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?”
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| He can fly. In your mouth. (Theoretically) |
