Valencia Street

Everywhere you look there's something new and something missing.

Money that doesn't know where it comes from or, knowing, disguises its source; money that doesn't want to be seen as money but is money nonetheless. Young, nicely dressed money out for a good time.

It's a rich walk at night. The restaurants are open and the bars look full. The used bookstore has a copy of Charles North's selected poems but not Chekhov's stories.

Your friend Kirk, who's lived in the neighborhood for 25 years, introduces you to Marlon. Marlon knows where the diamonds are hidden and the bodies buried. You stop and talk with Marlon for awhile and move on down the street while Marlon's still talking.

Up ahead on the wall of the old police station, political posters feature Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and other professionally rendered messages about the monetary injustices of the system.