Cake

CAKE

Cake is an amphetamine addict, 25 years old.  She's the same size as Noi, small small small.  I've never really been around an amphetamine addict, so I don't know how much of Cake is on account of that, and how much of Cake is just plain Cake.  She is definitely living her life on the street.  From morning till night she walks the streets (of where I won't write here….).  And she walks fast; often she runs.  And she never walks in a straight line.  Yesterday we spent all day together walking.  Today my feet and legs are tired!  Often she would disappear for a minute or two, and then reappear.

Cake talks to herself, and sings to herself.  She sings beautifully, morlam luktung.  She has a tiny mouth but when she sings it doesn't seem tiny at all.  And her eyes, always bloodshot, can pierce like bullets, or shine with love, often back to back within a few seconds.  Is there part of Cake that is mentally ill?  I don't know.  But we were pals and now I am leaving town and I miss her.

We were walking down the street and there was a spirit house piled high with fresh offerings.  Cake casually walked over, checked out the bananas, the oranges, the dragon fruit.  She decided on the oranges, and tossed one over to me and took one for herself.  "Kamoy", theif.  But she doesn't steal in shops.  And she has friends.  The young man without legs is a friend, a victim of polio since the age of four.  The crazy man that plays the flute terribly while he sits on the sidewalk looking for money from tourists; he is a friend.  Most people, I think, hate to see Cake coming.  They may not know her, but instantly they can read that she is trouble.

Around midday Cake turned into a dark, almost empty shop house (I can never ask where we are going; I just follow, or I mean I can ask but she never responds, usually just singing a few lines).  We walk to the back of the shop house and then up a flight of stairs into a big empty room.  I still have no idea why we are here.  Cake looks around quickly, then goes into action.  Against one wall there are odd looking game machines, not like anything I have ever seen before.  They look a little bit like 1950's pinball machines, or not quite so big.  Cake plugs in every one, quickly (like everything she does).  She looks at me and smiles.  The room is now lit up with lights, bells, and whistles.  It's all ours, to have fun!

We played like kids, for hours.  The machines all come from China.  They are crazy!  And there was Chinese money to play the machines, tons of it.  I bought beer, other people came.  One particular machine was a little bit like a slot machine, for sake of a better description.  I never quite figured it out, but Cake was obsessive, her fingers moving on the buttons like an incredible typist.  But her fingers moved fiercely, aggressively.  And then she would step back and the machine would zoom with lights and sounds, and then suddenly money (old Chinese money) would come pouring out.  Cake would take a long drag on her cigarette, the smoke hovering around her head like a lenticular cloud, and then she would attack the buttons again.

I met Cake dancing, like I meet most everyone  these days.  Cake danced like she walks the streets.  Fierce.  And everything is theatre, fabulous theatre.  We first sat at a table, but then Cake pushed all the chairs under the table so that all we had was a table.  And then it quickly became clear that we would dance around the table, one direction, the other direction, like a dancing chase, seldom if ever touching.   Fun fun fun!

People are afraid of crazy people.  I was sometimes a little bit afraid of Cake, though not in a big way.  But just the unpredictableness.  At one point I was fed up and I said "I'm going home."  I looked at Cake and from a bloodshot eye a tear came down.    I didn't go home. 

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