Dhalgren

“You think I’ve never been in any nice places before?”

“But you weren’t like that,” she said. “That’s the point! You were perfectly fine, you had a good time, and I’m sure Mr. Newboy enjoyed it. If anyone spoiled it, it was me with my silly dress. And I’m a mean, small, petty person for worrying about such things in the first place.” She sighed. “Do I get points at all for keeping it to myself this long?” She sighed again. “No, I guess not.”

He blinked at the wild sky and tried to comprehend: he could follow her logic, though the emotions behind it confused.

After a while she said: “I grew up in some awfully big houses. Some were almost as big as Roger’s. When I was at boarding school, once, my uncle said I could have some kids out to his summer place for my birthday. It came on a long weekend and they said I could have ten kids up from Thursday night till Sunday afternoon. There was one boy at the Irving School—the boys’ school next to ours—named Max, whom I thought was just great. He came from a poor—well, poorish family. He was on scholarship. He was intelligent, sensitive, gentle…and gorgeous—I was probably in love with him! I would have been perfectly happy to take him off for the weekend all by himself. But I had to plan a party: so I pla

“You want to hear a story from me, now?”

“Um-hm.” He felt her nod.

“About when I was twenty-three. Your age.”

“Sure thing, gramps. That’s about three years after you got out of the mental hospital?”

“No, it’s about going to nice places.” He frowned. “One summer I was working up and down the Gulf coast, as a header on the shrimp boats.”

“What’s a header?”

“He washes dishes and pulls the heads off the shrimp. Anyway, I’d just gotten fired in Freeport and was waiting around to get on another boat—”

“Why’d you get fired?”

“I got seasick. Now shut up. Anyway, I was sitting in front of this café, which was about the only thing there to do, when these two guys in black Triumphs came hauling ass around in the dust. One yells, Did I know where he could get a traveler’s check cashed in this God-damn town. I’d been there three days, so I told him where the bank was. He told me, Get in, and I showed him and his friend where to go. We got to talking: he was in law school up in Co

“Like the commune?”

“One of the kids’ fathers was the head of a land development company down there. The company had moved the fishermen who lived on the island someplace else, built a bridge to the mainland, dug a canal, and built a whole bunch of hundred-and-fifty-thousand, two hundred-thousand dollar homes, lawns in the front, swimming pool on one side, garage on the other, and boat house in the back on the canal so you could get your boat out to sea. They were all for the executives of Dow Chemical, who just about owned the city. So prospective buyers could check them out first, the houses were furnished, the freezers were filled with steaks, the closets stocked with liquor, towels in the bathrooms and all the beds kept made. The executives could bring their families in for a weekend to try out the house before they bought it. On Monday, a truck would come by with maids, carpenters, plumbers, and supplies to replace anything that had been used up, to clean out the mess, and fix anything broken. There wasn’t anybody on the island, so the doors had all been left open. The kid’s father had told him since he was in the area, why didn’t he stay there. So the kid, with about twenty of his friends—they went from about seventeen to twenty-five—had moved in. They’d start on one house, drink up all the liquor, eat up the food, destroy the furniture, break the windows, tear up everything they could, then move on to another one. On Monday the maids, carpenters, and plumbers would fix the damages. I stayed with them for two weeks. I’d pick out a room, lock the door, and read most of the time, while all the noise went on outside. Every once in awhile, you know, I’d come out to get something to eat—wade through the beer cans in the kitchen, scrape the grease out of some pan and fry a piece of steak. Then I’d go down to the swimming pool maybe if it wasn’t too bad and, if there wasn’t too much furniture floating in it, or bottles, or broken glass around, I’d swim a while. Pretty soon, when it would get too crowded, I’d go back to my room. There’d be people screwing in my bed, or somebody would’ve gotten sick all over the bureau. Once I found some little girl sitting in the middle of the floor, out of her head—cocaine all over the rug, and that is a lot of cocaine: she’d pulled down the drapes and was cutting paper-dolls out of them. So I’d take my book and go lock myself in another room. A couple of days after I got there, the two guys who’d brought me suddenly decided to fly back to somewhere else. They gave me the keys to the Triumphs and said I could have them. I don’t even know how to drive. One of them had got the front smashed in by now, but the other one was still good. The police came twice. The first time the kids told them to go fuck themselves and said they were supposed to be there, and the police went away. The second time, I thought it was better I split. When the shit came down, I wouldn’t have any rich Texas relatives to run home to. There was one girl there who said she’d buy me a ticket into Houston if I would fuck her and stay on more than five minutes.”

“No…” Lanya giggled against his neck.

“She bought me a bus ticket and a pair of jeans and a new shirt.”

Her giggling turned to laughter. Then she looked up. “That isn’t really true, is it?” Her smile tried to force itself through the dawn light.

After a second he said, “Naw. It isn’t. I mean I screwed her and she bought the bus ticket for me. But she didn’t put it that way. It just makes a better story.”

“Oh.” She put her head down again.

“But you see, I know about nice places. How to act in them. You go in, and you take what you want. Then you leave. That’s what they were doing down there. That’s what I was doing up at Calkins’.”

Once more she balanced on her chin.

He looked down over his.

She was frowning. “I think you have that absolutely ass backward. But if it makes you, in your own delightfully naive way, polite and charming, I guess…” She put her head down again, and sighed. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if there turned out to be one or two people who came up to my party in Nova Scotia who were also down in Texas a few years later at…yours.”