In 1976 Robison moves into an old farmhouse in Ashfield, Massachusetts, with Fat, a local band he’s been working with. His salary is $80 a month. He has a home and an income, and he feels truly independent for the first time. He networks with lots of local bands playing on the New England tour circuit, including Roxy Music and Black Sabbath. He soon gets calls to modify other bands’ equipment as well.

Fat takes him on an all-expenses-paid vacation to the Caribbean island of Montserrat. It’s Robison’s first real vacation, but he can’t enjoy himself because the food, the people, the sights and sounds are all different from what he’s accustomed to. Especially unsettling is the way two of the band members move in with two girls who were occupying the house before they arrived. Robison can’t fathom how they effortlessly navigate the social and sexual territory that he finds so daunting.

One morning their native guide, Willie, enters the house yelling, “It’s a bust! Wake up!” (116). Several cars carrying local police arrive searching for drugs. Although the band flushes most of their contraband down the toilet, the police still find some marijuana seeds, an indicator that the band members are not low-level users but growers, which carries a far stiffer penalty.