“The burning bush.” Arno keeps the roach low between his legs when we pass the cop car. “How could he think that dumb-ass move was going to make a difference? How can anyone that smart be so stupid?” He hands me the roach, yellowish brown and less than half an inch long. Pinching the back edge between my fingertips, I inhale hard, then dab the burning ember with spit and eat the warm remains. Saturated with THC, it should add to the mild buzz.

“He knows he screwed up. We talked about it.”

“When?”

“He came over after he did it. Said he wanted me to go underground with him.”

“What about me?” Arno asks with a hurt pout.

“Why would you go underground, Arno?”

“I don’t know. To be with you guys. You’d leave me?”

How can anyone so gruff be so sensitive?

“You’re going to Bucknell in a few weeks,” I remind him.

“You still could’ve asked,” Arno says with a sniff as we turn a corner. “So, what did the genius say?”

“Maybe it’ll help add to the message that a lot of people are seriously against what’s going on. And possibly, instead of thinking it was stupid, some people’ll wonder why a kid smart enough to go to MIT at sixteen would do something like that.”

“Or they’ll think he’s a fruitcake,” Arno says. “And after the gun thing the other night? I wouldn’t argue.” He drives out of our neighborhood. The radio’s playing the Doors’ twelve-minute Oedipal dirge “The End,” a song that lends itself to contemplation.

“It ever occur to you that maybe we’re to blame?” I ask. “It’s not like MIT’s a hotbed of radicals. We’re the ones who turned him on to music and drugs. And from there, it’s not a big jump to the antiwar thing. Maybe we should’ve left him alone. Let him be an engineering nerd like his dad.”

Arno lights a cigarette. “I take it back. You’re the fruitcake.”

“At least he believes in something. What do you believe in?”

“Turn on, tune in, drop out, man.” Arno facetiously repeats the mantra of the LSD guru Timothy Leary. And by extension everyone like me who’d rather make love, not war.

“Seriously, Arno, besides making money, what do you believe in?”

“I’m against the war,” he says defensively.

“Join the crowd. But have you done anything about it?”

“What have you done?” Arno shoots back. “Other than go on a couple of protest marches with your hot girlfriend and her parents.”