The YesMen have their equipment set up in the living room. Three milkcrates holding an assortment of mics and clamps and wires are stacked on the coffeetable. The floor is the new home for the displaced copies of Architectural Digest magazine and the earthenware bowls. The floor is also covered in cables, miles of cables, cables labeled with little masking-tape flags, cables plugged into scratched-up and duct-tape-marred outlet strips set up in the center of the room. An armchair the color of wine holds a giant amplifier. The TV is on, muted; it’s showing a dramatic 3-dimensional computer simulation of the evening’s precipitation patterns over the Valley, in which an imaginary camera flies over the simulated city and between the simulated hills in order to directly enter the complicated calculus of tonight’s predicted clouds. Caccian, the quiet twin, sits on the sofa, face hidden behind the pointy teeth of his combed-forwards black bangs. He holds his guitar in his lap and periodically twangs a string, cocks his head to hear the sound as it dwindles off, and adjusts a knob. Jason, the loud twin, is sitting on the tiled semicircle in front of the fireplace with an Octopad in his lap and a fat joint in his hand.
Jason beats on the Octopad with the heel of his hand and a speaker set in front of a pot of ivy makes a programmed qwong qwong noise.
“Ay,” he says.
“Okay, I give up,” Samantha says. “Where are your folks?”
“Aspen, if you can believe that.”
“Wow,” Samantha says. “Your parents can afford Aspen?”
“Who knows? It’s all credit these days anyway. They don’t need to be able to afford it if they’re perceived as being able to afford it. They don’t need to pay it back, they just need to keep the credit bureau thinking they’re going to pay it back eventually. And you said parents, as in plural, and that guy’s not my dad.” Qwong qwong, and he takes a giant hit on the joint.