Sitting next to a burning Tiki torch spiked into the ground, beneath an orange tree, Karla said to me, “You know, Ethan’s been a millionaire and filed for Chapter Eleven three times already—and he’s only 33. And there are hundreds of these guys down here. They’re immune to money. They just sort of assume it’ll appear like rain.”

While decoding Ethan’s existence we were removing stray grass seeds from each other’s Clockwork Orange thug costumes. I said, “There’s something about Ethan that’s not quite oxymoronic, yet still self-contradictory—like an 18-wheeler with Neutrogena written on the side—I can’t explain it. The whole Silicon Valley is oxymoronic—geeky and rich and hip. I’m undecided if I even like Ethan—he’s definitely not one of us. He’s a different archetype.”