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class. Want a shower, go over to the gym. (Alas, I thought, how many wasted opportunities.) Nights, you found a spot in the trees or down in the stadium. All last week he had spent the nights in the Auditorium, which was O.K. in that the seats were upholstered, but bad because you had to waste a lot of time hanging around to hide yourself before drama rehearsals stopped and the place closed up. And the janitors were early birds, up and working by seven. Caliban had heard that there were ways of getting through manholes into the heat tunnels, and so entering buildings where there might be hall benches and so on, but he hadn’t bothered to investigate. He was more interested in the camping idea.
    His recital got him animated. His flowing voice warmed, he shaped the scholar-gypsy life with his long thin hands. And he watched me all the time to see whether or not he was making it.
    “All that to get an education!” Ruth said. He turned his head, big with hair, and pointed his bright eyes and anal lips at her, perhaps wondering if she was making fun of him. She was, but it would have taken somebody brighter than he to find it out for sure. After an inquiring pause he went on.
    “One night the cops ran us off campus; I slept out here. Right under this tree. Birds in the morning, dew on the leaves, the whole pastoral bit.” Quick as little crabs among seaweed and moss, his eyes went over me. “I could have slept down here every night since without anybody knowing it,” he said.
    And what was that? Pretense at candor? Threat? “I suppose you could have,” I said. “But you couldn’t now.”
    He stood five feet from me, scratching his hairy wishbone. Once again I had the impression that he was being deliberately outrageous, or alternately engaging and outrageous, as if he wanted my permission but only my unwilling or even hostile permission, as if it was worth more to him if it came out of my dislike. He would ingratiate himself only so far, and make no promises, and if I refused he would live in my woods in spite of me.
    Ruth’s mental telepathy was penetrating me like lasers. I felt unreasonably, in defiance of all sense, that I was being stingy, standing there saying a stubborn no to a proposition that, if I had liked this kid’s type, I would have agreed to readily. My treacherous mind told me that the flat across there was pure wasteland, cut off from any usefulness, cut off from the horse trail, cut off even from prowling boys.
    A jay bird charged into the bay tree and yakked at us and charged off. The smell of bacchic disorder emanated from Caliban’s unzipped suit as rank as a goat yard. I wondered how anyone could sit next to him in a class. I wondered if he had any friends.
    “Joe,” Ruth said.
    I said to myself, This is as stupid as you ever were, and you will undoubtedly regret it. Aloud I said, “All right. You can camp there, on certain conditions. The conditions are that you build no fires, shoot no guns, cut no trees, make a sanitary latrine, and bury your cans and garbage deep. And don’t leave that tap open on my pressure tank.”
    I don’t know what I expected—a change of expression, at least. He only watched me with his eyebrow up. “All right,” he said. No thanks, no expressed pleasure or obligation. To force him, I put out my hand, and after a minute he shook it. His hand was thin, dry, hard, and gripped like bird claws.
    “What’s your name, in case the town comes around complaining?”
    “Peck. Jim Peck.” Still no change of expression, no unbending to a jocular or friendly tone. Softly, Jim Peck. Softly, but as if there were a jeer under the voice. There is something about all beards that is like the gesture of thumbing the nose. Thank you very much. Up yours. I regretted giving in to him before we had even turned away.
    When we were halfway up the hill, walking slowly against the steepness and the shortness of our wind, I burst out, “In God’s name why did you let me do that? You