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Chapter 61
THE GOOD-BYE PARTY
The beach was eerily dark and quiet as the white pickup truck pulled into the parking lot. Specks
of yellow from the streetlights hung in the air, trying desperately to bleed through the San
Francisco fog. Waves crashed rhythmically into the sand. As Ross stepped out of the truck, he pulled
his thick black jacket tight to stay warm. The air was salty and wet.
He looked out at the dark horizon, and while there wasn’t much to see, it was the beach, and it
was beautiful.
If only time could have stood still in that instant, these next few hours could have lasted forever.
But that wasn’t possible. The laws of time, like gravity, are nonnegotiable. And time for Ross was
running out.
But still, the San Francisco night was willing to offer up something special for Ross as a last
hurrah. A night of revelry. Out of the darkness behind him, a friend yelled, “Let’s build a bonfire!”
They began unloading the pickup truck, which Ross had helped fill two beds high with dead logs
and scraps of wood, all scavenged from Glen Canyon Park, a few blocks from Ross’s home.
His new roommate, Alex, was there. René and Selena too. Other friends were in town from
Austin, a dozen people in all. The fire was lit and soon began to roar. Champagne was popped open.
Beers too. A joint was passed around. Ross grabbed his djembe drum, his hands slapping the gobletshaped
leather as loud thuds hit the air.
The sounds were reminiscent of his days in college when he had joined the NOMMO group at
Penn State. If it hadn’t been for that drum circle, he might never have met Julia in a nondescript
basement at school. If it hadn’t been for the libertarian club he had joined, he might never have
become who he was today.
He had sailed a million miles since then and helped a million people along the way. The Ross of
back then had been an idealistic lost soul; this Ross had changed the world. The other Ross had been
worth a few hundred dollars; this one was valued at a few hundred million. That guy had read the
works of influential libertarians like Rothbard, Mises, and Block; and yet now Ross Ulbricht was a
ghostwriter for the most influential libertarian of them all: the Dread Pirate Roberts.
Or maybe it was Ross alone penning those words. In many respects the two of them were now
indistinguishable. Sweet Ross was still in there somewhere. He had recently seen a piece of trash