"Come on, then," Gustavo said. "Let's get the circus started." - Michael Nava

[Donati] "You couldn't have planned a worse place to put a city than LA."

I walked over to the railing and watched the traffic stream up and down the boulevard. A blond in a Jeep cruised by slowly, his cassette player blaring a disco tune from the seventies. Ah, the hunt, I thought, remembering the nights I had stood in San Francisco bars listening to that same song while I ingested a little liquid courage. Or, rather, a lot of liquid courage. Most nights I would stagger out alone and take the train back to school. Once in a while someone would pick me up, or I would pick him up, and I would toil in a stranger's bed for a few hours, trying to get out of my skin by going through his. I imagined that I was having fun, and sometimes I was, but not nearly often enough.

My father was a man of many sayings," Sarmiento replied. "And one of them was "A mas honor, mas dolor." No risk, no reward.