“But it is,” Chon countered.
“But it shouldn’t be.”
“Okay, but so what?”
Well, so what is that Ben has taken 99 percent of the violence and dishonesty out of his business, but that other 1 percent is—
—where Chon comes in.
Ben doesn’t need to know what Ben doesn’t need to know.
“You’re the American public,” Chon tells him.
And Chon has ample experience with that.
36
Guys dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and the headlines are about
Anna Nicole Smith.
Who?
37
Ben watches CNN in the airport.
On his way home from the Bongo Congo.
Etymology—
The Congo River runs through it, and
It used to be called the Belgian Congo, and
It’s fucking nuts there.
Otherwise known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
What was Ben the Baddhist doing there?
Funding psychotherapy clinics for rape victims.
Traumatized women, multiply raped and often mutilated—first by rebel soldiers, then by the soldiers who were sent to protect them from the previous set of soldiers. So Green Is Green writes checks for health clinics and counselors, for pregnancy and STD tests, and—
—get this—
—for instructors to go out to the soldiers and hold workshops to teach that rape and mutilation are—
wrong.
Ben leaves the plastic molded chair to hit the porcelain in the men’s room again because he contracted more in the Congo than just the usual Third World Heartbreak and he really hopes it isn’t dysentery (again).
He sits Luther-like on the john and, in fact, (re)considers his own theology because—
—while he knows as a Baddhist that men who rape and cut up women should be reeducated not to do that, he also has this impulse that the more effective thing to do would be to just—
—shoot the fuckers.
He knows (ever self-reflective) that there’s more to it than that.
Maybe he’s just sick and tired but he’s also
sick
and
tired
of seemingly
ennui
depression
adrift in his life. Purposeless, perhaps because
—dig a well in the Sudan and the
—buy mosquito nets and the boys you save grow up to
—rape women
—set up cottage industries in Myanmar and the army
—steals them and uses the women as slaves and
Ben is starting to be afraid that he is starting to share Chon’s opinion of the human species
that people are basically
shit.
38
And now this
Ben thinks as he goes back to the first-class lounge and gets himself an herbal tea.
The BC sends out atrocity videos as a business tool in the heretofore (relatively) pacifist marijuana industry.
Nice.
What next?
He doesn’t even want to think about that.
Yeah, but you’re going to have to, he tells himself, because you’re going to have to respond to it. Chon has a response in mind (well, in hand), but the truth is that there’s no way they’re going to outgun the Baja Cartel. And even if they could, Ben’s not sure that he wants to.
Ben’s not sure of anything right now.
He hears them announce his flight.
39
Threatened with eviction and/or a limit on her platinum card, O agrees to join a life coaching session with Paqu.
Eleanor comes to the house.
“Is she like Domino’s?” O asks Paqu. “If she doesn’t deliver a new life in twenty minutes, it’s free?”
“That will be enough of that.”
So O joins Paqu on the sofa as Eleanor, her silver hair set off beautifully by a deep-lavender silk blouse, passes out file cards as she says, “Three is a very powerful number in our culture and collective psyches, so we are going to use the power of three to enhance our personal power.”
“And there are three of us,” O observes.
“Very sharp, Ophelia,” Eleanor says.
O winces.
Eleanor continues, “The difference between a goal and a dream is a plan of action, so on these cards, I want you to write down three goals you have for yourself for today, and the three achievable steps you will take today to make each one happen.”
Paqu writes:
—Become physically stronger
—Progress toward becoming a life coach
—Prepare a meal that will nourish me physically and spiritually.
O writes:
