Finally, I suppose just to shut me up, Billy-Fu explained. Mr. Sodani, the oil minister, desperately wanted his son, the junkie, to attend Princeton. He knew that Billy-Fu’s acceptance was contingent upon his graduating from C.A. He was also certain that his son would find a way to get booted. Being accepted at Princeton wasn’t a cause to mellow out, it was an excuse to party. Old man Sodani knew that better than anyone. That’s why he pledged five million dollars to the Friends of Austerity Fund. One million had already been received; the balance was to be presented at Billy-Fu’s graduation. And that was why Dean Mort had instructed all teachers to overlook everything except murder as far as Billy-Fu Sodani was concerned.

I spent that winter getting stoned and listening to Irving’s stereo. Steely Dan, Quicksilver, Boz Scaggs, Lou Reed, Seatrain, Allman Brothers, Andy Pratt, and Springsteen over and over. I didn’t study much. Occasionally Jonathan Wheeler would leave his smut-filled room and cross the hall to bother me with the news of his latest coup. Being a member of the student council, he had authority to enter any room he wanted, and because Irving’s stereo was one of the best in the school, I couldn’t discourage him from hanging out in ours.

One Sunday morning after chapel I was toasting up a bone when Wheeler and Candle entered my room each carrying a tray. Wheeler placed his on Irving’s desk and began shaking a frightening amount of Tabasco sauce into a pitcher of Bloody Mary. An eight-inch stogey dangled from his mouth. I quickly shut the door and returned a wet towel to the base of it. Candle stood at my desk, gobbing spoonfuls of mustard and horseradish into a bowl of tuna fish. He was wearing a sweaty T-shirt that read: “Do a mouse a favor. Eat a pussy.” Wheeler handed me an album by Rudy Ray Moore. The cover pictured Rudy Ray lying naked amongst three fat naked black women. It was entitled Eat Out More Often.

“Hope you like your bloodys with heat,” Wheeler said, and then: “Put that on.”

I obeyed, and Rudy Ray began screaming out profanity. Wheeler filled three mugs and tossed in what looked like freeze-dried limes. They inflated in the drinks. I took a sip and broke into a sweat.

“So tell me, Dunphy,” he said, while ceremoniously wiping and placing things back on the tray like a priest straightening up the altar after communion, “what did you think of FART’s latest?”

Candle stood beside him, his left hand digging into his tuna fra diavalo sandwich, his right index finger buried two knuckles deep into his right nostril.

“Very creative,” I said.