Tap tap . . . At the sound against the window, Lucas the Dreamer nearly jumps out of his seat. Heart thudding, he turns to look, expecting a cop. But it’s Charles. Light-headed relief floods through Lucas’s THC-infused synapses.

“Gonna bogart that joint?” Charles asks with a grin.

A moment later he folds himself into the passenger seat and looks around. “Groovy bus, Lucas.”

“Thanks.” Lucas hands him the joint, and Charles takes a hit that burns nearly half an inch off, then starts to cough, his long body quaking as he hacks over and over.

Lucas takes the joint back. Now that Charles is on his turf, it feels like they’re equals. “Gee, Charles, I thought all you brothers knew how to smoke dope.”

In the middle of his coughs, Charles starts and stares. Then he laughs. “Touché, white boy.”

“Next time, try a smaller hit,” Professor Lucas advises.

Charles complies. “Man, this is good stuff. No seeds popping or twigs.”

“No one ever told you to pick that crap out?” Lucas asks. “Where you been, man?”

“The Congo for the last four years. And before that, homeschooled.” Charles holds up the joint. “Not much opportunity for this, dig?”

“Why homeschooled?”

“Jehovah’s Witness. Then four years in the jungle building schools and kingdom halls.”

They each take another hit. It’s good to get a buzz going. Lucas the Heretic may believe there is no God, but he sure appreciates the empty dark parking lots the Good Lord provides each evening after his work is done.

“You see my conflict, Lucas?” Charles asks.

“Sorry?”

“Helping rich white kids stay out of the draft.”

Lucas is tempted to argue that he’s not rich, but compared to a lot of kids, he guesses he is. Look at Chris. He once told Lucas that the four people in his house shared one bathroom. On the other hand, grass-smoking Charles with his Afro, cowboy boots, and Marlboros doesn’t exactly fit the image of a Jehovah’s Witness. Every now and then a couple of primly dressed ladies will knock on the front door of the house of dashed dreams, offering a publication called The Watchtower. “You really a Jehovah’s Witness?” Lucas the Skeptical asks.

“Disassociated. What you’d call lapsed. But it got me a One-A-O deferment. I’m doing my community service at Creedmoor.”

Creedmoor’s a local state-run mental institution. When it was first decided that Barry needed to be institutionalized for a while, Lucas’s aunt and uncle briefly considered sending him there, but the shrink was vehemently against it. Lucas got the impression it’s a real hellhole.

“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?” Lucas asks.