What I saw through the lens of my phone didn’t resemble what I saw through my eyes. It was duller and flatter of course but also it didn’t seem to feature the charming little village off in the distance to the left. I took a picture anyway and put it down. Now there’s just poles and fields and low forests racing by.

Writing is exploring undiscovered territory. The text prediction on the smart device is a tool like a helmet lamp in a cave. It sees everything a moment before you do but it doesn’t care.

It must be said it offered me the word “care” a bit reluctantly there.

A road with a new black surface and bright white stripes darting from below the tracks into the woods.

Gravel piles, always gravel piles.

Spain is florid with graffiti. It’s on the walls along the railroad tracks of course, but also on the trains, even encroaching on the windows. At the station in our little beachside town the tunnel under the tracks was completely covered with tags and messages: All police are bastards, Welcome to Altaganja.

What a luxury it is to sit before the blank screen, with nothing to write, the front door open and the sound of a lawnmower in the distance. Nothing to do in the future but swim in the pool and bob for hours in the gentle waves of the Mediterranean.

I recognized the streets, the walls, the contours of town from Google Maps. Everything was in place. As we crossed the bridge over the tracks I looked for something—anything—unexpected. Maybe the blotchy pattern of plaster on the wall of the building down there. But it was only a matter of time before Google cataloged that as well. When will their project be complete? When every paint chip, every cobweb, every blade of glass is documented—and its growth and decay in real time as well. Then the universe will finally be demystified and we can all go back to sleep.

The Enterprise - 18

Outside of work I drifted around Manhattan in endlessly overlapping figures. The gym on the Upper East. The bar in Gramercy for shooting pool. The Park, the Village. Trying not to let the antenna of my StarTAC poke me in the balls.

I lived in Spanish Harlem with my sister Sue and our friend Sean. Every day I'd walk home from the 6 at Lex and 103rd: down the sidewalk blown by wisps of trash; past the garden cantina with the plastic chairs, the tires in a pile, the knee-high grass and weeds. The liquor store on the corner with the yellow sign and the bulletproof booth. I once bought a bottle of wine I'd noticed in the window, vintage 1972. For twenty-eight years it had rested in its spot in the display while the hood lived and died beyond the glass: babes paraded in prams by proud and hopeful moms turned into truant youth, dealers and gangstas, some to be felled by rivals for turf, some by brothers in arms for a trifle – a slight, a rumor, an accusation. A girl. The man who once screamed and strained for his mother's breast now lay on the corner in a gently expanding pool of blood. Through it all the stupid bottle of French wine looked on. I took it home. It was piss.

For many years before I moved I'd ride the Metro-North down. My sister already lived here. But a Connecticut boy never really needs a reason to see the City. It exerted a magnificent gravitational pull, out of the woods and down the coastline, through the dollhouse towns of Fairfield Country, behind a jumble of graffiti'd warehouses and finally: Grand Central Station. I was always fascinated by the stretch of elevated track between 125th Street and the plunge under Park Avenue. I recognized that this was, objectively, a bad area. You could tell from the overgrown lots, the cracked windows, the peeled-paint signs. But in the late sun shining from the west it sparkled like a jewel. This was the paradoxical result of decades of violence and neglect: glass everywhere, crushed nearly to powder, from car accidents, break-ins, discarded bottles. It gave the impression that the streets of this city were paved not with gold but with diamonds.

It would be crazy to live here, I thought to myself, gazing out the train. I tried to imagine how different my life would be, how strange and wonderful and awful it would be, if I lived right there in that scintillating ghetto.

Hail pelted the tinted windows of our floor.

I'm more often than not stricken by some disorder of the flesh.

When you think you're in the batter's box they got you standing on the warning track.

The train I ride is sixteen coaches long.

The Sword of Damocles

We sat out among cicadas and mosquitoes. Feet up, drinking, smoking. From time to time beyond the fence a train would rattle by and howl.

Just past the fence there was a tree with a cracked branch dangling over the swing set by its ropey, splintered pulp; the sword of Damocles.

Cicadas sound faster than crickets.

We arrived in Monaco after a stint shrouded in mountainous tunnels. Arrived in its clean station, underground. Or in the ground. In the mountain, still, it would appear. We thought about which way to go and then we went there, along the shiny platform. Uniformed persons ushered us further, down the stairs, toward our eventual exit. We rounded a couple corners, curiously makeshift, or in the midst of renovations, and then we were out in the open.

It seemed like it might start to rain.

There was a howling, moaning din out in the distance, reverberating upon the hillsides, in the trees. But in the distance. The sound seemed to present an alternate reality; a strange juxtaposition with mere people in their clothes and shoes, with shops, sidewalks, street lamps and earthy knolls.

The sound haunted us. Got softer and then louder. It was evidence of a fierce intelligence at play out there, unseen, but in our midst. I could not wait to get nearer it.

The train from San Francisco to the Valley is the double-decker CalTrain, a whimsical configuration accentuated by the rows of single, privileged seats above, although CalTrain makes you think of cattle train and so do the tall, ungainly wagons. On the first morning I put my feet up on the seat across from me and sure enough was scolded by the conductor, I knew it, shoulda known. And it's outta the reverie to examine the world pass by outside: sunny towns, drowsy towns. Houses, sheds and muscle cars, stucco.

We arrived in Mountain View to find the air honeyed with sun. It was one of those days as though we'd drift into a dream and awake to face some unnameable beast with nought but our wits to protect us.

Instead we got aboard the company shuttle and crossed the bridge above the highway.

I looked out the front of the commuter train from S's this morning, the length of a car away. The opening at the front seemed so promising: unexpected light, a window onto something rare and precious. I wondered how the backward-facing commuters could be so oblivious, with their New York Times folded into halves and quarters, the sports section and the crossword puzzle. But the truth is there wasn't much to see out front. Signals and trees and vague debris. Tunnels and walls and every surface painted in graffiti. Weeds grew in between the tracks. A uniformed figure waving from the platform of a bypassed station. I was so glad to see it.

On the train in the café car the man looked like William H. Macy, those little beady eyes below the thick blonde brow in the creased, genial face. The thin lips around a wide, vaguely vulnerable mouth.

"What'll it be?" he asked genially.

I said I didn't know yet sorry. He helped the woman behind me as I continued to gaze upon the different-colored menus with the pictures of chips and nuts and beer.

"Have you decided yet?"

"I, well…"

"Whiskey?"

That was exactly what I wanted. "You… Yes! That was uh, good."

He turned and got it as though it was nothing. Later I returned for more and he seemed to be in a trance, leaning against the inside of the side counter, arms folded. I waited.

"I, sorry, I must have…"

"S'OK!"

I ordered, paid, tipped. As I walked away I heard the transaction behind me: a woman ordered a cup of coffee.

"Nice!" he exclaimed ridiculously.

It occurred to me that perhaps he was some sort of modern mythic figure, heroically guarding his spirits against soul-killing tedium. A whistling Sisyphus.

We left at dawn with all the Japanese kids, all of us sweating, them in their tight racing-striped tees and platform boots and hair dyed blonde, hair dyed blue. There was a locker room where we all had checked our bags and it really looked like a gym locker room and for a moment I fantasized I was one of them in a Tokyo school. I liked to stand among them, their titters and glances dancing around me.

Roger and I went into a train station and a British couple approached us to chat. They'd been out celebrating his birthday – happy birthday, we said. He'd had "quite a few beers, mate, quite a few tequilas." Turns out they were there teaching English; they lived in a tiny apartment somewhere and had this strange ex-pat life. They were ordinary working-class British, down to earth and fast-talking. We asked them what it was like and the guy riffed about Japan and the Japanese. He was funny and I liked him. He said it was right strange living here, mate. The Japanese do not feel shame the way we do, he noted. For example, they are not the least bit disinclined to stare straight into your eyes for a long while simply because you're white. It happens to him all the time, he said. He'll be on a train and he'll sense something a bit off and look up to find the commuter across the aisle staring intently at him and, rather than looking away in embarrassment upon being caught, unflinchingly continuing to stare, every bit as intently. And also the customs, you have to be careful. It's quite taboo to eat while standing up. Very taboo. Don't eat a piece of pizza or something standing on the platform of a train or walking down the street. And don't blow your nose in public. You may just as well be wiping your arse.

What do you eat?

Lots of noodles mate. You get used to noodles. You have to get used to noodles if you want to live in Japan. Food is bloody expensive but noodles are fucking cheap, mate. And a bit of seafood now and then yeah? But the shop is very strange here too. The way prices are for things. For example you can go into a shop and find a mini-stereo, speakers, CD player, radio, the whole lot, for 3,500 yen. And then you go to the fruit section of the store right? And you pick up a package of red apples, three polished red apples packed in clear wrap on a green styrofoam tray and you look at the price and it's… 3,500 yen.

The girl was quieter but funny too and I liked them both. She had brown hair tied back severely in a ponytail and bright red lipstick and lots of mascara and a sexy sort of form-fitting leather jacket. Roger said are you a Jordy then? She smiled and said yeah, she's from Newcastle, can you tell? And Roger said yeah, you got a Jordy accent.

I took a great picture of the two of them on the train, her head on his shoulders, and then they got off forever and there I was with Roger on our way back out through the suburbs, gray and dewy this time, schoolgirls staring with their white socks up. We got off in a little town near the airport and took a walk, and he wanted to go see a monastery or some fucking thing and I just wanted an excuse to leave him so that's where we parted, him walking down the road, me hailing a cab back to the hotel. I took a shower, numb and nauseous, and took the bus to the airport and flew back around the world.

The city train was more crowded and I felt people staring at us, not in any kind of antipathetic way but out of naked curiosity. We were so obviously different. Their gazes followed us in and out of the car and almost every moment in between.

We went out to dinner that night with Jo and Michael and his wife and the kids, at a good French restaurant. We sat at a long table in the back and had spicy Australian wine and I had the lamb and it was all very good, and we talked about this and that and I admired Jo diagonally, in vain.

Then the next morning it was time to go, just like that. Kevin had to go to work and so Kate drove me to the airport and walked around the terminal with me a little while, killing time. We browsed a clothes store – it was odd to be engaged in such mundane behavior so soon before our separation. But finally I had to pass through the gate and we embraced and like always Kate said, "You're shaking!" and I said yes I know, I'm a trepidatious man.

I landed back in Tokyo nine hours later, at about 7:30 at night, went through customs, took the shuttle to the hotel, checked in, and there I was, in Tokyo with the night ahead of me. I went down to the lobby and noticed a line of taxis outside. I got in the back of a taxi and told the driver I wanted to go into Tokyo. He didn't understand a word. I wrote "Shinjuku Station" in my little notebook and tore out the sheet and gave it to him. I had read about bars and nightlife at Shinjuku Station.

He scribbled something and handed the paper back. It said "25,000." That was like, $250. I briefly considered giving it to him but figured there had to be a better way. He gestured with his hands and said something in half Japanese, half broken English, articulating how far away we were, how that was a normal price. I said no thank you and slipped out of the cab.

I was asking someone at the front desk how to take a train to town when a young English guy sidled up to me.

"You going into town?"

"Yeah."

"So am I. Let's go together."

"Sure." I didn't want to say no. How do you say no to a complete stranger in a place that's strange to both of you? But I had fantasized about being alone in Tokyo, of having a solitary and unpredictable experience. And I was sorry to give that up.

We got our directions and took the shuttle back to the airport and descended to the lower levels of the terminal, where the trains were. The deeper you went, it seemed, the less English there was. At the bottom there was nothing anywhere but Japanese characters: exit signs, train schedules, poster ads, everything was a colored blur of lines and squiggles. I had a sense of truly entering a different world, where my reference points had vanished. We went to the ticket booth and with difficulty got the man to understand what we wanted, and we found a train to take. We could take the express or the cheaper local commuter train and the English guy, Roger, said he wanted to save money so I said OK fine, and we took the slow train, and I already began to regret having met him.

That night Kevin and I went to the casino in the pouring rain. I had taken a caffeine pill to counteract jetlag and now I was wired to the point of agitation; on the train into town I desperately hung on to Kevin's words, scouring them for meaning. I confessed to him how wired I was and he laughed.