5 I roll off of the train at BeiShan, the stop once known as Belmont, where I need to make a quick detour before heading into the office. This was the block where Shalla and I first met—young punks full of rebellion and anger, fleeing a world that seemed broken and never likely to be fixed. All we wanted to do then was make music and be like the Ramones—funny and abrasive, slamming and sneering, two minutes of ferocity at a time. If it was true that my head was in the stars much of the time then too, it was because until then I had assumed that exploring space, surfing the universe and searching for new planets and forms of life was going to save me. I was never going to space though—wrong family, wrong background, just wrong, all of it. But music was different. No one can take music away from you: they can’t control it. So we dreamed about it, and chased it, ate it, slept it and loved it more than anything , until Joey. Joey changed things, and maybe it’s true that I forced it, but when the music wasn’t playing and the stars seemed really far away, what else did I have? Nothing. Shalla, maybe, but love is so ephemeral, relationships implode, and was she never even mine to begin with? It was never clear. And still isn’t. I start moving along BeiShan, the level of grime coating everything from the ground to the air itself. “Hey, fuck head, yeah, you, douche bag, over here,” someone screams from across the parking lot at the Simao donut shop where we once wiled away endless days chewing SynthKhat, talking music and begging for change. O R P H A N S 18 It’s Al B, an old member of the band and just who I was looking for. I take a moment to catch my breath and steel myself for the conversation. “Look at you motherfucker,” Al B says charging toward me and leaning in to give me a hug, “all spiffy and proper. Is that how they make you dress when you go to work at the Corporation? Because if it is, no thanks man, this guy will pass.” After the hug I step back and take look at Al B’s grungy black shorts and thermals, the ratty hoodie and unshaven face. Is that what I used to look like? “What, Jesus, Norrin, how bad do I look?” Al B asks. “It’s not that,” I say. “What then?” he asks straightening up. “You look like you’re seeing a ghost!” Is that it, is that what the past is when you have no true desire to revisit it? A ghost you hope will never come around even as you go and search for it. “I suppose,” I say, “how are you doing?” “Hustling bro,” Al B replies, “selling SynthKhat, playing music, keeping my head down and trying to stay one step ahead of the helicopters.” As he says this a black helicopter swoops in overhead, and hovers for a minute as the grime and grit swirls around us. “Please move along,” the metallic voice says, “per the newly revised Baidu Police Department General Order Number 00-02-2080, there is no loitering in designated hot spots.” “I should be moving,” I say, “and I need to get to the office anyway, but I did want to talk to you.” “Yeah, alright,” Al B says looking up and flipping the bird to the helicopter, “what’s up?” [3.229.122.112] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 04:56 GMT) B E N TA N Z E R 19 “Loitering is defined as remaining in any one place under circumstances that would warrant a reasonable person to believe that the purpose or effect of that behavior is to enable a criminal street gang to establish control over identifiable areas, to intimidate others from entering these areas, or to conceal illegal activities,” the metallic voice says as the black helicopter starts to drop closer to where Al B and I are standing. “You know what’s up,” I say, “the money, it’s always the money.” “For you it is,” Al B says laughing, “but I guess for you it should be.” “Look, he knows I’m good for it, right?” I say. “That I’m working, that I’ll get it to him?” “Oh, he knows,” Al B...