Dhalgren

strips of nail back on the wide crowns were once more darkly ringed, as though outlined, nub and cuticle, with pen. He sighed, served himself when the dishes passed him, passed them on, and ate. His free hand back beneath the tablecloth, found the table leg, again explored.

'If you're not a student,' Madame Brown asked, 'what do you put down in your notebook? — none of us could help noticing it.'

It was inside, on the table by the chair; he could see it beyond her elbow. 'I just write things down.'

Mrs Richards hung her hands by the fingertips on the table edge. 'You write! You're going to be a writer? Do you write poetry?'

'Yeah.' He smiled because he was nervous.

'You're a poet!'

Mr Richards, June, and Bobby all sat back and looked. Mrs Richards leaned forward and beamed. Madame Brown reached down with some silent remonstrance to Muriel.

'He's a poet! Arthur, give him some more wine. Look, he's finished his glass already. Go on, dear. He's a poet! I think that's wonderful. I should have known when you took that Newboy book.'

Arthur took Kidd's glass, refilled it. 'I don't know too much about poetry.' He handed it back with a smile that, on a college football player, would have purveyed sheepish good will. 'I mean, I'm an engineer…' As he took his hand away, wine splashed on the cloth.

Kidd said, 'Oh, hey, I—'

'Don't worry about that!' Mrs Richards cried, waving her hand — which knocked against her own glass. Wine splashed the rim, ran down the stem, blotched the linen. While he wondered if such a thing were done on purpose to put strangers at ease (thinking: What an uncomfortably paranoid thought), she asked: 'What do you think of him? Newboy, I mean.'

'I don't know.' Kidd moved his glass aside: through the base, he could see the diametric mold line across the foot. 'I only met him once.'

At the third second of silence, he looked up, and decided he'd said something wrong. He hunted for the proper apology: but, like a tangle of string with a lost end, action seemed all loop and no beginning.

'You know Ernest Newboy? Oh, Edna, Kidd's a real poet! And he's helping us, Arthur! I mean, move furniture and things.' She looked from Mr Richards to Madame Brown, to Kidd. 'Tell me—' She spilled more wine— 'is Newboy's work just — wonderful? I'm sure it is. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I just got the book yesterday. I sent Bobby down to get it, because of that article in the Times. We have this very nice little book-and-gift shop down the street. They have just everything like that — But after the article, I was afraid they were going to be all out. I think it's very important to keep up with current books, even if it's just bestsellers. And I'm really interested in poetry. I really am. Arthur doesn't believe me. But I do — I really do like it.'

'That's just because you went to that coffee shop with Julia in Los Angeles where they were reading that poetry and playing that music.'

'And I told you, Arthur, the evening we came back, though I don't pretend I understood it all, I liked it very much! It was one of the most—'she frowned, hunting for the right description—'exciting things I've… well, ever heard.'

'I don't know him very well,' Kidd said, and ate more mushrooms; that and the eggplant weren't bad. The mashed potatoes (instant) were pretty gluey, though. 'I just met him… once.'

'I'd love to meet him.' Mrs Richards said. 'I've never known a real writer.'

'Mike Harrington wrote a book,' Mr Richards objected. 'A very good book, too.'

'Oh, Arthur, that was an instruction manual… on stresses and strains and the uses of a new metal!'

'It was a very good instruction manual.' Mr Richards poured more wine for Madame Brown and himself.

'Can I have some?' Bobby said.

'No,' Mr Richards said.

'How long have you been writing poetry?' Madame Brown asked, helpfully.

Kidd looked up to answer — Madame Brown was waiting with a forkful of well-sauced eggplant, June with one of carrots; Mrs Richards had a very small fluff of potato on the tine tips of her fork — when it struck him that he didn't know. Which seemed absurd, so he frowned. 'Not very…' long, he'd started to say. He had a clear memory of writing the first poem in the notebook, seated against the lamp post on Brisbain Avenue. But had he ever written any poems before? Or was it something he'd wanted to do but never gotten around to? He could see not remembering doing something. But how could you not remember not doing something? '…for very long,' he finally said. 'Just a few days, I guess,' and frowned again, because that sounded silly. But he had no more surety of its truth or falsity than he had of his name. 'No, not very long at all.' He decided that was what he would say from now on to anyone who asked; but the decision simply confirmed how uncertain he was of its truth.

'Well I'm sure—' there was only one more fluff of mashed potatoes on Mrs Richard's plate—'they must be very good.' She ate it 'Did Mr Newboy like them?'

'I didn't show them to him.' Somehow silverware, glasses, sideplates, and candles didn't seem right for talking about scorpions, orchid fights, the invisible Calkins and the belligerent Fenster—

'Oh, you should,' Mrs Richards said. 'The younger men in Arthur's office are always bringing him their new ideas. And he says they've been coming up with some lulus lately — didn't you, Arthur? Arthur's always happy to talk to the younger men about their new ideas. I'm sure Mr Newboy would be happy to talk to you, don't you think, Arthur?'

'Well,' Mr Richards reiterated, 'I don't know too much about poetry.'

'I'd certainly like to see some of what you'd written,' Madame Brown said and moved Mrs Richards' wine glass away from her straying hand. 'Maybe some day you'll show us. Tell me, Arthur—' Madame Brown looked over joined fingers—'what is going on at Maitland, now? With everything in the state it's in, I'm amazed when I hear of anything getting done.'

She's changing the subject! Kidd thought with relief. And decided he liked her.

'Engineering.' Mr Richards shook his head, looked at Mrs Richards—'Poetry…' changing it, rather bluntly, back. 'They don't have too much to do with one another.'

Kidd decided to give it a try himself. 'I met an engineer here, Mr Richards. His name was Loufer. He was working on… yeah, converting a plant. It used to make peanut butter. Now it makes vitamins.'

'Most people who like poetry and art and stuff,' Mr Richards adhered, 'aren't very interested in engineering—' Then he frowned. 'The vitamin plant? That must be the one down at Helmsford.'

Kidd sat back and saw that Madame Brown did too.

Mrs Richards' hands still spasmed on the table.

Mr Richards asked: 'What did you say his name was?'

'Loufer.'

'Don't think I know him.' Mr Richards screwed up his face and dropped his chin over the smooth gold-and- mustard knot of his tie. 'Of course I'm in Systems. He's probably in Industrial. Two completely different fields. Two completely different professions, really. It's hard enough to keep up with what's going on in your own field, what your own people are doing. Some of the ideas our men do come up with — they're lulus all right. Like Mary says. Sometimes I don't even understand them — I mean, even when you understand how they work, you don't really know what they're for. Right now I'm just back and forth between the office and the warehouse — lord only knows what I'm supposed to be doing.'

'Just keeping up,' Madame Brown said, and leaned one elbow on the table. As she moved, the candle flame drifted back and forth across her left eye. 'At the hospital, it was all I could do to read two or three psychology bulletins a week, what with the behaviorists and the gestaltists—'

'Peaches?' said Mrs Richards, leaning forward, knuckles like two tiny mountain ranges on the table edge. 'Would anyone like some peaches? For dessert?'

Maybe, Kidd thought, she really did want to talk about poetry — which would be fine, he decided, if he could think of anything to say. His own plate was empty of everything except the sauce- and-mashed-potato swamp.