Vantablack is “the darkest artificial substance,” the website claimed, absorbing an encouragingly precise 99.965% of visible light. He’d first read about it in National Geographic ten months ago, just as the bar mitzvah lessons were starting.

I should drive over there and grab the son-of-a-bitch by the throat and throttle him. The gall the guy has to stand there and lie and tell me nothing is happening when I can read it in every twitch on his face.