God Bless Cambodia

by Randy Ross

  Next I watch Australia’s Deadliest Jellyfish and Are You Smarter than a Schoolie?

  Two hours later, my eyeballs feel like they’re going to roll back into my head. My hands are twitchy and my jaw is tired from grinding my teeth.

  I stare deep into the medicine cabinet mirror: Gray stubble on my neck. Old. I take out a razor and remove the protective cover. When my mother was my age, she cheated on my stepfather. When her Uncle Morty reached my age, he hiked into the woods and handcuffed himself to a tree. His skeleton was found picked clean three years later. I look deeper still: Wide, anxious eyes. Hello, little baby monkey.

  Chocolate and TV have always been a bad combination for me. The problems began as a child with after-school TV: The Little Rascals, The Three Stooges, The Munsters. While watching, I’d sip a glass of chocolate milk and nibble Count Chocula from the box. On a weekend, I could polish off a twenty-two-ounce bottle of Bosco and watch a dozen cartoons back-to-back.

  My TV viewing soon became indiscriminate. I watched cross-country skiing, tarpon fishing, and cartoons starring girls. I neglected my gerbils and forgot to walk the dog. I watched alone and snuck a TV Guide in my lunch box.

  I lied to my friends, my family, and to myself: I just needed a little something to help me relax after a long day of sniffing Magic Markers, eating crayons, and learning to spell curse words. But despite an electron hangover every morning, I never missed any school. As far as I was concerned, I didn’t have a problem.

  One day I fell off my bicycle and skinned my elbow. In the bathroom, I took a good look at myself: I was gaunt, disheveled, and had a picture-tube tan. Even at eleven years old, I knew I had to quit. But as soon as I felt the buzz of a TV screen or smelled chocolate syrup, I lost control.

  By fifth grade, this was my typical Saturday:

  8:30 A.M. Glass of milk with a shot of Bosco, bowl of Cocoa Puffs.

  9:00–11:00 Deputy Dawg, Help!. . . It’s the Hair Bear Bunch!, Bewitched, Archie.

  11:01 Bathroom break, stepsister Harriet enters the den, ignores me, and leaves. Milk with Bosco, Cocoa Krispies with Bosco.

  11:30–1:00 p.m. Josie and the Pussycats, The Monkees, Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp.

  1:05 Stepdad: “Shut off that damn television and go outside!”

  3:00 Major League Baseball Game of the Week.

  4:00: Throw Nerf ball around den. Break lamp. Hide lamp.

  5:00 Wide World of Sports.

  5:10 Bosco with a shot of milk.

  6:30 Dinner: liver with onions, Brussels sprouts, green jello mold; refuse to eat sprouts, no dessert.

  7:30–10:00 Mission: Impossible, My Three Sons, The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Bosco straight from the bottle. Pee on carpet in Harriet’s room.

  10:05 Mom: “No, you can’t watch Mannix, you have to go to bed.” I argue. She threatens no TV for one week.

  10:06 In bed, lights out.

  2:00 A.M. In the kitchen: Bosco straight from the bottle, Count Chocula chaser; watch TV static for an hour.

  Sunday: repeat, substituting animal shows for cartoons.

  For twenty years, I have controlled my TV and chocolate habits by not keeping either in the house. Now my hotel room floor is strewn with chocolate foils and the TV drones in the background. At two A.M., I shut off everything and get into bed. I wake at 3:09 A.M., 4:15 A.M., and 6:33 A.M. from the same nightmare.

  It’s our annual family Chanukah dinner. Harriet is with a new husband and a new kid, Joey is with his foreign wife and eight-year-old daughter, Jan. I’m still single and sitting between my parents who are in their sixties. I’m in my sixties too. Everyone addresses me as “sir.” Jan hands me a little wrapped box and says, “Uncle Randy, I don’t want you to be alone anymore.” Inside the box is a photo of her homely sixty-year-old teacher, Miss Phelps. There’s a phone number with a note, “Call me, we’ll party. Evelyn.”

  Back in my Royal Paradise bathroom, unable to sleep, I open my Tupperware container of medications and read the labels: hydrocortisone cream (do not ingest). Vicodin (do not take with alcohol), and Ambien (do not take with Vicodin). I read other labels, eventually get tired, and go to bed. I awake at eleven A.M. to a vacuum cleaner in the hallway banging against my door.

  I slip off the blindfold. The room seems larger, emptier, more expensive. Out on the balcony, I survey the crowd at the pool: Not a single high-relief collarbone, or wingy shoulder blade, or heart-shaped calf. Everyone in the crowd is overweight.

  I pop three ibuprofen, cover the TV with a towel, and call the concierge.

  “Is there a health club nearby?”

  “Sure. There’s one right next to the Cow Cow.”

  I don my rooting outfit and head the opposite direction to Hennigan Avenue. I’ve had enough of the Cow Cow. As I walk, I think of schoolies and kids. Maybe that’s the connection I’ve been missing in life—a child. I have money; I could adopt a little ankle-biter. Then when I’m old, I’ll have someone to spend my savings and clean my pooper if Lenny won’t. The little cookie scammer in Bangkok was kind of cute. Joey’s daughter, Jan, is kind of cute.

  Last Chanukah, Joey and I took Jan skiing for her first time.

  At the rental shop: “I want pink boots,” Jan said.

  “The boots only come in blue,” Joey said.

  “They hurt.”

  “Ski boots are supposed to hurt,” he said.

  “I’m not wearing them.”

  “Jan, you have a choice: You can wear the boots and go skiing, or not wear the boots and we can sit in the lodge and drink beer all day.”

  “I’m a kid, I’m too little for beer and it tastes gross.”

  “No boots, no skiing.

  Finally we got her outfitted and outside. After a half-hour wait on the lift line, we made it to the front. Little Jan was smiling and licking the mucous running from her nose. I patted her on the head. Good girl.

  Then Joey said, “Jan, where are your mittens?”

  Elapsed time: three hours.

  Skiing: none

  Two blocks from Hennigan Avenue, a shirtless schoolie in a ski hat skateboards toward me on the sidewalk. As he approaches, he raises his hand for a high five and smiles. “G’day, sir,” he says. I nix the adoption idea and keep walking.

  A few blocks farther, I spot a bookstore, head to the markdown table, and thumb through The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness, and the Creation of Roget’s Thesaurus. A keeper. I tuck it under my arm.

  Next I’m wooed by Score Like a Pro: How to Pick Up Beautiful Women. Chapter One instructs fledgling hose-artists to build confidence by talking to strangers and offers a scoring system for tracking progress:

  • Ask a stranger the time: one point

  • Ask a woman the time: two points.

  • Ask an attractive woman the time: three points.

  • Ask follow-up questions: one point each.

  Goal: Accumulate ten points a day for the first week.

  Key to success: Hygiene. Take a shower, brush your teeth, and change your T-shirt.

  Next to me, a young blonde is holding a book on Linux upside down.

  “You having fun?” I ask.

  “No English.”

  No problem. Three points.

  I buy both the Roget and Score Like a Pro books for 50 percent off and head to the gym recommended by the concierge.

  In the stretching area, I ask a woman doing a headstand. “Do you know what time it is?”

  She says something unintelligible. Then I notice the facial mole: only two points.

  I pass a woman doing lunges in a Yankees baseball hat.

  “Are you from New York?”

  Smile, nod.

  Another three.

  “Do those lunges work your glutes?” I say.

  She rolls her eyes.

  Not my problem, one point.

  Nine points in two hours. I hit the showers, change into a clean Red Sox T-shirt, and head to the Cow Cow to celebrate.

  At the outside bar, a three-point
waitress approaches.

  “Can I get a XXXX?” I ask.

  “Pot?” she asks.

  “Had to quit, beer is fine.”

  “Very funny. OK, one pot of XXXX.”

  “Hey, your accent is normal,” I say. “Where are you from?”

  “Canada,” she says.

  “Me, too, eh?”

  “Right. Last I heard, the Red Sox were American.”

  “Good one. Do you surf?” I ask.

  “Every day.”

  “I bet you’re a pretty good surfer,” I say. “I’m still learning, but we should go sometime.”

  “Probably not a good idea. I’m kind of seeing someone.”

  “He’s a lucky guy. If anything changes between now and the time you bring the pot, let me know.” As I hear my own words, I’m impressed with myself.

  The pot turns out to be a half-pint. Halfway through it, my theobromine agitation is overtaken by something more pleasant—oxytocin—strange because not only did I not touch the waitress, I got blown off. I finish my beer, leave the recommended Aussie tip of 10 percent, and hit the mall for a pair of overpriced sunglasses.

  One-hundred dollars later, I’m back in my room. The maids have left chocolates on my pillow and removed the towel from the television. I can’t help noticing the afternoon TV schedule: Spiders and Snakes: Australia’s Deadliest Critters starts in five minutes.

  I need a distraction, something that doesn’t involve TV and chocolate. I open the Roget book, about a man who made lists to fend off anxiety and insanity. I grab a hotel pad and pen.

  List #1: Positive things in my life

  • My mortgage is small.

  • My prostate is small.

  List #2: Sex

  • Age virginity lost: 17

  • Years having sex: 28

  • Number of sexual partners: 56

  • Average new partners per year: 2

  • Longest dry spell: 18 months (probably no worse than any married guy)

  List #3: Love

  • Number of times average person falls in love: 6

  • Number of times I’ve fallen in love: 14

  • My average frequency: once every 24 months

  • Longest dry spell: 48 months

  List #4: Relationships

  • Longer than 3 months: 12

  • Longer than a year: 4

  • Longest: 3 years (Ricki, but it included 3-month-long breakups)

  • Percentage of life in a relationship: 33

  • Percentage of life depressed: 67

  • Most disturbing trend: 7 girlfriends had men’s names

  List #5: Marriage

  • Women who would have married me: 4

  • Women I would have married: 4

  • Women in both categories: none

  Before I left, Dr. Moody offered some insights into why I was still single.

  “You need to be aware of how your teasing comes across. Is it possible that some of these women, like Ricki, experienced it as something less than fun?”

  “So what’s your point?” I asked.

  He reached for his notepad, scribbled something, and continued. “When a woman you like is calm, you worry that she’s bored or that there’s no spark.”

  I pulled out my pocket notepad and scribbled something.

  He continued: “To get a rise out of them, to get their attention, you tease them.”

  I scribbled some more.

  “OK,” I said. “Maybe I am a childish, sadistic, rotten person. I know you don’t believe in fate. But I do. Maybe it’s my destiny to be single.”

  He scribbled. I scribbled.

  “I understand your frustration. You just need to learn to get out of your own way. Don’t give up yet. By the way,” he said, nodding at my notepad, “are you trying to get a rise out of me?”

  Abe offered some additional insights:

  “Burns, you know what your problem is? You try to act weird. I don’t know if it’s to get attention or what. Why don’t you just try acting normal for once?”

  “Define normal.”

  “I’ll tell you what normal isn’t.

  “A middle-aged guy who sleeps with fifty women and finds something wrong with every one of them.

  “A middle-aged guy who earns a six-figure salary and puts heel taps on his flip-flops and drives a car held together with Bondo.

  “A middle-aged guy who spends all his time either dieting or at the gym, like he’s some kind of pro athlete or an underwear model, but is too scrawny to be either.”

  “So, what’s your point?”

  I skip dinner, slip on my sleep blindfold, and awake two hours later to the sound of an envelope sliding under my door: I’ve won a fifty-dollar gift certificate to the casino for attending so many adult events. I celebrate with a minibar Heinken and more of the Score Like a Pro book.

  Chapter Two recommends developing an open-ended question that elicits more than a “yes” or “no” answer from a woman.

  Key to Success: Focus on the mission and remember that you have no control over outcomes. Envision success, see success. If you get stuck, observe your thoughts and feelings with cool detachment and repeat today’s affirmation: All is well in my world.

  The casino bar is down a set of stairs so wide it has four lanes. The ceiling is covered with hanging crystals that shimmer like glowworms. Two attractive blondes sit at the bar. Both are dressed in business-casual, cocktail-party outfits that show some leg, cleavage, and arm. Both have flowing, I Dream of Jeannie hairdos.

  I secure an open space near them at the bar and order a beer. I envision success using my new open-ended, conversation-starting, pickup line:

  Me: “Excuse me. I’m writing a book and need a woman’s opinion.”

  I picture them offering to help, breasts eager in their blouses.

  Me: “I’m stuck on a section where the narrator is trying to figure out whether women marry for love or security. What do you think?”

  I imagine how the women might respond:

  “What’s the name of the book?”

  Me: “The Chronic Single’s Handbook.”

  Them: “What’s it about?”

  Me: “A chronically single guy who takes a trip around the world looking to change his luck with love. It’s a funny book about loneliness.”

  What if they’ve been through bitter divorces?

  What if they ask why I’ve never been married?

  What if they ask if I’ve ever been to Phnom Penh?

  Fuck it. I’ll recycle my standard pickup line.

  As I stand at the bar waiting for my beer, I become aware of my hands. They feel exposed, like they should be doing something, something manly or confident; they shouldn’t just hang by my side like dead carp.

  I put them in my front pants’ pockets, which Score Like a Pro advises against because it’s the sign of a beta male, the guy with no confidence. I take my hands out of my pockets and cross them in front of me. But crossing your limbs demonstrates unavailability. I cross them behind my back. Now I look like a waiter. Back in my pockets they go.

  I look at the women again. They’re both attractive. Too attractive. Not in my wheelhouse.

  I’m not sure if it’s a theobromine aftereffect or jet lag or reverse culture shock but I notice a feeling that I haven’t had in weeks, like I’m shrinking, fading, becoming lighter, invisible, drifting, floating away like a lost balloon or a broken kite.

  The women both glance at me and smile. They have lines around their mouths, gray roots, and one has a liver spot on her hand. All is well in my world.

  As I open my mouth to ask if they’re having fun, the casino lights start flashing and holiday music starts blasting. Jugglers, elves, and Santa-clad nymphs gambol down the four-lane stairway. I look at the women and roll my eyes.

  “Where’s your Christmas spirit?” one of them asks me.

  Two points for her.

  “When you get to be my age, you lose a little of it,” I say. />
  “We are your age,” the other one says. “I like your accent.”

  “It’s a Melbourne accent.” I turn to face them.

  “Really? We’re from Melbourne. How come we don’t talk like Yanks?”

  A guy with a large watch and gabardine pants comes over and puts his arm on the women’s chairs, securing his flock from predators.

  The women turn to face him.

  He mentions something about some mutual friends.

  He mentions his trip to Sydney.

  They laugh.

  Focus on the mission.

  As he talks, he doesn’t once acknowledge me.

  I consider him with cool detachment.

  What a putz. He’s fat too.

  I ask the bartender for my check.

  The woman closest to me tugs my sleeve. “What’s your name?”

  “Randall.”

  “I’m Minkie.”

  We shake hands and she introduces me around.

  The putz ignores me and talks to the other woman.

  Minkie tells me that she’s a travel agent. She has just returned from South Africa and has never heard of the Frisky Bonobo on Long Street. I probably won’t impress her with my taste in accommodations, so I change the subject and tell her that I’ve been traveling for almost four months.

  “I couldn’t get away for that long,” she says. “I’m divorced, two kids. You?”

  “No wife, no kids, just some adorable moths that like to chew on my clothes. Do you want to see pictures?”

  The putz leans in between the two women without looking at me.

  “Ready to go upstairs?” he says.

  I take out my keys, fiddle with them, and look around the room. I’m starting to drift away. Then there’s a tug on my sleeve. “Want to come along?” Minkie asks me.

  The four of us ascend the stairs.

  The keys to success: Hygiene and focus.

  At the entrance to the club, I tell the group that I’m going to the loo and will meet them inside. Out of habit in the bathroom, I check my tongue—all clear.

  The doorman working the club is about my age and about twice my size. He scans my outfit and points to the Keen sandals.

  “Sorry, mate, you need proper shoes to get in.”

  “Actually I’m visiting from the US and I’m supposed to meet some people in there. Any chance you might let me slide? I promise to be on my worst behavior.”