Dhalgren

Glass and Dollar climbed up the slope among the brush and saplings.

Kid turned before Dollar reached the top.

I want, among all these people who are here because of me, one to come up and tap me on the shoulder and ask me if I'm all right, if I feel okay, say come on, let's go get a drink, after that you must need one. And, God-damn it, I don't want to go all hangdog looking for some person who'll oblige. I just want it to happen. Sometimes the pressure of vision against the retina or sound against the drum exhausts. Where have I lost myself, where have I laid the foundation of this duct? Walking in these gardens, it is as if the nervous surface of the mind registering the passage of tune itself has, by its exercise, been rubbed and inflamed.

Did I write…?

Finding the thought was like looking down again at a pattern of tiles he'd been walking over for hours.

Did I…?

The sublimest moment I remember (Kid pondered) was when I sat naked under that tree with the notebook and the pen, putting down one word then another, then another, and listening to the ways they tied, while the sky greyed out of night Oh, please, whatever I lose, dont let me lose that one—

'Hey, Kid!'

'Huh?'

But the Ripper had only called in passing, with a wave, and was walking on.

Kid nodded hesitantly back. Then he frowned. And for the life of him could not remember what he'd just been thinking. The only word on his mind was… artichokes.

Spider, alone in October, sat on the ground, half in darkness, beside the floodlight, swabbing at his belly with a bunched piece of newsprint. It kept flapping, bloody, in front of the glaring glass.

'Are you all right?' Kid asked.

'Huh? Oh, yeah.' Spider mashed the paper smaller. 'You just scratched me, you know. It didn't bleed too much.'

'I'm really sorry,' Kid said. 'You feel okay? I didn't see you.'

Spider nodded. 'I know.' He crumpled the paper some more. 'I'm a fuckin' mess—' he pulled his boot heels under him and got to his feet—'but it was just a scratch.' He held back his vest and brushed himself with the paper, pressed it to himself. 'It was only really bleeding bad at one end.'

Kid looked up at the black youngster's lowered face. 'You sure it's okay now?'

'I guess so. Now. Man, you scared me to death, though I was expecting to see my guts come out all over the grass.'

'I'm sorry, man. Lemme see?'

Spider stared down.

His stomach looked like someone had smeared the teak flesh with paint. From one end of the cut, red threaded down toward his belt. The left side of his pants lap was black maroon. He blotted his belly again.

'You're bleeding like a pig!' Kid said.

'It's just a cut.' Spider touched his stained stomach with his fingertips (He bites his nails, too, Kid thought), felt the taut skin over the top of his navel, pulled the waist of his pants out to unstick it. 'It don't hurt none.'

'Maybe they have something inside, some bandages or something. Come on—'

'It's stopping,' Spider said. 'It's gonna stop soon.'

He turned the stained paper around, examining it.

Blood is a living tissue, Kid thought, remembering his high school biology teacher's glasses knocked from the edge of the marble lab table, one lens smithereening over the mustard tiles. 'Look, come on. Let's go get a drink, then. After that, you look like you could use it.'

'Yeah.' Spider smiled. 'Yeah, come on. A drink. I'd like that.' He grinned, balled the paper, flung it noisily into the brush. 'Uhnnn…' he said after three steps. 'Maybe I should go inside and wash it or something.'

'I'm sorry, man,' Kid said. 'I'm really sorry.'

'I know,' Spider said. 'You didn't do it on purpose.'

When they were halfway across July, Ernestine Throckmorton looked up and said, 'Oh! I mean my… God!'

In the following confusion, Denny and Lanya (purple, purple blooming blue) found him while Ernestine and several others tried to get Spider to go inside.

'I wanna… drink,' Spider said, hesitantly.

Ernestine asked Spider: 'Do you feel all right? Are you okay?'

'He wants a drink,' Kid said.

Spider looked confused; then the confusion sank in belligerent, silent embarrassment; he let himself be taken away.

'That could get infected,' Everett Forest said for the third tune.

Madame Brown stood across the crowd, folding and turning her hands. The leash swung and sagged and jingled.

Kid kept touching Lanya's shoulder; they stood watching. (The second tune she touched his hand in return, but not the first, third, or fourth.)

Muriel, panting, pushed to her forepaws; then lowered her muzzle again to the ground.

Denny, in the crowding, had pushed against Kid several times, settling a hand on his shoulder, arm, or back. Kid contemplated some response—

'Kid!'

Kid didn't look around at first.

'If you've a few minutes to spare— Kid, do you think I could have you for a few minutes?'

When he did turn (Lanya and Denny turned too), Bill was smiling at him over the surrounding heads, and holding a box that looked much like the controls to Lanya's dress up near his ear. 'Can I have you for a few minutes… Kid?'

This time when Kid touched Lanya and Denny, they came with him. (Thinking: They would have come anyway; both, working within entirely different mechanics, have developed curiosities that would not let them miss it!) 'Sure,' Kid said. 'What you want?'

'Thank you.' Bill grinned, and adjusted the mike clipped to the pocket in his black turtleneck pullover. 'This is on now. We might as well leave it going, so you can get used to ignoring it. But let's get out of all this noise. Why don't we go behind — Say, what happened to that tall black kid? He's part of your nest?'

'I cut him,' Kid said.

Bill tried not to look surprised.

'It was an accident,' Kid said to the mike. He un-snapped the ornate blades from his wrist.

'You're—' Bill noticed Lanya and Denny but didn't say any thing to them—'very strict with your own, aren't you?'

Kid decided: I'm being told, not asked, and said nothing.

'Where we going?' Denny whispered, and looked warily again at Bill's cassette recorder.

'To hell, if we're invited nicely,' Kid said. 'Shut up and come on. He's not going to make you say anything. Just me.'

'Let's…' Bill looked like he was trying to, politely, think of a way to get rid of Lanya and Denny.

Lanya looked as though she were about to, politely, excuse herself and take Denny with her.

'They should come,' Kid said. 'They're my friends.'

'Of course. I just wanted to ask you a few questions — let's go this way.' They passed through another garden. 'This is really a little confused, what with Roger's not being here. I guess he's… gone for the night. He wanted to get a chance to talk to you, I know that; he told me so. He wanted to find out a few things he thought the readers of the Times might be interested in… we were actually going to interview you together. I help Roger with a lot of his newspaper work. Draft a lot of his articles. As you might imagine, he's a busy man.'

'You write his articles?' Lanya asked. 'I always wondered where he got the time to do all he does.'

'I don't actually write anything he signs. And… I research a lot for him.' Bill turned up a small path Kid