Dhalgren

we talked I recall thinking: It is not that I have no future. Rather it continually fragments on the insubstantial and indistinct ephemera of then. In the summer country, stitched with lightning, somehow, there is no way to conclude; but here, conclusion itself is superfluous. I said something to D-t about: 'What this place needs is a good wind, or a lightning-storm. To clean it out. Or thunder.'

'Oh, man,' D-t said. 'Oh, man—No! No, I don't think I could take that. Not here,' and chuckled (like, I suspect, someone under sentence). We really got into some talk. In that quiet way where you're into the feeling, if not the information. Once he asked me how long I thought I could keep it up, here, and I said: 'I don't know. How long can you?' and he laughed too. I was wrapping string around the joint and the fastening on the other end of the cold-water pipe when someone in the doorway said: 'Hi, Kid.'

I looked up.

Frank stood there looking like he didn't know whether or not to put his hands in his pockets.

'Hello,' I said and went back to the fixture.

'How're you doing?'

I grunted.

'Glad I found you. Nobody seemed to know where you were: I wanted to know if I could talk to you about something.'

I was mad at him for interrupting; also because, ignoring him, I had to sort of ignore D-t. 'What do you want?'

The doorframe creaked; Frank shifted on the jamb.

Then the floorboards; D-t shifted his squat.

Reading over my Journal, I find it difficult to decide even which incidents occurred first I have hysterical moments when I think finding that out is my only possible hope/salvation. Also wonder at some of the things I have not written down: the day with Lanya when she took me to the city museum and we spent from before dawn to after dark sitting around in the reconstructed 18th century rooms ('We could live here, like Calkins!' and she whispered, smiling, 'No…' and then we talked about a run here: and again she said, 'No …' this time not smiling. And I won't But all the talking we did there, and wandering, growing hungrier and hungrier in the pearl light through the ceiling panes because we could not bare to leave), should make this the longest and most detailed incident In this Journal because it was where she showed me thing after thing and told me about them, to make them mean something for me; she became a real person, by what she knew and what she did, more than any way she ever could by what was done to her, done to her, done: which was so easily the way I've always wanted to define her. Wanting her to take Denny and the whole nest there; and-holding a small painting she had taken down from the wall to show me something about how the canvas was prepared In the seventeenth century ('Christ, I used to spend weeks making black oil and Meriquet! I'm surprised I didn't asphyxiate someone.')—

'Well,' Frank said, settling with the idea of talking to me while I wasn't looking at him, 'I was wondering — I mean: How could someone like me go about joining up with you guys?'

I looked around at him to catch D-t already looking, and looking away.

'I mean,' Frank went on, 'is there some initiation, or something? Does some-body have to bring you in; or do you guys just get together and take a vote?'

'What do you want to know for?' I asked. 'Aren't you happy over at the commune? Or is this just research for an article you're planning to do for the Times?'

'An article on how to get into the scorpions?' Frank laughed. 'No. I just want to know because

she said, 'No, I don't think so. It's a gamble enough with you. Not just yet. Maybe later,' and re- hung the painting, upside down. 

We laughed. 

So I hung seventeen paintings upside down—'Come on! Stop…' she insisted, but I did anyway. Because, I explained, anyone who comes along will notice them like this, frown, maybe turn them right-side up again. And will end up looking at them a little longer. 'I'm only doing it for the ones I like.' 

'Oh,' she said, dubiously. 'Well, okay.' 

But it Is more memorable unfixed. And to me, that's important. (Only while I'm actually writing, for an instant it is actually more vivid…) So I'll stop here, tired. 

Except to tell about that funny argument with Denny, which I still do not understand, where I thought I was going to kill the little bastard. And Lanya just seemed uninterested. Which made me so mad I could have killed her too. And so I spent an anfternoon with a bottle of wine and Lady of Spain, bitching about the two of them, and passing the bottle back and forth — she had taken to wearing many rings — and we staggered to the Emboriki, daring each other to break in, which we didn't do, but saying to her, as we strutted by, with our arms around each others' shoulders, 'You're my only real friend here, you know?' all very maudeline, but necessary. Then we shouted: 'Motherfuckers! God damn shit-eating motherfuckers!' echoed in the naked street 'Come on out from there and fight!' We were hysterical, lerching up and down the curb, spilling wine. 'Yeah!' Lady of Spain yelled. 'Come on and—' then burped; I thought she was going to vomit, but no: ' — down!' Her eyes were very red and she kept rubbing them with her ringed fingers. 'Come on down and—' then she saw him: at the large window on the third floor. He was holding a riffle under one arm. The pigeon chest, the too-long hair, even the blue, blue shirt that, from the street, I could tell was too big: recognizing him made me feel odd. 'Hey,' I said to Lady of Spain and told her who he was. She said: 'No shit?' I laughed. Then she said, 'Wait a minute. Does he recognize you?' But I began to shout

…well, things are getting a little tight in the park.' He glanced back out in the hall. 'We got some real funny people around. Although it looks a little crowded here too.' He decided on his pockets. 'You guys getting hungry yet? I probably shouldn't mention it, but John and Milly are quite beholden to you since you quit hitting them up for care packages.'

'An oversight,' I said.

'Shouldn't have mentioned it.'

I turned back under the sink, looked for something to do but couldn't really find anything. So I kept looking.

'You guys seem to have a real thing going here. I'm not happy with what's going on around me where I am. I want to know where I get my transfer, where I can buy a ticket—'

again. I called him every kind of name I could, between fits of laughing. Lady of Spain insisted: 'Look, he's got a gun!' nowhere near as drunk as she'd been. 'Kid, let's get out of here!' But I kept up. He watched. Once he moved to rest the butt on the sill, the barrol pointing straight up. I think he was grinning. Finally we left. 

The city is a map of violences anticipated. The armed dwellers in the Emboriki, the blacks surrounding them, the hiss from a turned tap that has finally stopped trickling, the time it takes a group who go out to come back with bags of canned goods, packaged noodles, beans, rice, speghetti — each is an emblem of inalienable, coming shock. But the clashes that do occur are all petty, disappointing, minor, inconclusive, above all stupid, as though the city prevents any real anxiety's ever resolving. And the result? All humanity here astounds; all charity here is graced. 

Lady of Spain and I reached the nest, still laughing, astounded we were alive. 

In the back yard, Lanya told me she had taken Denny to the museum—'for a couple of hours. We looked at all the paintings you especially liked — and Denny turned them right side up. So he could see them, of course.' 'Smug butch,' I said. She said: 'Who? Me?' And Denny began to laugh as though somehow the joke were really on the two of us, which had us both wondering. Then he said they'd wandered around, he taking her out to a place called Holland Lake. They crawled into bed beside me, and we talked till it grew light, Denny being the only one of us who doesn't realize how much easier that makes liking one another. And when Denny did a lot of talking, it finally put me to sleep — though I wanted to stay awake — and woke a little later, with them asleep too, in the familiar position. 

We can survive so much.