Dhalgren

the green—

The girl who was darker even than his mother rolled to her side: someone else's yellow hair fell from her back and spread. And her hands on the man's face were suddenly hidden by his hands on hers (in the pile of clothing he recognized another uniform, but blue-black where his father's was green) and she was moving against him now, and there was a grass blade against her calf that slipped first one way, then the other.

He held his breath, forgot he was holding it: then it all came out in a surprising at-once that was practically not a note at all. So he got more air back in his lungs and began another.

'Hey, look!' from the other naked one, on elbows and laughing: 'We got company!' and pointing.

So his sound, begun between song and sigh, ended in laughter; he ran back through the brush, pulling a music from their laughing till his was song again. He cantered down the path.

Some boys came up the path (this part of the wood was traveled as any park), thumbs in their jeans, hair all points and lines and slicks. Two of them were arguing (also, he saw as they neared, one of the boys was a girl), and one with carroty hair and small eyes glared at him.

He hunched, intently, and didn't look back at them, even though he wanted to. They were bad kids, he decided. Dad had told him to stay away from bad kids.

Suddenly he turned and sang after them, trying to make the music stealthy and angular till it became laughter again. He had reached the playground that separated the woods from town.

He mixed his music with the shouting from the other side of the fence. He rippled his fingers on the wire and walked and looked through: children clustered at the sliding board. But their scuffle had turned to shouts.

Beyond that were street sounds. He walked out among them and let his song pick them up. Cars, and two women talking about money, and something bang-banging in the big building with the corrugated walls: emerging from that, foot-rhythms. (Men in construction-helmets glanced at him.) That made him sing louder.

He walked up a hill where the houses got bigger, with lots of rock between. Finally (he had been flipping his fingers along the iron bars of the gate) he stopped to really look in (now going Hummmm, and hmmmmm, hmmmm, and hmmmmm) at the grass marked with tile squares, and a house that was very big and mostly glass and brick. A woman sat between two oaks. She saw him, cocked her head curiously, smiled — so he sang for her Ahhhhhhhhh — she frowned. He ran down the street, down the hill, singing.

The houses weren't so big any more.

The ribs of day cracked on the sky. But he didn't look up at the planes this time. And there were lots more people.

Windows: and on top of the windows, signs: and on top of the signs, things that turned in the wind: and on top of those, blue where wind you couldn't see went—

'Hey, watch it—'

He staggered back from a man with the dirtiest wrists he had ever seen. The man repeated: 'Watch where you're God-damn going—' to nobody, and lurched away. He drew his song in till it bubbled around his mouth. He was going to turn and run down the next street…

The brick were cracked. A plank had come away from the window.

Trash heaped beside the door.

No wind, and warm; the street was loud with voices and machinery, so loud he could hardly catch rhythm for his song.

His sounds — long and lolling over his tongue now — were low, and he heard them under, not over, the noise.

'Hey, look out—'

'What the—'

'Hey, did you see that—'

He hadn't.

'What are you—'

People turned. Somebody ran past him close, slapping black moccasins on the stone.

'Those bastards from the reservation!'

'That's one of their kids, too.'

He wasn't; and neither was his mother — she was from…? Anyway, he tried to sing that too, but was worried now. He turned the corner into an alley crowded with warm-weather loungers.

Two women, bony and delighted, stood in the doorway:

One: 'Did you see that?'

The other laughed out loud.

He smiled; that changed his sound again.

From the next doorway, fat and ragged, face dirty as the drunkard's wrists, she carried a cloth bag in one fist, with the other beat at the trash. She turned, lumbering in the heap, blinked at him.

His music stuttered, but took it in. He hurried onto the avenue, dodged around seven nuns, started to run, but turned to watch them.

They walked slowly and talked quickly, with sharp small voices. Falls of white broke at breast and knee; black scuffed toes wrinkled white hems.

People stepped around them.

'Good morning, sisters.'

Sisters nodded and smiled, probably because it was afternoon. They walked straight, brushing and brushing.

He tried to fit the rhythm of their walk into his music. He glanced around the street, hurried on, making his sounds longer and longer; hurried till he was running and each note took half a block.

Ran around another corner.

And all his breath came hissing between his teeth.

The man's palm lifted, his finger tips stayed down to draw wet lines on the pavement, before he rolled over to show most of the wound. The one standing swayed and sweated. When the woman at the other corner began to call out, 'Ohma'god! Ohma'god, he-e-elp!' the standing man ran.

He watched him run, and screamed, a little, twice.

The man on the street was grunting.

Someone running joggled him and he stepped back, with another sound; then he ran too and what had begun as music was now a wail. He ran until he had to walk. He walked until he had to stop singing. Then he ran again: Throat raw, he wailed again.

Once he passed a clutch of unshaven men; one pointed at him, but another put a bottle in the hand shucked with purple.

He ran.

He cried.

He cut across the corner of the woods. He ran some more.

He ran on the wide street under a ribbon of evening. Lights came on like twin necklaces suddenly unrolled down the avenue, traffic and tail beacons between. He shrieked. And fled from the street because people were looking.

This street was more familiar. Noise hurt his throat. Sharp lights in his eyes; hedges marred with darkness. And he was roaring now—

'For God's sake—!'

He came up hard against her hands! Mother, and he tried to hug her, but she was holding him back.

'Where have you been? What is the matter with you, shouting around in the street like that?'

His mouth snapped. Sound to deafen built behind his teeth.

'We've been looking for you nearly half the day!'

None of it escaped. He was panting. She took his arm and led him.

'Your father—' who was turning the corner now— 'comes home the first time in two weeks, and you decide to go running off!'

'There he is! Where did you find him!' and his father laughed and that at least was some sound. But not his.