Dhalgren

'I remember lots of things: Some of it, so sharp it… hurts sometimes. All this fog, all this smoke — sometimes it'll be sharper and clearer than what you see in front of you. And the rest of it—' he looked up again and noticed Loufer's discomfort—'just isn't there.' Kid laughed, which made Loufer chew harder on what was in the back of his mouth. 'Why do you stay in Bellona, Tak?'

'I gather your friend Ernest Newboy is leaving tomorrow. I don't know. Why do you?'

'I don't know.'

'I mean, considering what you've been going through, maybe Bellona isn't the best place for you.' Tak leaned forward, stretching the bottle out.

'Oh,' Kid said. 'Here.' He held out his glass; Tak refilled it.

'You were talking about the first night I met you. Remember back then, I asked you why you'd come here, and you said you had a purpose for coming?'

'That's right.'

'Tell me what it is.'

And once, in South Dakota, he had dropped a quarter into a pool that turned out to be much deeper than he'd thought. He had watched the coin spin and dull and vanish beyond the edging of leaves. Now a thought vanished from his mind, and the memory of the lost quarter was all he had to describe the vanishing. 'I … I don't know!' Kid laughed and pondered all the other things he might do; laughing seemed best. 'I don't… remember! Yeah, I know I had a reason for coming here. But I'll be God damned if I can tell you what it was!' He leaned back, then forward, caught the brandy that was about to spill his glass in his mouth, and gulped it. 'I really can't. It must have been…' He looked at the ceiling, suspending his breath for recollection. 'I can't remember… remember that, either!'

Tak was smiling.

'You know, I had it with me; I mean, the reason.' Kid swung out his hands. 'I was carrying it around, in the back of my head, you know? Like on a back shelf? And then I just reached for it, to take it down, only I guess I knocked it over. I saw it fall off and disappear. I'm hunting around in my mind, but I can't… find it.' He stopped laughing long enough to feel the annoyance that had begun to grow. 'Bellona's not a bad place for me.' Stated reasonably and smilingly, it was still annoyance. 'I mean, I got a girl friend; I've met all sorts of people, some pretty nice—'

'Some not so nice?'

'Well, you learn. And I got a book. Brass Orchids, you know, my poems; it's all finished! They got galleys on it.'

Tak still smiled, nodding.

'And you say people are talking about me like I'd done something great. Leave? You think I'm not going to go mad in some other city? There I might not have all these extras.' Kid put the glass down, punched the air, and leaned back on the wall. 'I… like it here? No. I want to see some sun. Sometimes I want to reach up and peel off all that sky. It looks like the cardboard they make egg crates out of, you know? Just peel it, in great, flapping strips. I wonder where Lanya went.' He frowned. 'You know, maybe I don't have a girl friend any more. And the book is finished with; I mean it's all written and in type; and I don't want to do any more.' He turned his fist on his forefinger. 'And even if they say I'm a hero, I didn't really do anything.' He looked at the posters: just pictures, yet thinking that opened both their mocking and their harrowing resonances; he looked away. 'Something isn't… finished here. No.' The denial made him smile. 'It's me. At least part has to do with me. Or maybe George. Or June… It would almost look like everything was finished, wouldn't it? And maybe it's time to leave? But that's what lets me know I shouldn't. Because there're no distractions. I can look in and see. There's so much I don't know.' The laughter filled his mouth, but when he let it out, it was only breath from a smile. 'Hey, you want to blow me? I mean… if you'd like to, I'd like it.'

Tak frowned, put his head to the side. But before he spoke, his own rough laugh exploded: 'You are a nervy bastard!'

'I don't mean just suck my dick. I'd make love with you. I've done it before, with guys.'

'I never doubted it a minute.' Tak laughed again. 'And no, I don't want to suck your dick, pussy or no. Where do you come off with that idea?'

But something inside had released. Kid yawned hugely and explained, with the end of it muddling his words, 'Lanya said I should go to bed with you again; she thought you'd like it.'

'Did she, now?'

'But I said you were only interested in first tastes.' Looking at Loufer, he suddenly realized behind the blond jocularity there was embarrassment, so looked at his lap again. 'I guess I was…' right was mauled by another yawn.

'Oh, look. Why don't you just lie down and go to sleep. What I want to do is drink about three more shots of brandy and read a God-damn book or something.'

'Sure.' Kid lay belly down on the pallet, and jiggled around so the chains and prisms and projector did not bite his chest.

Tak shook his head, turned around in his chair, and stretched for the second shelf over the desk. A book fell. Tak sighed.

Kid grinned and moved his mouth down into the crook of his arm.

Tak drank some more brandy, folded his arms on the desk and began to read.

Kid looked for the sadness again, but it was now neatly invisible among dark folds. Hasn't turned a page for ten minutes, was his last amused thought before he closed his eyes and—

'Hey.'

Kid, lying on his back, grunted, 'Huh?'

Tak scratched his naked shoulder and looked perturbed. Kid thought: Now he's going to—?

'I'm afraid I gotta kick you out.'

'Oh…' Kid squinted and stretched, in muffled and mechanical protest. 'Yeah, sure.' Behind the bamboo curtains were streaks of light.

'I mean a friend of mine came over,' Tak explained, 'and we'd sort of like…'

'Oh, yeah…' Kid closed his eyes tight as he could, opened them, and sat up while the chains rattled down his chest, and blinked:

Black, perhaps fifteen, in jeans, sneakers and a dirty white shirt, the boy stood by the door, blinking on balls of red glass.

Kid's back snarled with chills; he made himself smile. From some other time came the prepared thought: Such distortion tells me nothing of him, and is only terrifying because so much is unknown of myself. And the autonomic nerves, habituated to terror, nearly made him scream. He kept smiling, nodded, got groggily to his feet. 'Oh, sure,' he said. 'Yeah, I'll be on my way. Thanks for letting me crash.'

Passing through the doorway, he had to close his eyes, again, tight as possible, then look, again, hopeful that the crimson would vanish for brown and white. They will think I'm still half asleep! he hoped, hoped desperately, his boot scraping the roof's tar-paper. Morning was the color of dirty toweling. He left it for the dark stair. Shaking his head, he tried not to be afraid, so thought: Ousted for someone younger and prettier, wouldn't you know. Well — beneath the lids the eyes were glass and red! He reached a landing, swung round it, and remembered the nervous woman with skirts always far too long for the season, who had been his math instructor his first term at Columbia: 'A true proposition,' she had explained, rubbing chalky fingertips hard on one another, 'implies only other true propositions. A false one can imply, well, anything — true, false, it doesn't matter. Anything at all. Anything…' As if the absurd gave her comfort, her perpetual tone of hysteria had softened momentarily. She left before the term's completion. He hadn't, damn it!

Nine flights down he walked the warm hall. Twelve steps up? Thirteen he counted this time, stubbing his toe on the top one.

Kid came out on the dawn-dim porch hung with hooks and coiled with smoke. He jumped from the platform, still groggy, still blinking, still filled with the terror for which there was no other way to deal with save laughter. After all, he thought, ambling toward the corner, if this burning can go on forever, if beside the moon there really is a George, if Tak kicks me out for a glass-eyed spade, if days can disappear like pocketed dollars, then there is no telling. Or only the telling, but no reasoning. He hooked his thumbs in his pockets