THE KETAMINE SUN: [2] SOY SAUCE DOWN A SEWER DRAIN

[2] SOY SAUCE DOWN A SEWER DRAIN

(excerpted from The Ketamine Sun by Cole Coonce)

Leaving the front doors ajar, Simon Drake prolonged his effected smile and escorted me through the echoing length of the vacuous domicile towards the rear of the estate. With its doors open, the Kamiokande place sucked in the blue and green essence of the ocean like the blades of a ramjet inhaling oxygen and exhaling existential smog.

Drake excused himself and handed me my shoes, implying that it was up to me to make my own introductions. Then he opened a set of French doors that led to a fecund backyard sculpted as a shrine to the game of golf. There was a touch of raked gravel here, a pavilion teahouse there, an obligatory stone lantern and a pond, but there was no doubt that this space’s primary function was that of a personal driving range.

To that end, a moist, rotund Japanese gentleman in a white-as-the-man-in-the-moon lycra shirt and tennis shorts prepared to poke at a golf ball. He clutched his putter with puffy little fingers and swung with micro-perfection. The ball rimmed around a hole and spit itself out. Undeterred, he set up another chip shot. He was Toshiro Kamiokande.

“Do you hit the links, Mr. Carbon?” he asked, never taking his eyes off of the divoted orb of his desire.

“I tried it, but I kept hitting the windmills.”

“Both you and Cervantes.” He flicked the putting iron again and sunk the ball with the precision of a puff adder pouncing on a field mouse. He then teed up another ball, and swapped the silver putter for some wood. With the ferocity of a lumberjack, he swung and whomped on the ball. It sailed off the property and dropped below the bluffs. I listened for a bounce but never heard it. I can only assume it bounced off parked cars on Pacific Coast Highway before pinging off a lifeguard stand and burrowing into the ocean, whereupon the currents took it back to Malaysia whence it was manufactured.

MORE – (excerpted from The Ketamine Sun by Cole Coonce)