking towards the sleepy mans tuk tuk.

Dara tapped him on the shoulder and motioned in the other direction. Another remorque lay hidden behind the large potted plant on the tiling in the bar. Nodding and smiling, Paul climbed into the carrigage. He grabbed the water bottle that was laying on the floor and passed it to Dara.

“OK haircut”

Dara fastened his helmet, checked his corners, started the moto and pulled out into the street.