Eddy came to the States roughly three years ago; he didn't speak English.

His first job was at a gas station in Chicago, near the intersection of Roosevelt and Independence. Most people from Chicago aren't familiar with the intersection of Roosevelt and Independence: it's in the ghetto.

At that gas station, Eddy's customers were almost all Black, and almost all poor; they were the ones from whom he learned how to communicate, in America. Eddy was taught to say: "Hey homey, what's up?" and, "Yo, dawg, gimme some White Owls!" And he's a rather proficient executioner of the hand gestures that accompany the speech.

Every night I gas up the taxi before I drop it. Eddy works at the filling station that I go to, now. He works seven nights a week, just like me. I stop at a pump; I fill the tank; I go inside the station to pay; I talk to Eddy. It's the same thing every night: for about thirty minutes, Eddy and I talk to each other about business, crime, sex and Islam. Eddy's given me an English translation of the Qur'an. I'm Christian. Still, I want to find the truth in my own way - and I want to understand the whole of the human experience.

I am Arab; Eddy is not Arab. Eddy's family is from Pakistan, and he has relatives in India. But, especially since 9/11, people have given Eddy a hard time. As far as I can tell, every city around the globe has its fair share of assholes. And when people are down, they tend to look for someone whom they perceive as being even lower - so they can vent their impotent rage. Eddy's dark, and he's Muslim, and English isn't his native language. Eddy's physical presence isn't as strong as mine. An easy hundred people a week tell me that I am, "Italian looking," and also that I have a British accent; they don't say that to Eddy - they say other things to him.

You're more likely to be murdered while driving a taxi in the U.S.A. than while doing anything else. But after a taxi driver, the person who is next most likely to be murdered is a convenience store worker - like Eddy. In the past few weeks, a taxi driver and a convenience store worker were both murdered in Chicago - not too far from Eddy's gas station.

The taxi driver was Pakistani; the convenience store worker was Indian.

Supposedly, the taxi driver was killed in the course of a robbery. And the guy who worked at the convenience store was killed because he put too much sugar in someone's coffee; that's what his life was worth.

Most of the guys like Eddy don't make very much money in the States; but they almost always send a portion of what they earn back to the place that they came from. Sometimes that money puts a roof over someone's head; sometimes it puts food on the table; sometimes it prevents someone's daughter from being sold. Eddy is aware of the irony as he stands - night after night - in front of a rack of porno mags that he doesn't read, and condoms that he doesn't use. He has a fiancée in Pakistan, and he's waiting for her.