Actually, I don’t mind helping the paterfamilias avoid paying taxes to a government that uses the money to invade small countries and incinerate their citizens. So, mini-pizzas finished, I sign the change-of-address form and add my own chicken scratch to the bottom of his note: “Expecting mail soon!”

Saturday, June 28

“When was the last time anyone was down there?” Arno asks while I clear old toys and games from the floor of the playroom closet, then heave open the square red trapdoor made of quarter-inch iron plating.

“Don’t know.” In the early sixties, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, my parents added two bedrooms, an attic, and a playroom to the house. Under the playroom, the paterfamilias had a fallout shelter built in case of World War III.

For years it has lain unused and nearly forgotten . . . until this hot, humid summer day, when it has occurred to Arno that the poorly ventilated subterranean surroundings might be the perfect place to get high.

The damp odor of mildew wafts up. Milton squints into the dark below and wrinkles his nose. He’s finally begun to let his hair grow. It’s getting wavy and curls up at the sides and in back. He’s also started to cultivate something over his upper lip that could be construed as a mustache. Before he left for MIT last fall, Arno and I tried to get him to give up his leather sandals with the black soles made from car tires. He wouldn’t budge on that, but he did agree not to wear socks with them. All in all, these are positive steps toward his indoctrination into the cultural revolution.

“Why can’t we smoke in the backyard?” he asks.

“Afraid of the dark?” Arno needles.

“Half-wit,” Milton shoots back.

I climb down the cold metal rungs that jut from the cinder-block wall of the shelter. Arno follows. When we reach the bottom, the scrape of our shoes on the bare concrete floor echoes off the walls. It’s almost chilly in here. Milton stares down from above. The shelter is the size of a walk-in closet. He doesn’t like tight, dark spaces.

“Don’t be a pussy,” Mr. Sensitivity calls up to him.

“Genital wart,” Milton mutters, and climbs down. We sit side by side on a bunk under a bare lightbulb. The cans of food on the shelves are darkly spotted with mold. The cinder-block walls are stained brownish with moisture.

Milton groans. “Wonderful ambiance.”

“We won’t be here long,” I assure him.

Arno lights up. The hypothesis is that a suitable degree of wreckage can be achieved by doing one joint and then rebreathing the smoky air.

“Guaranteed bad trip,” Milton continues to complain.

“Quit bellyaching,” Arno snaps. “And wash your face. You’ve got dirt over your lip.”

Milton self-consciously touches his fledgling mustache. Arno passes the J to me. “Your festival tickets come?”