“Come on Barton it’s okay this is the best day of your life man you’re rich and you’re alive.”

“Oh—oh my—oh yah I guess sir.”

“Yes Mr. Telemark Barton.”

“Oh yah yes Mr. Telemark.”

“You know the weird thing Barton is that in my own way I am an artist and this has exposed a deep and profound truth not just to the world but to me, which makes you I suppose some sort of muse or possibly I am your art right now, which is like heavy shit.”

“Oh wow sir.”

“Cool now let’s get this stuff in the car. You got your account number?”

“Uh yes sir.”

“You thought I was kidding about the fifteen mil I guess.”

“I—”

“You’re rich Barton. It’s really gonna be okay.”

“…Fuck!”

“There we are.”

“Go team sir!”

“Go team Barton. Go team.”

And that’s it we are on our way.

—

I stare out of the window into jetworld. Up is dark blue, down is cloud and that is all there is in the universe. After a while I eat Chinese food because Chinese food is good at altitude.

Doc says: “What’s in the box?”

“Firecracker chicken and rice. Rex and Lucille have the pork noodles, and Charlie and Volodya stole the crispy duck. The Russian is a sucker for those little pancakes I guess.”

“Give me the chicken.”

“But then I will have no chicken.”

“That is crime Price someone always gets no chicken.”

—

And then we arrive.

—

This is Bern it is eight hundred years old and has some people in it we will say a half a million if you count the whole sprawl, which is not a sprawl more like a kind of lotus or zazen. It is also is the capital of Switzerland and nothing un-Swiss is allowed to happen here and if it does they have actual bears in actual pits that they can feed it to I am not even slightly kidding. They do not do this of course because it would be bad for the bears but motherfucker the implication is right there on the cantonal flag: it is only because we are so fucking civilized that we care about the gastric comfort of bears that we are not going with the traditional option.