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His name was Victor, we learned, and the background wallpaper on Victor's cellphone was an Aztec image, he told us, so imbued with powers that just the contemplation of said image made you smarter. He was convinced that world events were orchestrated by complicated and persistent conspiracies.He took out a dollar bill to show us how the Illuminati communicated with one another.
'Why would a secret society lay out their plans on common currency?' I asked.
He nodded like he'd anticipated the question. 'To display the reach of their power.'
I envied Victor's certainty, the idiot syntax of the righteous. This belief--that the world had a visible order, and all we had to do was look for the symbols--as if evil were a code that could be cracked. He kept talking. His teeth wet from drink, the gray blush of a dead molar. He had plenty of conspiracies to explain to us in detail, plenty of inside information he could clue us into. He spoke of 'getting on the level." Of 'hidden frequencies' and 'shadow governments.
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