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side of the house, down the driveway. As she passed the door to her own kitchen, she saw that Michael was already gone. She tiptoed up the flight of creaking, rotten steps to Tucker's flat.
    The door was unlocked, so she went in. He'd never hear her knocking, but Michael might. Michael didn't approve of her upstairs visits, since there was only one reason she ever hung out with Tucker.
    Tucker's kitchen was a shabbier version of their own: dishes piled in the sink, pie pans full of crusted cat food on the floor, an algae-colored stream running across the linoleum from beneath the fridge. Scabby, a calico with skin problems, jumped off the sink when she came in and followed her down the hall to the front of the house, until the music grew so loud that the cat refused to go any farther. Since the Renzlers' stereo was defunct, Tucker's music was about all they ever heard. Obligingly, he played it loud enough for both homes.
    She saw Tucker's motorcycle boots propped on the foot-locker that served him as a coffee table, among a clutter of ashtrays, lighters, pipes and screens, and a massive, three-chambered red-white-and-blue acrylic bong. After taking a hit from the Patriot, you were required to stand and salute as you exhaled. A nearly full bottle of red wine sat on the floor next to the trunk; her mouth went dry and prickly at the sight of it.
    Tucker lay back on the couch, eyes closed. The window above the couch was open; there were no curtains to move in the breeze, but she could feel it. Tucker thrived on the chill. He was almost too tall for the couch. Balding, with long curly hair and a scraggly beard, his beer gut peeping out from under a Harley-Davidson T-shirt, he looked oddly vulnerable. "Tuck!" she said.
    He sat up as if a gun had gone off, his eyes bulging and crazed; but instantly, seeing her, relaxed and slumped down again, as if descending straight back into a trance. "Hey, girl," he said.
    "Thought I heard Scarlet up here. Where is she?"
    "Scarlet? Naw, she's not coming tonight."
    "Shit, that's too bad. I was going to hang out with you guys for a while."
    He opened one eye. "Well, sit yourself down anyway. I'm not doing anything. Where's your old man?" He reached for the remote control and turned down the volume on the CD player.
    Lenore shrugged and sat down in a big broken armchair, folding her legs up close for warmth. Tucker had scrounged up most of the furniture for their downstairs flat when they'd moved in with nothing but a couple bags of clothes and a truckload of books. And their furniture, bad as it was, was in better condition than the stuff Tucker lived with. In his weird way, he was the best landlord she'd ever had.
    "You want some smoke?" he offered.
    Lenore shrugged. "Wouldn't turn it down."
    He started loading a small ceramic bong. "Been pretty dry lately, and we're a long way from summer. You run out of that last bag I give you?"
    "Days ago," she said.
    "Wow, girl, you been holding out a good long time. Shoulda come see me before now."
    "Hey, Tucker, I'm not a junkie or nothing. I can do without."
    "Sure you can, babe. Sure you can. Here, taste this."
    He finished tamping something green into the pipe of the bong and passed it to her along with his Harley-Davidson lighter. She burned it down in one deep breath; the stuff was hot and resinous, and immediately expanded in her lungs. She hacked it out in one violent burst, and then the coughing fit began.
    "Whoa, girl, you're aiming high tonight!"
    She couldn't answer. Her eyes were streaming, and her head felt as if it were shooting straight up through the roof of the house. Tucker scooped up the wine bottle by its neck and passed it to her. She knew she shouldn't; she even hesitated for a minute. Dope was one thing, but alcohol was another entirely, and she'd made a deal with Michael. No drinking. Pot, okay. But no alcohol.
    But it wasn't the first time she'd broken her little rule up here with Tucker, and what the fuck, she was coughing her