Petrol Station

Sulayman Al-Bassam

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786821492
• eBook ISBN: 9781786821508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

A desert. A border. A remote petrol station within earshot of civil war. This vividly imagined twilit zone provides the background for a familial standoff in which the crimes, secrets, and broken loves of one generation make violent claims on the lives of the next as two half-brothers vie for favours and allegiance from their aging father. Examining themes of identity, ambition, and betrayal, this compelling drama from acclaimed Kuwaiti writer/director Sulayman Al Bassam uses the iconic setting of the deserted petrol station as a poetic space to explore the oppressions and aspirations of the Gulf Arab Region. Al Bassam, a New York University Artist-in-Residence, returns following his highly regarded presentation of Richard III: An Arab Tragedy during the Kennedy Center international festival, Arabesque, in 2009. His provocative new story draws inspiration from Sumerian myth, Palestinian refugee literature, and American 1950s urban legends of the gas station to portray a modern dystopia where defunct ideologies, desperate migrants, zealous warlords, and opportunistic traffickers vie for supremacy.

ACT ONE

SCENE ONE

Morning. Extreme Heat.

The CASHIER is in his air-conditioned booth counting money in the form of banknotes and slightly oversized gold coins. Simultaneously, he makes repeated failed attempts to connect to the Internet through a laptop. On the wall, a U.S. Army poster showing the early and the later effects of cholera, malaria, and tuberculosis on human bodies. Hanging next to the CASHIER’s head, a child’s Superman figure dangles on the end of a string. The string leads out of the booth, linking to a thin iron wire that spans the forecourt and leads to the FATHER’s room opposite. On the platform, the immigrant workers BAYU and KHAN sluggishly handle tools for digging. Overseeing them, the MANAGER stands thrashing bags of ice into a rusted metal bathtub. The door of the cabin opens. The air cleanser noisily pulverises dust. The CASHIER continues his failed attempts to connect to the internet.

CASHIER: Fuck! Fuck!

(JOSEPH enters carrying a tray, covered with a cloth.)

JOSEPH: Eggs, master.

JOSEPH: Khan has asked to speak with you.

CASHIER: About what?

JOSEPH: His mother, sir, she’s very sick.

CASHIER: Fuck! Fuck! This is not America.

(Enter MANAGER into CASHIER’s air conditioned booth. The MANAGER stands in the doorway keeping the door open.)

CASHIER: Joy! Sing! Brother!

MANAGER: Give me some coins.

CASHIER: Close the door.

MANAGER: I counted the convoy, fifty trucks.

CASHIER: Close the door.

MANAGER: I saw you sucking one, it was so shiny and raw.

CASHIER: The coins belong to the nation and the nation bestows upon its children – of which you ain’t one. 1959 Nationality Law: suck on that.

MANAGER: Sweating again?

CASHIER: O Bastard, bastard boy –

MANAGER: (Pointing towards a figure on the transmittable diseases poster.) You look like this one. (Reads with difficulty.) Cho-le-ra.

CASHIER: Close the door.

MANAGER: Been drinking from the taps again?

CASHIER: Close the door, you savage!

MANAGER: I’ve made an ice bath. You could join me on the bench. We could slap each other’s thighs.

CASHIER: The bench is yours: the office is mine. The darkies are yours: the money is mine: each to his charge, we task-share the hardship post. Do we need drama? Do we need blood ties? Monkeys groom each other’s fur of lice. We should do the same: exchange services. Despite the brutality of our surroundings, we could concoct an illusory, circumstantial kind of harmony. Close the oven door, I want to show you something. (MANAGER steps inside and closes the door; the CASHIER opens a video file on his laptop.) Had to flip through three proxy servers to download this minx.

MANAGER: Seen it.

CASHIER: Not this one.

MANAGER: Seen them all.

CASHIER: This is a collector’s item: Uzbek. Showed it to your darkies, yanked their tails so hard, cum-pellets flew across the border like little acts of war.

MANAGER: Show.

CASHIER: Crash, fucking wholesale crash! Shithole! Wealth in every indicator, wealth in every bar graph and there’s not a piece of anti-virus software that isn’t pirated – even the U.S. army gear is pirated! Stay away from my eggs!

MANAGER: Think your little obscenities will buy darkie trust?

CASHIER: Fuck darkie trust. You extract their labour: I supply their leisure. You’re Stalin, I’m Burger King!

MANAGER: Digging’s started. Countdown’s begun. Father wants the meter found.

CASHIER: I support that, bell of truth. Dong!

MANAGER: You’re sweating.

CASHIER: I was the one that proposed that we install an integrated billing and inventory software management system; while bastard boy and your medieval bag of migrants are happy digging up the earth looking for glass dia...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Prelude
• Act One
• Act Two
• Act Three
• Notes