name for the warehouse is defined by cold, the dead weights of the goods,
the frequency of spills and new ice on floors, and accidents. Only moments
before Conrad received notice he was laid off, he had saved the life of a fel-
low worker, at great risk to his own. A few pages later, following a cursed
series of breaks, Conrad is in prison for felony assault—the absurd end to
his attempt to retrieve his car and to protect his honor from bonehead bu-
reaucrats.
The East Bay jail is a nightmarish scene of claustrophobia, ceaseless
howling and blasphemous chanting, and surly gangs organized by com-
plexion. Conrad hopes to be alone, at least in his head, and pleads with
his wife to send him a particular book to read. The wrong one arrives—an
old scholarly collection of Stoic philosophy. Conrad is bitterly disappointed
until he comes upon the section devoted to the Greco-Roman Epictetus.
Brought to Rome as a slave, Epictetus, once free, later served time in jail.
Perhaps experiences , years old might still apply, so Conrad, starving
for distraction, reads on, and his life is changed. Epictetus instructs the des-
perate not how to overcome but how to endure and accept. Conrad commits
to memory what he judged the essential paragraph of the philosopher’s
message, in the words of Zeus himself: ‘‘If it were possible I would have
made your body and your possessions (those trifles that you prize) free and
untrammeled,’’ the god began. ‘‘But as things are—never forget this—this
body is not yours, it is but a clever mixture of clay. I gave you a portion of
our divinity, a spark from our own fire, the power to act and not to act, the
will to get and the will to avoid.’’^20 Epictetus was autochthonous.
Avoiding the prison gangs soon becomes impossible, however, and Con-
rad acts, coolly and mercilessly, employing his Herculean arm strength to
defeat and humiliate Rotto, the Nordic Bund bully and rapist of other pris-
oners. Now the Bund will demand Conrad’s life. Sleepless and sweaty on
his cot deep into the night, Conrad prepares himself for more of the un-
avoidable when a devastating earthquake wrecks the prison. Buried for a
while, Conrad and his cell mate finally wriggle free. The cell mate is too
badly injured for running, so Conrad, fearing the Bund more than recap-
ture—and confident that the earthquake is Zeus’s work—escapes. A little
later, Conrad has found the coworker whose life he had saved at the Suici-
dal Freezer Unit at Croker Foods. The buddy, who has shady connections,
arranges further flight and a new identity for Conrad.
Now called Connie, Conrad is in the hands of a southeast Asian under-
ground that funnels immigrants (mostly illegal) to chicken disassembly
plants and felons to faraway places and sells excellent birth certificates and