"No, I think I'll stick around. I bought the Times, " she said. "I think I'll read the Times. " Her eyes, which had been surveying the room, turned to me now. "If you want," she said, "you can come for tea tomorrow, I'mreally happy these days. Things have been pretty good-I want to tell you about it." Then Carol gave me the address of her apartment, and I left.

WHEN I got to her place at four the next day, the girl who shares her apartment answered the door, wearing a bathrobe. I didn't know her, so I introduced myself.

"Yes, yes," she said. "Carol told me. "I'm afraid she can't make it. She's very upset and wants to stay in her room."

"God, I'm sorry," I said. "Is there only four in the afternoon . . ."

The friend laughed at my concern. "You don't understand," she said, "It happens all the time. Carol isn't on anything. She's just the type of person, who, you know, freaks out without drugs . . ."

III

"WHY are all these invalids around here?" asked Roger. He sat way down in his chair, as he lingered over coffee in the Adams House dining hall. He raised his hand and pointed around the room. "Two wheelchairs, three guys on crutches, an arm cast, there's a guy with a patch over his eye . . . Shit!"

"Come on, what's the matter?" I asked.

"You really want to know? . . . Well, it's like this. I wish I were dead. No-wait, wait-I wish you were dead."

"What are you talking about?" I asked.

Roger smiled. "Let me put it this way. In September I dropped mescaline with this girl and I fell in love with her, I think. Who knows? Anyway, I went to see her right after that, and I found out that she was 43 years old . . ."

"Sure, Roger."

"Okay. Don't believe me. But listen to October. In October I went to a couple of classes-I didn't know anyone in the classes-and I started to do nasty things."

"Yeah?"

"You bet. In one seminar, I leaped up in the middle of class and stuck my hand down this girl's dress and ripped open the front."

"God, what happened?"