-But we're not at war.

-We're not at war? You don't watch the news? Or do you mean just you and me-we're not at war with each other. That's true. But the country, the United States of these Americas, we are most definitely at war, buster, and if you don't get that, then you are as bad as a hippy, and possibly worse.

-It's not like a real war. Like World War Two or the War of the Roses.

-Which was a very entertaining movie, but I do see your point. You're saying it's not a real war unless there's a draft. Unless the children of privilege are sent to fight, no war can be considered true.

-I don't know what I'm saying. Sometimes I feel like you put words in my mouth even when I say the words.

-Trust me, if I were going to put words in your mouth, I'd put better words.

-Exactly what I'm talking about.

-You're right, that was uncalled for. Or maybe it was called for, but I should have not answered the call.

-Can we just get on with the ... with whatever you have planned next?

-Here's the problem, Billy. I didn't really plan for next.

-Don't tease me, bro.

-You know how much I hate when you call me "bro." Or when you call anyone "bro." Or when anyone calls anyone "bro." Even ironically. Charlie did the same thing earlier. I don't know what made me angrier, him calling me "bro" or him s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up a plan that we were nice enough to name after him.

-Sorry.

-But I'm not teasing you. I made no contingency for this sort of thing. I did not expect we'd end up on top of a hill with no money and the cops probably looking for us. In a stolen car.

-You don't know that it's stolen.

-I have a pretty good notion. I got it from Sven, and Sven didn't show. He's either in league with Charlie, or just a flake. Either way: stolen car. Though I must say, if you're going to steal a car, a Mini Cooper is not a bad choice.

-When you say no money, you mean not that much money. We've still got the one drawer's worth. That's like twelve grand, right?

-It is, or should be nearly exactly twelve grand. Which is exactly, or nearly, the same as no money. If I don't have fifty grand, I don't have anything.

-I'm just saying. As a contingency. We get six thousand dollars apiece, which is enough to probably get out of town and wait till things cool off.

-Billy. I'd tell you that I love you like a brother except I don't like my brother very much, so in fact I love you more than like a brother, or better than, you get the idea. But things are not going to "cool off." I don't even know what that means, "cool off." We bungled a burglary. We are on the run from the law, and we will always be on the run from the law.

-Always?

-Well, for a while. Until things cool off.

-You're a f.u.c.king chimp.

-Don't touch me.

-I said don't f.u.c.king touch me. What part of "don't f.u.c.king touch me" did you ...

42. GUY TALKS TO VIOLET ABOUT FRIENDSHIP, LOVE, AND THE INTERCONNECTIVITY OF ALL THINGS, AND ENDS BY MAKING A POINT ABOUT THE IMPERMANENCE AND FRAILTY OF ALL HUMAN BONDS, SITTING ON HER BED THE ONE TIME HE WAS ALLOWED TO VISIT HER APARTMENT, FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO.

How long have we known each other, Violet?

-I don't know. Three weeks?

-Almost five months. Do you know how long five months is in friend slash lover years?

-Three weeks?

-It's like Krazy Glue years. Permanent. We're bonded together and nothing on earth or in heaven can ever separate us.

-I gotta go. By which I mean you should leave. Now.

-See you.

43. GUY TELLS BILLY THE STORY OF PANTHERZ, SITTING IN THE BAR WAITING FRUITLESSLY FOR THE ARRIVAL OF GREGORY TO DISCUSS HIS ROLE AS GETAWAY DRIVER, FOUR DAYS BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO.

Did I ever tell you the story about my friend's band? It's a good story. Well, it's not really a good story, in fact it's kind of a sad story and it doesn't even have an ending, but there are good parts of the story.

-When did you ever know someone in a band?

-Years ago. Back in Dayton. It was just these four guys from Peeper's Hollow, guys I knew from grade school. The singer was a jock but the guys in the band were freaks. When they started out they were really bad, and they had a really stupid name: Pantherz, with a "z." They'd play around town and n.o.body liked 'em, not even their family or friends. So they stopped. For like five years, they just disappeared.

-What happened?

-I told you: nothing. They just stopped. They didn't quit, or make any big p.r.o.nouncements about quitting, and every once in a while you'd see someone from the band out at the grocery store or the gas station, so it's not like they disappeared as people. They disappeared as a band. And then one day they came back. But they weren't called Pantherz with a "z" anymore. They were called King s.h.i.t and the Golden Boys, and they were unbelievably great. They played a show at a local bar, I think they opened for Horned Infirmary, it was at ... I want to say the Rock Lodge, but I don't really remember, anyway it doesn't exist anymore so what's the difference? Place down in the Oregon District. Absolutely blew my mind. I'd never seen or heard anything that musically powerful before, or since. It was like they'd made some kind of Robert Johnson deal.

-But no.

-But no, they'd just spent five years practicing, getting really good, and writing much, much better songs. The lead guy, King s.h.i.t, obviously that wasn't his real name, I never did know his real name except that people called him William, jumped around onstage like a madman and sang like a madman about just crazy stuff, like, "I am heaven's circus act," or whatever. They had a song called "Liars in Motion," but I wouldn't have known this if the singer hadn't announced every t.i.tle before starting the song. Except "starting the song" sounds tame compared to what these guys did. They hurled themselves at their songs, clattered through them like wild horses. Like they were desperate to get to the next song, and the one after that, because every song was better than the last.

-So then they got big?

-That's the weird thing. Still n.o.body in town liked them. I didn't understand that at first. I think maybe it's hard for people in a small town to embrace unmediated greatness. It's just hard to accept that these four guys, who look just like you and talk just like you and maybe you even know some of them or went to school with them, are any good. The argument being, I guess, well, if they're so great how come they're playing the Rock Lodge and not Scarlet Arena and how come they don't have a record deal and I don't hear them on the radio? If none of these things are true then it follows that they can't be any good. Because I found out-I actually did some research on this, I was mystified why n.o.body liked this band-that most people are willfully tin-eared with respect to music of any kind.

-Okay, then, what happened?

-They left town, of course. Went on the road. Started playing shows everywhere but in town, and the strange thing about that is when you go to New York City, for instance, from a small Midwest town, all of a sudden you're exotic, and therefore more interesting to a New York audience than a New York band would be. So you take exotic plus insanely great, which is a highly rare combination, and add a narrative, like, "How come we've never heard of these guys before, and did you know they never play out but just sit around in a bas.e.m.e.nt drinking and playing music," which adds a patina of authenticity to the band ... People in New York are desperately hungry for something, anything authentic-for a really real experience-you wouldn't believe it, and you also wouldn't believe how hard it is to find authenticity in New York, which is the second most artificial city in the country after here. Whereas in the Midwest it's hard to be anything other than what you are. In fact, it's ridiculous to be anything other than what you are, despite which some people try, which is never pretty. The upshot being, King s.h.i.t and the Golden Boys are lionized in Gotham. Everyone loves them. Everyone is totally blown away. They sign a record deal within weeks, journalists fly in from London to interview them, celebrities come backstage to their shows. Everything changes. Until they return home, where nothing has changed. It's not like word travels along some kind of jungle telegraph about an obscure band from the Midwest that achieves sudden success. There's no way for the people in the band's hometown to know that anything's changed except that, well, they went out of town for a couple of weeks, which n.o.body would even notice because, as I said, even when the band was still called Pantherz n.o.body gave them much thought or noticed them. Noticed them particularly, is what I mean.

-I can imagine that would have been disappointing for them.

-More than just disappointing. It crystallized William's att.i.tude toward his hometown, which had always been ambiguous, and now became fairly schizoid. He hated traveling, he hated leaving town, because he'd spent most of his life there and he felt comfortable there, much as he grumbled about the lack of respect and recognition. But he absolutely despised his fellow citizens. He laughed at them, but it was a bitter, scornful laugh. Years of resentment were thinly disguised by that laughter. And therein lay the problem.

-What do you mean?

-The seeds of corruption had been sewn. King s.h.i.t and the Golden Boys faced a clear choice: they could try, and probably succeed, although just as probably fail, to become more and more successful in commercial terms, until they finally reached the point where the folks back home would understand, would recognize, the genius flowering in their own backyard. So to speak. Unfortunately, to reach that level of success, several kinds of compromise would be required-artistic compromise, you understand, not the good kind of compromise, where two political parties reach an agreement that's in the best interest of everyone. The nature of politics is compromise. The nature of art is ... I don't know what the nature of art is. But it's not compromise.

-So what did they do?

-They compromised. And it didn't work, as it often doesn't work. And they regretted it, after a few years of increasingly futile effort. And they jettisoned the whole idea, retreated to the bas.e.m.e.nt, and made a record detailing their experiences called The Power of Suck. A great record. Maybe the greatest record.

-I'd like to hear it.

-You can't. They destroyed every copy. There's only bootlegged demos in circulation among die-hard fans, the shadow of the real record's shadow.

-Why on earth ...

-Because it was literally too good.

-That makes no sense.

-Probably not. That's what makes, or I guess made, King s.h.i.t and the Golden Boys great. The only authentic act you can take as an artist is to destroy your creation. Anything else, any public display, is vanity. Just vanity.

-So they're not around anymore?

-Oh, they're around. But not making music. That was the end of the line for them. But there's plenty more where they came from.

-Really?

-No. Or at least I doubt it.

-What's the point of that story, then? asked Billy.

-The point of any story is the story itself, answered Guy, signaling Lucy for another drink. -Anyone who looks for morals or lessons in stories is worse than a fool, he is a coward.

-Seriously.

-All you need is love, said Guy, smiling at Lucy, who smiled back.

44. GUY AND VIOLET AND BILLY AT A CHINATOWN ART GALLERY, ABOUT A MONTH BEFORE THE KOREAN CHECK-CASHING FIASCO.

I can imagine very little that would be more depressing than this, thought Guy. Tiny one-room galleries on a single closed-off block in Chinatown with sculptures that look like giant dental impressions but on closer inspection turn out to be upside-down cathedrals in meticulously melted wax. In a Styrofoam cooler with ice is either CocaCola or Mexican beer. Some of the galleries have hired deejays who make the process of pretending to examine the art that much more difficult, because you can't even hear your little cutting remarks about how all the paintings seem kind of spermy, which normally you would mutter under your breath but now you'd have to shout into the beat-segmented air and possibly, if the room had weird acoustics or there was a sudden lull between headache-y tracks, your sotto voce would carry much farther than you had intended and you would cause yourself, your host, your friends, and yourself again (because all embarra.s.sment rebounds doubly on itself) hot shame.

But this is where the drugs are, because artists, whatever else their faults, like to do drugs, and so this is where Violet wanted to come, and so this is where we are, and so this is where I am. I will try not to look at the art. Must not look at the art. That's how they get you.

-Doesn't this art seem kind of spermy? said Billy, offering Guy a Mexican beer.

-That's what I ... Clearly you don't know anything about art, Billy. The use of color in this one, for example ...

-When can we leave? I'm bored.

-When Violet's ready.

-I don't get what's so special about her.

-That means a lot to me, man. Thanks.

-She's pretty and all that stuff, but I don't see the difference. I don't see why you're all hung up on Violet as opposed to the last one ... what was her name?

-It doesn't matter. I mean, her name was Fleur, she was a lovely girl, of course it matters what her name was, but it doesn't matter what you or anyone else thinks aboutViolet. The fact that you don't see what's special about her only raises her value in my eyes.

-So this is ... like, serious?

-I don't know what that word means.

-Okay.

-Yes, I suppose that, theoretically speaking, if you had to use a word to describe my feelings about Violet, "serious" would be acceptable to me, though not exactly accurate. But acceptable.

-Why would you have to use a word?

-Sometimes I don't know why I bother, Billy.

-No, but why?

-That was my point in saying "if you had to use a word." You don't have to use a word, and I'd prefer if we didn't use a word, in fact I'd go further and prefer that people in general used less words, but it seemed to me that you were insisting. So I acquiesced.

-For someone who doesn't want to use a lot of words, you sure use a lot of words.

-Sometimes the simplest way to say something is to say it. And sometimes it's not to say it. And sometimes it's to wonder what the f.u.c.k I'm doing standing here talking to you, holding a beer which you know I don't like, and won't drink, when I could be ... Guy looked over to see Violet talking to a short Asian kid dressed in a blue oxford shirt and khakis.

-Could be? prompted Billy.

-Thinking ... murmured Guy.