On the back patio with Barry, I tap a joint out of my pack of Marlboros. Robin’s departure this morning (by now the camp bus should be passing Albany) and the suddenly distinct possibility that in the very near future they’ll shave my head, shove a rifle in my hands, and ship my sorry ass to a jungle halfway around the world are foremost in my mind. But the look Tinsley just gave me has muscled its way in. Was that not a come-on? But we don’t know each other, and it appears that she’s with Barry. It doesn’t make sense. I must be reading too much into it. Maybe it has something to do with the lonely ache I’m feeling for Robin. Or perhaps it’s a result of certain personal chemical proclivities. Do enough drugs, and reality becomes a moving target.

I light the J with my Zippo, toke, and pass it to Barry. The patio is just large enough for two rusty metal chairs and a small filmy-glass table. In a yellow plastic ashtray, a dozen unfiltered cigarette butts float in a brownish broth.

Barry takes a hit. “We met at the library. They had a show for local artists. You were allowed to enter two pieces.”

“She’s an artist, too?”

“No, man, photography.” He hands the joint back.

“There’s something about her.” I’m being disingenuous. After the look she gave me upstairs, I’m curious about their relationship.

“Dig it — she’s got that vibe, right? Black-magic strange-brew voodoo chile.” Barry sings the next sentence: “She put a spell on you.”

I take another hit. Tinsley’s not the only one practicing sorcery. So’s this weed, thanks to my best friend and dealer, Arno. “You guys been together long?”

Barry shakes his head. “Not her thing, man. She does what she pleases with whomever pleases her.”

Ah, the sweet melody of free love. Earmark of the hippies, conceived and nurtured in the crash pads of Haight-Ashbury. But that’s out in California, where, it’s been said, all the nuts rolled when they tilted up the northeast corner of the map. In my experience, there’s been scant evidence of sexual revolution washing up along the beaches of the South Shore.

“You okay with that?” I ask my cousin.

Barry shrugs, but with a devilish glint in his eye. “Cuts both ways, right?” (If this new jauntiness is Tinsley’s influence, more power to her.)

Joint smoked, we head for the kitchen, where Barry jabs a V-shaped hole with a can opener into a quart of Hi-C fruit punch. He offers me a glass of sweet red liquid, pours one for himself, and lights a Camel. Barry does a French inhale, releasing a mouthful of smoke and drawing it up through his nose. Then he blows one smoke ring through another.

Wicked cool.

Then again, he’s had four years of self-imposed solitary confinement to practice.