Dhalgren

this 'cause I'm smarter than you and I thought you'd like to know how to act. The Kid's smarter than you too.'

Behind teeth clamped and filled with tongue, Kid thought: does he want him to kill me, huh?

'He just grabbed the gun,' Denny repeated. 'By the barrel. And pulled it away.'

'I'm gonna carry this on back to the place,' another white scorpion said, lugging a marble slab on which crouched a large, brass lion; the blacks all seemed so silent, a reversal of his usual experience. The lamp shade kept striking the boy's pimpled, unshaven chin. 'I always wanted one of these.'

'You carry it,' Nightmare said. 'I ain't gonna help you. Let's get out of here.'

'There're still people up there with guns?' Copperhead took his hand from his jaw to gesture at the dark mezzanine.

'Kid scared 'em away,' the black called D-t said.

Nightmare turned and bellowed so loud his knees and elbows bent: 'All right, motherfuckers! Here we are! You wanna shoot us, go on!' He glanced around at the others and giggled. 'God damn it, go on, pick us off!' He started forward.

The unshaved, pimpled scorpion hefted the lion up on his belly, turned his chin away to avoid the shade, and followed.

'You up there, you better get us now! Come on, you mangy motherfucker, you chicken-shit assholes! You ain't gonna get another chance!'

This, Kid thought walking between a tall, thin black (named Spider) and the heavy one (called Cathedral: Kid slowed to let Copperhead get a step ahead of them so he could see him), is insane. Laughter: only a fragment blurted. Two of the others looked at him. Grinning, Kid shook his head.

'You up there, you better shoot!' Nightmare bawled at the mezzanine railing. 'You don't, you some real scroungy cocksuckers!' He unscrewed his face and said to Priest, who walked next to him:

'I heard you over on the other side, hollering. What were you doing?'

'There was somebody in there. I don't think he had a gun. I chased him up the—'

'You better do it now, you son of a bitch!' Nightmare turned back to the guy beside him. 'Yeah?… Do it, you do it, cocksucker, if you're gonna do it, do it now!'

'— chased him up the stairs.'

Lady of Spain had kicked in the board bottom of a display case. Copperhead looked up, with consternation and surprise, and put his boot through the glass case in front of him, first the top shelf, then the bottom, then once on the other end; glass and watches scattered the rug. Gasping, he loped to the next. Crash! and crash! and crash-crash-crash! All their eyes, Kid noted (trying to recall what it meant), are red glass.

Another thin black frowned toward Kid, his lids narrowing over blank crimson balls. He looked about Denny's age.

'You real chicken-shit up there, you know!'

CRASH-CRASH!

'You ain't worth shit, god damn it!'

CRASH!

'Eat my shit…!' Nightmare looked around and smiled. 'Up your ass!.. Fuck you!'

Lady of Spain pushed a whole case over; it smashed into the one behind it. She grinned at Copperhead who didn't see; others laughed.

'They got the door locked.' Someone jiggled the handle.

'Here you go…' Nightmare said, grabbing for the lion.

'Hey, no—'

Glass exploded over the pavement. The grey street was momentarily obscured by myriad bright prisms. 'Come on!'

Kid stepped gingerly across the shards, remembering: On broken glass, go flatfooted.

The white, unshaven scorpion stood (among others moving) looking at his lamp. The marble base was in two pieces, the shade crushed. Finally he stooped, caught up the injured object — a marble chip fell but the cracked base stayed amazingly together — and shuffled on, kicking glass.

'Come on…' Denny tugged Kid's arm.

Kid started walking again.

'A God-damn bus!' which hove around the corner. 'How do you like that!'

Some stood in the street now, waving their arms.

The bus pulled to the curb. Nightmare at their head, they crowded between the folding doors. Shoulders collided. Through them, Kid saw the bald, black driver's worried face.

'You gonna take us home!' the thin black was saying, while the others tried to push past. 'Now that's convenient, brother! You gonna take us—!'

'AHHHH—!' shrill and directly into Kid's ear.

Kid flinched and turned (A gun crack? There!) and grabbed the scorpion opening and closing his mouth and falling. Hooking the post by the front seat with the elbow of his bladed arm, Kid swung the wounded youth inside. As he fell, the unshaven guy (and some others) no longer holding his lion, clambered over them—'Watch it—!' Crouched at the top of the bus steps, Kid saw the crushed lamp shade leaning against the sill. He grabbed the socket stalk, wrenched the whole thing up into the bus and as the doors closed he heard ping-CRACK! The bus was moving: ping-CRACK!

He stood — everyone else was crouched in seats or between them.

Even the driver was hunkering over his wheel.

Outside, Kid saw the figure in a third story window of the sandstone wall (right beside the gold i in Emboriky)—sighting along the rifle, eye to the finder.

The broken marble cut at his shin, joggling. Thirty pounds? As he pulled the lion up onto his forearm (so not to blunt his orchid which stuck from underneath) the bus lurched. 'Here.' The stubbled face turned up from the seat and blinked. 'Here.'

The scorpion wrapped his arms around it — the shade came completely off and joggled around the post — dropped his face, then raised it, at the gasping.

Kid turned, holding the back of the seat.

Denny stopped at the feet of the wounded scorpion.

A woman in a grey hat, jammed against the window next to Nightmare, said, 'Oh dear! Oh, he's terribly hurt—' then put both hands flat against the pane when Kid looked at her, and began to cry. Then she stopped, faced forward again with her eyes closed.

From a rear seat: 'Say…'

No one said.

'…what happened to you guys?'

No one answered.

Kid took off his orchid and poked a prong around for his belt loop till he saw (remembering) it had broken. So he hung it from his chain and squatted.

'Annnnnnnn—waa! They got my… arm. I… Annnn!'

Denny looked up: his very blue eyes were bloodshot.

'Annnnnn—ah. Awww?… Oh, hey. Awwwee…!'

Warm blood touched Kid's toes and spread.

'You want to make a tourniquet or something…' Denny suggested.

'Awwwwwwww—Ahhh…'

'Yeah.'

'Here!' The colored girl in the front seat leaned forward holding a scarf, and almost dropped it when Kid reached. The scorpion panted like a woman in childbirth while Kid tightened the looped cloth on the handle of a knife one of the others gave him. 'You gotta loosen it,' he told Spider who was helping. 'Every five minutes or so. So he doesn't get gangrene or something.' Then he sat back on his heels, jogging with the bus. The driver looked back, then turned a corner.