Dhalgren

just as happy running off to squat in the bushes.'

The guy with the shovel made a face. 'I guess he's worried about pollution. I mean, look at all this!' The shovel blade swung.

But other than the dozen people standing or sitting over near the flaming cinderblocks, Kidd could see nothing outside the bubble of night the flames defined.

'Can you actually see what you're doing there?' Lanya asked.

'Enough to dig a God-damn latrine!' The shovel chunked into earth again.

'You know,' the one on the lip said, 'I could be in Hawaii right now. I really could. I had a chance to go, but I decided I'd come here instead. Isn't that too fucking much?'

As though she'd heard this too many times, the woman on the log sighed, palmed her knees, stood up, and walked off.

'Well, I really could.' He frowned after her, then back at the pile of dirt. 'Did your old lady really want to dig?'

'Naw.' Another shovelful landed. 'I don't think so.'

Slap-slap, slap-slap, slap-slap went a rolled Times against a thigh. John walked up, cutting out more light.

Chunk-shush, chunk-shush went the shovel.

'They're digging it awfully close to where everybody stays,' Kidd said to Lanya, 'for a latrine.'

'Don't tell me,' Lanya said. 'Tell them.'

'I've been wondering about that too,' John said, and stilled his paper. 'You think we're digging it too close, huh?'

'Shit,' the one who wanted to be in Hawaii said and glared at Kidd.

'Look,' Kidd said, 'you do it your way,' then walked off.

And immediately tripped over the foot of somebody's sleeping bag. Recovering himself, he just missed another's head. Millimeters beyond the circle of darkness were chifferobes, bureaus, easy-chairs, daybeds, waiting to be moved from here, to there, to someplace else… He blinked in the fireplace's heat and put his hands in his back pockets. Standing just behind three others, he watched the curly-headed boy (Jommy?) wrestle a barrel—'Isn't this great, man? Oh, wow! Look at this. When we found this, I just didn't believe it — It's flour. Real flour. And it's still good. Oh, hey thanks, Kidd. Yeah, push it this… yeah, this way.' — around the end of the picnic table.

'Here?' Kidd asked, and grunted. The barrel weighed two hundred pounds at least.

'Yeah.'

Others stepped back a little more.

Both grunting now, Kidd and Jommy got it in place.

'You know,' Jommy said, standing back, smiling, and wiping his forehead, 'if you're hungry around here, man, you should ask for something to eat.'

Kidd tried to figure out what that referred to when Milly and Lanya walked up. 'It's awfully nice to see you here again and helping out,' Milly said, passing between Kidd and the fire. The hot places just above his eyes cooled in her shadow. She passed on.

Lanya was laughing.

'Why'd we come here?' he asked.

'I just wanted to talk to Milly for a moment. All done.' She took his hand. They started walking through the blanket rolls and sleeping bags. 'We'll go sleep back at my spot, where we were last night.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'Your blankets still there?'

'If nobody moved them.'

'Hawaii,' somebody said ten feet off. 'I don't know why I don't take off for there right now.'

Lanya said: 'John asked me if you wanted to take charge of the new commune latrine work project.'

'Jesus—!'

'He thinks you have leadership qualities—'

'And a feeling for the job,' he finished. 'I've got enough work to do.' Blinking away after-images of firelight, he saw that the blond-haired guy with no shirt now, stood on the lip, shoveling dirt back in the hole.

He moved with her into dark.

Once more he wondered how she found her way. Yet once more, in the dark, he stopped first when he realized they had arrived.

'What are you doing?'

'I hung the blanket up over a limb. I'm pulling it down.'

'You can see?'

'No.' Leaves roared. Falling, the blanket brushed his face. They spread it together. 'Pull down on your left… no, your right corner.'

Grass and twigs gave under him as he lurched to the center on his knees. They collided, warm. 'You know the Richards?' Artichokes…

He frowned.

She lay down with him, opened her fist on his stomach. 'Um?'

'They're stark raving twits.'

'Really?'

'Well, they're stark. They're pretty twitty too. They haven't started raving, but that's just a matter of time. Why do I have this job, anyway?'

She shrugged against him. 'I thought, when you took it, you were one of those people who has to have one.'

He humphed. 'Tak took one look at me and decided I'd never worked in my life. I don't need the money, do I?'

She put her hand between his legs. He let his legs fall open and put his own hand on top, thick fingers pressing between her thin ones. 'I haven't needed any yet.' She squeezed.

He grunted. 'You wouldn't. I mean, people like you. You get invitations places, right?' He looked up. 'He's a systems engineer, she's a… housewife, I guess. She reads poetry. And she cooks with wine. People like that, you know, it's funny. But I can't imagine them screwing. I guess they have to, though. They've got kids.'

She pulled her hand away, and leaned up on his chest. 'And people like us.' Her voice puffed against his chin. 'Screwing is the easiest thing to imagine us doing, right? But you can't think of us with kids, can you?' She giggled, and put her mouth on his, put her tongue in his mouth. Then she stiffened and squeaked, 'Owww.'

He laughed. 'Let me take this thing off before I stab somebody!' He raised his hips and pulled his orchid from the belt loops, pulled his belt out.

They held each other, in long lines of heat and cool. Once, on his back, naked, under her, while his face rubbed her neck, and he clutched her rocking buttocks, he opened his eyes: light came through the jungle of their hair. She halted, raising. He bent back his head.

Beyond the trees, striated monsters swayed.

The scorpions passed, luminous, on the path below.

More trees cut out their lights, and more, and more.

He looked up at her and saw, across the top of her breasts, the imprint of his chain, before darkness. Then, like a two-petaled flower, opened too early at false, fugitive dawn, they closed, giggling, and the giggling became long, heavy breaths as she began to move again. After she came, he pulled the corner of the blanket over them.

'You know, he tried to cheat me out of my money.'

'Mmm.' She snuggled.

'Mr Richards. He told Madame Brown he'd pay me five dollars an hour. Then he just gave me five for the whole afternoon. You know?' He turned.

When he pushed against her leg she said, 'For God's sakes, you're still all hard…' and sucked her teeth.

'He did. Of course they fed me. Maybe he'll settle up tomorrow.'

But she took his hand and moved it down him; again meshed, their fingers closed on him and she made him rub, and left him rubbing. She put her head down on his hip, and licked and nipped his knuckles, the shriveled