Dhalgren

He was exhausted, with an exhaustion that a

He had nothing to write. He could not imagine what another poem of his would be, how it might lilt, or even look. Is that, he wondered, why they call it “creation”? The texture on the eye, the corrugation on the air around him had absorbed all. There was nothing left (…about what you see about you, what’s happening to you, what you feel. No). No. Something had to be…created. As these had been.

A muscle in his shoulder tensed.

He’d once been scared of things like that:…a blood-clot breaking loose from the vein wall to race toward the heart, jamming a valve! Habit commenced a shiver.

He caught up his breath, and his pants, and the books from where he’d dropped them. The leering ma

In De

“God damn—!” De

“Come on, get up!” Kid’s hands clamped, and De

“Okay!” De

“You got to take me to Lanya’s place.” Kid raised his leg and sat back. “You know where it is, huh? You took her there. You know!”

De

“Get the fuck up, cocksucker.” Kid gestured. “I want to go see her.”

“Okay, okay.” De

Kid gri

“Fuck you,” De

Kid swung over the ladder while De

“What’s all the rush for?” De

“I’m not hurting you,” Kid said. “Did you know Dollar beat some kid to death with a pipe?”

“Huh? When?”

“Yesterday.”

De

“Sure.” Kid herded De

“Why’d he do it?”

Kid shrugged. “I du

The hall door opened. Thirteen (Smokey behind) stepped inside, looking around as though he expected something…different. “Hey, Kid! Oh, hey man, I got to talk to you! You know Dollar? Well, we just got here, but…somebody told me yesterday he got a bar, from a police lock, and beat some kid to—”

“GET OFF MY ASS!” Kid said very loudly in Thirteen’s face, hefting his fist. If I keep this up, he thought, I’m going to hit somebody. “Now just get off my ass, will you?”

Thirteen, one hand against his green tank top (the “13” tattoo stretched wide), had backed against one wall, and Smokey, wide-eyed, against the other.

Kid put his hand on De

They stalked between them and out the door; it swung to behind.

VI Palimpsest

“…JUST WATCH OUT. OH yeah, you just better watch out. I know. I know.” He wagged his finger, backed away, talked Spanish. Then: “They go

“Look, man,” Kid said. “Will you—”

“It’s all right. It’s all right. You just watch out, now. Please? I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” His thick neck sweated. He tugged at the wool. “I’m sorry. You just lemme ’lone, huh? They go

“Jesus Christ.” A smile hovered about De

“I don’t know.” One book had fallen on the sidewalk. The other leaned against the curb.

“I mean this guy just comes up and starts to push you like that. I thought you were go

“He didn’t mess on you any.” Kid picked up the books and put them back under his belt.

“He’s just crazy or something, huh?”

“Come on,” Kid said. “Yeah, he’s…crazy.”

“Jesus Christ. That’s really fu

“Yeah.”

They walked.

“What was he doing then?”

“Just about the same thing…one time. The others? He was pretty normal.”

“A nut,” De

“No.”

De

Kid had stopped, to hook up a section of the chain across his stomach. A glass circle distorted the pad of his thumb into a zebra’s flank: dirty troughs whorled the flesh.

“She lives right over there,” De

“All right.”

In step, they angled into the street.

“She got a nice place.”

A tension held, suspended: Kid wished he could examine it more closely: diffract, reflect, magnify…

They turned the corner and went down the empty street. “Looks like rain, doesn’t it?” De

“It always looks like rain.”

“It doesn’t feel like rain.”

“It never feels like rain.”

“Yeah, you know, that’s right?” De

Kid followed, surveying the three-story facade. De

“They live on the top floor. The first two floors are empty so people won’t think anyone’s in the building.”

“It’s a good idea not to attract attention, I guess.” Kid contemplated asking who was the rest of “they” when footsteps clacked on a stairway.

“Who is it?” asked a woman. Voice familiar? He wondered from where.

“I’m a friend of Lanya’s. I’d like to see her.”

The peephole darkened. “Just a second.”

The door opened. “You know, I didn’t recognize your voice at first,” Madame Brown said. “How have you been, Kid?” She took in De

“Lanya’s living with you?” Kid, shocked, was unsure why.

“Um-hm. Why don’t you come inside?”

Somewhere above the first landing, Muriel barked.

“Hush!” Madame Brown commanded the air. “Hush, I say!”

The dog barked three times more.

“Come in, come in. Pull the door behind you. It locks itself.”

They followed her up the steps.

“I think,” she let fall behind, “Lanya’s asleep. Even with her school we’ve both been having an incredible time keeping to any sort of schedule. I don’t know when she went to bed. I suspect it was rather late.”

“She’ll want to see me,” Kid said. He frowned at the back of Madame Brown’s red rough hair.

“Oh, I’m sure she will.”

They rounded the first landing.

Muriel, visible now, barked again.

“Hush! Now hush up! These are people you know, dear. It’s Kid. And De

De