Storm Prey

the hair at the sides of his head, as though he were going to tear it out.
    “Go away,” said Barakat.
    Shaheen ignored him, squatted on the rug next to the other man, switched to Arabic. “What is it? Cocaine? What have you taken?”
    Barakat opened his eyes. “Maybe ... too much. Better now.” He giggled. “Pretty bad an hour ago. That was very, very crazy. You know. My blood was ... on fire.”
    Shaheen stood up and turned on the bedside lamp, and Barakat shouted, “Off . . . turn it off!”
    Shaheen turned the lamp off, but not before he saw the baggie of cocaine on the nightstand. A lot of cocaine. Too much.
    “Where did you get this?” he asked. He poked a finger at the bag, but was careful not to touch it.
    “Got some money.”
    “Not this much money,” Shaheen said. “Three days ago, you borrowed two hundred dollars from me.”
    “Go away,” Barakat said.
    Shaheen looked at him for a long moment, then said, “If your father knew, he might disown you.”
    “So don’t tell him,” Barakat said. He waved his arms around, struggling to get up. His eyes were black as coal. “Gotta get something to eat.”
    “Sit on the bed. I’ll get you something . . .”
    Barakat shook his head, as if to clear it. Shaheen walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, and into the kitchen. Opened the refrigerator: empty, except for a bottle of olives. Checked the cupboards, where Barakat sometimes kept cereal. Nothing. There was no food in the house.
    He went back to the bedroom, where Barakat was staring down at his shoes. His sport coat was thrown over a chair, and Shaheen picked it up, took Barakat’s wallet out of the breast pocket, opened it. Ten or fifteen dollars, a five and a wad of ones.
    “You have no money for food, even,” Shaheen said. “Where did you get this cocaine? What have you done?”
    “Fuck you,” Barakat said in English. He pushed himself up, went to the cocaine, picked up the bag, pushed it in the drawer of the nightstand. Then, “You know what I need? I need falafel. A lot of falafel. I need three kilos of falafel, right now. And coffee. Lots of coffee.”
    “You have to go to work . . .”
    Barakat shook his head. “I’m on day shift for two weeks.”
     
     
    SHAHEEN AND BARAKAT had grown up together, Shaheen’s family as servants of the Barakats; servants for generations. While Barakat was fouling out at one private school after another, Shaheen was thriving. He won a scholarship to the American University of Beirut, to study biology, the first of his family to finish high school, much less go to college. Barakat went off to Paris, wedged into the anything-goes foreign division of the Sorbonne, where he majored in women, wine, kief and cocaine.
    Shaheen had spent a jobless year after graduation, his biology degree almost useless in a country that was falling apart. Then one day old man Barakat came to see him and they struck a deal.
    Barakat was floundering in Paris. Five years, no degree in sight. Shaheen would go to Paris, move in with him, get him through school, get him through the medical exams, get him into a medical school in the U.S.
    Get him through it, no matter how ...
    And Shaheen would go with him.
    A journey of seven years, but they’d done it. They struggled, cheated, fought with each other, and Barakat—who was smart enough, if lazy—managed to scrape through. Shaheen did very well. Not quite as well as he would have on his own, because he was studying for two, and if anyone had found out how they’d cheated on virtually every test they took, they’d both be out on their ears.
    But now it was almost done. Once through their residencies, they’d go their separate ways—Shaheen back to Miami, he thought, Barakat back to Europe, or perhaps LA. Someplace warm, where he wouldn’t have to work too hard.
    If, Shaheen thought, the American cocaine didn’t kill Barakat first.
     
     
    THE TWO BEST falafel places in St. Paul were closed, and they wound up at a McDonald’s on University Avenue. Barakat couldn’t go inside because the lights were too bright, so Shaheen went in, bought two Quarter Pounders with cheese and two large fries and a strawberry shake for Barakat, and a chocolate shake for himself. They ate in the parking lot, Barakat wolfing the food like a starving man. And he might be starving, Shaheen thought, watching him. All the money was going on dope.
    “You’ll need a stomach pump,” Shaheen said as Barakat finished the second