There were half a dozen of them, caught in the teeth of love. They capered across the liquor bottles, perched atop pour spouts like wooden ladies on the prows of sailing ships. They lifted their wings and delicately fluttered. They swung their antennae with a ripe sexual urgency, tracing love sonnets in the air.Will, the bartender on duty, stood watching them, with his back to the rest of the bar. He couldn’t move. He was bound by a sense of obligation to remain where he was, but the roaches stirred a primordial revulsion in him, and the urge to flee was palpable. His flesh shivered in one convulsive movement.He worked the six PM to two AM shift at Rosie’s Bar, a little hole-in-the-wall tucked back in the maze of streets of uptown New Orleans, surrounded by shotgun houses settling into their final repose, their porches bedazzled in old Mardi Gras beads and sprung couches. The bar’s interior reflected its environment: a few tables and chairs against the back wall, a jukebox, ranks of stools against the bar.
