Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
The second to last time I saw him, we went to buy a sandwich at a shabby café near Chinatown. We were sitting at the counter as all around us dope deals went down in between bites from tofu rolls. Veganism and drug addiction. That sums up the neighborhood. The guy serving us was preternaturally angry, with tattoos all up his arms, which made me laugh. You can’t look that nasty and then actually act that mean too. The guy with the arm tattoos is supposed to be a pussycat. But not this one.
Aslan ordered vegetarian sandwich number two before changing his order, after conferring briefly with a pot of swizzle sticks, to vegetarian sandwich number one. “Well which is it?” barked the man and all eleven of his arm tattoos stared daggers at us.
“Vegetarian sandwich number one. Um, no, number three.”
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” spat the man.
Aslan looked up from the swizzle sticks, his eyes turning gray, the pupils approximating something like anger. “Forget about the sandwich,” he hissed. Rising from his stool at the counter, he began to hook his backpack over his broad shoulders.
The guy got all hard-style, bellowing, “You’re still going to have to pay for the sandwich, you little fuck—I’ve already started chopping the tomato.” Without a word, Aslan took money from his back pocket, slammed it on the counter and began to back out of the café, never taking his newly gray eyes from the waiter. The guy and his eleven tattoos looked suddenly confused and I even felt sorry for him when he meekly asked, “So do you want the sandwich to go?” Aslan just held his hand in front of his face and walked out. I followed him and asked what was up. “I don’t give a damn about the money,” his voice was trembling; “money is dirty. There’s too much bad energy coming from that guy for me to eat a sandwich touched by his hands. I couldn’t allow that kind of energy to enter my body.” And he stormed off up the street. I went back in and rescued what had become vegetarian sandwich number one. Handing it to a homeless man who didn’t seem too interested in my random act of kindness, I rushed to catch up with Aslan.