Wyandotte keeps the old calendar of thirteen months and a day. Every eight years he has to adjust for the slide of the sun, and makes it up with three intercalary days, three unhomed and timeless days, and on those days he makes revels.

Which doesn’t meet with the approval of his neighbors.

“Put your shirt back on, Wyandotte.”

“Wear pants, Wyandotte!”

“Come down off of our roof, Wyandotte!”

They don’t understand, he thinks, and cries like a loon at night. Or creeps as a cat along the fences and the trees, bristle-whiskered and silent, or howls as a coyote at the moon until someone throws a shoe at him. “Christ, it’s the nutjob from 3A,” he hears coming from the window before it slams shut. It doesn’t matter.

At the end of the three days he washes his face and hands and straightens his tie. “What day is it, anyway?” the bus driver asks him, when he goes to work.

“The first of Birch,” says Wyandotte. “Life begins!”