Dhalgren

Nightmare sat, now, at Dragon Lady's feet. Head against the wall, he looked from speaker to speaker, with the smile of an enthusiast at a tennis match.

'You beat anybody up?' Kid asked.

'Beat the fuck out of 'im!' The scorpion's fists bounced on the couch's rim. 'Yeah! With a fuckin piece of pipe. But I didn't know what kind of pipe it was!.. or if he was dead!'

'Shit, I sure did!' Glass chuckled. 'I knew it when you hit the motherfucker the first time. The second, third… all those other times you were banging on him, man, that was just extra.'

'You shut the fuck up!' (It was, Kid remembered, the scorpion for whom he had rescued the bronze lion.) 'I didn't kill nobody.'

'But you did beat somebody over the head with a piece of pipe yesterday?'

'Look, I didn't…' He stalled on the word, and stood, fists flailing about his shoulders to beat away the barrier to speech, then yelled, '… didn't kill any God-damn body with no—'

'SIT DOWN, GOD DAMN IT…!' Kid bellowed, coming away from the door by three steps. That, he thought in the silence, was pretty theatrical. But he was astonished by its efficacy. Twitching behind his face, he felt an embryonic giggle. Both feet and hands were tingling. Shall I say the next thing, or shall I yell it? (The scorpion was leaning back on the couch, balanced on his fists, his seat not quite on the cushion, an expression not quite on his face.) 'DID YOU BEAT ON SOME KID'S HEAD WITH A PIPE…?' He'd made the choice to avoid laughing.

The scorpion sank to the cushion. The expression was terror. 'I guess so?' the scorpion asked quietly. 'I don't know…?'

Kid shook both hands hard, by the hips, to return the feeling. He heard one of the people beside him creak a floor board and catch breath.

'Look,' he said to John. Milly, behind him, seemed more frightened than the scorpion on the couch. Little Jommy had an intent expression of cold interest. 'Why don't you people just get the fuck out of here, all right?'

'Um …' John's thumbs had gone beneath the lapels with the rest of his fingers. 'You know we haven't had a… trial or anything.' He glanced at the scorpion. 'Mildred said maybe Wally started it, you know—'

'I didn't see it,' Milly reiterated. 'Somebody just told—'

Kid breathed in, and was still surprised that it cut the ribbon of her whisper like scissors. 'You all get out.'

'Now we're not trying to…' John began; Milly, Jommy, and the others had all started for the door. He let go his lapels and followed.

'What'd you do with Wally, huh?' Kid called.

'Huh?' John stopped a moment. 'We just left—'

'No,' Kid interrupted. 'No, don't tell me about it!' He kneaded one fist in the other. Feeling was beginning to return. The gesture sent John pushing against the people in front of him to get out of the room, beating nervously against his leg.

The scorpion on the couch looked very miserable. Clutching his lamp, or on the balcony crying; Kid thought: He's looked miserable every time I've ever noticed him.

'Shit!' Kid said. (Outside, he heard the door close behind the commune deputation.)

The scorpion bounced a little and blinked.

'Aw, shit!' Kid turned and walked out of the room.

Three steps down the hall, Kid heard a noise behind him, and turned.

Nightmare swung around the door jamb, an incongruous grin on his face. 'Man, you're too fuckin much!' Nightmare pranced, jingling, in the hall, slapped the wall. 'Really! You're too much.'

Right behind him, Copperhead came out and asked, 'Hey, what you want to do with Dollar in there?' He thumbed back in the room.

So that's his name, Kid thought (Dollar?), while asking, 'Huh?'

'You want me to rough him up a little for you?' Copperhead asked. 'Yeah, I'll do it. I don't mind doing shit like that. I mean if he. goes around hitting people over the head, he's gonna get us in trouble, you know? You want me to work him over?'

Kid made a disgusted face. 'No! You don't have to do anything like—'

'If you want me to,' Copperhead announced over Nightmare's shoulder, 'I'll kill the little white bastard. Or I could just work him over to scare him, you know…'

'No,' Kid repeated. 'No, I don't want you to do that.'

'Maybe later…?' Copperhead said. 'When you thought about it?'

'Well, not now,' Kid said. 'Just leave him alone now.'

Nightmare laughed as Copperhead went back into the room. 'What were you trying to do, huh? Man, you are too much!'

'Just find out if he did it. That's all.'

Nightmare held his laughter in his mouth; it bellied his cheeks till he swallowed it. 'Did you find out?'

From inside, there was a sudden crack and a cry. Voices silenced around the sound of loud sipping:

'Now the Kid told me I'm supposed to wait till later to work you over, cocksucker. But don't give me any shit, you hear? You go around breaking people's heads, I think I'm gonna have some fun breaking yours. Now get out of here.'

'I… guess so,' Kid said.

'I mean,' Nightmare shook his open palms in front of Kid's hips, 'I was just wondering if you found out. I wasn't there. You was, right? So you should know if he done it or not.' He backed away, grinning.

'Hey!'

'What?'

'Come here. I want to talk to you.'

Nightmare's arm folded low on his stomach, then raised up his broad chest so that the chains looped across his forearms. 'Sure.' He tilted his head, warily. 'What you want to talk about?'

'I just want to know what — hey, you come on with me.'

'Sure,' Nightmare said; then his tongue went into the side of his jaw, licking for something among back teeth.

They went up the hall and onto the service porch. Nightmare, arms still folded, stood in the doorway squinting. Dulling smoke hung only yards beyond the screening. Kid asked: 'What are you trying to do, huh?'

'What do you mean?' Nightmare's forearms slid across one another to tighten toward a knot.

'I mean you. And Dragon Lady and all. How come I suddenly get to be the boss about everything?'

'You do it pretty well.'

'But I want to know why.'

'Well.' Nightmare looked at the floor and let himself fall against the jamb. 'It's gotta be somebody, right?' Boards around them creaked.

'But what about you?'

'What about me?' The boards creaked again, though Nightmare hadn't moved. 'What you want to know about me?'

'Just why, that's all. You want a new boss — why not one of the spades, or something. I mean what's with you?'

Nightmare rolled his wet, red underlip back into his mouth, and nodded. His left eye, Kid noticed again, had the slightest cast.

The water puddling in the sink shook beneath the crusty faucet.

'I thought it would be sort of interesting to see what would happen if one of you brainy, crazed types was running things for a while. All the brainy niggers in Bellona had sense enough to get out. We don't got too much to choose from so we might as well make it interesting, right? I ain't gonna stay in this fucking fog hole the rest of my life. It's a real gas being Nightmare, you know? But I'm gonna get back to St. Louis, get me a little foreign car, do some work in the gym, and put two or three ladies back to work for me, and I'm gonna be Larry H. Jonas all over