Beer, Ice and Roaches.

I woke up four hours later to complete darkness and a soft rapping at my door. I had fallen asleep without any lights on and now my wonderful little heat box was pitch black. I shouted that I needed five minutes but the long nap made my voice sound like an aging bullfrog. To my great relief the door knocker responded in English, “My name is Craig. We are just having a couple beers outside join us when you are ready.”

 I turned the light on just in time to see a very tall shadow walk past my cloudy window. Craig? Right, my new head teacher. I quickly rinsed the thick layer of crusty sleep and sweat off my body with relatively cold water then I went to brush my teeth. “Dammit” I muttered as I applied toothpaste to my finger hoping to rub off the layer of film on my teeth. I threw on some clothes, tried to take a quick look in the mirror, realized I didn’t have one, then took a deep breath and unlocked my door for the first time that day.

I saw three figures sitting outside, the tall one must be the head teacher Craig,  one was a smaller, balding man with a kind smile and the last was a beautiful young woman with curly black hair.

 “You must be Victoria!” the woman stated as she shifted over on the concrete curb to let me have a seat, “I have really been looking forward to you coming, I have been the only girl for over a month!”  

I didn’t know how to respond but I was certainly glad she was happy to see me. I sat down on the curb next to her and the shorter, balding man got up and approached to introduce himself. When he stood up I noticed he was actually quite short, a good few inches shorter than my 5’6, and he had a bright, kind smile and adorable jug ears. “My name is Ira. I’m from New York city, been here around 6 months. Nice to meet you.”  Then the tall one, my work superior,  stood up behind Ira and approached to shake my hand. I stood up to greet him and said rather redundantly “Hi, My name is Victoria.” 

“I’m Craig, from America, you want a beer?” After living inside my own head, which had been living inside a breezeless sauna, for the past 7 hours, a beer and some company sounded absolutely wonderful.

                             

                                      
“What are you doing?” I was trying to gratefully accept the offer of beer but when Craig began to put ice cubes into my glass I had to protest. It was unheard of. I just said no. Chris laughed at my shocked protest and replied “You can say no to the cubes but it’s a pretty hot country, as you may have noticed this afternoon, and beer tends to warm up pretty quickly and then taste like warm piss. The cubes combat the warm piss phenomena and hydrate you in the mean time. Your choice though.” Looking around I noticed that everyone had a glass of Singha beer with ice. I turned back to Craig and  I nodded to give the go ahead about the ice and muttered something inane like “When in Rome…”                                                          

After about five small glasses of beer, with ice no less, I was starting to feel much more relaxed. The girl with the beautiful, black curly hair had told me she was from Louisiana and her name was Bonnie. She was very easy to chat to so I related my stories about my hellish stay in the airport and about my traitor fan and pillow. She laughed hard and made me feel 10 times better. 

It was a wonderful way to spend an evening, sitting in a narrow, concrete alleyway staring up at the night sky, bonding with new co-workers and having a drink. I was much more relaxed now. I was a little put off by the tired, hungry looking dogs that meandered and skittered by. Some of the older lady dogs had nipples that hung down like old Christmas bulbs, but they gave us wide berth and I almost managed to ignore them. “Would anyone like some Canadian wine?” I asked, feeling a relieved solidarity with my new friends. Ira told me that he was heading off to bed but Craig and Bonnie were very interested in trying some Canuck vino, so I went to get it from my room.

I had just poured each of us a glass when a giant, shiny, fist-sized cockroach jumped up from the drain sewer grate built into our stoop and took off running between us and the row houses. Sensing that it was trapped, the cockroach stopped short, wiggled it’s finger long antennae, shook out its wings and began flying directly towards me. I screamed, jumped forward about 5 feet, which landed me on the opposite side of the narrow alley, and I managed to spill the rest of my wine half down my shirt and half on the ground. Craig and Bonnie were in hysterics, laughing so hard both of them were bent over the stoop gasping for breath. 

When Bonnie finally came up for air she looked at me with I dare you eyes and said,  “You feel like checking out Rat Town?”

He can fly. In your mouth. (Theoretically)