CHAPTER 1
It is not down on any map; true places never are.
HERMAN MELVILLE, Moby Dick
1. A Hole
Undergrounds was a watering hole in both senses of the term: a
place to drink, and a hole. It was a frayed coffeehouse, an easy abyss
which catered primarily to the castaway and confused. This was not
by design: it was so difficult to locate that only misguided souls might
ever stumble upon it. The only way to find it, if you didn’t already
know, was to follow the cat.
Roy’s tawny Abyssinian hunted regularly on the Promenade, the
popular walking street nearby Undergrounds. Its busy shops
generated enough waste to ensure there was always plenty of game
around. On this day she caught and killed a giant rat, dragging it back
to the shop to be surveyed proudly (she must have imagined) by Roy.
A drunken bag lady bent on following the animal back to Roy’s
shop, shuffled unsteadily behind it through the narrow and winding
alley. When she arrived at Undergrounds she didn’t notice the
unusual entrance and bashed her head on the low frame: It was only
four and a half feet high. She lay dizzy in the doorway, half in, half
out.
Roy saw this happen and rushed out to tend to her bruise. He
offered words of encouragement and helped her inside for a cup of
caffeine, the most popular medicine in the world. She smiled in
grateful, bewildered appreciation.
The bag lady nursed the hot brew alone at a table. The place was
quite cozy, and though not an epicurean by any stretch, she was sure
this was the best coffee she had ever tasted. There was a carved
wooden mask above her head, a cigar stuck in its mouth. The mask
reeked faintly of whiskey, and it was for her a comforting aroma.
There was also, she couldn’t help but notice, an enormous woman
seated in the corner, babbling in some bizarre language.
The bag lady wrinkled her bruised forehead and wondered a little
ABYSSINIA
6
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