Prag prepares for the staredown. You asshole, you tricked my German—for this you shall die! But he can’t sustain it. He breaks eye contact, turns away, and raises one hand to his mouth, pretending to stroke his goatee. The virus of irony is as widespread in California as herpes, and once you’re infected with it, it lives in your brain forever. A man like Prag can come home, throw away his Nikes, and pray to Mecca five times a day, but he can never eradicate it from his system.