Swimming to Cambodia by Spalding Gray

said, “Penny, listen, I had a Perfect Moment but I have no words for it. But I can tell you about my new theory of Displacement of Anxiety. You see, if you ever want to do something Penny, and you’re afraid to do it and you lack the courage, just take a big pile of money and leave it somewhere where it can be stolen. Then you’ll be able to do what has to be done. Just concentrate on your money.”
    She said, “Spalding, Spalding, you’re a strange bloke. You know what? You think too much. What are you doing testing your fears at forty-two years old? Didn’t you do it as a lad?”

    â€œNo,” I said. “Was I supposed to? Oh lord, did I miss that, too? Oh no, I know, my brother Rocky did it all for me. He tested all his fears at an early age. One of his biggest fears was the basement in our house. When our parents would go away he’d turn out the lights and crawl on his belly from his bedroom down the front stairs, then down the basement stairs and, with his eyes closed, he would feel the basement walls, every crack, feeling his way around the entire room until he either died or didn’t die.”
    So Penny said, “I want you to walk with me down this beach without looking back once at your money. We will walk to the far end of the beach together. Let’s go.”
    And I walked all the way down the beach with Penny backwards, never once losing sight of my money. Then, when I got down to the far end of the beach I fell into a new cluster of energy. There were these enormous water buffalo that came up to my shoulder and these ratty, ragtag Thai kids with sticks talking to the buffalo in Thai and ignoring me. I was floating in between this boy-buffalo energy like Casper the Friendly Ghost. I was in their energy field, in my ocean briefs and ready to go anywhere they went. I was being swept away, just like the water. I was going with them and I was happy, and all of a sudden a human voice woke me and I drowned as I heard, in the distance, Judy Freeman calling, “Spalding! Spalding! Time to go. Time to go back to the Phuket Merlin.”
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    So I went. I had to. These people had become my umbilical cord. I was breathing through them.
    I got back to the hotel and I went to the person who
was fast becoming my father-confessor, Athol Fugard. Now, Athol seemed to like hearing my stories, and also, he had just given up drinking so he was buying me drinks and kind of living vicariously through me.
    â€œSpalding! I am going to have an orange and you will have yourself some beer. Now. What’s been going on? Tell me all about your day.”
    And I told him. I told him about the Perfect Moment in the Indian Ocean and he said, “Spalding. The sea’s a lovely lady.” (He’s South African, like Ivan.) “The sea’s a lovely lady when you play in her, but if you play with her, she’s a bitch. Don’t ever play with the sea. You’re lucky to be here. You’re lucky to be alive.”
    I believed him, and we went to eat—Athol, Graham Kennedy, Tom Bird and I. Afterwards Tom and I went window-shopping for whores and then went to bed. I slept rocked in the arms of the sea, like a kid again in Jerusalem, Rhode Island with sand in my bed. It was a beautiful night, perfect sleep, the bed rocking gently.
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    The next day was June 24 and it was a back-to-work day for those that were still working on the film. I wanted to hang out on the set because it was supposed to be a very . . . explosive day, when the first bombs went off at the Coca-Cola factory.
    When I got down to the set everything was in perpetual flames, like a little version of hell. All the buildings had flaming gas jets around them so they could burn all day without burning down. Coke trucks were burning as well, and I got to throw cases of Coke at the wall, to smash the bottles, make it look like a bomb had blown up. And the Thai extras were lined up, covered
with