The adoption of a baby by a couple unable to have children is the point of departure for The Past is an Imperfect Tense in which B. Kucinski tells the story of a fatherson relationship that begins intense and loving and ends up in pieces. The decline begins in the boys adolescence as he becomes involved with marijuana amphetamines and crack a process described by the narrator as a frenzied pursuit of an artificial paradise. Three factors come together in the story of the boys life adoption drug