It is the evening 5

How to write a novel about Dead white males

What is the organizing principle that brings people together mysteriously by chance...

In the case of Mick Jagger I only bumped into him once ... in 1999 in his yachtsman's disguise on the path along the beach at Bequia, purely by accident as I was running to the grocery shop in the dark. On seeing me he screamed although I doubt he recognized me from my earlier visit 7 years before. He sucked in his chin like Don Knotts so I just walked on by.

I dont think he really wanted to meet me with all that might entail, even back then. But there are people whom I keep meeting at regular intervals... always in different locations and always by chance

The first time I met Allan Moyle aka Bozo was in down Montreal near McGill. He stopped to speak to me as I waited for the light to change. He said 'I think I know you" -- I was 21. He was 25 or so. I had no idea who he was but he felt familiar-- he began inviting to parties on occasion, introducing me around.

What were the chances of bumping into him in 1996 while riding my bike up Washington Boulevard, just as he happened to be standing on the sidewalk?

"Bozo! What are you doing here?"

"What do you mean? I live here."

I would rule out "random chance" or anything remotely related to the laws of probability. It had to be some higher principle perhaps related to karma or unanswered questions of a deep nature- something like "fate" -- since we had lived most of our lives in different cities and scenes. I had not really kept up with his career or made any effort to look him up. He crossed my mind, but rarely.

The crucial thing: a few months earlier, ie February 1996, our mutual friend Ken Hertz had died in Montreal, of the mysterious illness that slowly paralyzed him after his discovery of our files.  He was 37 when it got hold of him, and only 50 when it finally killed him.

Ken and Bozo had once been friends. Maybe our trip to New York had squelched their friendship. All I knew is Ken's attitude toward me changed and he threw himself into those forbidden files at McGill that he believed were the key to everything- our childhoods, our genetics, our destiny ..

I was on the island of Bequia when I decided to phone a friend in Montreal from a payphone on the beach. That's when I found out Ken finally lost the gruelling fight with his own body slowly strangling him to death. Bedridden for years in the care of his Haitian nurses who stretched his limbs every few minutes to keep them from locking in place. For years he could only move his eyelids to signal yes or no- no other body part moved, let alone was under his control. How did he survive for so long? Sheer determination and possibly also a profound terror of death - he was an atheist to the core. He believed only in matter and the laws of chemistry ... and physics...  and that they could be controlled through the application of science and the power of the mind

Dr Cameron must have had high hopes for young Ken - with his advanced telepathic and telekinetic abilities and photographic memory. An MKULTRA prodigy who took one too many acid trips and OBEs and ended up flunking out of the program. A high octane zombie lurking downtown in cafes and waiting for the other brainwashed and trauma-conditioned kids to break out of McGill and join him at the Pot Pourri and Pam Pam for coffee and pastry - to plan their revenge against the doctors who did this to them: turned them into homeless ghouls wandering the streets with genius IQs and chips not just on their shoulders but burning in their brains like homing devices.

For whatever reason, my meeting Bozo six months after Ken died didnt seem just accidental. And neither did what happened later that evening when we attended an event at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Design and Bozo began fawning all over the tall, long haired man who looked like a larger Mick Jagger with added gravitas.

I knew Jagger was in LA - putting together a film project which would one day be the feature Enigma. I had vaguely hoped to run into him here tonight, but instead this German man stood stiffly looking down at Bozo, dancing around the couple like a yappy terrier. "Hi! Dont you remember coming to my house two years ago for dinner??"