Dhalgren

My speech changes when I talk to different people; I go from “ain’t” to “aren’t,” “yes” to “yeah,” from a fixed to a formless diction. With Lanya, a lot of the time, it gets playful, arch. With others, it flattens. When I’m upset, it punctures with dozens of noise nodes: “you know’s,” “I mean’s,” and “sort of’s.” I left behind me a whole vocabulary and syntax at the colleges I passed through, which began to come back with Newboy, Kamp, that interview, and with Calkins at the retreat. It’s lability, not affectation; a true and common trait. But if I tried to write down what I say as I move from speech context to speech context, it would read like lack of character, not a characteristic. I note all the eccentric words around me: Glass used the word “…radically…” this morning and several times I’ve heard Lady of Spain refer to an “…entity…” while among the others I’ve heard “…sententious…” “…caravan…” and “…conspicuous…” go by. But when I transcribe the conversation around me, I find myself purposely playing down the verbal range of it, so that it does not read like post-literate affectation—which it isn’t. George’s speech can’t even be written down for the common reader; Throckmorton (at the party) speaks only in inane combinations of serial phrases that become satires on themselves as soon as they are recorded but that, during utterance, make miracles of communication. I suppose I’m just getting frustrated by what written words can’t do. This afternoon, Gladis, wholely pregnant and half smiling, said through the kitchen screening: “You got no…” paused and interjected three syllables of laughter “…know what I can see it in here, can I?” What marks of ellision, inflection, and melody could make that sound, or the sense of it, intelligible on paper?

Spent that afternoon trying to figure that one out.

I strip and bleach so the faint patternings of a real voice will show through; and end with something artificial as a he

I know: I’m a closet monosexual.

Oh yeah. While he was blowing me, I stopped him in the middle and asked him what he was thinking about—to be a bastard. Very honest and very surprised, he told me Dollar (I flashed on the moment with Risa when our pet murderer went through my mind) which got me a little mad. But that’s what I get. I note here (because sex does have something to do with love) De

Walking with Lanya today, I told her that. She beamed: “Yes, he’s said it to me a half-dozen times too. It’s charming.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t understand it. He loves you. He loves me. What the hell does that mean?”

She looked surprised, even hurt. Finally she said: “Well—when somebody uses strange words to you that you just do not understand, you have to listen for the feeling and get at the meaning that way!”

“I think,” I said after a moment, “it may mean, when he says it, he’s going to leave me before you do—who say it so much less frequently.”

“You think he’ll leave us?” Me/us—it struck like that. “Give him a reason to stay. I’ve tried.”

“That’s a hard one even in much simpler situations. I wonder if it just has to do with the kinds of people we’re familiar with. To you, I’m replaceable. I’m a nice ape, who even happens to be more interesting inside than out. I think one of the most interesting things to you is the way the machinery jerks around by stops and starts. Like you say, though, you’ve known geniuses before. It’s nothing new.”

“Well!”

“De

“Really? That’s marvelous!” She was silent the next quarter of a block. Then she said: “He’s not going to leave. At least not for a while. Though you may be right about who leaves first, whenever that happens…if ever.”

“What do you see?”

“That you are a whole lot of real person. And so, for that matter, am I. Someone who’s had as little of that as De

“Sounds good,” I said. “Hope it works. I like you two. I want you with me. Just don’t let me start taking either one of you for granted!”

“Not, dear heart, if I can help it.”

When I got up and went into the living room, most of them were still asleep. Fireball sat on the edge of the couch eating something out of a cup with a spoon. He stood up when I came in (Filament with, oddly, Devastation were tucked together on the couch behind him; the pale Black Widow, with the dark Lady of Spain curled against her, slept on the floor among Tarzan-and-most-of-the-apes) as though he wanted to speak to me. I nodded.

He nodded back. He didn’t seem to be able to start, though, so he ate another spoonful.

“Come here,” I told him.

Still shoeless, he stepped over a confusion of feet—the Widow’s dull black Wellington’s, Cathedral’s floppy brown suedes. I put my hand on his shoulder. “You like Dollar, don’t you?”

Fireball said: “He’s a pretty fu

“Good,” I told him. “You look out for him. You make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble around here, you hear?”

The smile wavered—

“Somebody’s got to. And I’m tired of it. So you do it now. You hear me?”

—and fell.

He nodded.

“Good.” With both hands I took off one of my chains, put it over his head, and hung my fists on his chest. I pulled one down, while the other raised, my knuckles sliding on his skin. Then I ran it the other way. “This’ll go with the one you already took for yourself, right?”

Fireball blinked at me.

“It’s yours.” I let go.

“That mean I’m a member…?”

On the floor, Raven propped his head on his elbow. “That’s the way we play, sweetheart.” He laughed, rolled over (into Cathedral who just grunted), and closed his eyes.

Fireball looked back at me. The sleepy smile returned. “Okay,” he said. “Hey, thanks, Kid. Okay…”