The Armenian Cab Driver
Your cab driver is Armenian. You know this because he says, "Hello, I am
Armenian."
"Really?" You say, "How long have you lived in New York?"
He laughs, "All my life. It's just for money."
What, you wonder, is just for the money, his life?
"I speak six languages." He says.
You count languages he might speak: Armenian for sure, Turkish probably,
English. You're stuck for the next three.
"Where are you going?" he asks (The cab is going to Kennedy airport;
he knows this.)
"To Asia." You say. Thankfully he doesn't ask why you're going.
This is your fourth trip to Asia:
The first was six months from Bali to India, the standard tourist trek, where
even disgusting things were fun.
The second was a job in Korea. You lasted a full two months of the year
contract.
The third was escape from a relationship. You can't blame a continent for your
mood.
This is the fourth. You have no idea why you are going; you wish people would
stop asking.
"I go to Asia twice a year!"
"Really, where?" You feel the urge to ask why and hate yourself for
it. Why does anyone do anything?
To China! I go to China for the freedom!"
"To China." You repeat, "For the freedom?"
"Yes! With two thousand dollars you live like King!"
The Armenian cab driver has an identity; he can locate it on the map, lucky
guy.
Phnom Penh
If a bunch of boys special designed a city-- it would be Phnom Penh.
You can eat anything you want:
fried bugs, yum yums (frozen water, sugar in a pop-up thingy)
You can stand on the corner with your friends.
Or, you can zip zip around on your scooter.
Everyone is zipping around, whole families fit leisurely onto one scooter:
one boy in front pretending to drive, another asleep in the back-- held in by
his mother.
The Killing Fields
"Morning Adam. Killing Fields today?"
This is Samu. Three days ago he delivered me to this hotel. We
bonded.
His dashboard is missing. He has no idea how fast he's going or how much
petrol he has left.
"Today?" He smiles. He has remarkable teeth.
I'm not going to see the skulls in a field. War is bad, I
get it.
There are old people in Phom Penh and there are children but there's no one my
age,
I don't need to see the graveyard.
"Maybe later."
Samu smiles again, he's so young. I could have a child
his age.
"Adam," he says says, " You can shoot an AK47, you
can throw a grenade."
Street Kids
Street kids sell books to tourists along the river bank..These are boys who
should be in third grade, fourth, maybe fifth. They give the tourists
nickname
I'm strong-man, because I lift them-- and their books-- into
the superman position. Some of them revert to boyness and others don't.
Their books are not frivolous paperbacks, no. They're not
thrillers or romance or even that many travel books. The vast majority of
their books are about recent Cambodian history. here are some of the
titles:
The Pol Pot Regime. First they Killed my Father, a Prision
Portrait. They sell the ever popular, The Killing Fields.
With no irony at all these slaves sell the book, Sex Slaves.
The pain is impossible to process; so, some people turn it
into big business. Other people turn it into a story--at least that's
what I do.
Adam Jeffries Schwartz is a writer and a traveler.
He has stories, essays & poems in: Descant, Grimm, Jacaranda & Bleach Magazines.
Online he pops up at many sites, including: Mosaic Minds, Melange, Ghoti (Fish), Litbits, Magazine Shiver,
QVoices, Caprice & Forbidden Fruit.
This year he's in Asia.
Email: Adam Jeffries Schwartz
Return to Table of Contents