Dhalgren

both of you: I'll give you five apiece.'

'I'll go with you,' Glass said.

'We'll go,' Kid said.

'I really appreciate that, now, I really do. I don't want to rush you out. If you want to stay around and have a couple more drinks, fine. Just let me know when you're ready—'

Glass looked at Kid with a sort of Is-he-crazy? look.

So Kid said, 'We'll go now,' and thought: Is he that much more terrified of the dark than known danger?

'Good,' Kamp said. 'Okay. Fine, now.' He grinned and started for the crowded door.

Glass's expression was still puzzled.

'Yeah,' Kid said. 'He's for real. He's been to the moon.'

Glass laughed without opening his lips. 'I'm for real too, man.' And then he clapped his hands.

Kamp looked back at them.

Kid, followed by Glass, shouldered through the bunch milling loudly at the exit.

In the hallway, Kamp asked, 'Do you fellows — you're scorpions, now, right? — do you fellows have much trouble around here?'

'Our share,' Glass said.

Kid thought: Glass always waits before he speaks as if it were my place to speak first.

'I'm not the sort of man who usually runs from a fight,' Kamp said, 'But, now, you don't set yourself up. I'm not carrying a lot of money, but I want to get home with what I've got.' (People before the door listened to a woman who, in the midst of her story, stopped to laugh torrentially.) 'If I'm going to stay in Bellona for a while, maybe it would be a good idea to hire a bunch of you guys to hang around with me. Then again, maybe that would just be attracting attention. Now, I really do appreciate you coming with me.'

'We won't let anything happen to you,' Kid said and wondered why.

He contemplated telling Kamp his fear was silly; and realized his own nether consciousness had grown fearful.

Glass settled his shoulders, and his chin, and his thumbs in his frayed pockets, like a black, drugstore cowboy.

'You'll be okay,' Kid reiterated.

The woman recovered enough for the story's punchline, which was '…the sun! He said it was the God-damn sun!' Black men and women rocked and howled.

Kid laughed too; they circuited the group, into the dark.

'Did you talk to George when you were inside?' Glass asked.

'We sort of talked. He offered me one of his girl friends. But she just wasn't my type, now. Now if he'd offered me the other one…' Kamp chuckled.

'What'd you think of him?' Kid asked.

'He isn't so much. I mean, I don't know why everybody is so scared of him.'

'Scared?'

'Roger's terrified,' Kamp said. 'Roger was the one who told me about him, of course. It's an interesting story, but it's strange. What do you think?'

Kid shrugged. 'What's there to say?'

'A great deal, from what you hear.'

On the brick wall, beneath the pulsing streetlamp, George's posters, as shiny as if they had been varnished, overlapped like the immense and painted scales of a dragon, flank fading off and up into night. Glass looked at them as they passed. Kid and Kamp glanced at Glass.

'From what I've gathered, now, everybody spends a great deal of time talking about him.'

'What did you two talk about, beside swapping pussy?' Kid asked.

'He mentioned you, among other things.'

'Yeah? What did he say?'

'He wanted to know if I'd met you. When I said I had, he wanted to know my opinion of you. Seems people are almost as interested in you as they are in him.'

That seemed like something to laugh at. Kid was surprised at Kamp's silence.

Dark pulled over Kamp's face. 'You know, there's something — well, I'm not a strictly religious man. But I mean, for instance, when we were up there and we read the bible to everybody on television, we meant it. There's something about naming a new moon, for somebody — somebody like that, and all that sort of stuff, now, it's against religion. I don't like it.'

Glass chuckled. 'They ain't named the sun yet.'

Kamp, baffled by Glass's accent (by now Kid had set it somewhere near Shreveport), made him say that again.

'Oh,' Kamp said when he understood. 'Oh, you mean this afternoon.'

'Yeah,' Glass said. 'I hope you don't think they gonna name it after you?' and chuckled on.

'You think you could live up to that?' Kid asked.

Kamp gestured in the dark. But they could not tell the curve of his arm, whether it were closed or open- handed, so lost the meaning. 'You fellows know where we're going, now?'

'We're going right,' Glass said.

Kid felt distinctly they were going wrong. But distrust of his distinct feelings had become second nature. He walked, waiting, beside them.

'See,' Glass said, surprising Kid from his reverie, maybe twenty minutes later, 'This is that place between Brisbain North and Brisbain South. Told you we're going right.'

Two canyon walls collapsed inward upon one another, obliterating the time between.

'What?' asked Kamp.

'We're going right,' Glass said. 'Up to Mr Calkins'.'

Lamps on three consecutive corners worked.

They squinted and blinked at one another after blocks of darkness.

'I guess,' Kamp said, jocularly, 'it must be pretty hard for anybody to navigate after dark in the city.'

'You learn,' Kid said.

'What?'

What sort of accent do I have? 'I said 'You learn'.'

'Oh.'

Ahead, black was punctured by a streetlamp at least five blocks off, flickering through branches of some otherwise invisible tree.

'You fellows ever have any trouble on the street?'

'Yeah,' Kid said.

'What part of the city,' Kamp asked. 'You know, I want to know what neighborhoods to stay out of. Was it over where we were? The colored area, Jackson?'

'Right outside of Calkins',' Kid said.

'Did you get robbed?'

'No. I was just minding my own business. Then this bunch of guys jumped out and beat shit out of me. They didn't have anything better to do, I guess.'

'Did you ever find out who it was?'

'Scorpions,' Kid said. (Glass chuckled again.) 'But that was before I started running.'

'Scorpions are about the only thing in Bellona you got to worry about,' Glass said. 'Unless it's some nut with a rifle in an upstairs window or on the roof who decides to pick you off.'

'— because he don't have anything better to do,' Kid finished.

Kamp took a breath in the dark. 'You say the neighborhood up here, around Roger's, is really bad?'

'About as bad as anyplace else,' Kid said.

'Well,' Kamp reflected, 'I guess it was a pretty good idea to get you guys to come up with me, now.'

He is using his fear to use me, Kid reflected, and said nothing. Ten dollars for the walk? Kid wondered how