Oliver Benjamin
CHAPTER 3
It is the rootless, not the rooted,
who fetishize their roots.
RUSSELL JACOBY, The End of Utopia
1. Flyers
By now, a few months later, our little optimistic tribe of outsiders had
discovered that starting up a successful empire was not all it was
cracked up to be. Still, there was a new hope: the evangelical party.
Marketing efforts were in full swing: A week before the big date,
Leona created a beautiful promotional flyer. She designed them with
bright, swirly colors, avant-garde fonts and printed a huge stack with
natural, environmentally-friendly inks. The weather continued to be
unseasonably warm and they decided to post them at night to avoid
drawing unwanted attention as it was technically illegal to post
unlicensed advertisements on public property. Pairing up in teams of
two, they affixed them in areas where people were most likely to
congregate and flow: parks, shopping areas, busy intersections,
theaters, bus stops and restaurants. They taped them onto
lampposts, newspaper vending machines, utility poles and other
free-standing vertical shrines of the city.
Yak and Leona were assigned to a shopping district known for its
bookstores and bohemian cafés. Together they pasted up the flyers
and enjoyed the warm night breezes blowing through the city. A few
sleeping nomads were strewn willy-nilly, like meteors that had fallen
to earth and slowly decayed. They looked dug-in, as if they had been
gathering dust for eons.
“Weather’s going to change,” said Leona. Yak nodded and
hummed something to the affirmative. “I hope, for the better,” she
said. “I mean for us. For Undergrounds.”
Yak looked as if he was about to say something, then held his
breath and sighed. It was as if he knew something but would not say.
Yak always gave off the impression that he knew something but
would not say. Nobody ever had any idea what it was. Leona decided
to try her luck.
“What is it you want, Yak?” she said suddenly
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