What does it mean to work?  I don’t know that either. What I know is how to belong, stake out territory and bust heads, creating an atmosphere of trust.

All day long I’ve been pissing people off, and it feels shard-like as elegies for the poor in this country of ours who stay up late, husking corn, spinning wool, boiling sap.

It has never mattered much what Emil or Chet’s work is about, has it?

After the gangsters left, John picked up their business cards and flicked them into the trash. Leaves outside waved in vulgar arabesques. “How do I get out of here?”

As the day darkened, a crowd of new gangsters waving signs got clobbered by a single somnolent thug wielding ordinance, and I watched the crowd fall, empty as Baudelaire’s conscience. I feel guilty now, because we have three more minutes and I should drive around the block.