like the American flag on every pickup truck

Even in the windows of the Korean dry cleaners and Arab grocery stores, displayed prominently, like

some protective totem. From the barbershop wall, that portrait looked down on me now: the handsome, grizzled face,

the bushy eyebrows and mustache, the twinkle in the eyes.

of foiled ambitions, of ambitions abandoned before they’ve been tried.

the real enemy.”

“And who’s that?” Marty shrugged.

“The investment bankers. The politicians. The fat cat lobbyists.”

Find out their self-interest, he said. That’s why people become involved in organizing-because they think they’ll get something out of it. Once I found an issue enough people cared about, I could take them into action. With enough actions, I could start to build power.

Issues, action, power, self-interest. I liked these concepts. They bespoke a certain hardheadedness, a worldly lack of sentiment; politics, not religion.

this dual sense, of individual advancement and collective decline

With our eyes closed, we uttered the same words, but in our hearts we each prayed to our own masters; we each remained locked in our own memories; we all clung to our own foolish magic.