Dustin decided to end the matter quickly by going to the highest authority first, the rabbi at their temple. Much to Dustin’s surprise, Rabbi Kennison agreed with his mother, citing the example that she herself had worked at McDonald’s in high school. “I asked every customer if they wanted to supersize their meal; does that mean I’m responsible for the obesity problem in America?” she asked. Before Dustin could answer, she added that Dustin would be performing a mitzvah by using his God-given intellectual gifts to help another. “What if Steven grows up and becomes a senator because you helped him with his studies?”

Dustin would have scoffed at the idea that the kid who once ate a June bug on a dare when they were four years old could ever become a senator, but the fact that the current president was once a reality star who cheated on his pregnant wife with a porn star gave him pause. Instead Dustin thanked her for her counsel and immediately called Dr. N. and requested an emergency therapy session. After fifty minutes of therapy, Dustin was no closer to a decision. He eventually reasoned that all teenagers, rich and poor alike, probably had the same capacity for good or evil, and the best way to combat evil was through education—that is, if no lightsaber was available. (Dr. N. casually mentioned at the end of the session that if Dustin turned down the job, perhaps he might recommend his nephew for the position, as he was a poor law school student at Fordham. Dustin found this suggestion ethically questionable.) After a week of intense hand-wringing, Dustin accepted the tutoring job, warning his mother that if he felt even a twinge of inner turmoil, he’d quit.

What Dustin found after his first month was that the nine hours a week he spent tutoring Steven was not in fact an Aristotelean battle between good and evil like he had feared (nor a biblical, Shakespearean, philosophical, or even George Lucasian one), but was instead fun. His childhood friend wasn’t as entitled and insufferable as Dustin had assumed he would be. Steven had grown up to be very much the same as he was when he was a toddler, a charismatic boy with a good sense of humor who enjoyed expensive toys and was happy to share them with his friends (and who would probably still eat a bug if he was dared to do so).