Free Cockroach by Rawi Hage

finger, my
     chest gleaming under a black shiny shirt, my car keys dangling from a gadget that could
     open doors and beep and warm the driver’s seat despite the cold snow. I wanted a
     gold chain around my neck and a well-dressedwoman with kohl under
     her eyes, and a late-evening blow job that began in a big fancy car and ended on an
     imported carpet with a motif of peacock tails fanning shades of purple against my hairy
     Arab ass.
    Instead, the owner went behind the bar and got me my drink himself,
     calling me over with a nod as if signalling to one of his waiters. You stay here, he
     muttered.
    I sat on a bar stool in the corner, close to the kitchen, and twirled the
     ice in my drink with a plastic straw. The soft music in the background, the dim
     lighting, the glowing red from the lanterns, and the gold atmospheric ornaments made me
     think of the story of the virgins who had lost their lives in the king’s castle
     before Scheherazade distracted him with her tales of jinn and fishermen. I wondered
     whether, if I had happened to live back then (wearing a different outfit, naturally), I
     could have saved any of those women. Maybe I could have been the
saqi
who
     slipped a few poison drops from my ring into the king’s wine. And as I watched him
     writhe in agony from the spell in his stomach, right before he fumbled another innocent
     girl, I could have stuck a dagger through his silky purple robe, opened his poisonous
     entrails, and watched his eyes flicker in awe and disbelief as he anticipated the next
     and final episode. The smell of food from the kitchen brought me back to the land of
     forests and snow. And then all I wished was to crawl under the swinging door and hide
     under the stove, licking the mildew, the dripping juice from the roast lamb, even the
     hardened yogurt drops on the side of the garbage bin. With my pointy teeth, I thought, I
     could scrape the white drips all the way under the floor.
    When Reza was done playing, he came and sat with me.
     We were both silent. He leaned on me and said, they are closing in another half-hour.
     When I get paid, we leave. We watched the employees folding the tablecloths, sweeping up
     glass, turning the chairs upside down on the tables, sucking the carpets with electric
     hoses, and mopping the kitchen floor. All the crumbs, all the loose bits of food that
     had jumped during the evening from the cook’s knives and tilted plates — all
     that had flown and landed on the ground, all that had sizzled and escaped the rims of
     giant pans, all that had been transported by gravity and chased by giant brooms and
     battered by wet sweeping, all that had been expelled into the hollow of drains in thin,
     calm waves of grease and water — now fell into underwaged fists and made me
     sob.
    The owner came out from behind the bar and silently took my glass from me,
     opened the cash register, called over the musicians, and paid them one by one.
    When that was done, I approached the owner with humility, my back hunched,
     my hand below my chin and close to my chest. I said: Excuse me, sir. May I ask you
     something?
    He barely nodded, not looking at me.
    Sir, I am looking for a job.
    The owner automatically lifted his head at this, and looked me in the
     eyes. Do you have any experience? he asked, and then bent his head back towards his
     money.
    Yes, I do. I can work as a waiter, I said.
    I have waiters, he replied. Do you speak Farsi? Some of my customers want
     to be served in Farsi here.
    No, but I can work as a busboy. I am very good at it. Ihave the experience. Ask my friend Reza here. I worked in a fancy French restaurant
     here in Montreal, Le Cafard, on Sherbrooke Street.
    Reza was annoyed at me for saying that. I could see his raised eyebrows.
     He stood up, turned his back, and walked towards the door with his instrument case,
     zipping through the erect upside-down legs of the chairs on the tables.
    Come back on Tuesday, said the