"Maybe you'll find a cure for cancer."

He shrugged. "Not without a lot of hard work. Besides, I don't have cancer, so what do I care about it?" He paused to light up a cigarette. "I drink my orange juice. I read the label on the side of the carton. I know how much I reduce my chances of getting cancer with each 8oz glass I drink."

"Do you have any family that has cancer?"

He shook his head.

"Ok, maybe curing cancer is not what you were cut out to do. What about writing the Great American novel?"

"They've all been written. That was an ideal of the Nineteenth Century, when the European Powers seemed to have it all together and it made the United States feel inadequate. We as a nation needed to claim our little place in the world, and show everyone that we weren't all just a bunch of idiotic cowboys riding on horseback, when we weren't massacring Indians and annexing Mexico. But now, in the Twenty-First Century, what the hell do we need a Great American Novel for? The world is at our feet. Globalization is rapidly diluting the cultures of the world so that they can better fit the moulds of our 'great' corporations. What do any of us need to prove anymore?"

"It's not in the proof now, I'll agree with you. What about maintaining our place, then?"

"I don't have to worry a damn about maintenance. We're riding on considerable momentum at the moment, and I say don't tamper with it."

The man's patience was holding out, though with difficulty. "The momentum will run out soon, and I am saying that you should be conscious of the potential contributions you could make to your country." The man leaned forward, and stared at Locarno dead in his eyes, to make the youth look at him. Locarno, young, content, and intelligent, looked away, holding his cigarette from in between his index and middle fingers, holding it away in a sort of intellectual, blasé fashion.

"I'm saying you shouldn't worry," Locarno replied. "The air feels good out today, and I say enjoy it." He was looking away still, but now he seemed to focus on some fixed point, there, out in the city. "After all, the only time that anyone has is now." His eyes seemed to glaze over thoughtfully as he mused.

The man leaned forward at him. "Yes, that is true. However, that shouldn't be a condemnation of planning ahead for the future. I honestly hope that you aren't the spokesman of your generation, because if you are, than there won't be many more after this one."

Locarno ignored that last remark, at least to the extent that he didn't get offended, and he focused on the man, the glaze gone from his eyes. "No, I'm not the spokesman of my generation, luckily for it I suppose, and that is why I pity them."

"Pity them?" the man cried, leaning back. The initial patience he had possessed in trying to convince Locarno was clearly ebbing away. He folded his arms, giving the youth a skeptical arch of his eyebrows. "Please, indulge me as to why you think that the industrious members of your generation are to be pitied."

Locarno tapped a cigarette ash into a crystal ashtray on the table, and noticed the pleasant multicolored patterns the May sun made within it. Then, he continued with resolve: "That is just the problem. They are industrious, and they promise to be even more so than your generation. You, after all, gave us the necessary foundation to build upon. You gave us the cell phone, and the SUV, and digital everything, with an even greater quantity of fast food slop buckets that can now do an even better job of dulling our taste buds to believe that what we eat in those 'restaurants' is actually food, and not just some blob of grease and preservatives mixed with heavy quantities of salt, ketchup, and saturated fat that really doesn't taste good at all. I can't blame those that have become bloated and unhealthy off of this 'food'. After all, since when do they have the time and money to go to a nicer place, such as the Ramont, or Saraceno's? Work has come to dominate so many lives in this society that there is no time for actual life. Everything has become substituted: McDonalds substitutes food, Wal-Mart substitutes shopping, and Microsoft substitutes every sort of outdoor activity you can imagine. Life itself has been substituted by this vastly monstrous and ghastly efficient system that you want me to willfully plug myself into."

"You don't have to be like everyone else," the man said. "You are smart. You have talent. You don't have to be just another shirt and tie."

Locarno smiled. "Spoken like a true imperialist. Oh, sorry, I meant 'capitalist'."

The deep burgundy shade of the man's face indicated his anger, though he kept from raising his voice. "Can you name a better system, and please don't say Communism."

"By saying that you've already limited my choices, but then again that's what you're good at. But no, Communism as it has been practiced by Stalin and Mao is rather abominable, and inferior to our system, but then again Communism has not been practiced truthfully."

"It can't work, for it goes against mankind's natural instincts," the man said. "Give a man only what he needs, and he starts going into what he wants. Some will never be satisfied, and that is where the inequality of Communism sets in. The more complacent are eventually plundered by the minority that want everything."

Locarno's grin broadened. "You have just aided my argument, my friend, for what you have just described is the very basis of Capitalism," he said, pointing the tip of his cigarette at him. "The more complacent get up every morning at seven and dress in their generic white shirts with their generic red ties and drive their generic cars from their generic little suburban homes, and pump caffeine into their veins as they trundle along in city gridlock, day in and day out, for 50 weeks a year, while the 'minority that wants everything' as you put them are seated multiple stories above the masses, with a great view of the city skyline and having only the best materials to make their vast offices. It's the same system, is it not?"

The man looked at Locarno and did not respond. Locarno took a leisurely drag from his cigarette and looked off again at the hundreds coursing along on the sidewalk. He realized that, with all of the mixed body heat and car exhaust and direct sunlight, they must be roasting. Poor them. He felt quite fine seated here, with a pleasant breeze coming from the sea.

"So what do you propose?" the man asked. "Do you propose that sitting around and smoking and pondering life is going to put food in your mouth, or a car in the garage, or is going to stop this country from sliding down into a pit of Hell where we are vulnerable to the attacks of our enemies?"

"The only enemies we have are the ones that you big boys at the top have made for us. Ask the Muslim terrorists if they appreciate you going into their countries and raping them for oil. Ask the Colombians if they appreciate having their farms sprayed by chemicals that are meant to kill the coca plants, but end up killing everything else instead. Ask all the nations of the world if they like the heavy hand placed on their heads by the United States, though not by its people, but by you fat cats at the top, who want free reign over the entire world, and then wonder why some countries bite your greedy fingers." He waved his hand. "But what do you and I care? The assholes of the world don't target you. No, it is the regular folks on their way to the 9-5 grind that got blown up on September 11th. It's the navy guys who don't make policy that got blasted on the Cole. It's always the ones that don't have any hand in international politics that get massacred in wars. You should be the one trying to negotiate peace. No, instead Bush will send young men to die in Iraq, against the wishes of every other country in the world and in turn rubbing in everyone's face the undeniable fact that the United States is King."

"You seem to be doing alright within this 'system' that you are ranting against," the man said. "You sit here and pontificate without a care in the world, trying to hold off any sort of decent responsibility for as long as you can, taking college not as an opportunity to obtain a degree for a good job, but rather to sit and stall off the real world for as long as you can by doing absolutely nothing worthwhile."

Locarno laughed. It was a very proud, pleased laugh that did much to annoy the man. "That's quite an attack against my person, but it is altogether true," Locarno said. "I am holding off responsibility, and I am at ease within the United States, and yes I am willing to see others lose their souls and die within this system merely for its sake. Me, I'll probably just sit around and smoke and get fat and continue to discuss intellectual topics that have absolutely no bearing at all within the 'real' world. Do you know what, though?"

"What?"

"I'll be living more than most people in this country, and that is a fact." He emphasized the word "that" with a downward swing of his cigarette hand, and then he took one last drag, his eyes sparkling at the man from above the cigarette.

The man shook his head one last time, as if he hadn't already made it abundantly clear that he was sickened by this young man, who possessed so much talent and promise, but had not the desire nor will to make anything of himself. "I came to you with an offer. All I asked is that you do well in college, and make a commitment to yourself and your future. But you are just content to let opportunities pass you by, and see our way of life fade into listlessness and anarchy." He stood, taking his briefcase as he did so. "You know you won't always be young."

Locarno shrugged. "I am now."

"Remember me," the man said. "Please. Remember me when you serve burgers at McDonalds, and have no money to afford any sort of vacation."

The man left with that said, and Locarno watched him go. He snubbed out his cigarette in the crystal ashtray, and then complacently looked around at the street scene before him. He took another cigarette out of the pack, smiling faintly to himself. The sun felt so good, after all, and a warm breeze was coming from somewhere, and the day promised to be very pleasant indeed.

A/N: Hey guys. What do you think? I try to leave stories open-ended so that different interpretations can be made. Did what I write make sense? Am I full of shit? Let me Know!!