Dhalgren

'Three people have told me how great your dress is,' which was true. 'Denny's doing a good job.'

'You're a doll!' She clapped his cheeks between her palms and kissed him on the nose.

Cathedral, California, and Thruppence ambled below them on the path, light and dark shoulders together. I feel responsible for them, he thought, recalling her initial efforts. He laughed.

Her dress began to broil with green and lavender.

She saw and asked, 'Where's Denny gotten off to? Let's go look for him.'

They did and could not find him, spoke to others, and then Kid lost her again.

From the high rocks of—'October,' said the plaque on the rust-ringed birdbath — he looked down toward the terrace.

Two women he had not met, with Bill (whom he had) between them, had cornered Baby and were talking at him intently. Baby smiled very hard, his paper plate just under his chin. Sometimes he dropped his head to nod, sometimes to scrape up another and another forkful. Once in a while someone across the terrace, when they were sure they were unobserved, would glance — two ladies, one after another, maneuvered for the better view, noticed they were observed, and walked away.

Someone was in the bushes behind him.

Kid looked around: Jack the Ripper backed out; from the movement of his elbows, he was closing his fly. He turned. 'Huh?… oh, it's just you, man.' He grinned, bent, adjusted himself. 'Scared somebody gonna see me back there takin' a leak.'

'There's a bathroom in the house somewhere.'

'Shit. I didn't wanna go askin' around for that. My piss ain't gonna kill no flowers. This is a real nice place, huh. A real nice party. Everybody's real nice. You havin' a nice time? I sure am.'

Kid nodded. 'You catch Baby when he came in?'

'No,' the Ripper drawled with a wildly interrogative cadence.

'You said you wanted to see what the reaction was. I missed it. I was wondering if you caught it.'

'God damn!' The Ripper snapped his fingers. 'You know I wasn't even looking?'

'There he is.'

'Where?'

Kid nodded toward the terrace.

The Ripper stuck his hands in the back of his pants. 'What they talkin' about?'

Kid shrugged.

'Hey, man!' The Ripper's hands came loose again. 'I gotta go down and hear this.' He grinned at Kid who started to say something. But the Ripper was off along the rocks.

At the four-foot terrace wall, the Ripper straight-armed up, scrambled over — half a dozen looked — and jumped. A bopping lope took him to the bar. The white bartender gave him two drinks. He came to the corner, thrust one glass at Baby and said loud enough for Kid to hear: 'Now I know you want a drink, Baby, 'cause you gonna need something to keep you warm.'

Several people laughed.

Baby took the drink in both hands — he had put his plate down on the wall — and looked as though he were about to dive into it. But Bill and the two women merely made room, and continued.

Seconds later, the Ripper, all weight on one leg, heavy lower lip sucked in and long head quizzically cocked, stood rapt, nodding in unison with Baby.

Curious at their low converse, Kid walked away from it into March.

Only one light worked here, anchored high and harsh on an elm. Captain Kamp stood silhouetted at the vertex of his shadow. 'Hello, now, I was just coming back this way… you enjoying yourself?' Backlight made him ominous; his voice was cheerful. 'I was just over there taking a—' (Kid expected him to say 'leak')—'look in the August gardens. There're no lights in there, so I guess people are staying clear. But you can see down into the city. A few street lights are still on. I'm not too good at this ersatz host business. And this party takes some hosting.' Kamp stepped up. Kid turned to walk with him. 'Now I sure wish Roger would get here.'

'Doesn't look like anyone's missed him too much.'

'I have. I'm just not used to all this… well, sort of thing. I mean, trying to be in charge of it.'

'I guess I'd like to meet him.'

'Sure. Of course you would.' Kamp nodded as they came nearer the house. 'I mean he's giving this party for you, for your book. You'd think he'd… but now I'm pretty sure he'll get here. You don't worry now.'

'I'm not and don't mean to start.'

'You know I was thinking—' they walked up the stone steps—'about some of the things we were talking about when I first met you.'

'That was a strange evening. But it came after a strange day.'

'Sure did. Have you seen Roger's observatory?' Kamp interrupted himself. 'Perhaps you'd like to go up and see it.'

Kid was curious at the transition rather than the suggestion. 'Okay.'

Coming down the terrace, Lady of Spain, Spider, Angel, Raven and Tarzan, circled gangling D-t:

'D-t, man, you gotta see this!'

'I ain't never seen no garden like this before. All them flowers—'

'— and a big fountain that works and all.'

'Come on. We gonna show you.' Lady of Spain tugged his arm.

'D-t, you ain't never seen no garden as pretty as this in your whole life!'

'I guess—' Kamp opened the door for Kid—'I'm just not used to it. I mean all these different… kinds of people. Like that boy back there walking around with no clothes on? And everybody going on just like there was nothing wrong.' The large, dark room was lined with books. In candlelight some dozen people sat on the floor or on hassocks. Several looked up from a tape recorder from which organ music flowed. One man (Kid remembered his making some joke in November about the smoke) said, 'Kid? Captain? Would you like to join us? We were just listening to some—'

'We're going to the observatory.' Kamp opened another door.

The organ piece ended; after a slight pause, a long note bent. Then another… They were playing Diffraction.

Kid smiled as he walked after Kamp down a hall nearly black. He could hear Lanya's whistle. At the top of a stairway Kid saw faint light. The carpeting was thick and so warm under his bare foot he wondered if there were heating on.

'I suppose it wouldn't be so bad if Roger was here. But being left in charge of a party for a bunch of people that, frankly, I'd put out of my house…'

Kid was quietly amazed and wondered what Kamp was thinking in the pause.

'…I just don't know what to do. Do you know what I mean?'

Anything, Kid thought, I say will sound angry and stupid. He said, 'Sure,' and followed Kamp up the stairs.

'A few months ago,' Kamp said, 'I was in some experiments. They didn't have anything to do with the moon. In fact I had to get a special release from the Space Program to participate. Some students of a friend of mine at Michigan were running tests, and I guess he thought it would be a feather in his cap to get me for a guinea pig. Now, it'd been so long since I had anything to do that wasn't in some way connected with the Program, I went along with it. They were experiments on sensory deprivation and overload.' At the head of the steps, Kamp waited for Kid before starting up a third flight.

He led Kid across a brick floor to a double doorway.

'I was in the overload part. It was all pretty amateurish, actually.'

Kid stepped onto what first seemed a semi-circular balcony.

Faintly, below, a room full of people began to clap in time to the music—

'I guess they'd all been reading too many articles on LSD—'

— and shouted.

'— I took LSD back in the late fifties — more tests, that this psychiatrist friend of mine was running. But I've always been a little ahead of what's going on. Anyway, I know what it's like, LSD. And I'm pretty sure most of those kids setting up those experiments in Michigan didn't.'