What are you reading at the moment? he asked me. Vanity of Duluoz by Jack Kerouac, I said (I fluffed it). Bullshit, he said. Don’t tell me, he said. Charles Bukowski. William fucking Burroughs. Patti fucking Smith. Jim fucking Thompson. Hermann fucking Hesse (Bullshit von fucking Bullshit). Try this on for size, he said (and he pulled out a copy of Diary of a Madman by Gogol from his rucksack). Read the Russians, he said. And forget satire, he said. And forget metaphor, the Russians have no truck with metaphor. And forget time, they have no truck with time, either. When you read Gogol it’s neither yesterday, today or tomorrow. You ever heard John Coltrane? he asked me. I have Kind of Blue, I said (he’s on there). Bullshit, he said. You need to listen to Ascension. You need to listen to Meditations. You need to listen to Interstellar Space. You need to wake up to now, my friend. He stubbed out another cigarette. I need to get to sleep, he said. You have no idea the weight of my brain right now. I told Samantha. We have a visitor upstairs (I said).