shirt.
“No.” But with the way today is shaping up, I’m beginning to wonder if I should.
“Can’t hurt, Holmes. You don’t want some dude walking up to you and fleecing your mojo.”
Yeah, well, too late for that.
“Thanks for the advice, Bow Wow,” I say, giving him another knuckle tap.
He smiles and tells me to stay cool and flashes some kind of gangsta peace sign that looks more like he’s got a rash he’s trying not to scratch.
“Don’t step on any cracks, Holmes.”
I’m just about to turn away and find out what it’s like to have my personal space back when Doug leans in again.
“Oh, one other thing. Word on the street is that this Tommy Wong has offered to pay half a million to any poacher who brings him something called Pure. You have any idea what that means?”
“No,” I say, playing dumb. “I have no idea.”
W hen I was little, my grandfather used to tell stories about famous poachers throughout history who stole luck from the likes of Napoleon, JFK, and the captain of the Titanic . Sometimes he’d make up stories just to entertain us and make us laugh. Other times he’d tell us cautionary tales about poachers who gave in to temptation and greed. Who took the wrong path and ended up addicted to good luck or infected with bad luck.
Guess I should have paid more attention to that one.
But the story I remember most was the one he told about something he liked to call the Holy Grail of poaching. The cleanest form of luck you could find. Untainted by the corruption of the soul. As white and soft as the clouds of heaven and more powerful than the highest-quality top-grade soft.
Pure.
He would speak of it with this look of absolute joy, asif just by talking about it he could imagine how it would feel to have that kind of luck flowing through him. When I asked him once if he’d ever poached Pure, the spark went out of his eyes and he looked at me with an expression that was a combination of longing and disgust.
“No,” he’d said. “It’s just a fairy tale. It doesn’t exist.”
Not until I was older did I find out the truth.
I head up Powell Street, past the crowds lined up and waiting to ride the cable car to Ghirardelli Square, thinking about what Doug said, wanting to believe his information was wrong but knowing that Tommy Wong was offering half a million dollars for the poaching and delivery of 100 percent pure good luck.
The longer you live with the luck you’re born with, the more that luck absorbs your life experiences and the impurities that go along with the condition of being human. With all of the neuroses and phobias and emotional baggage we collect, like jealousy and homophobia and abandonment issues. With all of the mistakes and bad decisions that encompass a lifetime.
Like lying to your parents or cheating on your wife or taking steroids.
Even the highest grade of good luck can become diluted. Infused with the emotions and experiences of those who carry it in their DNA. Kind of like an emotional thumbprint. So when you poach luck, you don’t always know what you’re getting with it.
A perfect marriage mixed with codependence. An all-expenses-paid vacation blended with paranoia. A dream job cut with a drug addiction.
People are walking sponges, absorbing praise and criticism, joy and pain, love and hate. All of these experiences make up who we are, what we think of ourselves, affecting us not just emotionally, but on a cellular level. And good luck is part of the cellular makeup for those who are born with it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegetarian or a carnivore. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or Buddha. It doesn’t matter if you’re an atheist or a nihilist. Eventually, your luck is going to become polluted with the mileage you put on it. It’s like engine oil, collecting the dirt and deposits of living. Only problem is, you don’t get to change your luck every three thousand miles. It just keeps getting dirtier.
The only way to
“No.” But with the way today is shaping up, I’m beginning to wonder if I should.
“Can’t hurt, Holmes. You don’t want some dude walking up to you and fleecing your mojo.”
Yeah, well, too late for that.
“Thanks for the advice, Bow Wow,” I say, giving him another knuckle tap.
He smiles and tells me to stay cool and flashes some kind of gangsta peace sign that looks more like he’s got a rash he’s trying not to scratch.
“Don’t step on any cracks, Holmes.”
I’m just about to turn away and find out what it’s like to have my personal space back when Doug leans in again.
“Oh, one other thing. Word on the street is that this Tommy Wong has offered to pay half a million to any poacher who brings him something called Pure. You have any idea what that means?”
“No,” I say, playing dumb. “I have no idea.”
W hen I was little, my grandfather used to tell stories about famous poachers throughout history who stole luck from the likes of Napoleon, JFK, and the captain of the Titanic . Sometimes he’d make up stories just to entertain us and make us laugh. Other times he’d tell us cautionary tales about poachers who gave in to temptation and greed. Who took the wrong path and ended up addicted to good luck or infected with bad luck.
Guess I should have paid more attention to that one.
But the story I remember most was the one he told about something he liked to call the Holy Grail of poaching. The cleanest form of luck you could find. Untainted by the corruption of the soul. As white and soft as the clouds of heaven and more powerful than the highest-quality top-grade soft.
Pure.
He would speak of it with this look of absolute joy, asif just by talking about it he could imagine how it would feel to have that kind of luck flowing through him. When I asked him once if he’d ever poached Pure, the spark went out of his eyes and he looked at me with an expression that was a combination of longing and disgust.
“No,” he’d said. “It’s just a fairy tale. It doesn’t exist.”
Not until I was older did I find out the truth.
I head up Powell Street, past the crowds lined up and waiting to ride the cable car to Ghirardelli Square, thinking about what Doug said, wanting to believe his information was wrong but knowing that Tommy Wong was offering half a million dollars for the poaching and delivery of 100 percent pure good luck.
The longer you live with the luck you’re born with, the more that luck absorbs your life experiences and the impurities that go along with the condition of being human. With all of the neuroses and phobias and emotional baggage we collect, like jealousy and homophobia and abandonment issues. With all of the mistakes and bad decisions that encompass a lifetime.
Like lying to your parents or cheating on your wife or taking steroids.
Even the highest grade of good luck can become diluted. Infused with the emotions and experiences of those who carry it in their DNA. Kind of like an emotional thumbprint. So when you poach luck, you don’t always know what you’re getting with it.
A perfect marriage mixed with codependence. An all-expenses-paid vacation blended with paranoia. A dream job cut with a drug addiction.
People are walking sponges, absorbing praise and criticism, joy and pain, love and hate. All of these experiences make up who we are, what we think of ourselves, affecting us not just emotionally, but on a cellular level. And good luck is part of the cellular makeup for those who are born with it.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a vegetarian or a carnivore. It doesn’t matter if you believe in God or Buddha. It doesn’t matter if you’re an atheist or a nihilist. Eventually, your luck is going to become polluted with the mileage you put on it. It’s like engine oil, collecting the dirt and deposits of living. Only problem is, you don’t get to change your luck every three thousand miles. It just keeps getting dirtier.
The only way to
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