Dhalgren

happening downstairs in the kitchen while we were out on the balcony.'

'It was Dollar.' Denny said.

'Lord…' she whispered, grave with shock.

'Dollar was the one you were talking to who was so—' Denny went on.

Till she interrupted: ' — I remember Dollar. Wally?'

'Which one was Wally?' Kid closed his eyes.

'He was the boy who was always talking about Hawaii.'

'Oh.' Kid opened his eyes again. 'Yeah. I remember.'

'He's… dead?'

'Some stupid fight. I don't know what happened. We were all there, and nobody—'

'I know what happened,' Denny said. 'Dollar's a fuckin' nut! Somebody probably said something he shouldn't've and Dollar didn't know when to stop.'

Lanya sucked her teeth. 'That's Wally. Kid, that's terrible! What's going to happen?'

He shrugged. 'Like what?'

At which point Denny drew in his breath and said, 'Shit, man! You write some God-damn bloodthirsty poems. This one about the kid who fell down the elevator. Wow…!'

Kid looked up at Denny.

'…'Both legs… broken',' Denny puzzled out, ' 'pulp-skulled, jelly-hipped'—'

Kid suddenly rolled over, grabbed the book edge, and pulled it down ('…Hey, what the…!' Denny said), craning over Lanya's lap to see the print.

But Denny had misread the line.

Kid lay his cheek on Lanya's and Denny's legs.

'You all right?' Lanya asked, and Denny touched his face.

'Yeah,' Kid said. 'Sure, I'm fine.' He raised his head again. 'How'd you know what it was about? It doesn't say anything about an elevator shaft in the poem.'

'I… well, I figured that's what it…?' Denny looked surprised. '…had to be about. I mean I was there, remember?'

'Oh.' Kid put his cheek down. 'Yeah.'

'Is Dollar still over with the scorpions?'

'Yeah.'

'Is he all right?'

'If Copperhead doesn't decide to kill him. John and Milly came over with a delegation this morning. To protest. I started to yell at Dollar. Just yell, that's all. Just to find out what had happened. He's not really all there, and you have to talk loud to get through, you know? And they started to get squeamish.'

Lanya said: 'I've never believed in capital punishment either. And Wally wasn't the most popular person around. Rap, rap-rap-rap-rap: He could be annoying—'

'That's not the point—'

'I know! I know, believe me. I know.' She rocked him, bending above. 'I mean I just…'

'You don't believe in capital punishment as long as there're mental hospitals, right? With violent wards. Well, we don't have any violent wards. We don't have any jails either.'

'But you have to—'

'Look.' Kid pushed himself up and twisted around. 'I don't believe in capital punishment period! I think if one person kills somebody else because he gets his rocks off, or he just wants to, that's… well, maybe not right. But a bunch of people getting together and deciding to kill somebody else because it's anything from right to expedient, is wrong!'

'Lord,' Lanya said again. 'Donatien Alphonse Francois de—'

'What?' Denny said.

'Never mind.' She pushed the covers down. 'Let's go for a walk or something. I'm not sleepy any more.'

Kid suddenly reached across to yank Denny's hair.

'Hey—!'

Kid pulled the boy down. Denny dropped the book and grabbed at Lanya's arm. 'What the fuck—'

'You like my smell?'

Lanya said, 'Hey, what are you—' and backed away, frowning.

Denny's arm flapped. Kid caught it with his other hand and forced the head into his lap. 'Come on, you like it?'

'Shit!' Lanya tugged Kid's wrist. 'Let go of him!'

'Hey…!' Denny laughed loudly, nervously, and pulled; couldn't get loose, and yelled a little. 'Come on, lemme—'

'You like it, you little bastard!'

Denny held onto Kid's hip and twisted his face.

'Yeah…!'

'Kid, will you stop that, for God's—'

Kid suddenly let go, held both his hands in the air. 'See?'

Denny put his other arm around Kid's other hip. His face against Kid's jeans, he took a breath.

'It's okay when I do him like that,' Kid said to Lanya. 'He likes it. You like it, don't you?'

'Fuck you,' Denny said. 'Yeah, I like it.'

'You like my smell?' Lanya suddenly swung up on her knees. One knee went above Kid. She grabbed him by the ears. He started to say, 'Hey…' but let it turn into a roar, and raised his head to muffle it between her legs. She bent and locked her arms behind his head. 'You like my fucking smell? Yeah, you like it…' and then she laughed and fell over on her side. The bed's feet bounced.

He said, 'Yum yumyumyumyum,' as fast as he could. Her legs were warm and blocked his ears. A ligament defined itself across his jaw.

Still laughing, she said, 'I don't think I can keep the rough act up as long as you can, though.'

He got his mouth free. 'I like it anyway. For breakfast, for lunch, for dinner…'

'Hey.' Denny's face appeared above Lanya's thigh, 'Ain't we making a lot of fucking noise? What sort of patient she got in there anyway?'

'Jesus…' Lanya laughed.

'She's a shrink,' Kid said. 'She's a God-damn fucking head-shrinker. She takes crazy people like us and makes us all better.'

'I want to go for a walk,' Lanya said. 'Will you two please get up and let me put my pants on?'

'She's really a head-shrinker?' Denny asked. 'She got some crazy man in there?'

'Yes,' Lanya said. 'Now will you please move your ass off my foot?'

'You just don't want to ball,' Kid said.

'Not true. I just do want to get some air.'

Kid rocked up, stood. 'Okay. Fine. Who can ball with all these venus fly traps leering at you anyway?' And realized they made him feel far more uncomfortable than he could, comfortably, admit. On the desk in the bay window lay his notebook.

'Fine reason to get out of here,' Lanya said.

'I dropped my book behind the bed,' Denny said. 'Just a… eh… there, I got it.'

Kid went to the desk and opened the grimy cover. Folded inside was the sheet from the telephone pad, grilled with his handwriting.

'And the galleys with your corrections are in the top drawer on the right.' The last of her sentence was muffled by the T-shirt coming off. 'Mr Newboy gave me everything just before he left, when we didn't know where you were.'

Kid sat down on the chair's torn caning.

Quickly he flipped through till he found a three-quarter-blank page. He pulled loose his pen. The raddled pages chattered at the pressure of his ballpoint He wrote very quickly, with his face screwed; his lips parted across his teeth, then pressed together again. Where his spine settled in the sacrum's socket, a suspended tension began