Howie the Pox.

[Kung-fu Hillbilly]

Chapter 1.

Howie The Pox

We called Howie, Howie The Pox, because he spends more money on doctors and penicillin than he does on the whores and bars that infect him. If he’d stop describing the sexual sewer in his underwear every time he contaminated his cock, we would’ve been kinder and named him Mattress Back Howie, or Bareback Howie, or Howie The Little Fat Fucking Steam Engine. But he won’t keep his unhealthy discharges to himself,so, well,fuck him, he’s Howie The Pox.

Sunday. 11am. Jesters Cafe

My business partner's already sitting down at a table half way through his daily English breakfast when I get there, rivulets of sweat tracing the wheezing fat bastard’s jaw-line before falling off his pudgy chin onto the table. In Howie’s defense, Phnom Penh's summers have been fucking brutal lately.

“Saw your ex missus last night.” he says, eyes fixed on his food.

I drag out a chair and sit. “Which one?”

“One that bought The Juice Box.” Howie looks up searching for a waitress and waves one over.“She looks good.”

I’m not interested in talking about my fucking ex. I order two beers from the approaching pair of tits and avoid the topic.

“When we on for?”

“One o’clock. Gonna be alright, Tony. Got the bloke at the airport tucked away just nice. And our fella at the hospital says he can strip twenty grand worth of meds every few months, no problem. Just the two kids drivin’ the shit into Thailand to worry about really”

No, me and Howie The Pox won’t be invited to your kids school to give a fuckin’ careers talk.

Howie stands up and I’m not sure if the stain on the front of his pants is sweat and breakfast, or the blooming signs of another bout of the clap. If the latter, I’m sure I’ll fucking hear all about it.

Howie starts scratching his his dick. In public. While everyone is eating. Our Howie’s a dirty little fucker.

“Remember the acrobat?” Howie asks, grinning madly. “”she came back to the bar last night.”

“Ive no idea how any of them let a diseased fat fuck like you put his cock anywhere near them.” Howie wanders off toward the loo giggling to himself continuing to scratch the wet patch on the front of his pants.

See, here’s the thing. Howie The Pox might be a little fucking diseased deviant who will fuck anything and everything, blow big dough on nonsense and not shower enough, but he’s fucking solid. That little fat bastard of a business partner of mine is someone I can trust. And I challenge anyone playing the game in Phnom Penh to find anyone who is more stand up than Howie.

Sunday 5pm

It only took a couple of hours to split the load kindly donated by the world’s caring international community.. Most of our time is taken up with identifying everything that had been ordered, like morphine and oxycontin, you know, shit for junkies. Or ritalin and duromine for the speed freaks. Howie knows the proper names, like Methylphenidate for ritalin. Not only does he know the pharmaceutical names, the fat fucker knows the chemical names, as well. Clever little cunt.

Two lads are now on their way to the border with our buyer waiting for them. Fact is, half of everything we do like this gets busted or simply disappears into thin air. It’s part of “The Business” and we expect it to happen. Don’t like it when it does happen, but there it is.

Phnom Penh Nights

I’m on the balcony of a pub overlooking the river drinking whiskey, it’s my favorite thing to do at this time of the day and has been for twenty five years. Yeah, there’s now fuckin’ hipsters to join the hippies, backpackers, smack heads, meth heads, deathpats, sexpats and the world’s other pieces of shit and detritus strolling the city’s streets these days. But that same sun sinks over that same river as the fuckin’ mad house that’s Phnom Penh shimmers in the thick air of late afternoon, limbering up for the night ahead. A night I'm very much part of.

But you gotta be careful, mind because Phnom Penh can change a man. Can change the way he thinks, can change the way he acts. Can change the way he sees himself, and how the world sees him. And if blokes like me don’t stay on their game, we’re off down that fuckin’ slippery slope that ends in a whole lot of pain and puss in this town. I’ll take you with me for a night out one night.

Sunday 11pm The Juice Box

Chanthavy owns The Juice Box, but I fuckin’ paid for it. That’s just the way it is. You can’t run around fuckin’ whacking every ex Asian missus you ever had just coz she got a few dollars out of ya, now can ya? Howie was right, though, she still looks good. Real good. She doesn't have to dance any more, but she'd still know hoe to get a few wrinkles out of an old man, if you know what I mean.

[Jerry Atrick]

Didn't realise you were once Londo.

[Kung-fu Hillbilly]

Quite a few are surprised I'm Londo. I 'was going to post the follow up chapters as time goes on,

I'm also going to post my backlog of the true and fictional stories I've written while in South East Asia.

Hope you don't mind.

[Yerg]

Quite a few are surprised I'm Londo. I 'was going to post the follow up chapters as time goes on,

I'm also going to post my backlog of the true and fictional stories I've written while in South East Asia.

Hope you don't mind.

Keep 'em coming @Kung-fu Hillbilly

[SternAAlbifrons]

Good work (again) hill man.
But i am a bit shocked - somehow i imagined that you had transcended to a higher world that these mean streets.

[Cinnamoncat]

I'm a sucker for the written word! Well done.

[Kung-fu Hillbilly]

The Juice Box

The Juice Box is a retirement village for old Phnom Penh pussy,. A place where whores who never got their legs wrapped around a barang “long time”can still get by. Nice enough girls, mind, but for one reason or another didn”t get their man, or didn’t get off the gear, or didn’t think about later years. But it takes all sorts in the world, dunnit, so the old girls still get to put their legs in the air every now and again and make a bit of milk money coz some fellas like their women nice and fruity, don’t they?

But here’s the fucking thing.. Used to be an old geezer named Albert who walked around Phnom Penh for fucking years in a fedora, three piece suit, carrying a fuckin’ umbrella with a goose head carved handle. We called him Goose Head Albert, of course. Complete nutter, but he liked old girls and whiskey to pass his nights., right? So, one day Goose Head is gettin’ a few wrinkles out with his favorite fifty year old and goes stiff on the money shot. Fucker’s dead, innit? Here’s the fuckin’ craic. Four weeks later some English dandy fella walks into the bar and tells Chanthavy that Goose Head has left enough money for his favorite five old whores to be fed and housed till the end of their days. You gotta fuckin’ love this place., yeah?

I’ve come to the Juice Box for a new visa. Things are gettin’ tougher for many of us in the business out here these days, as certain government types are taking more of an interest about who we is and what we is doin’. Fortunately my exes father is a handy high government type workin' a little side line with dodgy stamps and stickers. It fuckin’ costs me a fortune to be trim, everything to do with my ex fuckin’costs me a fucking fortune,but I bring my passport tonight, come back tomorrow and I’m green for another year. All tickety boo, like, and Tony Grieves gets to go around again. Might tell ya my real name if you hang around.

Chanthavy is tall for a Khmer woman, and if you didn’t know better, you’d bet London to a brick her tits were bought. Trust me, my exes tits naturally defy fucking physics and she’s not spent a fucking dime on them, nor me. They’re magnificent and I can’t take my eyes of ‘em as I approach the bar. Chanthavy puts a whiskey in front of me which distracts my hormones temporarily.

“ Howie just leave.” Chanth tells me.

“How’s things, alright?’My bog standard ex missus patter.

“Not sure why you still come all the time.” Great, she’s in a mood.

“It’s just business.’Who an I kidding. I still love her.

“You got plenty of people to do your business, Tony.”

“Yeah, but then how can I make sure you’re OK.” I’m actually fucking sincere .

“Fuck you, Tony. Stop bullshit with me, please..” She looks tired.

“How’s dad?” My bog standard second greeting to exes.

“Problem with his lung.”My ex watches me carefully knowing that this does concern me. Her old man is a very fuckin important to me.

Let me tell you some things about ex father-in-law, High Rank.

High Rank doesn’t allow anyone, fuckin anyone, to talk about “those unhappy days”, as he calls them. If someone even fuckin alludes to the subject of Khmer Rouge, he’ll let it be known that person isn’t welcome near him or his own ever again. And if you do happen appear again somehow, you get a little visit from a few of his employess. The old boy has got some secrets, no fuckin doubt. And as far as I'm concerned, it's best to respect a man's wishes about these things. Me and High Rank may be very different people, but we understand there's a code in life. Some of us have to live by a code, it's what protects and also bonds us.

One rumor has it High Rank used to peel the skin off the face of people he killed during "those unhappy days", preserving that skin by nailing it to wooden boards and hanging those boards on the walls of his interrogation room. Fuck me, talk about fucking Cambodians saving face. This fucker not only saved faces, he collected em like fucking Renoirs. Lets just say, I don’t forget the ex father-in-laws fucking birthday.

[la8rat]

good stuff. keep em coming

[The Seawolf]

Fuck me, its Lock Stock and Two Smoking Lok Lak.

When's Vinnie Jones gonna show up and say '..sbin emoshunal'

[SternAAlbifrons]

Never heard that take on "saving face" before.
- you got the touch, Hill Man.