Free Jake Fonko M.I.A. by B. Hesse Pflingger Page B
Authors: B. Hesse Pflingger
dirty and cadaverous, he was a top-of-the-line hippie hardcase if I ever saw one. Straw sandals disintegrating, battered denim cutoffs, a T-shirt even a ragpicker would reject, rats-nested hair dangling down around his shoulders. A deserter, I estimated. He flashed me the peace sign and a sly grin and said, “Say, buddy, will you stake a fellow American to a meal?” He was surprisingly well-spoken: I’d been braced for lunatic raving.
“Another Bogart fan?” I quipped. Up close, he didn’t smell as dirty as he appeared. I examined his bicycle more closely and noted that the working gear for that tangle of rusty steel tubes—the bearings, brakes, gears and steering—was well-maintained and functioned smoothly.
“Right on, man,” he replied with a grin. “Fred C. Dobbs, in Treasure of Sierra Madre! I don’t have to show you no stinking badges! But I could use some spare change, if you have any, honest.”
“What made you think I’m American?” I asked. He stayed abreast of us effortlessly. Must have had plenty of practice navigating the streets of Phnom Penh.
“Couldn’t really tell, but it’s worth a try. Makes Americans feel good to be recognized, so they usually give me something. A Frenchie wouldn’t give me a sou, no matter what I said. A Brit—well, sometimes yes and sometimes no, depends on how superior he’s feeling that day. And if the guy just happens to be a Bogart freak, I hit the jackpot. I worked it out by trial and error.”
Why waste his time begging? With a mind like that, he could clean up hustling real estate. I fished up a fiver from my belly-pouch and passed it over to him. He gathered it in without missing a beat. “From now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance,” I told him. Hey, I know my Bogart.
“Thank you kindly, sir,” he said. “Have a nice day.” Then he peeled off toward the center of the boulevard, to be carried away by the traffic.
It didn’t take long for the irony behind “Have a nice day” to hit me. Todd Sonarr had told me Phnom Penh would be just like Saigon. He’d lied. I could see that it used to be like Saigon: ten years before, it must have been downright charming. It was a much smaller, more compact city. The French colonial architecture and the angular Cambodian traditional buildings with their squiggly little points on every roof corner had escaped pollution by American slab construction; and the local culture showed little sign of the desecration that an onslaught of American servicemen will wreak. The decisive difference was this: Saigon, except for the Tet offensive, one rocket barrage and a few scattered bombings, had ducked the direct effects of war. Phnom Penh had suffered them— was suffering them—greatly.
The international sector of town showed little war-wear. The front door of the Monorom Hotel had taken that hit with a big rocket round. Otherwise the appearance of order hung bravely on. Sra Sar took me past the Great Central Market, then down Norodom Street past the villas and gardens to the golden-roofed Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, then back along the river past the National Museum to Wat Phnom. We broke for beer several times, during which he explained the points of interest. Lovely place—spacious, well-kept, and prosperous-looking. War? What war?.
Outside the central district I found a different scene entirely. The night I’d arrived I’d noticed a lot of people on the streets and assumed the town was lively. Not so. In the poorer districts, low, rotting slums crowded the margins of narrow dirt lanes. Rusting tangles of barbed wire barricaded off streets and open areas. Sidewalks, doorways and gutters teemed with ragged, starving refugees—more than two million, in a city built for a quarter of that. Lively it wasn’t: death poisoned the air. Those lacking the luxury of cardboard lean-tos squatted passively in what shade they could find, looking hungry. Tiny children whose huge,
“Another Bogart fan?” I quipped. Up close, he didn’t smell as dirty as he appeared. I examined his bicycle more closely and noted that the working gear for that tangle of rusty steel tubes—the bearings, brakes, gears and steering—was well-maintained and functioned smoothly.
“Right on, man,” he replied with a grin. “Fred C. Dobbs, in Treasure of Sierra Madre! I don’t have to show you no stinking badges! But I could use some spare change, if you have any, honest.”
“What made you think I’m American?” I asked. He stayed abreast of us effortlessly. Must have had plenty of practice navigating the streets of Phnom Penh.
“Couldn’t really tell, but it’s worth a try. Makes Americans feel good to be recognized, so they usually give me something. A Frenchie wouldn’t give me a sou, no matter what I said. A Brit—well, sometimes yes and sometimes no, depends on how superior he’s feeling that day. And if the guy just happens to be a Bogart freak, I hit the jackpot. I worked it out by trial and error.”
Why waste his time begging? With a mind like that, he could clean up hustling real estate. I fished up a fiver from my belly-pouch and passed it over to him. He gathered it in without missing a beat. “From now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance,” I told him. Hey, I know my Bogart.
“Thank you kindly, sir,” he said. “Have a nice day.” Then he peeled off toward the center of the boulevard, to be carried away by the traffic.
It didn’t take long for the irony behind “Have a nice day” to hit me. Todd Sonarr had told me Phnom Penh would be just like Saigon. He’d lied. I could see that it used to be like Saigon: ten years before, it must have been downright charming. It was a much smaller, more compact city. The French colonial architecture and the angular Cambodian traditional buildings with their squiggly little points on every roof corner had escaped pollution by American slab construction; and the local culture showed little sign of the desecration that an onslaught of American servicemen will wreak. The decisive difference was this: Saigon, except for the Tet offensive, one rocket barrage and a few scattered bombings, had ducked the direct effects of war. Phnom Penh had suffered them— was suffering them—greatly.
The international sector of town showed little war-wear. The front door of the Monorom Hotel had taken that hit with a big rocket round. Otherwise the appearance of order hung bravely on. Sra Sar took me past the Great Central Market, then down Norodom Street past the villas and gardens to the golden-roofed Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda, then back along the river past the National Museum to Wat Phnom. We broke for beer several times, during which he explained the points of interest. Lovely place—spacious, well-kept, and prosperous-looking. War? What war?.
Outside the central district I found a different scene entirely. The night I’d arrived I’d noticed a lot of people on the streets and assumed the town was lively. Not so. In the poorer districts, low, rotting slums crowded the margins of narrow dirt lanes. Rusting tangles of barbed wire barricaded off streets and open areas. Sidewalks, doorways and gutters teemed with ragged, starving refugees—more than two million, in a city built for a quarter of that. Lively it wasn’t: death poisoned the air. Those lacking the luxury of cardboard lean-tos squatted passively in what shade they could find, looking hungry. Tiny children whose huge,