Dhalgren

Nobody there. Pillows?

Faust moved over for him.

Kidd sat on the bed's edge, warm from Faust.

'Isn't there a doctor any place in the city?' all over the city, city?

Faust's wrinkles shifted around on his face. 'These sons of bitches wouldn't know if there was. I can't figure out whether to let her sleep or make her eat.'

'She must be pretty tired if she can sleep through all this noise,' Thirteen said. Coming up, Smokey handed the pipe to Faust, who closed his wrinkled eyelids when he sucked. When he. When.

'Maybe,' Kidd suggested, 'you better let her sleep. Save some food for when she wakes up,' akes, akes.

'That—' Thirteen shook a tattooed finger—'is brains at work, Joaquim. Which are in short supply around here… Man!' He shook his head, turned away.

'Maybe,' Faust nodded.

Kidd wondered whether it was Faust or the hash that muddled the meaning.

'Here.'

He looked up for the pipe. Pipe. Plate? A plate of. Denny, face and chest still wet, stood in front of him, holding out a plate in a white, bath-wrinkled hand.

'Oh, thanks.'

Faust took the other one.

'You ain't got no fork?' Denny asked.

'No.' It was rice, it was onions, it had string beans in it, and corn. 'Thanks.' He looked up and took the fork. Water tracked on the white arm, shimmered in adolescent chest-hair, broken with acne.

Thirteen said, 'You gotta give people food, you know? I mean, to be peaceable.' Behind him, Smokey, plate just under her chin, ate eagerly.

It had meat in it too. Hash brought edges out from the grease that transformed the odor. He ate. And those were… nuts? No. Crisp potatoes. As the tastes staggered in his mouth, a muffled man's voice said something? something like, 'Stop it! Now, stop it!' and a woman's wail rose toward the metallic.

He looked around, wondering which other room they were in.

Faust glanced at the ceiling.

So did Thirteen. 'See what I'm talking about?' He sucked his teeth and shook his head. 'They really go on up there.'

The wail, which began to balk now toward sobbing, could have been either June or Mrs Richards. He had not realized before four for how alike their voices were.

Frowning, he ate more of the greasy rice (Bacon grease? Well, at any rate, bacon) and listened to forks tick tin.

Denny ate on one of the mattresses on the floor, back to Kidd: The marble knobs of vertebrae disappeared under the corn-colored hair which dried, lightened, curled.

Thirteen came from the kitchen at the rap on the door. 'Hey, it's Nightmare!' Thirteen stepped back on his sudden shadow. 'Sweetheart, you just made hash time! And have something to eat for dessert.'

It and the blazing apparition in the doorway went out.

'Come on in.' Thirteen stepped back again. 'What can we do for you?'

The tickings had stopped.

'I'm looking—' Nightmare stepped forward, jingling — for motherfuckers who want to run.' He pushed away the tangled braid from his shoulder; his hand stayed to massage the heavy muscle below the scratches, favoring that arm. 'I'm not even gonna ask you, Thirteen. You're chicken shit.' He nodded toward Faust. 'Ain't she got out of the fuckin' bed yet?' Faust jammed another fork of rice somewhere into his beard and shook his head.

Thirteen stepped back to one side of the door, Smokey to the other.

Nightmare walked forward between them. His lips pulled from his broken tooth and his face creased with something like concern. Then he shook his head.

Kidd thought how many different meanings could reside in one gesture. The thought prickled through his stuttering ering ing mind. Nightmare — his eyes were the grey-green of wet, wet clay — looked at him. And blinked.

'You staring like you got toothpicks propping up your eyelids again,' Nightmare said, grimacing. 'Every time I seen you. Which is twice. I don't like that.'

Confused, Kidd looked at his plate.

'I ain't gonna do anything about it,' Nightmare went on. 'I'm just telling you I don't like it, understand? I mean I like to make things clear.'

He looked up again.

Nightmare laughed, a short, rough thing happening in his nose. 'Okay, now. Which of you cocksuckers wants to run? Hey, Denny, wrap something around your neck and come on.'

'I ain't finished eatin',' Denny said from the floor.

Nightmare grunted and stepped over him. Denny ducked.

'Hey, is that shit any good?'

Kidd hesitated in glistening sheets of clarity. Then he held out his plate and fork, and watched Nightmare warily decide to take the dare.

The scorpion took the fork in his fist, swept through the mixture, spilling some, and, fork still in his mouth, chewed, with grains about his lips. Still chewing, he grinned. 'Hey, that's okay.' As he handed Kidd back the fork, Thirteen broke the tensions that, with the hash, had almost grown visible about the room.

'Well, have a God-damn plate, will you? Here, Nightmare, I'll get you some. Hey—' he turned to Smokey —'take him some hash, while I get him something to eat.'

Nightmare sat down on the bed, between Faust and Kidd, leg against Kidd's leg, arm against Kidd's arm. The figure under the blanket behind them didn't move. Nightmare sucked the pipe. He let out, with his smoke, 'Now you want to tell me what you lookin' for, kid, all the time?'

'Man, he's higher than the World Trade Center's flagpole.' Thirteen handed Nightmare a tin plate and a spoon. 'I been pumping hash in him all evening. What you wanna do all this heavy shit to his head for?'

Nightmare took the plate but waved Thirteen away with the spoon. 'No, this is friendly. The kid and me, we know each—'

Faust, finished with the last of his rice, suddenly put his plate on the floor, stood, picked up his paper, and marched toward the door.

'Hey, where you going?' Nightmare said.

'Thanks for the meal,' Faust mumbled to Thirteen without stopping.

'Hey, motherfucker, so long!' Nightmare bellowed into the wake of ice.

The door swung open for Faust.

'Good bye!' Nightmare flipped his arm: the door slammed; the flung spoon clattered the picture frame.

The picture swung.

Nightmare laughed. Ice flushed away in the blowtorch of his hilarity.

Thirteen, first dubiously, then in full-throated hoarseness, laughed with him.

'Toss me back my fuckin' spoon!' Nightmare howled between landslides of laughter.

It came back underhand from Thirteen. 'Now what's the old man all upset about, huh Smokey? He's crazy, ain't he?' and looked over his shoulder as Smokey nodded corroboration.

Nightmare had caught his spoon and now leaned toward Kidd. 'He's all fucked up in the head, you know? Cause he thinks I messed up the bitch.' He pointed the spoon at the form under the blanket. 'I didn't mess her up. She got caught fightin' fair. I wasn't even around. Shit.' He swiped food into his mouth. 'You know—' grains fell — to his wrist, to his jeans, to the scarred parquet—'some of these sons of bitches didn't want no bitches whatsoever in the business?' He down stabbed the air with his spoon. 'Keep 'em away! Keep 'em out of here! They just gonna mess up the works!' With a malicious grin he looked around the room at the people leaning on the walls, sitting on the mattresses, or on the other bunks. Three among the dozen of them were girls, Kidd saw: but the lamplight was harsh and full of shadow. Nightmare's clay-colored eyes came back and caught his. 'Then some of the bitches got together and beat the shit out of a couple of brothers…!'