Dhalgren

1950 (available in Great Britain from Faber and Faber). To repeat something of a catch-phrase that has been echoed by various critics: While writers about him caught the despair of the period surrounding the War, Newboy, more than any other, fixed it in such light that one can lucidly see in it the genesis of so much of the current crisis. From his early twenties, through today, Newboy has produced occasional, literary, and philosophical essays to fill several volumes. They are characterized by a precise and courageous vision. In 1969 he published the book-length poem Pilgrimage, abstruse, surreal, often surprisingly humorous, and, for all its apparent irreverence, a profoundly religious work. After several more volumes of essays, in 1977 the comparatively brief collection of shorter poems written in the thirty-odd years since the War, Rictus, appeared.

A quiet, retiring, scholarly man, Newboy has traveled for most of his life through Europe, North Africa, and the East. His work is studded with images from the Maori and the many cultures he has been exposed to and explored, with his particular personal insight

Newboy arrived in Bellona yesterday morning and is indefinite about the length of his stay. His comment to us when asked about his visit was, after a reticent smile: 'Well, a week ago I wasn't intending to come here at all. But I suppose I'm happy I did.'

We are honored that a man with such achievement in English letters and a figure of such world admiration should.

'What are you doing?' she mumbled, turning from his side.

'Reading the paper.' Grass creased his elbows. He had wiggled free of the blanket as far as his hips.

'Did it come out yet?' She raised her head in a haze of slept-in hair. 'It isn't that late?'

'Yesterday's.'

She dropped her head back. ''That's the trouble with sleeping out. You can't do it past five o'clock in the morning.'

'I bet it's eight.' He spread the wrinkled page bottom.

'What—' opened her eyes and squinted—'you reading about?'

'Newboy. That poet.'

'Oh, yeah.'

'I met him.'

'You did?' She raised her head again, then twisted, tearing blankets from his leg. 'When?'

'Up at Calkins'.'

She pulled up beside him, hot shoulder on his. Under the headline, NEWBOY IN TOWN, was a picture of a thin white-haired man in a dark suit with a narrow tie, sitting in a chair, legs crossed, looking as though there were too much light in his face. 'You saw him?'

'When I got beat up. He came out and helped me. From New Zealand; it sounded like he had some sort of accent.'

'Told you Bellona was a small town.' She looked at the picture. 'Hey, how come you didn't get inside then?'

'Somebody else was with him who raised a stink. A spade. Fenster. He's the civil rights guy or something?'

She blinked at him. 'You really are out meeting everybody.'

'I wish I hadn't met Fenster.' He snorted.

'I told you about Calkins' country weekends. Only he has them seven days a week.'

'How does he get time to write for the paper?'

She shrugged. 'But he does. Or gets somebody to do it for him.' She sat up to paw the blankets. 'Where did my shirt go?'

He liked her quivering breasts.

'It's under there.' He looked back at the paper, but did not read. 'I wonder if he's ever had George up there?'

'Maybe. He did that interview thing.'

'Mmmm.'

Lanya dropped back to the grass. 'Hell. It isn't past five o'clock in the morning. You know damn well it isn't.'

'Eight,' he decided. 'Feels like eight-thirty,' and followed her glance up to the close smoke over the leaves. He looked down again, and she was smiling, reaching for his head, pulling him, rocking, by the ears, down: He laughed on her skin. 'Come on! Let me go!'

She hissed, slow. 'Oh, I can for a while,' caught her breath when his head raised, then whispered, 'Sleep…' and put her forearm over her face. He lost himself in the small bronze curls under her arm, and only loosened his eyes at faint barking.

He sat, puzzled. Barking pricked the distance. He blinked, and in the bright dark of his lids, oily motes exploded. Puzzlement became surprise, and he stood.

Blankets fell down his legs.

He stepped on the grass, naked in the mist.

Far away a dog romped and turned in the gap between hills. A woman followed.

Anticipatory wonder caught in the dizzy fatigue of morning and sudden standing.

The chain around his body had left red marks on the underside of his forearms and the front of his belly where he'd leaned.

He got on his pants.

Shirt open over tears of jewels, he walked down the slope. Once he looked back at Lanya. She had rolled over on her stomach, face in the grass.

He walked toward where the woman (the redhead, from the bar) followed behind Muriel.

He fastened one shirt button before she saw him. She turned on sensible walking shoes and said, 'Ah, hello. Good morning.'

Around her neck, the jewels were a cluttered column of light.

'Hi.' He pulled his toes in in the grass, shy. 'I saw your dog last night, at that bar.'

'Oh yes. And I saw you. You look a little better this morning. Got yourself cleaned up. Slept in the park?'

'Yeah.'

Where candlelight had made her seem a big-boned whore, smoke-light and a brown suit took all the meretricious from her rough, red hair and made her an elementary-school assistant principal.

'You walk your dog here?'

An assistant principal with a gaudy necklace.

'Every morning, bright and early… um, I'm going to the exit now.'

'Oh,' and then decided her tentativeness was invitation.

They walked, and Muriel ran up to sniff his hand, nip at it.

'Cut that out,' she demanded. 'Be a good dog.'

Muriel barked once, then trotted ahead.

'What's your name?' he asked.

'Ah!' she repeated. 'I'm Madame Brown. Muriel went over and barked at you last night, didn't she? Well, she doesn't mean anything by it.'

'Yeah. I guess not.'

'About all you need now is a comb—' she frowned at him—'and a towel, and you will be back in shape.' She released her shrill and astounding laughter. 'There's a public john over there where I always see the people from the commune going to wash up.' Then she looked at him seriously. 'You're not with the commune there, are you?'

'No.'

'Do you want a job?'

'Huh?'

'At least you're not a long-hair,' she said. 'Not very long, anyway. I asked you if you wanted a job.'