The door opened and Ted, a roommate, came in. "Doug, man," he said. "How about some dinner?"

"I thought it was time," said Doug.

"Doug," he roommate went on. "Done any studying for our Anthro exam tomorrow?"

" Our anthro exam?"

"Yeah. Didn't you know?"

"Jesus. I totally forgot. I was planning to drop that course anyway. Wish I had remembered to take care of that."

"Well, what are you gonna do, man?" asked Ted.

Doug laughed. "I'll figure it out. I've skipped exams before. It's kind of fun when they call you up to see if you overslept..."

"But it's in the afternoon."

"Whatever. Maybe I'll go to a movie so they can't find me-like Z."

"It's a good film," said Ted.

"You're telling me ?" said Doug. He paused, "Nah-who am I kidding? I can't go into Boston, Boston ?" He laughed, then asked Ted to wait on dinner a second until he could comb his hair.

After Doug disappeared into the bathroom, Ted turned to me, smiled, and said, "He's something, isn't he? He's happy, at least."

"You think so?" I asked. "Sure," said Ted. "Doug is different from the rest of us. Do you know he is the only person I know in this whole fucking school who has never-not once-threatened to kill himself?"

II

"FUCK IT!" cried Carol, as her Cricket lighter jammed at Lehman Hall last week. It's a tough world, and Carol is finding it tougher all the time. I offered her a match, but she put her filtered Gauloise away, saying "The hell with it, I've got to give up smoking anyway."