What the . . . ? Should he pull his hand back? Robin’s in another country, so she’ll never know. And when you get right down to it, this is pretty harmless. But Barry’s right here. So what? He’s the one who told Lucas that Tinsley does what she pleases.

Tinsley lowers her body, trapping his hand between her breast and the blanket. She turns her face away and makes a soft purring sound. It could be a chapter from Brautigan’s book. “Trout Fishing in America with Tinsley’s Breast.”

Lucas’s hormone-and-hash-addled brain is blown.

Monday, June 30

“Let me take a wild guess, Mr. Baker: the Selective Service induction letter came and you’re totally flipped out because you don’t want to go to Vietnam.”

The speaker is Charles. He is black, with an immense Afro and a Charles Mingus beard. His long legs are crossed at the ankles and propped on the corner of an old gray metal desk. His threads are jeans, cowboy boots, and a work shirt, a pack of Marlboros poking out of the left pocket.

His blatant antagonism has thrown me. I’ve come to this church basement office of the American Friends Service Committee for help, not ridicule. “I haven’t gotten a letter, but if I don’t do something, I probably will.”

“Ahh.” Charles nods with a knowing smile. “Planning ahead.” It’s close to eight p.m. When I got here around seven, there were two guys ahead of me in the waiting room. Both were what Barry would call plastic heads. Their hair longish but neatly trimmed and styled, their collared shirts pressed, and, perhaps most telling of all, their bell-bottoms carefully creased.

Charles scans the personal-information form I’ve filled out. “So, what’s the problem, Lucas? You’re from the North Shore. Just tell Daddy to pay for college and get your Two-S deferment.”

I explain that I’m too late. This morning I spent several hours on the phone calling numerous institutions of higher learning to see if any were still accepting applications for the fall. The results were not encouraging. College applications last year hit an all-time high. A reflection, I’ve learned, of a strong economy (see military-industrial complex) and a heightened desire among young draft-age men to keep from having their nuts shot off in some Southeast Asian jungle.