Dhalgren

They lay on their sides, Lanya sandwiched between.

'I can feel him,' Denny whispered, 'Moving. Inside your cunt, on my dick, I can feel him.'

'So,' she whispered, 'can I,' and Shhhhhed him. Both Kid's hands were around her chest. Someone held his thumb. He thought it was her because she always used to, but it was Denny. Once he rose from a half sleep to hear them giggling together. He shifted his fingers on the live warmth of her breast. Someone squeezed his thumb again.

He woke, suddenly and fully. They were both still. His cock was erect; but as he raised his head to look down at himself, he felt it soften. He had rolled slightly to the side. His penis lowered toward Lanya's thigh.

It is not touching her, he thought.

Then, the slightest warmth. And pressure.

It is touching her.

Eyes wide, he rolled back, trying to understand by blunt reason that terrifying and marvelous transition.

I am limited, finite, and fixed. I am in terror of the infinity before me, having come through the one behind bringing no knowledge I can take on. I commend myself up to what is greater than I, and try to be good. That is wrestling with what I have been given. Do I rage at what I have not? (Is infinity some illusion generated by the way in which time is perceived?) I try to end this pride and rage and commend myself to what is there, instead of illusion. But the veil is the juncture of the perceived and perception. And what in life can rip that? Is the only prayer, then, to live steadily and dully, doing and doubting what the mind demands? I am limited, finite, and fixed. I rage for reasons, cry for pity. Do with me what way you will.

5

He woke…

As Kid sat, Denny's hand fell from his. Lanya rolled back a little to press against him again.

Kid's side cooled.

He thought of her side cooling.

He watched Denny, in sleep, rub his stomach where she had just lain. Kid's pants were wedged against the wall. Hanging his feet over the edge, he shook out the rumpled legs. He lifted one knee and set his heel on the board (his ankle was very dirty) to stare at the circling chain. What circled his mind, what had been running there since sleep, was: '…Susan Morgan, William Dhalgren, Peter Weldon… Susan Morgan, William Dhalgren, Peter Weldon…' Pondering, he shook it out.

He pushed his feet out the cuff, got his boot, his vest, his chains, and swung around to the post and climbed down. Raven was gone.

He noticed the silence just as it ended with voices in the other rooms. He could not decide whether it had been a few coincident seconds, or a protracted hush, begun before his waking, ending. Restless, he walked into the hall.

And recognized her blue sweatshirt as she turned into the service porch. When he reached the door, she was going down the steps into the yard. He followed.

Halfway into evening, the sky above the littered and trampled dirt was without feature.

Angel, Filament, and Thruppence, under Copperhead's supervision, were trying to start a fire.

Raven, Spider, D-t, and Jack the Ripper, with Tarzan the one white among them, sat on crates or stood at the back of the yard, passing two gallon jugs, both half empty, and arguing.

She looked up, saw him at the head of the steps, and (he thought) started. 'Hi,' she said with a very puzzled look and brushed a feathering of hair back from her face.

'Hey.' He came down the steps.

She looked at his foot.

It had been a long time since he had even been around anyone who noticed his half-shod eccentricity. He thought about the coming party, found his mind rummaging again through Bunny's tale of the afternoon, and pushed away the discomfort with laughter.

She looked more uncomfortable. 'I just wanted to come over and say hello to some of the guys,' she explained. 'I'm living over there, now,' indicated only with a turned head that turned right back. 'You know that commune you guys used to hit up in the park? Well, some of the ones from there come over to our place a lot — our house is just girls — but anybody can come and visit.'

Kid nodded.

She folded her arms across the full, faded sweatshirt. 'This place is—' she looked around the rubble—'is sort of nice.'

'You come over here to see Denny?'

She looked down at her baggy elbow. 'What do you. want with him? I mean what are you—' she tightened her arms—'going to do with him? I want him back.'

Jack the Ripper glanced across the fireplace, glanced away. Kid thought: She has learned, when she lived like this, to hold such converse in a space full of people.

'I want him. What do you need him for?'

He thought she was going to cry, but she just coughed.

'He just isn't that smart. Those poems you wrote? I read them, all of them. When I was in school, we read poetry and stuff and I liked it. I was the smartest person in my class — one of them, anyway. Denny won't read them because he can't even say the words. You ever hear him try to read the newspaper? But I read them. The part about me bringing you the whisky when you were in the bathtub washing off the blood, and saying good-bye? I read about that and I understood it. But the stuff in there about him, if he read it, he wouldn't even get it I bet. What do you want him for, huh? Why don't you give him back?' She began to look to either side. 'I'm sorry.'

'I don't keep him from seeing you.'

'I know,' she said. 'I'm sorry. I'm gonna go.'

She dropped her arms and went around him to go up the stairs.

Lanya, in jeans and blouse, stood in the doorway. The two girls looked at one another. Then the one in the blue sweatshirt sighed. Lanya glanced after her, then looked back at Kid.

Kid frowned.

Jack the Ripper, by the fire now, looked over, his smile between sympathy and complicity, and shook his head.

Kid walked up the steps. 'You just get up?'

'Only seconds, I'm sure, after you did. I heard you talking to her when we came out of the porch; so I decided I'd come out and listen. She seems like a nice kid.'

He shrugged. 'Denny still asleep?'

'Nope.'

Kid sat on the step below her. They both had to move legs when Devastation came down to wander over to the fire, to stand with his hands in his back pockets.

'He got up with me,' Lanya explained. 'We were going to come out and surprise you while you were wandering around looking preoccupied. I told him we couldn't do it if you were anywhere near a pencil and paper. But then, when we got to the porch, we saw you talking to her.'

'Where's Denny?'

'He saw her, covered his mouth with both hands — I thought he was going to blurt out something, God knows what — ducked behind me, and ran. I'm not sure if he's locked himself in the bathroom, or just split. No, the bathroom doesn't have a lock, does it? She didn't see him — he made enough noise!' She rested her chin on her fist. 'The poor girl. I feel sorry for her.'

'Mean little bastard, isn't he?'

'You think so?'

'He is to her. He is to you. To me. I can take it.' Kid shrugged. 'What are you going to do when he decides one day when you come to see him he doesn't want to see you?'

'Take it, I suppose.' She sighed. 'He really should have talked to her. How old is