Free I Am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière Page A

Could I do it? I watch him for a minute, then decide to go back to salmon. There is no danger at the big fish market at the next corner.
    Any minute now, night will fall and the park’s fauna will change. The girls from the tourism school will go home and be replaced by young prostitutes who, most of them, are former students from the same school, the big building across the way whose only interest is the subway station underneath it. The souvlaki-eaters will be replaced by coke dealers. The businessmen from downtown will drive in slow circles around the little park under the watchful eye of the policeman, who gets a percentage for every customer—not for every car, the way it used to be.

A DISH OF SPAGHETTI
IN FRONT OF THE TV SET
    I HEARD HURRIED steps in the stairway behind me. I was already fumbling for my keys.
    “Didn’t Plato show up?”
    “What Plato?”
    His face grew dark.
    “My rent.”
    “You’ll get it ...”
    “I want it today!”
    “But Mr. Zorba ...”
    “My name isn’t Zorba.”
    I’d never seen him in a mood like this.
    “We still have time.”
    That drives him crazy every time.
    “I don’t feel like chasing after you all night.”
    “You’ll get your money, like every week.”
    “Well, I didn’t get it this week.”
    Poor guy—the fear of being ripped off! I can hardly put him off even a half day. Once I went to New York with friends, and he didn’t get his rent until three days later. That look of his! He went back down the stairs, murmuring peasant curses between his teeth. I opened the door, placed the rent money on the table, pulled off my clothes and got into bed. I had time for a little snooze, and I’d be up before he returned. That doesn’t happen every day. I even had time to make a spaghetti sauce out of garlic, onions and green peas, then eat it in front of the tv set as I watched an old Columbo episode. I discovered some low-rent wine in a bottle lying under the table—enough for one glass. Lucullus receives Lucullus. I sat down to the left of the set; I was both audience and antenna. The old TV and I know each other well. Actually, it’s more like a radio, since I can make out only vague shapes, though the sound is still good. The TV is perfect for Metropolitan Orchestra concerts, if you like that sort of thing, which I hate. Sometimes I listen, hoping for a miracle. Most of the time its gray eye stares at me in dumb accusation. Zorba is only good for demanding his money. Every time I ask him to get a better television, just to bug him, he acts like he doesn’t understand me. He can broadcast, but he can’t receive.

THE COP'S NIGHTSTICK
    A KNOCK AT the door. It’s eleven o’clock. I won’t give him his money until ten minutes to midnight—not a second before. Those ten minutes are his tip. Another knock. Someone’s insistent. He knows I’m here. Okay, I’ll open up. Two cops. They barge in without wiping their feet. They begin a minute inspection of my room without bothering to tell me who they are (though I can clearly see that), or what they want, which I can’t know without their help. When it comes to the police, you just have to wait. And that’s what I do. I sit down. Downstairs, the landlord must be going nuts. Not only does he hate the police the way all immigrants do, but he’s wondering if he’s going to get his rent if something happens. The cops move around my place like they own it. They look this way and that. They open the dresser drawers and come upon a pair of women’s panties which they start playing with in the crassest kind of way. They go to the window, speaking to each other in low voices. I sit and wait patiently. Sooner or later they’ll have to talk to me. And here they come: now they’re standing in front of me. Two cops and a black man in a crummy room in a bad part of town in Montreal—the scene is set. The oldest of the two comes so close to me his knee brushes my thigh. Suddenly the room starts smelling like shit.
    “Let