Dhalgren

Milly pushed by Copperhead. The light stole the brilliance from the different reds of their hair by dealing equal flamboyance to everything. She kneeled at the rail. Light between two lions made a ragged bandage across her calf.

The scabs, Kid thought, are bright as red glass.

There were too many people.

Milly brushed at her cheek.

Why is a given gesture given as it is? Hers? She's guilty making any motions at all in a situation demanding immobility. (He looked at the scratch.) She's guilty…?

There were too many people.

The long-haired youngsters, hands linked, stepped through; one took the hand of the pimply, unshaven scorpion (who was also very drunk): he breathed loudly and swayed into people.

They didn't move.

'What are you going to do with that?' Lanya asked, softly enough to sound soft even in this silence.

The scorpion's breath was thunderous.

'I don't know.' That sounded thunderous too.

'Let me take it.' She tore off the three pages, corrected, and recorrected. (Does it take this much light to illuminate the material for another poem?) With a head movement (shadow spilled from the green target of her eye down her cheek) she stopped him. 'I have your notebook at home. I'll put these with it. I want to go.' She turned to Denny. And the shadow had rolled Somewhere beneath her chin; in the creases of her eyelid he could see sweat. 'You want to walk me home?'

Kid wanted to protest, decided no; offer to come too?

She touched Denny's arm. Her nose and ear were shadowed: the incredible disk had lowered so that what remained was small enough that everyone around them, beneath a folded elbow, behind a heel on reddened tile, under frayed denim where a sleeve had been torn off, or within and behind the curves of flesh in flesh of the ear, had once more grown shadows. She looked afraid.

Lanya stood, and people stepped apart.

Denny, like someone just awakened, clambered from the rail, and, blinking about him (at the others as much as Kid) followed her.

Denny left, and people closed around.

'When it goes down…' the pimply scorpion began.

Kid, and the two people who held his hand, looked.

Something white had dried on his mouth. His lashless lids were pink and swollen.

The two looked away.

'When it goes all the way down, there won't be any fuckin' light at all, again… ever.' He shook his head, scuffed his boots, rocked on the doorsill. 'Black as a fucking bitch… yeah!'

They've gone, Kid thought. No light at all?

Fifteen minutes later, when it had set completely, the sky had returned to its ordinary grey.

3

He woke… alone?

Someone was climbing to the loft ladder.

He struggled to choose between dreams and… the rest. Because they had all left the muraled house, and wandered back to the nest. Milly had talked to him, aimlessly, in the sloped street, mostly all surprised that he was the same Kid everybody had been talking about, and how glad she was to know that she knew him, till he'd decided she was trying to put the make on him and had gotten angry. 'Get the fuck out of here, you stupid bitch!' he'd yelled in the street and made to hit her. She'd run away; he'd laughed, loudly, till he was staggering. Copperhead had come up to him and beat him on the shoulder, laughing too. 'I didn't like that one either. Shit, you can have one of mine…' He'd kept laughing, so he wouldn't have to speak, thinking with perfectly maniacal pride: I have, I have already—

'Kid, are you okay?' Denny's ears were lit from behind and below. His face was dark.

'Yeah…?'

Denny came up over the edge.

'They're making food—' and at the word, Kid smelled it—'inside. Nightmare and Dragon Lady just came back. You sleepin'?'

'Come—' and at the word, Denny, all shoulders and chin and elbows, wedged against him—'here. Yeah.' He held the warm knobby shapes and lay there smelling grease and a hot, vegetative stench that defined no food he recognized; but he liked it anyway.

'Lanya's got a nice place,' Denny said.

'Yeah?' Kid thought: he's so light; but his edges are sharp. 'You ball her again?'

'…Yeah.' Denny said. 'In her room, at her house. I guess that was all right.'

Surprised, Kid opened his eyes. Cracks cross the dim ceiling. 'Oh.' He shifted Denny to the side. 'You got more energy than I do. I was tired when I got back here.'

'She's got a nice place,' Denny repeated. 'Real nice.'

'Why'd she want to go?' He nubbed his rough chin for the itching.

Denny squirmed to get comfortable. 'To see about her class, she said.' Denny squirmed again.

'Class?'

The L about the window shade had finally taken on the deep color of evening.

'Her kids. She's been looking out for this group of kids, you know? About eight and nine years old. Black kids mostly.'

'No, I didn't know.' He let his lips purse to a tent where, with the help of air, they were off his teeth. Well, he hadn't seen her much. How many days gone? She'd said she had a place, yes; 'No, I didn't know.'

He frowned at the top of Denny's head.

'I like her,' Denny said. 'I like her a lot.' Denny's face came up from under the hair. 'You know, I think she likes me too?'

'Guess she does,' Kid said. 'Did she check… her class?'

'No,' Denny said. 'Not while I was there. She was going to. But we got to fuckin' around again. Screwin', you know. She said she was going to, after I left. If she didn't go to sleep first. I think she was pretty tired.'

Kid looked at the ceiling again. 'How long she had the kids?'

'A couple of weeks,' Denny said. 'That's what she told me. She said she likes it. They meet a little way from her place. That's real nice.'

'What's it like?' A couple of weeks? He was too exhausted to be upset.

'Real nice.' Some of Denny's hair brushed and caught on Kid's chin.

'Well, you're good for something, cocksucker. Hey!' Kid bunched the muscles of his leg under Denny's stiffening groin. 'No, man. Fuck off. I don't want to now.'

Denny pulled himself back on all fours. 'You better go eat something, then. They don't got that much. They'll eat it all.'

Kid sat, nodding. 'Yeah, come on.' He climbed groggily down, and stood in the doorway.

Why (watching Denny climb) did she tell him all that about her new place, and her class, and not me? Why didn't I ask? he answered. He could smile at that, finally.

'Come on.' Denny took Kid's elbow and led him down.

Halfway up the hall, Kid sucked his teeth and pulled free. It was a gentle pull; but Denny's head leapt away at the motion, frightened and anticipatory, despairing and wild. Without looking at him particularly, Denny stepped back to let him through.

'Jesus Christ!' Nightmare exclaimed, turning with a full plate in his hand, gesturing first, then scooping with