Dhalgren

— and fell.

He nodded.

'Good.' With both hands I took off one of my chains, put it over his head, and hung my fists on his chest. I pulled one down, while the other raised, my knuckles sliding on his skin. Then I ran it the other way. 'This'll go with the one you already took for yourself, right?'

is so surprising that after it's over I have to go back through it a dozen times in my head to savor it and try and figure out what it was like because I was too busy being astounded while it was happening.' 

'Really? That's marvelous!' She was silent the next quarter of a block. Then she said: 'He's not going to leave. At least not for a while. Though you may be right about who leaves first, whenever that happens… if ever.' 

'What do you see?' 

'That you are a whole lot of real person. And so, for that matter, am I. Someone who's had as little of that as Denny has just isn't going to run out before he's had a lot more.' 

'Sounds good,' I said. 'Hope it works. I like you two. I want you with me. Just don't let me start taking either of one of you for granted!' 

'Not, dear heart, if I can help it.'

Fireball blinked at me.

'It's yours.' I let go.

'That mean I'm a member…?'

Raven, on the floor, propped his head on his elbow. 'That's the way we play, sweetheart.' He laughed, rolled over (into Cathedral who just grunted), and closed his eyes.

Fireball looked back at me. The sleepy smile returned. 'Okay,' he said. 'Hey, thanks, Kid. Okay…'

'You look out for that crazy, pimple-faced white bastard.'

'Okay,' he repeated. 'I will.' Then he ate another spoonful out of his cup.

I went onto the porch.

Risa was sitting outside on a crate under a tree, reading. (Brass Orchids? I craned to see. Yeah.) Rubbing two fingers in the dusty corner of the screenless frame, I watched her, wondering if I should go down and ask her about what I was thinking, finally decided: Fuck it, if you're gonna do it, do it.

I went down the steps — the door clacked behind me — and crossed the yard. 'Hey…' I squatted beside her, elbows and hands (wondering how can they get that dirty in just a day) a double bridge, knee to knee. 'I wanted to know, I mean, about last night.'

She looked up.

'You enjoyed that, huh? I mean, you were into it. Because some of the — one of the women seemed a little upset by it. So I wanted to… know.'

She'd slapped her hand over the page like she didn't want me to see it. Which was odd. Her heavy legs shifted. She looked uncomfortable. I waited, thinking: Well, she's probably just not a very verbal person, or maybe she just can't get answers to questions like that together, just like that; or maybe it's a stupid question, or just an embarrassing one. I mean she could have always said: Look, asshole, why do you think I was doing it if I didn't like it? Also, I felt silly pretending, even to myself, I was speaking for Lady of Spain when, of course, I was speaking for me.

'I mean,' I said, 'I was curious: if you felt any one had… well, forced you?'

The top two buttons of her blue shirt were open. Her brown skin was creased between her neck and shoulder.

Last night, her eyes, half closed, had seemed so large. Now, wide, they looked small. What she said (a lot more together than I'd expected) was: 'That was mine,' and opened and closed her mouth to say something else, but ended up repeating: 'That was all mine. You just can't have any part of that. That's all. It was… mine!'

'I mean—' I was surprised — but I just shrugged: 'I just wanted to know if you… enjoyed it?'

She said: 'You go find out yourself, if you want it!' Then, like she was jerking from an anticipated blow, her eyes slipped back to the page. Her fist slipped back to her lap.

I stood up, my mind jutting off on: Do I want to get gang-banged myself? Well, all right, consider. Considering, I walked across the yard. One: I don't like to take it up the ass because when I've tried, it's almost always hurt like hell. Maybe half a dozen times, it turned out not to be painful, just indifferent (one of these was two days ago with Denny and Lanya, and the emotional thing there, anyway, was nice). But, Two: I've had my own dick up the asses of enough guys who were obviously feeling no pain, and a lot of pleasure. And I've been in line and taken my turn in a guy's ass like with Risa's cunt last night. So (Three:) if Risa's right, maybe there's something wrong with me that every — well almost every — time a cat has tried to shove his dick into me, it fucking stings…? Anyway, if nothing else, she had said something that had made me think, which is one way I decided if people are intelligent.

As I went up the steps, Copperhead's head came out of the door; passed by me, went over, squatted by her (like he'd seen me do? Presumably not.) and put his freckled hand on the knee of her jeans. They bent close, conferring. She said something that made him laugh. (She didn't look too happy though.) I stepped through the screen door onto the porch, glanced out the window again.

As Copperhead stood, Lady of Spain (with Filament, just behind her), passed now on the other side of the fence, stopped with three fingers hooked over the chipped boards and asked — I could hear her chains click the wood but not really what she said — Risa something like, How was she feeling?

Risa twisted a little, frowned, and said: 'My back is sore.'

Spitt was on the porch, standing by the sink, his arms folded. 'She's something, huh?' He looked resentful as hell.

I glanced out at Risa, looked back at Spitt.' He was shaking his head. 'How many times she get fucked? Sixty? Seventy-five times?'

'Aw, man,' I told him. 'You crazy? Would you believe sixteen, seventeen? Maybe twenty?'

'Huh?'

'There were only seven, eight of us doing anything. And half of us only went once.'

Spitt thought a few seconds. 'But, Jesus Christ… Look at her! She's just sitting there, reading your damn book like that!'

'Spitt,' I said, 'balling a couple of dozen people in one night is merely a prerequisite for understanding anything worth knowing.' I mean I have done that. 'That's just the way it is.'

Spitt didn't seem to think that was funny, so I went back into the kitchen and left him looking. Somebody (Spitt?) had washed a lot of the dishes.

This is the last full balnk [blank?] page left.

Re-reading, I note the entries only ghost chronological order. Not only have I filled up all the free pages, but all the half and quarter pages left around the poems or at the ends of other entries. A few places where my handwriting is fairly large, I can write between lines. I'll have to do a lot more writing in the margins. Maybe I'll try writing cross-ways over pages filled up already.

Sometimes I cannot tell who wrote what. That is upsetting. With some sections, I can remember the place and time I wrote them, but have no memory of the incidents described. Similarly, other sections refur to things I recall happening to me, but kne/o/w just as well I never wrote out. Then there are pages that, today, I interpret one way with the clear recollection of having interpretted them another at the last re-reading.

Most annoying is when I recall an entry, go hunting through, and not find it find it or half of it not there: I've read some pages so many tunes they've pulled loose from the wire spiral. Some of these I've caught before they ripped completely free, folded some or them up and put them inside the front cover. Carrying the book around, though, I must have let them slip out. The first pages —