Dhalgren

In the hallway the girl in maroon levis was talking to Siam. June looked at the photograph with its cracked glass at the same time Siam and the girl looked at her.

It's because, he realized, she stands so far away from me, so nervously, that makes them stare like that. She circles, she still circles, she circles in. Yet she's so far away! It's not even (the realization went on) that she's a pretty girl, but rather that there are over two dozen people living in here and the isolation she demands about her destroys our concept of human space. That their hostility comes out in sexual leers and sexual jibes ('You see that pussy walk through here?' somebody, male or female, he wasn't sure, said in the next room. 'Where's my knife and fork?') is a generic response to something far more personal than her gender — though she may not understand that for years. Some people are very young at seventeen.

'You don't live in the park any more?' June asked.

'Nope.' He looked out on the porch and into the yard. 'He's not one of those?'

She shook her head without, he thought, looking.

'Maybe in here.' They crossed the hall; Kid opened the door.

It was hot and even Kid sometimes wondered how they slept in the charred half-dark. Four, a girl among them, naked on the big mattress in the corner, sweated inertly, breaths hissing in different rhythms. Cathedral with his back against the wall reading a book whose cover had come off (—Brass Orchids: Kid recognized the title page). In deference to the sleepers, he had not raised the shade. The lion, crouched on the sill, read over his shoulder.

Kid stepped forward.

June, her hand loose before her face once more, followed.

The closet door had been taken down and propped up on boxes. An open sleeping bag hung off it onto the floor. A boy and girl, both with long hair, slept there together. Neither were scorpions and the boy (his hand curled against her neck) looked as though he would have slept easier in the commune.

Someone (Angel?) rummaged inside the closet. Things rumbled and fell and growled, punctuated by, '…shit…' and '…God damn…' and '…shit!..' and '…shit…'

Since Kid had last been in the room, someone had hung up a poster of George as the Moon. Around it were a half dozen Playboy centerfolds, two covers from Black Garters, and lots of naked women playing tennis at some nudist camp.

June closed her fists so tightly in the skirt of her green jumper, they shook.

This is an act, Kid thought. But then, so is this.

'Eddy?' Her voice was firm for all her quivering arms.

'Huh?… Oh, hey…' It was the square-jawed blond scorpion who'd harassed Pepper. 'What are you… just a second.' He pushed the blanket off his feet and began to lace his sneakers. He snapped his jeans together and searched for his vest. Hair, light as his sister's, made a crushed and sprung helmet of gold foil too big for his head.

'I've… I've never seen anything like this in my life!' June accused, softly. Her face looked as though, expecting milk, she had swallowed orange juice. She actually said: 'Eddy… is it really you?'

'Just a second,' the blond repeated, got his vest on, and stood, unsteadily on the mattress. He looked too old for Kid's picture of June's other brother. His forehead was creased. His temples were high. Like I'm a baby face, Kid thought, maybe you'd just think he was over twenty-five: but there was a certain youthful unsurety of movement. Like his sister's. Their eyes and upper lips were identical. His lower one was fuller than hers — more like Mrs Richards'. He came toward them. 'What'd you come here for?'

'We thought you'd gone to another city, Eddy!' She looked past his shoulder and back. 'Oh… if Daddy and Mommy could see you here, in this, like this, they'd just… die… they'd die…'

'What do you want?'

'To talk to you. To see you. To see if you were really… Somebody said they'd seen somebody who looked like—'

'Just a second,' Eddy said. 'I gotta go to the — I mean I just woke up.' He touched his sister's shoulders, then stepped past Kid into the hall. 'I'll be right back…'

California turned over on the mattress.

Cathedral looked up from the book.

June's eyes flicked about the shadowed room, caught once on the poster, dodged it. 'I liked your book very… I thought it was nice… the part you wrote about us when… no, no!' She said after a moment: 'Eddy lives here with you… I mean how long has he…'

Kid shrugged.

'My mother likes your book too,' she said after another moment. 'She gave it to a few of…'

When she didn't finish, he said: 'Say hello for me.'

'I wouldn't dare!' After a second, she closed her mouth. 'Oh, I couldn't

It isn't worth getting angry, Kid thought. He leaned against the doorway edge. Angel, in the closet, looked out, said, 'What…?' got no answer, shrugged, and went back in. I don't answer because there is nothing to say. She turns and stares fixedly at some pile of bedding on the floor she does not really see, sure an answer is demanded of her.

He could walk away and leave her to wait alone.

'Watch it,' Glass said behind him.

Kid turned.

'Got it.' Spitt hefted Dollar's ankles up under his arms.

'You just put him in there,' Copperhead said. 'He'll be all right.'

June had turned too. Kid was impressed how well, for her nervousness, she looked interested but not hysterical.

Dollar's shoulder hit the door.

'Back him up there, huh?' Glass lifted Dollar roughly by the arm, stepped over, and walked him through.

'…you see that? You see how they done him? He was just hanging around outside, he didn't even run or nothing, when they came after him. Shit, they didn't do that much. Soon as Copperhead hit him the third time he crumpled right up like that. He ain't even got a bloody nose. His eye looks pretty bad, though…'

Below the eye the puffy cheek was scraped. Dollar's arms flopped out on either side. His belt was opened.

'I think he fakin',' Copperhead told Kid, scratching his head. 'I think he just didn't want to get hit no more, and he's just fakin'. But he's fakin' pretty good.'

'He didn't run when he saw you coming?' Kid asked.

'Where was he gonna run?' Copperhead held his right fist in his left hand. The freckled knuckles were bleeding. 'Put him down on that one.'

Kid looked, but couldn't see Glass's hands.

Angel came out of the closet again, looked around, said, 'Aw, Jesus Christ…' shook his head, and again went back inside.

By the window, Cathedral, who had closed his book, opened it again.

'They put him on Eddy's…?' June began.

The couple on the door shifted. The counterpoint of the naked scorpions' snoring went on without change.

'Excuse me, huh?' With a glare Eddy stepped around Pepper. He walked to his mattress, squatted, and pulled a hank of chains out from under Dollar's shoulder. He looked up at Kid. 'They got him?' He shook his head, picked up the blanket and pulled it up over Dollar's shoulders.

That, Kid thought, is for her. The room was too hot for blankets.

Putting on his chains, Eddy came back to the door. 'What did you come here for?'

'I don't know… I just don't know — I just don't understand how you can…'

Spitt and Glass had gone. Copperhead looked at June, frowned at Kid, and left.

'Come on,' Kid said. 'You people want to talk? Let's go out on the porch, huh? People are sleeping here, right?'

Kid let them go first, and took up Eddy's rear.