New York, one summer night, several teenagers rape a young girl, she had drunk too much, her name was Pamela. She dreamed of a great love, she will get the sordid. If almost all the protagonists have known the damp straw of the dungeons, one has fled. He took a backpack, filled it with some clothes, and stuck his thumb out.he goes elsewhere. Somewhere exists without a doubt. He does not know which, surely, a port, where the sailors carry to oblivion.
Boats offer a path to another universe, with no hope of return. His name is James. On his way, remorse gnaws at him, as cancer nibbles away at flesh. Pamela committed suicide. James goes from city to city, he travels, he meets more or less interesting people. In twenty years he covered the distance from New York to Cloverdale. Everyone knows this city, the Smaville series takes place there. James stops there almost by chance.
Stopped in a motel, he crosses paths with a Baby-Doll, her name is Gladys. Blonde hair, she must have wandered off here, looking for the American dream. Hollywood is a dream factory, or a nightmare. She could be Marylin Monroe or Greta Garbo, James Dean would show her the way to Eden. He decides to pan for gold when he gets up one morning, he will become a gold prospector along a small stream which tries, without convincing, to turn into a torrent.
He pitches a tent near a ruin, a few stones, a little greenery, he is convinced that he is in the Garden of Eden. With his back bent, he tries to find gold, he wants to become rich. He stands up with difficulty while massaging his kidneys. He cursed himself for having had this idea. He feels that Satan has played a dirty trick on him. One morning, Pamela appears, she walks on the water, he believes in an apparition, a ghost, a ghost.
She returns from the world beyond, since she is dead. She hanged herself. No one turns back to the realm of the dead. The nature that surrounds it may be haunted. A dead woman on his trail is a bad remake of a Hitchcock film. He loved the film, he watched it years ago. Maybe during his escape, but that doesn't matter. He must be tired. He is going to buy a bottle of whiskey, this drink relieves many ailments.
Suddenly, Pamela escapes from his ideas like a fly that he chases away with his swatter. In the sun, only these insects live. Another day, he jumps with both feet inside the ruins, he heard a chime, around him, life is absence, there can be no music, unless it is ghostly. Spanish monks are surprised by his presence, he retraces his steps. Here he is again beyond ruin, doubtless his reason is failing.
In the evening, a man appears, James considers him strange. They smoke a rolled cigarette, James returns to the past that he would like to forget. Like a migraine, it revives him. A few days later, a Cheyenne joins him, he tells him Indian legends. Maheo, the Spider built the universePamela, the Cheyenne, Gladys, the old, the Spanish monks, everything jostles in him. With Gladys, a Spanish monk, and a Cheyenne, he will go in search of his origins, convincing himself that he can change the past.