Po Sin watched the freaking. Stood there with his arms folded, framed by towers of piled trash and bundled newspapers and plastic gallon milk jugs filled with urine, and watched all the cockroaches in creation crawling on me trying to find holes they could climb into.

– Cant handle this, you cant handle the job.

He stood in front of me, his torso being populated by swarms of roaches combining into continents, pieces breaking off and drifting and forming with other masses. The geophysical history of the earth enacted by roaches on a globe of a man.

He extended an arm and elegantly brushed a few from the sleeve of his Tyvek.

– Worse things to be covered in, man. Let me tell you.

Gabe walked past me, edging down the open corridor between the piles of refuse, making for the dim light at the back of the place where theyd excavated a couple windows the day before.

– Lots worse things.

He disappeared, lost in bugs and towering waste.

Po Sin watched me.

And, not wanting to at all, I thought about worse things.

Po Sin crunched over.

– OK?

The legs of one of the roaches tickled the exposed rim of skin running between my filter mask and the edge of the Tyvek hood. I flicked it to the floor and stomped on it. And, incidentally, about a dozen more.

– Yeah, Im fine. Youre a dick, but Im fine.

He nodded and pointed toward the back of the apartment.

– Then head back there. Gabe is bagging the shit. Start hauling it down to the service elevator.

I started down the hall, the smell of rancid crap already seeping through the mask.

– You suck, Po Sin!

Appearing in front of me, Gabe shook his head.