“If I were that ugly, I would not want to be here,” Rafik responded. “Back home, he would not get laid, but some poor female would have had to face his bed in marriage. Here, women feel no compunction about rejecting such a beast.”

“He is more of a rodent than a beast,” Aziz observed.

“Yes, too small by half to be a beast.”

“He will make good money, though.”

“Yes, there is that.”

“He will send my parents more money in a month than I sent in a year.”

“True.”

“He will not be drafted back home.”

“Yes.”

“He came on an airplane, like a diplomat.”

“Yes.”

“Look at him. He is not even happy to see me.” Aziz waved and smiled broadly. Mourad looked up and pushed his hand in the air, then dropped it and turned his back. “Then again, maybe he will take Heather from you.”

“Maybe I will saw off your dick.”

Mourad got a security job at the airport. This was cause for manic amazement at Brooks Street. Mourad made so much money, Aziz told him to tell all the other Brooks inhabitants that he made only a quarter of his true salary. Mourad went to work in a black uniform with an obsidian billy club and a lightweight stun gun waggling from his belt loops. He was considered an enormous asset because of his French, Arabic, and acceptable English. The owner of the security company told him he had a future that was bright if he “kept his nose clean.” When Aziz explained this expression, Mourad said, “I am not Rafik.”

After two months on the job, Mourad purchased a television. Rafik and Heather had a television in their bedroom, but as if by bad charm, when Mourad walked into the apartment after being picked up from the airport, it stopped working. Rafik had planned to “find” another television, but Mourad told him that if he did he would report him to the police. He told Rafik this in uniform although, as a concession to Aziz, Mourad refrained from strapping his club and gun to his side until after the delivery of this news. Mourad, to Aziz’s shame, bought the largest available television and a home theater system with speakers the size of a bathtub. It took four men to deliver it, and four others to set it up. It was placed in Aziz’s bedroom, which was now also Mourad’s bedroom. Aziz pleaded with him to put it in the living room, because after all, Heather and Rafik as a couple could not be asked to pile into their bed along with Lahouari and the other two, all of whom were still sleeping in well-tended pockets in the living room. Mourad refused.

Chapter 11

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