At dinner, as usual, my father spoke while the rest of my family listened. “I’m tired of being poor,” he began, “and I’m only getting poorer.”

No one responded, but my brother and sister and I tried to eat. My mother stood at a distance.

“The banks have money,” my father continued, “because we give it to them. If everyone took their money out, the banks would go broke. I have no money in the bank and none in my pocket. Well, I might have a nickel, but I don’t have a second one to rub against it. I don’t have enough for a drink.”

“I support this family,” my mother said.

“She works,” my father said. “She’s liberated.”

My brother, sister and I stopped eating and left the kitchen. My mother stayed, and I could hear my father complaining to her about finances.

*

I wanted to make my own money. I had seen a print ad that promised cash rewards for carrying newspapers. A delivery boy could make enough to buy a bicycle. The problem was, another boy already had the local paper route. There were about thirty houses in our town, and almost all of them subscribed to the paper, so there were no other potential customers.

I asked the boy if I could share his route, and he said I could substitute when he was unable to deliver.

“How often would that be?” I asked.

“Maybe once a month.”

At that rate, I figured, it would take me several years to earn enough to buy a bicycle. Still, I took my substitute day and walked the length of the town—about a mile one way—to deliver papers. A couple of customers owned dogs that bared their teeth and chased me, but I finished the route unharmed.

*

As soon as I got a ride to the nearby college town, I visited a store called People’s Nation. The place  sold many “alternative” items: suede bell-bottoms, velvet jackets, skinny jeans, rolling papers, incense sticks, and books on pop culture. I had a few dollars in my pocket for shopping.

I leafed through a book that contained lyrics to a song I’d heard but could never understand. The song revealed that a fire had hit a town. Not only were the streets burning, but a mad bull was running loose. I didn’t know if the lyrics were poetry, but I was alarmed. You didn’t want to be on the streets when they were on fire and a crazy animal was charging. I couldn’t afford the book, so I tried to memorize the lyrics.

A package of incense cost less than a dollar. I bought a long, narrow envelope that held a few sticks. I also bought a book about spiritual enlightenment, written by a former Harvard professor who had become a servant of God.

At home, I had no incense burner: no metal stand, ceramic bowl, or wooden tray. All I had was a piece of rubber that I used as an eraser. I molded the wad around the end of the incense stick and propped it on my desk.

I picked up the new book. The dark-blue cover was scored with geometric lines, and the text urged me not to remain a caterpillar, but to become a butterfly. I would learn to trust, to love. I would become an illuminated being, like the author, who had achieved enlightenment by taking LSD when it was legal.

I lit the incense stick and put my nose over the tip. The smoke stung my nostrils and concealed any fragrance the incense might have had.

*

My father brought home a bag of shelled oysters. When my mother saw the gray mass of mollusks, she said, “Oysters are dangerous. You can get very sick.”

My father turned the plastic bag in his hands, as if inspecting each body. “They look fine,” he said.

“You could be poisoned,” my mother said.

“I’ll cook them. The heat will kill bacteria.”

“There could be a virus. A virus is more likely than bacteria to infect you.”

My father breaded the oysters and fried them. He stacked them on a platter and spooned some onto plates. I took a plate and started to eat. I didn’t care for the oysters themselves, but the browned crust was good.

While we were eating, my father said, “We should have a run on banks. We should take out all  our money, and everyone else should do the same.”

“We don’t have money to take out,” my mother said.

“We’ll shut down the banks!” my father shouted.

My mother fetched her pocketbook and found a bill. “Take this,” she said.

“May we be excused?” I asked.

“Yes, go!”

Hours later, I felt alright—the oysters had not made me sick.

*

While my father was out, I sucked on the mouthpiece of one of his pipes. He had a couple dozen of them on a rack: a corncob, a clay, a meerschaum, and several briar woods. The goo left from burned tobacco coated their bowls and stems. It didn’t matter which pipe I sampled; I could inhale the tar residue. The taste was foul, but the substance seemed to have a kick, as if the nicotine was active. Of course, it would have been better to smoke fresh tobacco, to take a chunk from a pouch, tamp it down in a bowl, and fire it up with a match. But doing that would have revealed the secret that I was a tobacco addict.

My father brought me outside to work in his garden. He had sown lettuce seeds close together, and my task was to make more room for the plants. “Pull them out by the roots,” my father said.

I did as I was told. The lettuce had substantial anchors for such small plants—they were stuck fast to the dirt.

“And throw them on the ground.”

I went along a row, pulling and tossing the smaller plants.

“We’re going to live on the food in this garden,” my father said. “We’re going to live like animals in nature. Do you see any sick rabbits around here?”

I saw no rabbits at all.

*

I went to my room and lit a stick of incense. I was careful not to put my nose too close to the smoke—my nose had learned not to trust completely. I took a pinch of tobacco I’d stolen from my father’s workroom and put it in a pipe I’d made from aluminum foil. The pipe was wrinkled and flimsy, but it was somewhat airtight, and when I inhaled, smoke passed through it. I turned on my transistor radio, and in time a DJ played the song about a mad bull running loose. The singer promised that war was not far away, but love was not far away, either.