"I don't know what you mean," I said. But I knew exactly what he meant. And I knew exactly who he was talking about.

"Listen," he said. "It's all right. I can't stand that guy. d.i.c.k Doyle? I don't like his songs. I don't like his singing. h.e.l.l, I don't like his whole, you know..." He waved the duck in the air.

"Act," I said.

"Right," he said, pointing at me. "That act he does. I mean, how in this day and age, with all our knowledge and computers and whatnot, can people still fall for bulls.h.i.t like that? What a f.u.c.king phony, correct?"

The person the old man was talking about-the person who'd apparently brought a s.h.i.t-storm down on me-was a country singer named d.i.c.k Doyle. d.i.c.k was the flashy kind of country singer, the type that wears the big white Stetson, the colorful suit with rhinestones sparkling all over the lapels. The big belt buckles. The cowboy boots with pointy silver caps on the toes. In the past couple of years, d.i.c.k had managed to become something of a local celebrity. He was always playing clubs and events around central Florida; he went on tour a couple of times a year, up to the Northeast or across the Southwest. He'd even been featured on some national television shows. None of this success had to do with actual talent on d.i.c.k's part, though. No one paid to see d.i.c.k Doyle because he was a great songwriter or musician. People were interested in d.i.c.k only because of the bizarre circ.u.mstances surrounding his act.

"I don't have any problems with Mr. Doyle anymore," I said.

"That's good. Because folks are going to get the best of you in this life sometimes, son. Make you look foolish. Doesn't mean you're a loser."

"I never said I felt like a loser."

"Well, you shouldn't. h.e.l.l. People call me all kinds of things. I don't let it get me down. f.u.c.k them, right?" He laughed. "f.u.c.k them right in their pieholes."

A sickening feeling came over me: he was an old man holding a duck he'd stolen from a dumpster. He was giving me advice. Still, I refused to let myself get angry. Any day now I was going to leave Florida altogether and put the whole d.i.c.k Doyle mess behind me. I'd found a great new girlfriend, Joan; she was a young Chinese American, and soon enough I'd give Orlando notice, and she and I would head back north.

I tried to picture my real life then, the life waiting for me back home: I pictured the building I worked in, fifty-two stories tall, a glittering black tower rising above midtown Manhattan. I pictured my office, my desk, my leather chair, waiting empty. See? I thought. You have a good job out there. You own an apartment in Brooklyn. You are a real person.

"Who's saying I'm a loser?" I said.

"No one, buddy. I just meant that there's people on your side. That's all. Like Jerricho, my son. Who bought me this duck. The one I'm holding."

Just then Orlando's truck pulled into the lot. He must have seen what was going on, because instead of parking in his spot he skidded to a stop right in front of us. The old man jumped back to avoid the spray of gravel.

Orlando got out and took a bat from the cab. He was from Argentina, and though he was shorter than both of us, he was a thickly packed person.

"Get out of here!" he yelled at the old man, his accent rearing up. He pulled the bat back like he was about to swing at the old man's head. "Get off of my property!"

"Whoa, sir," the old man said. "I was just leaving."

"Oh, but you are not leaving with that." Orlando grabbed the duck and dropped it on the ground. Then he raised the bat over his head. "This item is being sold for ten dollars. You pay ten dollars to me and you can have it."

The old man studied the duck rocking on its side. "I'll give you two dollars," he said.

"Ten," said Orlando.

"Two twenty-five."

"Ten."

"It's got no beak. Two fifty."

Orlando waved the bat high in the air. "Ten."

The old man leaned over and spat on the duck. "Keep the change," he said. Then he turned and started walking away. "Oh, and d.i.c.k Doyle's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned genius!" he yelled over his shoulder.

I took a step toward him, but Orlando grabbed my arm.

"What are you thinking of, talking to someone like that?" he said to me.

I watched the old troll vanish into the hedge. "I'm sorry. He started talking to me about d.i.c.k Doyle and-"

"d.i.c.k Doyle again," he said.

"I know."

"Get some sleep. Go home," Orlando said, and gently took the spear gun away from me.

It's difficult in this day and age to tell the difference between a real and an artificial plant. The technology has become so advanced. The age of rubberized stems and plastic leaves is long past. The synthetic plant of today is made from all kinds of designer materials-complicated organic compounds like fibercore and polywax and spongeform. For example, your typical synthetic palm tree, standing fifteen to twenty feet tall-the kind you find twisting up through every mall across America-its trunk is sculpted from a wood resin that sweats and breathes just like a real tree's. The leaves are spun from a special waxen silk; they have actual veins running through them. If I were to plant a synthetic palm tree next to a real one, and then bring you over and ask you to tell me which was which, you wouldn't be able to. Even if I let you use your hands. Probably the only way for you to discover the truth would be to gouge the trees open.

I'm not from Florida originally. Before relocating, I worked for a small marketing firm in Manhattan. My department was called Corporate Synergism, which, though it sounds exciting and dynamic, is really just a s.e.xy way of saying "joint venturing." Basically, my colleagues and I helped companies market themselves to each other; we worked as corporate matchmakers. A client company would come to us hoping to form a relationship with some other company out in the world that it found very attractive. And we, in turn, would help that client company put together a proposal to offer its crush-a proposal that would explain, point by point, why together they had what's called applied synergistic potential.

The work was not the most exciting in the world, and the salary was modest, relatively speaking-only about seventy grand a year for starters-but I enjoyed my job well enough. It was a corporate life: I was invited to the restaurant openings and magazine launches. The gallery shows. I could get into the club with the movie-screen floor without having to wait in line. I'd received a key-card in the mail, inviting me to go to Locke, a new bar on the West Side. I was regularly sent free samples of products sold by companies we'd helped out: cases of Scottish vodka, a bedspread with a 700 thread count, a little robotic floor vacuum that zipped around and cleaned the apartment while I was out.

Ours was a young, compet.i.tive department. I was the new hire, but my colleagues, who for the most part were only a few years farther into their thirties than me, all made in the midsix figures. My boss, Roddy, was only forty-two, and he had three homes already. He owned art he actually had to alarm.

I was on my way-that was how I felt. I was engaged to a woman named Pearl, just twenty-five, who was far and away the most beautiful girl I'd ever dated. She had the kind of face that moved through a crowd like a lantern. Huge blue eyes, a smile almost too big for her head. She was lean and graceful, with a dancer's body. In heels she was a good inch or two taller than me. She'd done some acting and now she was studying to be a playwright, taking graduate cla.s.ses to get her master's, or whatever degree comes with playwriting.

I even owned my own apartment, a small duplex in a renovated factory building. Everything about the place was brand-new; the walls were moon white, the counters were made of brushed steel. The bedroom windows stood five feet tall-huge, industrial panels that afforded a perfect view of midtown Manhattan. In fact, if I slid our bookcase out and squeezed myself into the corner of the room, I could just make out my own office building.

Sometimes, if I couldn't sleep, I would climb out of bed and press myself into the corner and look out over the moonlit river until I found my building, then my office, and finally my window. There, I'd think. You fit there. And after a while a soothing fatigue would come over me, and I'd climb back into bed.

Then, one day in January, Pearl came into the den with a strange look on her face.

"What is it?" I said.

"You almost ready to go?"

"Ready to go where?"

"To see that guy I told you about? The one performing in the East Village," she said. "I've been going to see him sing every night this week. You promised you'd come tonight."

I looked down at the papers in front of me-part of a proposal by a company that manufactured high-end synthetic plants, everything from desk plants to full-size trees. Our client was hoping we might help it court a major home improvement retailer, one that had giant warehouse-like stores all across the country. This was the biggest deal I'd been handed so far. Our client had sent along an artificial fern as a sample of its work, along with a real fern. I had both pots next to each other on my desk.

"Here, try to tell the difference." I gestured for Pearl to touch the ferns.

"Max, I want you to come. It's important to me."

"Just feel."

She sighed and rubbed a leaf from each plant between her fingers. "Wow."

"Feels real, doesn't it?" I said. "They're a good company. Now smell."

She squinted at me as though I were suddenly very hard to see. "Max..."

"Fine. Okay." I closed my binder and got up. "Who is this guy again?"

"He's a country singer," said Pearl. "His name's d.i.c.k Doyle."

As soon as we entered the club, I could tell something strange was going on. Usually the artists Pearl got excited about-the musicians and painters and writers and such-were up-and-comers: they'd been written up in magazines and had some sort of buzz around them. And the people who went to see them perform were like us; they were in our crowd. But as we made our way toward the stage, I saw that d.i.c.k Doyle's audience wasn't our crowd at all. The people filing in were bikers and construction workers, security guards. Jeans and boots and even a little leather. It had been a long time since I'd felt overdressed in a b.u.t.ton-down.

At ten o'clock sharp, an old cowgirl came out from behind the curtain to offer an introduction to d.i.c.k's show. She was dressed in cowboy boots and a denim shirt with fringe hanging off the sleeves. When she reached the center of the stage, she took off her hat and held it over her chest.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she began, "there is a story behind the man you are about to see here tonight. A story that has become an inspiration to many..."

I looked around at the crowd, expecting smirks and snickers, but everybody was just standing with their faces turned up toward the stage, listening. Even Pearl. I felt like checking outside just to make sure I was still in Manhattan.

"The story begins in Florida," the old woman continued, "with a man named d.i.c.k Doyle."

The audience erupted in cheers, clapping and stomping and whistling.

The old woman smiled and patted down the noise. "I know, I know," she said. "But back then, d.i.c.k Doyle wasn't anyone special, really," she said. "He was just your average country singer. Living and playing around town. Singing his songs at birthday parties and weddings. At the derby on Thursday nights..."

I wondered why she was talking about d.i.c.k Doyle as though the man were dead. Wasn't d.i.c.k backstage, waiting to come on? The band was already setting up.

"Oh, d.i.c.k was a real jokester, too," she said, smiling wistfully. "In between songs, he liked to poke fun at the audience, tease them a little, you know. Rib them."

The stage lights dimmed, but the spotlight on the old woman grew brighter.

"Except this one night, see," said the cowgirl, looking around at all of us, her face becoming grave. "Someone in the audience didn't take kindly to d.i.c.k's jokes. A man. He didn't like the way d.i.c.k was teasing him about his hair, which was long, you know, in a ponytail? And so, after the show was over, he waited for d.i.c.k outside the bar in his truck, and when d.i.c.k came out, this man...well, he ran d.i.c.k down."

He ran d.i.c.k down. I couldn't help a laugh from bubbling up. Pearl shot me a cold look.

The cowgirl went on to explain that d.i.c.k had spent two months recovering in the ICU at Orlando Memorial. He had some broken bones, a few busted ribs, a fractured wrist. But worst of all-and here she let out a long, sad sigh-the doctors discovered that d.i.c.k had brain damage.

"Hemorrhage-induced catatonia. That's what the docs called d.i.c.k's condition," she said. "The way I think of it, though, is like a trance that d.i.c.k's stuck in. The accident knocked d.i.c.k into a lifelong trance that he never wakes up from. Like one of those people that gets voodoo done on them."

"A zombie!" someone yelled from the audience.

"A zombie. Right," she said. "Except that in real life, zombies never wake up from their trances..." she said, putting her cowboy hat back on. "But...the amazing thing about d.i.c.k...is that on certain occasions, under very special circ.u.mstances, d.i.c.k can wake up from his trance.

"Circ.u.mstances, ladies and gentlemen, such as these here tonight. Because if there's one thing that d.i.c.k reacts to, one thing that can part those clouds sitting on his brain, it's the power of music..."

And here the woman took a deep bow, and then began backing away, off the stage. A moment later she returned with two men, both of them helping a fourth person onto the stage. This fourth person was a man about six feet tall, my height, average build, with a big trucker's mustache. He was wearing a string tie and a cowboy hat. His suit was bright purple, covered with musical notes made of glittering rhinestones. The crew stood d.i.c.k in the center of the stage and brushed him off.

I leaned over to Pearl. "That suit's giving me...brain damage," I said.

"Shh," she said.

The two a.s.sistants slung a guitar around d.i.c.k's neck and then adjusted the microphone so that it came right up to his mouth, which was hanging open slightly. His eyes stared out at nothing.

I glanced at my watch. It was already ten thirty. I felt a rumbling of agitation.

Country music started up from the back of the stage: a fiddle and a banjo, a slide guitar with that sad, watery echo.

"Look," said Pearl. "Look at d.i.c.k. Watch."

So I looked at him. He was just as I'd left him. Standing with his string tie too tight around his neck, gazing vacantly out into the darkness. But then, slowly, he began to show signs of life. His mustache twitched once, twice. He started blinking rapidly.

I would have laughed out loud, if I hadn't paid twenty dollars to see the show. To me, it all looked like bad acting. He scanned the crowd then, seemingly coming out of his daze. Where am I? Who are all these people? I couldn't help thinking of some of the student actors in Pearl's graduate program.

The crowd began clapping along to the music, cheering d.i.c.k on.

"Go, d.i.c.k, go!" they yelled. "Go, d.i.c.k, go!"

d.i.c.k's shaking hands slowly felt their way over the guitar, crawling over the body, the neck, eventually finding positions on the strings and frets. His playing was clumsy and lurching at first, but after a moment it smoothed out, became pa.s.sable.

I glanced at Pearl; she was rapt, clapping and chanting, and I felt a creeping disdain for her. I spent the better part of my day a.s.sessing value-enumerating the attractive qualities of companies, making cases for or against them. I could not for the life of me see a case to be made for d.i.c.k Doyle. More than this, though, I couldn't see any benefit in a match between d.i.c.k Doyle's performance and my evening.

Pearl nudged me.

"Go, d.i.c.k," I said.

d.i.c.k leaned into the mic and started singing. His voice was nothing to crow about-nasal and whiny, typical country. The song sounded like a stock tearjerker to me, too; it was about a man who gets struck by a power line, finds himself a different person afterward, unable to fit his own life. Sniffle, sniffle.

I headed to the back to get a drink. The bartender was an older fellow. He looked reasonable enough.

"Can you believe this?" I said, when he brought me my beer.

He shook his head. It was hard to hear over the clapping.

I pointed a thumb over my shoulder at the stage. "That guy can't act for s.h.i.t, huh?"

The bartender scowled, then took away my beer.

Late that night, I woke up to the sounds of Pearl crying. I got out of bed and found her dragging a suitcase down the spiral staircase.

"I'm leaving, Max," she said.

"Jesus. Wait a second," I said, trying to gauge the situation. "What's wrong?"

"Please don't try to stop me." She was already halfway down the stairs, so that only her shoulders and head were visible from my vantage point.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and checked my watch: two thirty in the morning. "Pearl. Come up here and talk to me."

She lugged the suitcase down another step. "No. We don't make each other happy. I'm not what you want."

"What are you talking about? Of course you're what I want. I want you all the time. More than I've ever wanted anyone. I'm all over you. Constantly."

She stopped to wipe her face. "I mean you don't want me, who I am. You don't have any interest in me as a person."

"I have a great interest in you. I'm marrying you, for Christ's sake," I said.

"But you don't have any interest in what I'm doing with my life. In what my goals are."