Andrei the Roach finished and put out his cigarette before he walked in. He'd never been in a bar where they didn't let you smoke, but it paid to be certain, you know?

He was wearing what he was always wearing, but that's because he didn't own any other clothes and last night was the first night in a week he wasn't sleeping in a gutter. He wanted to look his best, so he stood naked in front of the washing machine at the laundromat until it went through two wash cycles. Damn it, you can't do that to silk. But it paid to be certain.

He pushed the door open and walked in, checking the place out. It wasn't as glitzy as his usual line of work - much more of an English-style pub than a Thai-style disco bar - but what can you do, right? Money is money.

"Hello? I'm here to speak with Mr. D'Mourir about a bartending job."

"With pleasure." He steps behind the bar and picks up a vodka bottle by the neck, flipping it up and down as he tosses it. Each throw is measured perfection - one complete revolution each time, taking the exact same amount of time, covering the exact same distance. He's like a clock.

"My full name is Andrei Ivanovich Tarakov. I was born August 14th, 1977 - so I turn 31 this year. I grew up in the Kuzminki district of Moscow, where I attended primary and secondary school."

He picks up two bottles in his left hand and puts them all into a full-blown three-bottle continuous juggle, without even looking down or breaking the flow of his speech.

"My father worked in the ZIL automotive factory, so we were a laboring family. I graduated from Moscow #421 Secondary School in 1995, barely passing my courses, and took the state education examinations. I failed, so I began my national service. During my time in the army I did absolutely nothing of interest besides deciding I really didn't want to stay in the army."

The right hand begins juggling two bottles upside-down. The left hand spins one of the bottles on a raised finger, like a basketball.

"Once I got out of the army in 1997, I tried the examinations again and failed again. So I sought gainful employment and went out to the Barents Sea to work on oil rigs. The money was good, but it was cripplingly boring. Gazprom, the oil company, brought in bottles of vodka for us by the thousand. In my boredom, I used them to learn to juggle and do tricks like this. By my third year, I realized that oil rigs were awful and that I would rather have a job as a bartender. I finished with Gazprom for good in 2002. I voted for Putin, but now I know better."

He puts down the juggled bottles as they come to his right hand, and then flips - yes, flips - the bottle balanced on his left finger over to balancing on his right finger.

"A cousin of mine had found work in Thailand as, well, a rake - he spoke Russian and Thai and would guide Russian tourists to all the best whorehouses and protect them from scams and the like. So I went to Thailand to see if I could find work there. I would have to learn the language, but my cousin already knew a lot of people there and would help me find work."

He puts down the bottle and picks up a highball glass, flipping it up and down a few times with a flick of his wrist.

"I found work in a club called 494, on the very famous Royal Crown Avenue. The pay was good by Thai standards - almost 1000 dollars a month - and the tips were usually fantastic. As I practiced, I achieved some measure of fame, and have participated in numerous flair bartending competitions. In 2006, I won first prize in the International South-East Asian Flair Bartending Championship, unseating the three-time winner Kwok Yong-Hee, who worked in Singapore."

He grips the ice shovel and flips a few cubes of ice into the air. Then he tosses the glass with a spin, and in its arc the glass intercepts it all. It lands in his left hand full of ice, and not a single cube escaped. He places it on the bar and pours himself a coke.

"A week ago, I went to sleep in my apartment in Bangkok. When I woke up, I was in the gutter here. I'm making the best of my new situation, but unless there are oil rigs out here this is the only skill I can market. My nickname has always been the Roach, because my last name Tarakov sounds like the word Tarakan, or cockroach. My father was the Roach as a young man, and his father, and his father, all the way back to the Novgorod Republic 700 years ago. When they wrote 'The Roach' on billboards back in Bangkok, people would come to see me. I hope to get that kind of fame again."

He sips the drink.

"Would you care for a cigarette? Or is there anything else you'd like to know?"

He started the pour going. There are two schools of thought on pouring from taps - one, the high-volume school, says that the bartender's time is more precious than the beer and that one should simply place the cup under the tap, open it, and let the beer flow and overflow until there's the desired amount of beer and foam on top. This freed the bartender to make other drinks while the pour went on. Andrei does not belong to this school - he babysat it, holding the glass at a tilt to ensure the beer only foamed up when he wanted it to.

"A Smith and Wesson is one part of Vodka, coffee liquer, and light cream each, and then five parts cola beverage of choice. Served over ice in a highball. It's also not in the IBA book, so your mileage may vary. Would you like one?"

A perfect pint was served up.

He looks pensively around the place. "The reason I'm so good at it, I think, was that it was my hobby first and my profession second. I didn't get into bartending because I had to and then discovered I liked it - I started on those oil rigs, and it was there that I realized I found this fascinating."

"Understand that I don't know anything about how people drink here. I saw a lot of people with something called bloodwyne, and I have no idea what's in that. I also saw a lot of people drinking just regular old wine, which I know next to nothing about. But on Earth, at least, there are really only four different kinds of liquor - potato vodka, grain vodka, sugarcane rum, and corn whiskey. Of course, you can ferment and distill any kind of plant you want, like cactus which makes Tequila, and there are subtle variations, like rums that are dark or light, or gin, which is just vodka flavored with juniper berries . . ."

He took a sip of his coke and thought for a minute, lighting a cigarette as he did.

"And of course, there's stuff like Vermouth and different liquers that people like, that are used as mixing agents. It really depends on what people usually order."

He takes a long puff, and blows a couple smoke rings.

"If you give me all the flavor agents, then I could probably make 95% of the drinks I'd expect people to order by substituting 10 or so kinds of liquors. But again, that depends on what people usually order."

"Thank you. I'll start tonight, if that's okay with you. I have no idea how salaries work here or how much money is a lot of money vis-a-vis rent and sustenance and the like, so I'll let you decide on my salary for now."

He flips one last bottle, letting it spin six revolutions in the air before catching it.

"I'll be here at night, and go to the RDI during the day. I need as much money as I can get."

"I'll take it." He then takes a long puff on his cigarette. "On an unrelated note, is there anything shady going on I should be abreast of?"

"Alright," he says. "One last thing. Are there any Orthodox churches around here? Pascha is coming up, and I feel like I should go to a service."

He puffs on his cigarette and looks around the room. "Not that I've paid attention to any of that stuff previously, you understand. But now that I'm a stranger in a strange land, it may be time to re-assert my relationship with the Divine."