Butler crawled over to a three-foot-high stack of albums, pulled out "James Brown—Live at the Apollo."

"Mac, what you payin' for this?" Stony looked around the room.

"A yard and a half." Now there were two joints.

"So now, ladies and gennelmen, it is star time. Are you ready for star time? Thank you and thank you kindly. It is indeed a great pleasure at this particular time to introduce the nationally and internationally known as the haardest-workin' man in show business..." The record had been played so many times, it had more crackles than a two-way radio system.

Mac lit up a third joint, took three staccato tokes and passed it on to Stony. Stony took a long drag and passed it to Butler.

"Mac, what they payin' you at the club?" Stony's voice sounded strained as he struggled to retain the smoke in his lungs.

"A yard for the weekend, but I got other income." He held up the Baggie, raising his eyebrows.

Stony felt jealous. "Shit." He exhaled.

Chili Mac wore a rayon leopard-skin tank top. On anybody else it would have looked ridiculous, but with the Mac's physique he looked like Black Power's answer to Tarzan.

"Hey, Butler," Stony sniffed, "when you gettin' your own crib?"

"Six months." Butler coughed, filling the air with smoke.

"Hey, man, you keep coughin' like that, I don't need to smoke. I'll just get a contact high off your bad lungs." Chili Mac laughed.

"Ladies an' gennelmen, the 'mazin, Mr. Please Please hisself, the star of the show, James Brown, and the Famous Flames!!"

"Six months, shit, I might be in Louisiana in six months," Stony bitched.

"You goin' in the army?" Chili Mac took the burning jay from Butler.

"Army! Shit. I might be goin' a college down there."

"Whyncha go to City?" Chili took a few more short drags. "It's open admissions."

"Yeah, I know." Stony rubbed his face. "That's the problem, they'll take anybody."

"Too many spades?" Mac held the joint delicately between thumb and index finger.

"It's not just that, there's also too many spies." Stony took the joint.

Butler snorted, then stifled himself. "Sorry."

"Butler, what you laughin' at?" Stony passed him the joint without taking any. "You so dumb you couldn't pass a blood test."

"Least I ain't dumb enough to go to Little Abner State."

Chili Mac snickered. "Stones, what's the school?" He took the joint from Butler.

Stony shrugged. "Purdy Free Normal or somethin'."

Chili Mac exploded in laughter. He fell off the pillow and rolled over on the floor holding his stomach. Butler and Stony glanced at each other. He sat up, supporting himself on one arm, tried to speak and fell flat on his back, kicking his legs. "You ... you ... oh, man ... you remind me a this cat I read about. This cat was freakin' out cause he was livin' in New York an' he was worried about an A-bomb attack, so he packed up his whole family an' moved to some DaKcota or other. A month later they build a nuclear missile plant right in his backyard."