Inside, blue walls painted with a cloudscape that mimics the sky on a clear summer day gives the Psychedeli a great feeling of spaciousness, which it needs against the hodgepodge of homemade and salvaged furniture and pillows and beanbags that make up the dining room. Hardly anyone uses the beanbags because it’s hard to get up once you’re in one, even for me, and they always talk about getting rid of them but never do. They’ve hung some flags over the counter at the back, all with acronyms like POW-MIA and AFL-CIO, and ones with the Led Zeppelin zeppelin and the Rolling Stones lips. It smells like a health food store in a small town. The almost creamy scent from boiling fresh bagels in the morning blankets the room, sweetened with the lingering haze of the sage they burn and the grass they grow and the oomph of coffee brewing strong in their big urn. Coffee costs a nickel here, just like newspapers.

Having stowed the pot in the kitchen, Johnny comes back with a coffee each for Jason and me, and we settle into the purple-cushioned booth at the back, discreet, even though there aren’t many customers—just one table where Helen and Nancy are having tea while Marie reads Joanna’s tarot cards—because Suzie hasn’t rung the food bell yet. It’s a ritual that Mrs. Tyburn hates (you can hear it almost everywhere on the island, except the really far-out places like Lolly’s house), but as usual, Mrs. Tyburn’s dainty sensibilities are nothing against the hippie consensus.

“Man, you get skinnier every time I see you. They don’t have food in the Bad Place no more?” Johnny says gruffly as he turns back toward the kitchen.

“I see your wife’s still keeping you in the clean-plate club.” Jason gives him a little punch in his biker gut and they kind of hug and do a sloppy wannabe-hip handshake-low-five thing.

Suzie follows with sugar, milk, and a couple of spoons. “You better watch that mouth when you’re talking to my old man. You’re not too big for me to put you over my knee.”

“No, but he is,” says Jason, pointing a thumb at Johnny.

“Don’t bet on it,” Johnny corrects him, back at the table now with a parcel the size of a large shoebox, like one you’d put a pair of boots in. He slides it across the table to Jason and gives Suzie a squeeze and a big mwah kind of kiss. Jason takes a smaller package and pushes it across to Johnny.