Dhalgren

'He doesn't like your poems and he's probably sincere. About not liking them. Thelma likes them, and she's probably just as sincere.'

'I was trying to remember her name. It was sort of hard.'

'It should be just as hard to remember his. Being sincere doesn't mean they're right. It just means they believe they are.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Yeah. Sure. That's what Frank said, about the poems.'

'Sorry.'

'He's right about the people, about what everybody here thinks.'

'Not everybody,' she said. 'I suspect not even half. Do you care what people think?'

'I care…' He paused. '… about people. The people here. So if they think that, I've got to care about that too. And I wish they didn't think what he said.'

She made a sound of assent.

'Maybe we shouldn't have come to this party,' he said.

'You want to go?'

'No. I want to stay and see what happens.' Kid opened a hand on each knee. 'It's something not to do again, maybe. But I don't think I want to leave in the middle. I'm learning too much.' He pushed from the rail and turned to the bar.

Denny said, 'What's the—?'

Kid put his arms around him: Denny's hands came up first to push, then all of a sudden went tight across Kid's back. Kid pushed his face against the dry, hot neck and thought: My face must feel cold. He held the hot shoulders and thought: My hands…

Denny moved once, was still, moved again; let his arms half down, waiting to pull away.

Kid raised his head.

Two people passing looked away.

Kid stepped back.

Denny asked, 'Are you all right?' then glanced at Lanya.

Her eyebrows moved to answer him.

'I'm okay,' Kid said and wondered if he'd contradicted her.

She asked 'You're sure?'

Kid put his hand on her bright knee. 'I'm okay. Somebody said some nasty things about my poems. Whether they're true or not, it made me mad as hell.'

Lanya sighed. 'I guess that's why I'm glad I'm not an Artist.'

'Why are you always saying that?' Kid pulled back. 'There's a whole room full of people inside listening to Diffraction right now! And enjoying it!'

'I mean—' Lanya looked uncomfortable—'I mean Artist in the way this party presupposes. Sure, I make a piece of music; or a fucking dress for that matter — you'd be astonished how similar they are! But I don't just think you can be that kind of artist any more. Lots of people do things lots better than lots of others; but, today, so many people do so many things very well, and so many people are seriously interested in so many different things people do for their own different reasons, you can't call any thing the best for every person, or even every serious person. So you just pay real attention to the real things that affect you; and don't waste your time knocking the rest. This party — it's ritual attention, the sort you give a social hero. I guess that can be an artist if there're few enough of them around—'

'— like in Bellona?'

'Bellona is a very small part of the universe. And this party is a very good place to bear that in mind. Kid, all the criticism you're going to get here, good or bad, is going to be a ritual kind.' She glanced down under his brows. 'Maybe that's what Mr Newboy was trying to tell you?'

'Maybe,' Kid said, and put his face against her shoulder. 'And maybe he was just too chickenshit to say what Frank did.'

'I don't think so.' Lanya rubbed his hair again. 'But that's just my personal reaction.'

'Frank said that too.'

'Then be generous and believe him.' She pulled back. 'You know, someday I'm going to shock you all and produce a philosophical treatise thick as The Critique of Pure Reason, The Phenomonology of Mind, and Being and Time put together! It'll be in neatly numbered, cross- referenced paragraphs, a third of it mathematical symbols. I'll call it—' she drew a thumb and forefinger across the air, top and bottom of an imaginary signboard—'Preliminary Notes toward a Calculus of Attentional and Intentional Perception, with an Analytics of Modular—I guess 'modular' is the adjective from 'modal'?—Feedback. Then you'll see. All of you!'

'You could always call it: Lanya Looks at Life,' Kid suggested.

'Poets!' Lanya exclaimed, mocking despair. 'Artists! — God!' and put her hot, pale hands around his, to cage the beasts his fingers were.

He pulled them from the cave to rest them on the brass blades turning, tic-tic-tic, on his chest.

She stood, shedding turquoise to the hem, and moved by Denny. The boy's hip pocket stuck out with corners from the control box. 'Take a walk,' Lanya said. 'You'll feel better.'

Kid nodded, started away from them, realized he was fleeing, and slowed.

Dragon Lady swung around the newel at the bottom of the steps and said to Baby: 'Now what you wanna go say that to that woman, for, huh? Huh?'

' 'Cause she said I—'

'Now why you wanna go say something like that?'

Three steps behind them, Adam walked with Nightmare; Nightmare doubled with laughter, held his stomach and staggered up the stairs. From knee to cuff one scarlet pants leg was smeared from a fall.

Adam's eyes were very wide behind loose, rough hair; his grin split, brown, over yellow teeth.

'God damn!' Dragon Lady said. 'You don't go around saying things like that.'

'Shit.' Baby's hands were locked before his groin. His head was down and his blond hair swayed as though he worried something in his teeth. 'If she hadn't said — aw, shit!'

Nightmare's hand fell on Kid's shoulder. His face came forward, fighting to explain, but exploded in laughter. He smelled very drunk. At last Nightmare just shook his head, helplessly, and staggered, loudly, away.

Kid took a breath and went on down, pondering madness's constituents. Later he could not recall where his thoughts had gone from there. And he pondered that loss more than days or names.

Below, Frank said: 'Wait a minute… wait a minute! Wait—!'

Kid held the bridge's black metal rail and looked down at the path.

They came, laughing, along the short-cut from March to October.

The rocks were covered with moss and slicked with floodlight.

'Look, now I know something that's sort of funny.'

'All right.' Black-sweatered Bill stopped, still laughing. 'What?'

Thelma stood to the side.

'You mustn't say anything nasty about him, Frank,' Ernestine said. 'I think they've all been perfectly charming, everything considered.'

'He's a nice guy,' Frank said. 'He really is. But I've met him a couple of times before, that's all. And I just —'

'Well,' drawled a man whose freckled skull was ringed with white hair, 'I haven't yet. But his friends are the funniest children I have ever seen. Oh, they put on quite a show. Gibbons, I tell you! A real bunch of little black gibbons!'

Bill said: 'Most of them aren't that little.'

'I just wonder,' Frank repeated, 'whether he actually wrote them or not.'

'Why would you think he didn't?' Bill asked, turning.

'I met him,' Frank said, 'once down in that place—Teddy's? A long time ago. I'd lost a notebook a few weeks back and I was telling him about it. Suddenly he got very excited— very upset, and called the bartender over to bring him this notebook that he told me he'd