Dhalgren

'If it comes out of a can,' Kid said, 'it's cooked.'

'That's what I thought,' Denny said.

He sipped, stinging the roof of his mouth. The sensation took seconds to subside to simple heat. He was looking, desultorily, for either Pepper or the scorpion who'd harassed him. He could spot neither around the fire. And people were going in and out of the house again.

Glass, Spitt, and Copperhead, less formally posed, but still together, stood to the side of the yard eating ham and soup. Kid doffed his cup.

'Can you hear that?' Glass asked.

'Hear what?'

'Listen,' Spitt said.

Kid bent over the soup while it steamed his chin. The yard was filled with voices. 'What?'

'There,' Spitt said.

Perhaps two blocks away, a man screamed. The sound went on and on, died at the length of a long breath, and began again, this time shaking and breaking.

'You wanna go check it out?' Copperhead took another bite of ham. A line of grease glistened from the corner of his mouth into his beard.

'Naw,' Kid said.

'You're the big hero, man,' Copperhead said. 'Don't you wanna go help a gentleman in distress?' Copperhead laughed.

'No, I…'

The man screamed again.

Momentarily Kid pictured the four of them foraging beyond the firelight, through darkened streets, the ululation filling the night about them.

'No, I don't wanna. I got Pepper fed. That's my heroics for the night.' He sipped loudly and walked back among the scorpions around the fire. When the neighbors are shrieking… went through his mind but could not remember who'd said it.

'Here, Kid. You wanna use my fork?'

It was the blond scorpion who had tried to eject Pepper.

'Thanks.' It was a long-handled, three-pronged laundry fork. Kid took a chunk of ham and squatted beside the fire. He squinted before flame. Trying to drink his soup, he spilled more over his hand. And even with the long fork, his knuckles were painfully hot. The blond scorpion, squatting beside Kid, watched the meat bubble and char. 'Thanks for the fork,' Kid said again after a few minutes and sipped from the cup once more.

The screaming had stopped.

Or there was too much noise to hear.

4

'Hey, Tak!'

'Kid?'

'What are you doing?'

'What are you doing? Can you get down from there? You better watch out…'

Kid let go of the beam and crabbed down the rubble, raising dust banks behind and an avalanche before.

'That was impressive,' Tak said. 'You're still going around with one shoe? You must have a sole on that foot like an oak board.'

'Naw.' Kid beat his foot again his black jeans, both legs grey to the knee. 'Not really.'

'You exploring in there?' Tak pushed up his cap to watch the smoke curl back through the girders. 'How come you don't have the rest of the nest? I didn't think scorpions ever traveled alone.'

'I come,' Kid shrugged. 'I go. I take them on runs. Where you going?'

'I'm on a mission of mercy for your girl friend.'

'Lanya?'

'I volunteered to help her with her dress for your party.'

Kid tried to hold back his laughter. It burst his lips' seal and lights shot either in his eyes or in the windows of the warehouse across from them.

'What's so funny?'

'She's got you turned into a seamstress?'

'She does not. Come on and I'll show you something interesting.'

They walked the littered streets.

'You're going to come to the party, aren't you?'

'Not,' Tak said, 'on your fucking life.'

'Huh? oh, man, come on. Calkins wants me to bring my friends. I'm going to take the whole nest along. Don't you want to see what happens when all us freaks get turned loose in there?'

'Not terribly. But I suspect Calkins does — though I've never met the man.'

'Aw, come on, Tak—'

'No. Somebody's got to be around to read about it in the next day's gossip column. That's my job. You just have a good time and drink a glass of brandy for me. Swipe a bottle if they've got any good stuff and bring it back. I'm down to Gold Leaf. Somebody got into my liquor connection and made off with just about everything worth drinking.'

'We got a liquor store right around our corner. What do you drink? It's got everything. Anything you want. You just tell me, and I'll get it for you.'

'Five Star Courvoisier.' Tak laughed his whisky growl and hooked his cap down. 'Come on.' As they left the corner, he asked, 'How long you been up?'

'A few hours.'

'Oh,' Tak said. 'Because I got up very early, when it was still getting light. I came over here, and you could see flames…' He nodded down the side street where turbulent smoke blocked vision less than two blocks away.

'You could?'

'Now it's just…' Tak nodded again.

Smoke bellied and heaved about the upper stories. The sky was thick as cheese and eveninged without shadows. I don't (Kid thought) get thirsty any more, but I'm always hoarse. Three boots and one foot ground the gritty street.

'Tak, where's the monastery from here? I don't mean Reverend Amy's church. I mean the monastery.'

'Now this is…' Tak stopped. 'This goes up into the city and turns into Broadway. You just go straight on to the other end of Broadway and you run right into it.'

'Yeah?… Just like that?'

'It's a long walk. I don't know if that bus is still running. Over here.' Tak stepped into the street.

The freight ramp sloped to a wooden door studded with rivet heads the size of fifty-cent pieces. Above, on rust-ringed iron, aluminum letters, forward on bolts, announced cleanly: MSE WAREHOUSE SPACE. By the door a black plaque reflected Kid's face askew. White letters obscured his eyes and lips: Mateland Systems Engineering Warehouse. Kid struggled momentarily with a memory of Arthur Richards while Tak took the hasp in both hands, grunted. The door rumbled back from a plank of blackness. Tak looked at his hands, their cleanness emphasized by swipes of rusty grease.

'Go on in.' Tak held his hands from his hips to keep them from his pants.

Kid stepped in and heard his breath's timbre change. Iron steps rose to a concrete porch.

'Go on up.'

Kid did and stepped sideways through the door at their head.

The skylight, three stories above, mapped continents in dirt and light, among longitudinal and latitudinal tessellations.