Oakland

Oakland’s the kind of town where a brotha will walk into a laundromat and dangle a gold chain and ask if you want it; where a Vietnamese lad will ask for quarters for his laundry but then use it to play the fighting arcade game while you're still there. And after you tell him no, since you remember how he duped you out of a dollar in quarters months ago, he will ask if the clothes and opened bag of fiery Doritos on the counter beside you is yours. When you say it isn’t, he will take the Doritos and walk out of the laundromat which happens to be your second office, where you like to revise your memoir on your laptop.