Dhalgren

'You gonna let us take care of him?'

Dollar rocked his head over the wall. 'You tell him to leave me alone!' Tears made the lashes of his. left eye glisten. 'I'm gonna kill 'im! He knows it!' Dollar blinked. Tears rolled into the stubble that grew high up his pustuled cheek.

In the stillness, Kid's panic died. What surged in its place was rage. But he could find no words to bellow. He raised his hands and let a roaring breath.

Copperhead blinked and stepped back.

Dollar's eyes stopped rolling.

Kid felt some muscle leaping in his jaw and flexed his mouth to control it. He rubbed his sticky shoulder.

Glass stood in the bathroom door, Spitt, a few steps behind of him. In the open front door, Denny had one hand on the knob and the other on the molding.

Waiting for words to come to him, Kid heard talking.

'…You see that? You see that, the way he did?…' Pepper crowded in the living room door, whispered intently the D-t, who wasn't listening. '…You see the way Dollar went after that nigger, with a damn board? I bet he would've really messed him up, I bet. He better watch out for Copperhead, now, 'cause Copperhead gonna get him. You think he could beat up Copperhead? Huh? If Kid ain't come in to stop it, who do you bet would've got the other one first, huh? If Kid ain't come in…'

Between thin shoulders, heavy with chain, Pepper's face bore its ecstatic, rotted grin.

'You wait, Copperhead,' Kid said, 'till I tell you to.'

Copperhead closed his lips and, more just to move his head than to agree, nodded.

'Go on,' Kid said. 'Just don't bother with him.'

'…Yeah,' Copperhead said. His fists opened, '…only 'cause that's what you sayin'…' He turned and walked up the hall; Glass and Spitt shifted their weight.

'I'm gonna kill 'im! He knows I'm gonna—'

Copperhead turned and barreled back.

Kid hit Dollar on the side of his face with both fists meshed. It was a weak and awkward blow (and his shoulder stung and throbbed beneath the sting) but Dollar crumpled with his hands over his ears.

Copperhead grabbed Kid's shoulders (the pain in the left one went up another level) and got two kicks in around Kid's legs.

'Owe…! Naw…!'

Kid shoved Copperhead back. 'Someone get him out of here!'

No one moved.

'You two! Get this bastard out of this God-damn nest before somebody kills him!' He turned and put both hands on Copperhead's chest. Copperhead's vest hung down one arm. A chain had fallen over the other. 'You leave him alone… otherwise I'm gonna have to bust you too, and then we'll both get hurt!'

Behind him there was a scraping and jangling.

He looked over his shoulder. Denny and another scorpion (neither were the two he had yelled at) supported Dollar, who panted, lurched, and couldn't get his feet under him at all. Kid thought: He must be faking. Damn it, nobody hit him that hard.

Copperhead took another breath, swallowed, shook his head, took another.

'…Dollar would have really busted up Copperhead if Kid didn't stop him, I bet? You think he would've killed him? I bet he would've, I mean you see the way he went after Copperhead with that board? Then Kid just runnin' in like that…'

The front door opened; Dollar's feet struggled with the steps.

Kid breathed hard, clapped Copperhead's shoulder and walked past. He tried to atomize the fragments of the action. He felt terribly clear-headed. But for all his clarity, he could trace no motivations through the memories of blows and pain.

He stood on the service porch kneading his shoulder, listening to people moving again in other rooms.

'Kid…?'

The black girl Dollar had been necking with last night (from her clothes, Kid saw, she wasn't a scorpion) tucked under one arm, Copperhead, still breathing hard, stepped onto the porch. Spitt and Glass were wedged behind him.

'What?' Kid squeezed his shoulder again. 'What do you want?' The scrape from the plank had done more harm than Dollar's bite. Rabies, he thought; I'm gonna get rabies from the bastard.

'You let us go out and take care of him, okay? He's hanging around the house. He's just gonna try and make trouble. We work him over, and he'll be all quiet and nice again, once he gets better. I don't know what you're trying to do,' Copperhead said. 'But it won't work no other way.'

'I don't care,' Kid said, mainly because his shoulder hurt, 'what you do with him as long as you do it outside.'

Copperhead looked back at the other two scorpions. 'Okay,' he said thickly. 'Come on.'

The black girl stood in the doorway alone, fingering the waist of her maroon jeans. 'They shouldn't do that,' she said, with an accent out of Florida and an expression of concern.

As clear as he had felt moments back, Kid felt that dull now. Mouth opened, he nodded at her.

Later he stalked through the house, ignoring the people who moved around him. He stood at the front door, then suddenly turned and went to the porch, and stood before the door there, not really looking at the yard outside; when he became aware of it, he went into the kitchen.

Outside the screening a girl was asking: '…inside? Do you know if he's in there? The big…'

Kid opened the door.

Her knuckle leaped to her chin. Her blonde hair, caught in a barrette with plastic flowers, slipped off her shoulder as she turned her head.

'You're about eight blocks off Jackson,' Kid said.

June shook her head. 'I wasn't looking for…'

Raven (one of the scorpions who owned the Harley) rubbed his dirty hands on his vest, squeezed his long, rough hair together, took the thong from between his teeth, and tied a top-knot large as his head. 'I don't know what she wants.'

'You… you live here?' June asked.

Kid nodded. 'What do you want? If you're not looking for George, who are you looking for?'

Her hand fell from button to button on her blouse. 'My brother.'

Kid frowned.

'My big brother, Edward.'

'Oh…' Kid frowned harder. 'What makes you think you'll find him here?'

'Somebody saw… said they saw… you just…' She looked at Raven.

He had settled his thumb in his belt and stared back.

Kid beckoned her inside with a nod. She came sideways through the door. Because the sink had filled up once more, somebody had put the kettle, sides streaked with hardened soup, in the middle of the floor.

June looked at it.

Kid tried to remember how long he'd been stepping around it.

'Somebody told my mother that they'd… they thought they'd seen somebody who…'

They went into the next room.

'My parents don't know I came,' she said. 'They wouldn't have wanted me to… come here.'

Two black girls turned to watch her. A blond boy came up behind them, leaned on their shoulders, sucked in his lower lip and drawled. 'Shit…' The three laughed.

'He isn't one of them?' Kid asked. 'Is he?'

She looked at the toes of her black shoes; spots of red spread her cheek.

'You want to hunt around?'

She nodded and hurried ahead to interpose him between the leering scorpions and herself. Two more passing the doorway, the short-haired white woman (with a tattoo on her arm) and D-t, caught her eyes, till she suddenly jerked her head away and closed her mouth.

'Come on, I'll show you around.'