Dhalgren

get you, you know? You got a whole lot of space to walk around in. Something gets you here, you walk on over there. Something gets you there, you go on someplace else. If it happens a third time, come tell me about it. Understand? There's no strange sun in the sky tonight.'

'Nothing's wrong, Kid. Everything's okay.' The distressful smile went; Dollar just looked sad. 'Really.'

'Good.' Kid let go Dollar's neck and looked at Denny. 'You having a good time?'

'I guess so.' Denny's shirt, unbuttoned, hung out of his pants. 'Yeah.'

A group came through the ivied gate, scorpions and others, following Ernestine Throckmorton.

Dollar said, 'Oh, hey!' and jogged, jangling, after them, around the pool and out another entrance.

'I'm going to take this off.' Denny shrugged from his vest, got the control box from his pocket, slipped out of his shirt, and sat, turning the box in one hand, the other slung among his chains. 'Lanya says I've been doing a good job. This little thing is something, huh?'

Kid sat down and put his hand on Denny's dry, knobby back. In the boy's glance some relief flickered.

Kid rubbed his back.

Denny said, 'Why you doin' that?' But he was smiling at his lap.

'Because you like it.' Kid moved his hand up the sharp shoulder blade and down, pressing. Denny rocked with each rub.

'Sometimes,' Lanya said and Kid turned, 'I envy you two.'

Kid did not stop rubbing and Denny did not look up.

'Why?' Denny moved his shoulders, reached up to scratch his neck.

'I don't know. I supposed it's because you can let people — let Kid know you want things I'd be afraid to ask for.'

'You want your back rubbed?' Kid asked.

'Yes.' She grinned. 'But not now.'

'I watch the two of you,' Kid said, 'when you're playing. When you're throwing things at one another; tugging one another around all the time. I envy you.'

'You…?' Lanya reached for Denny's shoulder.

But Denny suddenly stood and stepped forward.

Kid wondered if he'd seen her reaching, watched her face pass through hurt and her hand withdraw.

Denny turned on the pool edge and laughed. 'Aw, you two are all—' He twisted a knob.

From neck to hem she glittered black; black granulated silver; scarlet poured about her. 'Hey, see, I got it good!'

'You sure do,' Lanya said.

Kid stood and took her arm. 'Come on.'

'Where are we …?'

Kid grinned: 'Come on!'

She raised a brow and came, intently curious.

Denny followed them; his confusion looked much less sharp than hers.

On the other side of the ivied stone, Ernestine apostrophized: '…chunk crab meat, not the stringy kind! Then eggs. Then a few bread crumbs. And bay seasoning. When I lived in Trenton, I'd have to have it sent up from Maryland. But Mrs Alt — nobody could have been more surprised than I was — found an entire shelf full in a store down on Temple…'

At the silent edge, Dollar muttered reverently: '…God damn…'

'Bay seasoning,' Ernestine reiterated as Kid and Lanya and Denny passed around her, 'is the most important thing.'

On the path to the next garden, Denny whispered: 'Where are we going?'

'Through here,' Kid said. 'The lights are out in here…'

'August,' Lanya said.

They stepped into flakey darkness. Grass slid cool between Kid's toes. He clutched; it slipped away with the next step; tickling again.

The next stop was surprising stone.

He rocked his naked foot: Wet, cold… rough. His shod one stayed steady.

'I think there's a—'. Lanya's voice echoed. She paused to listen to the reverberations—'some sort of underpass.'

They came from under it four steps later.

'I didn't even see us go in.' Denny stepped forward in the night grass.

Kid curled his free toes again, lifted his foot; grass tore.

'Hey, you can see the city, almost,' Denny said.

Beyond a ruffed, stone beast, blurs of light were snipped off across the bottom by buildings. Implied hills, slopes, or depressions patterned the darkness around.

'Calkins' place can soak up a lot of people.' The high trees — like small cypresses — were carbon dark against the muzzy night. Kid tried to see down into Bellona. One tall… building? It had perhaps a dozen windows lit.

'How odd,' Lanya said. 'All the limits go, and you can't believe there's really any more to it. We're used to objects like icebergs or oilwells where you know most of it is under ground or water. But something like a city at night, with great stretches of it blotted or obscured, that's a very different—'

'You guys,' Denny interrupted. 'I don't envy you… I guess. But you two can talk about things that, you know, are just so far beyond me I don't even know how to ask questions sometimes. I listen. But sometimes when I don't understand-or even when I do, I just wanna fuckin' cry, you know?' When they were silent, he asked again, 'You know?'

Lanya nodded. 'I do.'

Denny breathed out and looked.

They stood apart and felt very close.

Kid watched her dress catch what light there was and glitter dim crimson, with waves of navy, or green of the evening ocean.

'What's that?' Denny asked.

Kid looked beyond them. 'A fire.'

'Where do you think it is?' Lanya asked.

'I can't tell. I don't really know where we are.' He stepped up and put his hand on her shoulder: The metallic cloth prickled. Her skin was cool.

Denny's, under his other hand, was fever hot and, as usual, paper dry.

Kid wanted to walk.

So they walked with him, a hip on either hip, hitting to different rhythms. He'd slipped his hands across their backs to their outer shoulders. The hand on Lanya's shoulder was still.

Denny put his arm around Kid's back.

Lanya's arms were folded, her vision distanced while she walked and watched the charred city.

Then she put her head on his shoulder (still watching), her arm around him, her shoulder more firmly in the place beneath his arm, brought her thigh against his thigh.

And was still watching.

They walked beside the waist-high wall. This is the largest garden, Kid thought. Denny shifted his step—

'What?' Kid asked.

'One of the spotlights that ain't working…' Denny had just stepped around it.

They crossed cool flags.

Leaves rasped away the silence. A breeze? While he walked beneath the loud, black fleece of some high elm or oak, he waited for the warm or cool gust. Silence returned; he'd felt neither.

'Why don't it ever burn up here?' Denny asked, too softly, too intently. His shoulder twitched in Kid's hand. 'Why don't it just all burn up or something, the whole thing? It just goes on and…' Kid ceased to knead, rubbed now.

Denny took another deep breath, fast, then let it out over the next five steps.