Dhalgren

style.' He shook back his hair. 'You're crazy. People say you don't even know who you are. That's okay by me. I don't want nobody asking about Larry H. Jonas before he come here, either — Then, every once in a while, you do something really crazy-ass brave.' Nightmare gripped the edges of the table. 'Now I ain't brave. I think anybody who is, is stupid. I'm just not so spaced out today I can't remember what I did yesterday — which is more than I can say for you. I think that's the only reason I ended up the boss.' He shrugged. 'Now you got it. You don't want it, you just take off all them chains, ball 'em up in a little ball, throw 'em in Holland Lake and go on do something else. Somebody else'll pick it up — Copperhead, Raven, Lady of Spain… maybe some nigger you don't even know their name yet.' Nightmare's face twisted. 'But I don't see you doing that, you know?' He pawed something from his back pocket, brought it up between them. 'And this shit—' A copy of Brass Orchids, folded. 'You know I been actually trying to read this? I don't understand shit like this, man! But every day for a fuckin' week you got a fuckin' page or half-page in the fuckin' newspaper. Like it was a fuckin' movie, or something.' Nightmare turned, and with his book knocked the stack. Copies spread the table. Three fell on the floor. 'You don't ever talk about it; least I never heard you.' Nightmare turned the folded book. 'It ain't got no name on it. I mean I don't even know if it was really you wrote the stuff. I mean that's what some people are saying. But I'm gonna look at it anyway, see? Amd I'm looking. Then I find that part about me!'

Kid frowned.

Nightmare conducted the next sentence with the folded book. 'Yeah, you know; don't tell me you didn't put nothing about me in there.' He opened the cover, brushed over the pages.

Kid stepped around to see.

'Here!' Nightmare thumped the page with bunched fingers, leaving four prints. 'That ain't me you talkin' about?' The whole page was grey with finger marks, the corners limp.

Kid took the book. The next page was clean. So was the page before. 'Yeah…' Kid said. 'I guess I had you in mind when I was writing that.'

'You did?' The question's falling inflection rang with mistrust.

Kid nodded, closed the book and thought how inaccurate a truth he was perpetrating.

'Oh.' Nightmare pulled the book from him. The pages parted automatically at the questioned passage. 'Well, reading a fuckin' book and finding somebody talkin' about you is some pretty weird shit, you know? I mean I haven't made up my mind whether I like it… course, you didn't say anything bad about me.' Once more he nodded, pursed his lips, parted them in a silent shape: 'You don't say anything good, either.' Again he stared at Kid. 'That is pretty weird. I just wish I understood shit like this better, you know?' Suddenly, a grin opened around Nightmare's broken tooth. 'That really is me, huh? And you weren't puttin' me down or nothing? I told Dragon Lady that was me, and she tried to tell me I was full of shit. You just wait till I tell her.' He folded the book, tapped Kid's arm with it, and stabbed at his back pocket a couple of times, till it went in. 'You are a very strange person. And you do some very strange things.' Nightmare stood up and walked out of the room.

Kid saw Spitt and Glass, who had been standing just inside the kitchen door, going toward the table.

Nightmare mumbled very loudly:

'Too much.'

'You want to come to a party?' Kid called after Nightmare in the hall.

'Here?'

'At Roger Calkins'.'

Nightmare's head went to the side. 'What am I gonna do at a party up there?'

'It's my party. Calkins is giving it for me at his place. Bring Dragon Lady along.'

'Just your friends? In his place?'

'His friends, too.'

'Oh,' Nightmare said. 'She ain't gonna come without her sidelights.'

'Adam and Baby?'

'Yeah.'

'That's all right. All of you come on up. It's in three Sundays, by the paper date. Soon as it gets dark.'

'Calkins' friends, them people you read about in the paper?'

'Probably.'

'That astronaut guy gonna be there?'

'I guess so.'

'Motherfucker,' Nightmare said. 'You know, Baby don't put no clothes on. I mean he's funny and he just refuses, flat out, you know? And Dragon Lady ain't gonna come if he don't.'

'He can come. If he wants to come buck naked, that's all right with me.'

'Yeah?'

'You guys come any way you want. Bring your lights. That's all they probably care about.'

'I don't got nothing to dress up in,' Nightmare said. 'This ain't a party you have to dress up for?'

'I'm coming like this.'

'You know I'm gonna tell Baby you said to come on up to that party buck naked.' Nightmare frowned. 'He probably gonna do it, too. Cause he's a real funny motherfucker. I mean he walks around in the street like that, all the God-damn time.' The frown broke before laughter. 'I gotta see that. Yeah, I gotta go see that shit.'

'Three Sundays,' Kid said. *

'Maybe we all come over here first?' Nightmare offered.

'Okay. I'll see you then, if I don't before.'

From the nail hung the framed photograph with the broken coverglass. Father, Mother, the two brothers and the sister gazed reprovingly in their dated dress. With black marker, on the glass, someone had drawn, across the boy's and the woman's mouth, outsized moustaches.

'Hey, there, pops!' Nightmare saluted the bearded gentleman in the photo. 'Kid, I'm gonna split. Thanks for the invitation. I'll tell the Lady. We're all waiting to hear about your next run.'

Nightmare opened the door.

Their shadows spilled the steps into night.

'So long.' Nightmare trampled his own down to the sidewalk, waved, and stalked away.

Kid looked back down the hall. All three light bulbs were working, as well as the one in the bathroom. I guess, he thought, I picked a good nest. The films of his thought hanging beyond words curled and withered, made all the motions of the thinnest tissue caught in blasting flame. I guess…

Spitt stepped out of the living room. 'We gonna eat out back, hey, Nightmare still here?' His hand, straying on his chest, concentrated its motions around the scar.

'Nope.'

'Oh.'

Behind Kid, the closing door clicked.

'He could'a stayed,' Spitt said. 'We got plenty of food for tonight—'

Kid wandered down the hall.

I am a parasite. I have never made a home. Even here, I have not instructed a home to be made. In my whole stay, though I cannot recall looking for food, among these twenty, twenty-five faces, some among them must take that care. I crawl from place to place, watching homes created or crumbling around me.

He wondered what kind of party Calkins expected.

Breath bucked from his nose; that was laughter.

On the service porch, Kid looked down into the yard (fire light on the ceiling beams), grabbed the sill of the window, reared back, vaulted: 'Whooop-peee!'

Others laughed.

'Jesus Christ,' Raven said. 'You'll break your fuckin' neck!'

Kid staggered, agonized.

Three hands came to steady him.

And three voices:

'Man, that must be fifteen feet!'

'It ain't fifteen feet — ten? Twelve? Here, Kid, have a drink. You know there's a God-damn liquor store just