Dhalgren

Shelves above it held binoculars, slide rules, drafting compasses and pens, two pocket calculators, French curves and templates, colored pentels, several cut and polished geodes, a row of ornamental daggers on display stands, a pile of plastic parts boxes, a soldering gun…

“Hey…” Tak slapped one knee. “I’m go

On one wall (he had only glanced till now) were three, yard-high, full color, photographic posters:

On one, some adolescent weightlifter, Germanic as Tak, wearing only boots and a denim jacket with no sleeves, leaned against a motorcycle, stubby hands flat against his naked legs.

On the second, a muscular black, in what could have been Tak’s jacket, cap, and boots, stood against some indistinct purple background, legs wide, one fist before bared thigh, one against his bare hip.

On the third, a dark youth—Mexican or Indian perhaps?—shirtless and shoeless, sat on a boulder under a stark, blue sky, his jeans pushed down to his knees.

Their bared genitals were huge.

The photographs had been taken from crotch level, too, to make them look even larger.

From the other room he heard pans clinking; a cabinet opened and closed.

By the head of the bed, on a table near a tensor lamp, books were piled irregularly:

A bunch on the Hell’s Angels: Thompson, and Reynolds/McClure; four cheaply bound, two-dollar paperbacks: Angels on Wheels, and Weekend in Hell: A True Story of the Angels as Told by Millicent Brash—he read the first paragraph of ill-lined type, shook his head, and put it down. A book called Bike Bitch was apparently the sequel to (same cover/different author) Bike Bastard. Under that was The Poems of Rimbaud, with English at the bottom of the pages; then a paperback Selected Letters of Keats; next, Dickey’s Deliverance; a green, hard-covered book of logs and trigonometric functions, place held by a white enamel, circular slide rule. There was sundry science fiction by Russ (something called The Female Man), Zelazny, and Disch. The last book he picked up had a purple and gold reproduction of a Leonor Fini for cover: Evil Companions. He opened it in the middle, read from the top of the left-hand page to the bottom of the right, closed it, frowning, went to the bamboo, and pushed it aside.

“You ever see one of these in somebody’s house before?” Tak thumped the grey cabinet with his elbow. “It’s a Micro Wave oven. They’re great. You can roast a whole rib roast in ten, twenty minutes. They cost about six hundred dollars. At least that’s what the price tag said in the store I lifted this one from. Only I don’t like to run it because it uses up so much power. Someday, though, I’m go

On two burners of a three-burner camp stove, pale flames from ca

“Naw, that’s okay.” He stepped through. Bamboo clicked and clicked behind him. “I guess here—in a place like Bellona—you can have about anything you want. I mean, you just walk in and take it out of stores and things.”

“Only—” Tak put a handful of something in the skillet—“I don’t want very much.” Steam, hissing, made the room smell, and sound, very good. “Figured while I was at it I’d make us up a full breakfast. I’m starved.”

“Yeah…” At the pungence of thyme and fe

On a cutting board by the stove, a loaf of mahogany-colored bread sat among scattered crumbs. “Fresh food is hard as hell to come by. Meat especially. But there’s ca

He took the bread, picked up a kitchen knife, and removed the top from a plastic butter dish.

“That should hold you till breakfast, which—” Tak swirled a spatula in the skillet—“is three minutes off.”

Under the jelly and the margarine, bread crumbled on his tongue, oddly flat. Still, it goaded his appetite.

Chewing, he looked through the newspapers piled to one side of the cluttered workbench.

BELLONA TIMES

Saturday, April 1, 1919

BELLONA TIMES

Wednesday, December 25, 1933

BELLONA TIMES

Thursday, December 25, 1940

BELLONA TIMES

Monday, December 25, 1879

The headline for that one:

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON QUITS MONTEREY FOR FRISCO!

“Calkins has a thing for Christmas?”

“That was last week,” Tak said. “A couple back, every other issue was 1984.”

The next half dozen papers went from July 14, 2022, to July 7, 1837 (Headline: ONLY ONE HUNDRED YEARS TILL THE DEATH OF HARLOW!)

“It’s a real event when he brings out two papers with consecutive dates. They’re never two in a row with the same year. But sometimes he slips up and Tuesday actually follows Wednesday—or do I have that backward? Well, I’m just surprised people don’t take bets; trying to pick the next date for the Times could be the Bellona equivalent to playing the numbers. Oh, he’s got real news in there—articles on evacuation problems, scorpions terrorizing remaining citizens, what’s happening in the poorer communities, pleas for outside help—even an occasional personality article on newcomers.” Tak gave him a knowing nod. “You read it; but it’s the only paper around to read. I read it up here. John, Wally, Mildred, Jommy—they read it down in the park. Still, it makes me incredibly hungry to see a real paper, you know? Just to find out how the rest of the world is getting on without us.”