“Aren’t you a little old to give a shit?” the boy replied, tossing the
soggy packet into a trash can. They walked on. Finally he said,
“You’ve been to Bangkok? What’s in Bangkok?”
“Buddhist monks and prostitutes. Transsexuals and
transcendence. The world’s most violent national sport but some of
its safest streets. Mercedes sedans and bicycle rickshaws. Every
extreme and no center.”
“Sounds like L.A.,” the kid mused. He was a little more tranquil
now.
Yak nodded. “The Thai name for Bangkok, krung thep, also
means ‘City of Angels.’ Both are places where expectations fall to
earth. And break. And are built up again.”
“I don’t suppose you could walk there from here.”
Yak let out a chuckle. “You could wait for the next ice age and
hike back over the Bering Strait.”
They shuffled through the sand in silence.
“Where are you taking me, man?” the boy finally said.
“A fountain in the desert. A place where you can stop chasing
mermaids. You’ve been there before.”
The boy grew sullen. “I’m not crazy. I see her. I’m telling you.”
“I know you did,” Yak said. “I’ve seen her too.”
This astonished him. “Then you know,” he gasped.
“You have to forget it,” Yak said. He knew what was going on
behind those butane-blue eyes. The boy was chasing a ghost of his
own creation, and he would not stop until he became one himself.
“Ever see a dog chase it’s own tail?” Yak said.
“Sure, why?”
“What is cannot compete with what is not. There is so much less
of it.”
“What the fuck are you talking about.”
“Keep following me.”
2. Sparkleface
The café and the cabal—siblings in sedition, blood brothers from the
beginning.
Conspiracy in coffeehouses emerged with their earliest
appearance in Europe. In 1675 coffeehouses were banned in England
to prevent revolution, yet the snake reared up and bit anyway: In
ABYSSINIA
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