I listened to Robin’s secret and smiled at Glenna, hoping to hide my anger from her.

It took them a minute to get through the people packed into the living room. Then Glenna said, “Rick, this is Gordon.”

Besides the belted suede jacket, Rick had on pear-green bell-bottoms with wide, white stripes and black motorcycle boots. He stuck out his hand with the exaggerated affability of a used-car salesman. I shook it, and he said, “Great to meet ya, man. Glenna says you’re a writer. That’s far out. Writing’s what I always wanted to do.”

“What a coincidence,” I said. “I always wanted to operate on somebody’s knee.”

The budding orthopedic surgeon was not as mentally agile as I’d expected. His face was screwed up in confusion, as if he were trying to determine whether I’d insulted him. Glenna, far quicker on the uptake, was frowning at me.

I said to her, “So why’d you invite the sixty-second man?”

Even under the black lights, I could see her face flush.

Rick said, “What’s he talking about?”

“Instant oatmeal,” I said. “Done in sixty seconds.”

That comment didn’t clear up Rick’s confusion, but it did make Robin giggle.

I said, “Glenna, what you gotta do is tell your guys to think about their jump shot. That way they’ll last all night.”

Glenna snapped, “Robin, can’t you keep your fucking mouth shut?”

Calmly Robin replied, “Hey, it’s a party.”

Glenna was giving me the full eyeball, not a particularly pretty sight. I should have flipped her the bird, but settled for telling Rick, “It’s been real, man. Good luck with the writing.”

As I left the living room, Rick said, “Yeah, same here, but what’s with the oatmeal? I thought Palmer made Cornish game hen,” and Robin let loose with a burst of laughter so loud that I could still hear it after I grabbed my peacoat from one of the sagging Lucite branches of the coat-tree and walked out the front door.

I DROVE into the city and went to see Todd at his studio above Incense & Peppermints. The apartment was also used as storage for the head shop, so Todd shared the space with stacked-up Oriental rugs, bushel baskets of hash pipes and incense burners, and floor-to-ceiling shelves lined with lava lamps. But he didn’t have to pay rent, which enabled him to maximize his investment in hallucinogenic futures.

“Where’s your lady?” he asked.

“At a party.”

“Why aren’t you with her?”

“I didn’t have an old girlfriend to bring.”

Todd seemed puzzled by my reply. “This’ll straighten you out,” he said, handing me a tab of white lightning. “Comes direct from Owsley’s lab in Point Richmond, California.”

“Or a Mafia basement in Bensonhurst.”

“Whatever. I’m scorin’ three bucks a hit for this batch.”

I swallowed it, acid being the pluperfect drug for the TV Generation—do a hit and wait for the show to start inside your head. We smoked cigarettes while we waited for our brains to boil, then Todd turned on the lava lamps, and when the colorful segments of wax began dividing like cancer cells in the oily liquid, we went out to the fire escape. Below, junkies were staging a be-in around Tompkins Square Park, the flames of their trash-can fires licking at the inky sky.