Dhalgren

questions!'

'— want to ask you: How would you sum up what you're trying to say in your poems?'

Kid leaned his elbows on his knees. 'How the hell am I supposed to do that, sum up what I'm trying to say?'

'I guess you'd rather we just read—'

'Shit, I don't care if you read it or not'

'I just meant that—'

'I'm trying to—' Kid looked up at Bill, frowning in the pause—'to construct a complicitous illusion in lingual catalysis, a crystalline and conscientious alkahest.'

'…again?' Bill asked.

'You listen to that too carefully and you'll figure out what it means.' Kid let the frown reverse into a grin. 'Then the words will die on you and you won't understand any more.'

Bill laughed. 'Well, do you feel that your work accomplishes what… ever you set out to do?'

'How am I supposed to decide that?' Kid sat back again. 'I mean suppose one person liked something I wrote. I'd want to make what I say here mean something to him. Suppose somebody else didn't like it. I'm a snob. I'd like to be able to talk to him too. But somebody you've had a good time with and somebody you've had a bad time with, you talk to in different ways. There isn't much overlap in what you can say to both. Maybe, just, I did it.' Kid sat back. 'And maybe, you know, other people can think of reasons not to even insist on that too much. Look, the guys are getting fidgety. I've made too much noise already.' He looked around at the gathered nest. 'I guess Mr C just isn't going to make it this evening.'

Ernestine Throckmorton (Spider stood beside her, his belly lashed with gauze and adhesive) said: 'I guess he isn't. He'll be absolutely mortified he missed you. I just don't know where—'

'You think something happened to him?' Raven looked around with swaying top-knot. 'You want us to go out and look for him?'

'Oh, no!' Ernestine said. 'No, that's not necessary. When he left, he said he… might be late. That's why he put the Captain and myself in charge.'

Neither the Captain nor Frank were present. Paul Fenster, with a beer can at his hip, stood directly opposite.

'Look, we've got most of my guys here, just about.' Kid stood, feeling among his neck chains. 'It's getting time for me to split. Any of you guys who want to come along with me, come on.' He caught his shield (nicked his thumb knuckle on an orchid prong and thought: The price of dramatic exits) and flipped the pip.

The scorpions on the grass squinted in blue light. Denny did something with the box and laughed: And Lanya stood up a-swirl in crimson and indigo.

Where Dragon Lady had been, her dragon rose.

'Uh… thank you.' Bill looked about. 'Eh, thank you an awful lot. I'm sure Roger will have what he… I mean you gave some very interesting…'

People got to their feet amidst the glowing, growing menagerie.

The 3-D Rohrschach that was Denny turned and turned and moved through the crush.

Kid doused long enough for Lanya to see him. She caught his hand. Branches cut through the insubstantial luminosities wheeling the garden.

'How'd I do?'

'Lord,' she said. 'This has been a party! Roger doesn't know what he missed — then again, maybe he does.'

In another garden, beyond some dozen guests, Kamp and Fenster had become deeply embroiled in animated agreement.

Heavy Cathedral, with white California (greasy hair swinging long as his chains), was very drunk in the corner:

'We goin'? Oh, shit… Oh, shit, I can't go…'

'What we goin' for?'

'I think we gotta go, you know…?'

'We gotta go already…?'

Three others went splashing through the pool in May.

And Copperhead began to laugh and point so vigorously, Kid thought: He's drunk enough to fall down in a minute. Moments later, however, along with Glass, the girl, Dollar, and Spitt, Copperhead was ambling across the terrace.

Kid thought (and saw Captain Kamp look up and thought as counterpoint to that first thought: He's thinking the same thing): They're going to start breaking up the place.

They didn't.

'Oh,' Kamp said to Ernestine, 'you mean they're going now… well, eh… Good night!'

Revelation said: 'Hey, man, I can't go.' He shook his head, deviling his hair to a gold cotton. Yellow chains rattled over his pink, pink chest. 'I got something goin' here, you know? And I'm so fuckin' smashed… look, you go on, and maybe I'll see you back there in the morning.'

Kid nodded, pushed past and came up before Thelma who opened her mouth, said, 'Um…' and was gone.

Angel, at the bar table, picked up a full bottle of whiskey, put it under his thin arm, and started after the others.

'Hey…' the black bartender said.

Captain Kamp hurried up.

I could be a hero, Kid thought, and make him put it back. Suddenly he said, 'Shit…' pulled away from Lanya, and loped over to the bar. 'Captain, we've got a long—'

'Your friend,' Captain Kamp said, 'just walked off with a full bottle of—'

'— got a long walk back. And I just don't think one is going to be enough.' Kid picked up another bottle (he chose it because it had the cap on, but saw, when it was in his hand that it was only half full: Well, it was a gesture) and, to the Captain's frown, flipped on his shield. 'Tell Mr Calkins thanks. Good night.'

Kamp squinted and pulled back, his face washed with light the same pale blue as his shirt. His eyes, widening, rose.

When Kid left the terrace steps and was halfway across the lawn, 'You,' Lanya told him, 'are a perfect child!'

'Fuck you. You want to go put it back?'

'No. Come on.'

'Hey,' Angel was saying to the young Filipino gate keeper, 'you want a fuckin' drink? How come they didn't let you up to the party?'

'Thank you, no. That's all right—'

'You got just as much right to a party as we got! You wanna drink?'

'Thank you, no. Good night.'

'God-damn motherfuckers! Keep a God-damn gook down here workin' his ass off all night while everybody else is up having a good time—'

'Come on,' Kid said. 'Let's get going. Go on, get out. Hurry up, will you.'

'Hey, gook; are you from Nam? I was in Nam…'

'Come on!'

'I was in Nam,' Angel said. 'We should give him a fuckin' drink!'

As they herded, blindingly, through the gate, Lansang said: 'Excuse me, I've got something for you.'

'Huh?' Kid turned.

The brown hand went under the brown lapel for an inside pocket. 'Here.' On the envelope's corner was a small Times masthead. 'Mr Calkins asked me to give this to you if, by any chance, he didn't get back before the evening was over.'

'Oh.' Kid folded the envelope and slid it into his pants pocket beside Lanya's harmonica.

'What's that?' Lanya asked. Her arm was around Denny's shoulder.