Dhalgren

them, put together actions and conversation snatches: He searched the screen where perception translated to information, waiting for somebody to dance, to eat, to sing. He wished Lanya had told him why they had come. But he was very tired. So he moved around. Someday I'm going to die, he thought irrelevantly: But blood still beat inside his ear.

He stepped backward from the heat, and backward again. (Where was Lanya?) But was too distraught to turn his head. Everything meant, loudly and insistently, much too much: smoke, untwirling over twigs; the small stone biting his heel; the hot band from the fire across his lowered forehead; the mumblings around him that rose here, fell there.

Milly stood a few feet in front of him, bare legs working to a music he couldn't hear. Then John crashed down, crosslegged in the leaves, beside her, fiddling absently with the blades around his hand.

A while ago, he realized, he had thought once again: Please, I don't want to be sick again, please, but had hardly heard the thought go by, and could only now, disinterestedly, discern the echo.

Something, or one, was, about to emerge into the clearing — he was sure; and was equally sure that, naked and glistening, it would be George! It would be June!

'Isn't this stupid,' someone Kidd couldn't see was saying, 'when I could be in Hawaii—?'

Tongue tip a pink bud at the corner of his lips, John stared at Milly's shifting calves. He raised his bladed hand (a reflection crossed his chin), and, with a sharp, downward sweep, cut.

Milly gasped, bit off the gasp, but made no other sound. She did not step, she did not even look.

Astounded, Kidd watched blood, in a torrent wide (the thought struck irrelevantly amidst his terror) as a pencil run down her heel.

IV: In Time of Plague

'Look, leave me alone…'

'Come on; come—'

'Tak, will you get your fuckin' hands—'

'I'm not after your tired brown body. I just want to get you to the bar where you can sit down.'

'Look, please I'm…'

'You're not drunk; you say you're not stoned or anything, then you damn well better sit down and relax!' Tak's beefy hand clamped his shoulder. (Kidd took three more unsteady steps.) 'You were staggering around there like you were half in some sort of trance. Now come on with me, sit down, have a drink, and get yourself together. You sure you didn't take anything?'

The ornate orchid at Tak's belt clashed the simple one at Kidd's.

'Hey, look! Just come on and leave me alone… Where's Lanya?'

'She's more likely to find you at Teddy's than wandering around out in the dark. You come on.'

In such colloquy they made their hesitant way from park to bar.

Kidd swayed in the doorway, looking at rocking candle flames, while Tak argued with the bartender:

'Hot brandy! Look, just take your coffee-water there, in a glass with a shot of…'

June? Or George?

Paul Fenster looked up from his beer, three people down (Kidd felt something cold but manageable happen in his belly at the recognition), and came over to stand behind Tak; who turned with two steaming glasses.

'Huh…?'

'So. I've found somebody here I know.' Fenster was buttoned halfway up the chest in a red, long-sleeve shirt. 'I didn't think I was, and it's my first night back.'

'Oh.' Tak nodded. 'Yeah. How you doing? Hey, I gotta bring a friend a drink. Um… Come on.' Tak lifted the brandy glasses over some woman's shoulder, stepped around some man. Fenster raised his chin, watching.

Tak came across to Kidd. Fenster came behind.

'Here's your brandy. This is Paul Fenster, my favorite rebel-who-has-managed-to-misplace-his-cause.'

'That's what you think.' Fenster saluted with his beer bottle.

'Well, he didn't misplace it, actually. It went somewhere else when he wasn't looking. Paul this is the Kid.' (Kidd wondered if he were projecting Tak's lack of enthusiasm.) 'Come on over and sit down.'

'Hello.' Kidd nodded toward Fenster, who wasn't looking at him, hadn't heard him, apparently did not recognize him. Well, he didn't feel like talking anyway, so could be amused at Fenster's obliqueness.

'Come on, come on.' Tak headed them toward a booth, glanced apprehensively at Kidd again.

Gesturing with his bottle, Fenster continued: 'Oh, there's a cause all right! Maybe you've lost ninety-five per cent of your population, but you're still the same city you were before—'

'You weren't, here, before.' Tak sat at the outside edge of the seat, so that Fenster had to sit across the table. Then Tak slipped over, making room for Kidd, who noted the whole maneuver and wondered if Fenster had.

Kidd sat. Tak's leg immediately swung against his in warm, if unwanted, reassurance.

'That's not what I mean,' Fenster said. 'Bellona was… what? Maybe thirty per cent black? Now, even though you've lost so many people, bet it's closer to sixty. From my estimate, at any rate.'

'All living in harmony, peace, and brotherly love—'

'Bullshit,' Fenster said.

'— with the calm, clear, golden afternoon only occasionally torn by the sobs of some poor white girl dishonored at the hands of a rampaging buck.'

'What are you trying to do, show off for the kid there?' Fenster grinned at Kidd. 'I met Tak here the first day I got to Bellona. He's a really together guy, you know? He likes to pretend he's short on brains. Then he lets you hang yourself.' Fenster still hadn't recognized him.

Kidd nodded over his steaming glass. The fumes stung; he smiled back and felt ill.

'Oh, I'm the God-damn guardian of the gate. I've spoken to more people on their first day in this city than you could shake a stick at.' Tak sat back. 'Let me clue you. It's the people I take time to speak to again on the third, fourth, and fifth day you should watch.'

'Well, you're still kidding yourself if you think you don't have a black problem here.'

Tak suddenly sat forward and put his worn, leather elbows on the table. 'You're telling me? What I want to know is how you're going to do anything about it sitting up there on Brisbain Avenue?'

'I'm not at Calkins' any more. I've moved back to Jackson. Down home again.'

'Have you now? Well, how did your stay work out?'

'Hell — I guess it was nice of him to invite me. I had a good time. He has quite a place up there. We got into a couple of talks. Pretty good, I think. He's an amazing man. But with that constant weekend bash going, thirty- eight days a month it looks like, I don't know how he has time to take a leak, much less write half a newspaper every day, and run what's left of the God-damn town. I outlined a couple of ideas: a switchboard, a day-care center, a house-inspection program. He says he wants to cooperate. I believe him… as much as you can believe anybody, today. Since there's as little control around here as there is, I wouldn't be surprised if he gets more done than you'd expect, you know?'

Tak turned his hands up on the table. 'Just remember, nobody voted him up there.'

Fenster sat forward too. 'I've never been that down on dictators. Long as they didn't dictate me.' He laughed and drank more beer.

Brandy sips dropped in hot knots to Kidd's stomach and untied. He moved his leg away from Tak's. 'Did you talk to him about that Harrison article?' Kidd asked Fenster.

'George Harrison?'

'Yeah.'

'Hell, that's just a whole lot of past noise. There're real problems that have to be dealt with now. Have you