Drip sandcastle dreams hang on a wireÑhear it on the national newsÑLos Angeles still like Mexico CityÑocean of lightÑhanging on by a threadÑphotographs of the living deadÑ electronic realityÑcomputer saves manÑregrets actÑone upÑtwo downÑfive upÑsquirrels scamper treesÑdisappointmentÑclick clackÑ treesÑwheelsÑtuffs of white cottonÑthe rumble of thunderheadsÑcigarette ashÑrain holding offÑhuddle around Roman firesÑthe rootsÑscatter cameosÑfinger scrap rockÑtiny handholdsÑPalisades like valley belowÑroadside conversationsÑweÕll wait hereÑmorningÑcigarettesÑlightersÑflamesÑ inhaleÑexhale.
Everything is working.
ItÕs on. 
Or the talk of it is on. There is talk of it being on, or going on, or being ongoing. ItÕs hard to say the way they circle around it. Dates come up. Things approach a plan but then the crest of on receeds, a wake of variables trailing ocean debris across the sand. And sand it will be. The plan has come that far. It will be sand and it will be foreign sand. In the background there will be the murmur of languages against the farther off babble of surf and there will be a pool, Scratch is insistent on a pool, though none of us are sure why when there is an ocean right there, but no, Scratch must have his cabana and his pool and his divorcees. He is going on about the splendor of expatriate divorcees, loaded down with bags of money and free time and lusting after cabana boys who are reluctant because they they see the money tied to the sagging skin and diamonds in that are trapped in the wrinkles of bone-shrunk flesh.
Chloe wants mangos and papayas and passion fruit and guava and coconut milk tickled with rum to wash them down, to lounge in the warm tropical breezes that blow in from spice islands, jungle laced beaches bejeweled with palm fronds, brown skinned natives in clinking abalone necklaces walking down jungle trails, the foliage is glistening, the moonlight reflecting off the beads of water on the leavesÉ the chirping twilight of cricket dreamsÉ. 
Dean isnÕt so limited, he believes in the whole world. We swill syrah in dark country cellarsÉ We sit on latticed patios in the Italian countryside drinking chiantiÉ We pick olives and play chess with the Greeks and take a ferry out to CreteÉ We walk the dusty camel choked streets of Morocco and catch the Marrakech Express across the desertÉ We fly biplanes low over African savannas out to the Ivory Coast where we catch freighters to Brazil and sail up the Amazon to take Yage with the nativesÉ.
This afternoon the air is a harem dancer bejeweled in sequins and dripping opium honey from her succulent breasts. She slides slippery wet through the front door, traces of her slick the doorknob and the house smells of white orchids, pomegranates and peach blossoms. She weaves through handing out mosquitoes and the drifting off with gusts of a passing hurricane whose wake has left a lingering, crisp sadness,  biting at the afternoon with frosty shark teeth.
A map of Central America is spread bethenth the coffeetable glass and between hands Scratch taps and points at roads and towns like a child at the smithsonian. He seems to want something and not know what, not even care what, to just be consumed in wanting to want. But it isn't things, it isn't stuff that can be quantified an stuck into to containers of designated size and prime number dimensions. It's sand and dirt. Roads and beaches. washed out gullies and poolside pina coladas. There is something more you understand. Something that hasn't yet been fingered. something on the brink.
And the constant beat of the rain the pap pap pap is drumming away on the canvas fabric just outside the open door, beating the discount folding chairs into omniscion. The dog is curled up asleep next to me, ignorant of any sort of plan. and yet the plan keeps coming up. there is some drive toward organization that refuses to be ignored. Some sort of cohesion lurking in the disorder of furnature and overturned cards. Chloe is curled into an oblique repose in the throne chair wrapped around some russian author in a nineteenth century dream, which, according to her is nothing more than the twentieth century surmised from a distance. Dean has aces in the whole and is trying with his vacantest eye to convince us other wise, but its no good. obviously there is a plan an organization within the stystem, you didn't think it was just here on it's own kicks did you? you didn't think the digitial was here to replace the backbeat of the analog did you? 
jimmy wants to be the twenty-first century digitial marco polo emailing his way to oblivion on a motorcycle clawing the alcan highway in its less civilized parts. The rumor is, at least in these circles, which, let's face it, can be expressed in terms of simple X and Y cooordinates, is that the road is clear all the way past the canal. I have an uncle who took a sailing vessel through that system of lock and dikes. but apparently at some point one must cave, one must give in to that final zero, the dead sign of north-south desires. get on a beoat and go around. a ferry of some sort that drops you on the argentinian coast. of course you could walk.
And it's Dean who suggests the money. Only two hands after his aces in the whole panned out with two kings on the board. So Chloe slips deeper into the caucus and Scratch hobbles to his feet and triumphantly pulls out a swollen billfold over stuffed with business cards of the never called back sort who must have pitched a hell of a deal or else ingraiated themselves with some sort of compelling, i want your card sort of spin, from which he extracts two twenty dollar bills and a hefty stack of ones to break change.



Poker then strip club then sex scene with Maya. End.
Chapter eight 

Cards keep flipping up and money changes hands. Brown liquor flows down my throat and my little pile of ones quickly diminishes. I had intended to clean them all of a few dollarsÑdamn beginnerÕs luck. I borrow a twenty from Jimmy and then another. Not only am I not getting the cards, but also, for once in his life, Dean is. He takes hand after hand, a beaming smile lights his face each time he leans over the coffee table and drags a big pile of quarters and ones over to his end.