A Line in the Sand. Guillermo Verdecchia

got guns in the States, they’re fucking maniacs. In Canada we got health care. In the States, you’re poor and you have a heart attack, they don’t fucking care, they’ll turn you away from the hospital.

      SADIQ:

      My Uncle Mike, he say only lazy people are poor in America. If you work you can be rich.

      MERCER:

      What’s this thing with being rich? Money doesn’t help, you know. You think that having two TVs is going to do anything for you? Having a car, two cars, big cars, a big house, lots of telephones, you think that’s gonna solve your problems? No way Jose. Let me tell you.

      SADIQ:

      I want to be rich.

      Beat.

      Everybody want to be rich.

      MERCER:

      Not everybody.

      SADIQ:

      You know hungry. Yes? You know hungry? No. Look at my shoes, Vancouver. Two years, same shoes. My father, he always moving, work different country, dream of his homeland. Little money he make he give away. To PLO. Stupid poor man work for rich fat man. All I remember, poor, hungry, the same the same the same. I want more. There is more to live.

      MERCER:

      OK, OK, whatever.

      SADIQ:

      I work make dream come true. I quit school. I will go. You rich, Vancouver. You not know work. You know nothing. You are a child.

      MERCER:

      Hey, I work, asshole. You don’t know shit about me or what I’ve done. You’re the child around here.

      SADIQ:

      Is true. Little baby.

      Silence.

      SADIQ:

      Mercer—I get angry, no reason. Sorry.

      MERCER:

      Stop fucking touching me. You’re always touching me.

      SADIQ:

      I apologize. I do not want anger to you.

      A pause.

      My father this morning, he find hashish I have for to sell. He learn I not go to school. He shout and shout at me. I say nothing. He is a fool. I am angry to him not to you.

      MERCER:

      That’s a total sob story. My heart bleeds.

      SADIQ:

      You forgive?

      MERCER:

      Massage my feet.

      SADIQ:

      Rub feet? Yes? I know how to good. I do for my sister. Her, how you say, blood … too close?

      MERCER:

      Don’t talk.

      A silence.

      SADIQ:

      I apologize?

      Is good rub?

      MERCER:

      Give me the pictures.

      SADIQ gives MERCER envelope with pictures. Continues rubbing his foot. MERCER looks at ­pictures.

      SADIQ:

      Is good rub?

      You should see my father, Mercer. His hands are black from oil. And the smell.

      There are four hundred thousand people here in Qatar. Three hundred thousand like my father—idiot foreigner work to make oil men rich. Before they find oil here, these rich men, you know what they do? Dive for pearls. Yes. Jump off old boats, swim and dig and hold their breath until they go blue. Every day, up and down, up and down, dig, swim, dig, swim. But now they are rich.