The Dead Do Not Improve by Jay Caspian Kang Read Free Book Online Page B

kicking soccer balls against the buildings. This is my song of San Francisco, the beautiful music of transitions and all the countries congealing together into a beautiful music. Screw the Opera, I always say, give me the moment of clarity within the chaotic music! And enjoy the chaos, too!
    I stopped reading and clicked over to
Mission Dishin
’.
    It had been updated. The front page now read:
    BEATINGS IN MISSION LINKED TO LOCAL GANG. TECH WORKERS TARGETED.
MISSION DISHIN
’ EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH TWO OF THE VICTIMS .
    I complied.
    Mission Dishin’ has learned that the recent rash of savage beatings in the Mission District are the work of the infamous Mara Salvatrucha 13 gang, also known as the MS-13. While we are forced to withhold certain details about the gang’s intentions, for fear of endangering more of you people, we have obtained an exclusive interview with GLEN MARCUS (read: not his real name), one of the victims of the attacks.
    Let us set the scene: I have known Glen Marcus for years and he has always been a tall drink of water. His demeanor, frosty, yet compelling, might remind a casual observer of Mifune’s turns in the great Samurai films of Kurosawa. Despite this aloofness, which has served him well, both in living in the heat of the Mission, and in attracting his fair share of women, Marcus was savagely attacked last weekend while walking home to our apartment on WITHHELD and WITHHELD (far, far east of the trendy Valencia corridor). The attackers, dressed entirely in black, beat Marcus with baseball bats.
    It went on like that for another three paragraphs. Glen Marcus, predictably, was a fucking idiot. He had suffered a broken arm, a fracturedskull, and abrasions on his knees and elbows. They had taken his wallet, his phone. The reason why he suspected the Mara Salvatrucha 13 was because they were wearing blue and had done things like this in the past.
    The only evidence offered to corroborate the MS-13 theory came from the editors of
Mission Dishin
’. Apparently, they had been in contact with three of the victims (there had been about eight in all), and all three had worked for prominent but not Google-prominent companies in Silicon Valley. All three companies could be described as “social media.”
    I admit, the last part gave me pause. To deflect some of the accusations that we were nothing but a $50 leech on heartbroken men, the founder of getoverit.com had registered us as a social networking site.
    Were the letters from Richard McBeef some weird intimidation tactic? Why would the MS-13, who I assumed were drug dealers, suddenly move into low-level terrorist activities?
    Below the byline, there was a link to the San Francisco Gang Prevention Society’s website. I clicked on it. All it was, really, was a phone number and a collection of other links. The other links, though, confirmed Performance Fleece’s worst plausible scenario. The evidence—descriptions of citizen intimidation, initiation rituals, neighborhood blog posts about knifings, muggings gone wrong—proved, indisputably, really, that we were both fucked. My right hand throbbed uncontrollably. I clicked through hundreds of photos—all those proud kids posing in red, the brutal accounts of violence, the efficiency of gang logic. My panic now had a face, hundreds of them. When the sun finally came up and the fresh-faced morning people started coming into the Laundromat with their loads for the wash-and-fold service, I had already known, for several hours, really, that I could never go back to my apartment.
    2 . When I walked into the office, Bill was sitting at my desk. He said his computer had a virus. We both knew he was lying. He just liked my desk better because he’s that sort of guy. Flattery kept my mouth shut.
    Bill said, “I can’t get rid of this.”
    “What?”
    “This pop-up. It’s on my shit, too.”
    “That’s that giant.”
    “The Big Friendly Giant. Roald Dahl.”
    “What’s he doing?”
    “I have no