Dhalgren

“Like hell.” Maybe, Kid thought, I should tell him to go away, like he told her. “Come here.”

De

Kid reached in his pocket for Tak’s battery. “Put this in for me?”

De

De

Kid moved both caged and free fingers on the blades, and let his hand swing against De

“I know.” De

Kid put his thumb between his own legs and hooked his genitals forward against his pants. “Hey, turn around.”

De

“And smile.”

De

“Jesus Christ!” Thirteen pushed in around the boy. “Hey, it’s the Kid!” He turned and repeated to Smokey, like an after-image at his shoulder: “It’s the Kid. Hey, Kid, they told me you were around here but I thought you split already. How you doing?”

Kid nodded. The door closed behind them. There isn’t room in this kitchen for all these people, Kid thought.

“Glad to see you!” Thirteen nodded back. “Before you cut out. I mean…” He held the strap of his tank top from his shoulder. “…you cutting out?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, you stay as long as you want. That’s fine with me. They got all those God-damn freaks in here, I’m really glad to have somebody like you, you know?”

“Thanks,” Kid said and wondered what Thirteen wanted.

“Um…” Thirteen said, obviously uncomfortable. “Um…somebody told me you been fuckin’ around with the kids, huh?”

“Huh?”

“I mean, somebody heard you guys going at it in the loft. You know?” Thirteen gri

“I wasn’t fucking with them. They were fucking with me.”

“Yeah,” Thirteen said and nodded. “They’re too much, huh? I mean, I don’t care what you do, man. It’s not a moral thing.” Suddenly he reached behind him and drew Smokey up under his arm. “I mean, Smokey here is, what are you, honey? Eighteen? And I mean, seventeen, eighteen, there ain’t that much difference. I just don’t want to see anybody hurt them, that’s all.”

“I’m not out to hurt anybody.”

“Yeah, man. Sure.” Thirteen nodded deeply “I didn’t think you were. It’s just that, well…some people have, that’s all. Come on inside, hey, and smoke some dope with me, hey? I mean, if you feel like it.”

Kid let his caged hand fall to the side.

“I mean, maybe later, then, if you want to.” Thirteen gri

“It’s good you…don’t want anybody to get hurt.”

Thirteen hesitated. “Thanks.” Then he pulled Smokey a little closer, and they walked around Kid into the other room, while somebody outside the door said:

“Hello…?”

She and her shadow on the screening were out of register.

“Kid? That is you…?”

The door opened—she and his memory of her were, too.

She watched him with small things happening at her mouth that could have been preparation for either laughter or recrimination; and other small things happening in her green eyes.

“Oh, hey—!” he said anyway, because something was warming in his chest. It rose to heat his face, left him gri

She leaned away, “You sure?” and kissed him. “I’m glad too.”

He kissed her—harder, longer, losing himself in it (as his hand hung, lost in air and metal; he bunched his fingers, loosened them) till he felt the thing in her shirt pocket, cutting.

He pulled back: Next to her harmonica was his pen.

She said, because she saw him looking, “The bartender at Teddy’s told me to give it to you. He said you dropped it there—” and then he kissed her (it still cut) again; but he held on.

She pulled away, once more, wrinkling her nose. “Something smells good.” Looking around, she went to the living-room door—he followed—leaned through with one hand on the white frame. “Hey, Nightmare—is there anymore of that coffee?”

“You want some, sweetheart?” which was from Dragon Lady. “Help yourself.”

Kid watched her cross the room, leaned back on the frame.

She squatted to fill a cup—looked in it first; someone must have used it, but she shrugged—from the enamel pot. Once she glanced back at him, pushed hair from her forehead, gri

On the couch, De

Nightmare was saying, “I can’t hang around this place all day! Hey, Dragon Lady, you go

A woman stuck two brown arms from under a blanket, with quivering fists, waking.

Dragon Lady and Adam were whispering about something, dark brown and light brown heads together. Adam rubbed his chains.

Suddenly Baby came up. Among the faint fuzz of a new mustache, his nose had run all over his upper lip. Clutched in scrawny, filthy-nailed fingers was a cut-glass bowl, caked at the edges with sugar. “You want some?” He gestured with his chin toward the tablespoon handle.

“No thanks,” Lanya said.

Kid shook his head too. Baby said, “Oh,” and went away.

Lanya held up the cup for Kid to sip. His hands came up to guide hers. A blade ticked the crock, so he took that one away, felt the ligaments in the back of her hand with the other.

Coffee slapped bitter back across his tongue; he swallowed. Steam tickled his nostrils.

She blew; she sipped; she said, “It’s strong!”

“Hey, Baby! Wait—come on back here, Adam!” Dragon Lady bawled, turning, jangling. “Come on, now!”

Through some door, not the kitchen’s, a lot of people came into the house.

Lanya frowned, blinked.

A lot of people came into the room. Coffee, chocolate, and tamarindo faces, hands, and shoulders swung by, turning, as chains from long or stocky necks swung under several hairdos of beach ball dimensions. Two of the men were arguing, while a third, his arm supple as a black-snake, waved and shouted to quell them: “Com’on, man! Come on, now, man! Come on—” A minimal half-dozen white faces were occluded or eclipsed before Kid could fix them. Most, blacks and others, Kid recognized from the Emboriky run. A dark mahogany guy in a black vinyl vest stopped by the couch to regale Copperhead, while a diffident white, vestless and a scorpion only from the chains (his belly and chest were scarred with a single, long pucker, still-scabbed and pink), stood by, waiting to speak. In trio, they seemed oddly familiar. The black in the vinyl was the one who’d been friendly to him in De

A hand the color of an old tire suddenly landed on Lanya’s shoulder, another on Kid’s; the close-cropped head bobbed between them; the long black body, under the swinging vest flaps and hanging chain loops, was sour with sweat, the breath, over small teeth and a heavy, hanging lip, sour with wine. “Shit…” drawled in two syllables.

“Hey, Ripper,” Lanya said, “get off!” Kid was surprised she knew his name.