Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany

  "By being around?"

  "Yes. And also by being, well. . ."

  He could not interpret her shrug: "Mrs Richards, I've been scared a whole lot of my life too. Of a lot of things that I didn't know what they were. But you can't just let them walk all over you-take over. You have to-"

  "I am moving!" Her head bobbed in emphasis. "We are moving from seventeen-B to nineteen-A."

  "-do something inside yourself."

  She shook her head sharply, not looking. "And you are very presumptuous if you think you are telling me something I don't know." Now she looked up. "Or your telling me makes it any easier."

  Frustration drove the apology. "I'm sorry." He heard his own reticence modify it to something else.

  Mrs Richards blinked. "Oh, I know you're just trying to ... I am sorry. But do you know how terrible it is to live inside here-" she gestured at the green walls-"with everything slipping away? And you can hear everything that goes on in the other rooms, in the other apartments? I wake up at night, and walk by the window, and I can see lights sometimes, moving in the smoke. And when the smoke isn't so heavy, it's even worse, because then the lights look like horrible things, crawling around . . . This has got to stop, you know! Management must be having all sorts of difficulty while we're going through this crisis. I understand that. I make allowances. But it's not as though a bomb had fallen, or anything. If a bomb had fallen, we'd be dead. This is something perfectly natural. And we have to make do, don't we, until the situation is rectified?" She leaned forward: "You don't think it is a bomb?"

  "It isn't a bomb. I was in Encenadas, in Mexico, just a week or so ago. There was nothing about a bomb in the papers; somebody gave me a lift who had an L.A. paper in his car. Everything's fine there. And in Philadelphia-"

  "Then you see. We just have to wait. The guards will be back. They will get rid of all these terrible people who run around vandalizing in the halls. We have to be patient, and be strong. Of course I'm afraid, I'm afraid if I sit still more than five minutes I'll start to scream. But you can't give in to it, any more than you can give in to them. Do you think we should take kitchen knives and broken flower pots and run down there and try to scrape them out?"

  "No, of course not-"

  "I'm not that sort of person. I don't intend to become that sort. You say I have to do something? Well, I have moved my family. Don't you think that takes a great deal of ... inner strength? I mean in this situation? I can't even let myself assess how dangerous the whole thing really is. If I did, I wouldn't be able to move at all."

  "Of course it's dangerous. But I go out. I live outside in it; I walk around in it. Nothing happens to me."

  "Oh, Edna told me how you got that scab on your face. Besides, you are a man. You are a young man. I am a middle-aged woman."

  "But that's all there is now, Mrs Richards. You've got to walk around in it because there isn't anything

  else."

  "It will be different if I wait. I know that because I am middle-aged. You don't because you're still very young."

  "Your friend Mrs Brown-"

  "Mrs Brown is not me. I am not Mrs Brown. Oh, are you just trying not to understand?"

  He gathered breath for protest but failed articulation.

  "I have a family. It's very important to me. Mrs Brown is all alone, now. She doesn't have the same sort of responsibilities. But you don't understand about that; perhaps in your head, you do. But not inside, not really."

  "Then why don't you and Mr Richards take your family out of all this mess?"

  Her hands, moving slowly down her dress, turned up once, then fell. "One can retreat, yes. I suppose that's what I'm doing by moving. But you can't just give up entirely, run away, surrender. I like the Labry Apartments." Her hands pulled together to crush the lap of her dress. "I like it here. We've lived here since I was pregnant with Bobby. We had to wait almost a year to get in. Before that, we had a tiny house out in Helmsford; but it wasn't as nice as this, believe me. They don't let just anyone in here. With Arthur's position, it's much better for him. I've entertained many of his business associates here. I especially liked some of the younger, brighter men. And their wives. They were very pleasant. Do you know how hard it is to make a home?"

  His bare heel had begun to sting, just from the weight of standing. He rocked a little.

  'That's something that a woman does from inside herself. You do it in the face of all sorts of opposition. Husbands are very appreciative when it works out well. But they're not that anxious to help. It's understandable. They don't know how. The children don't even appreciate. But it's terribly necessary. You must make it your own world. And everyone must be able to feel it. I want a home, here, that looks like my home, feels like my home, is a place where my family can be safe, where my friends -psychologists, engineers, ordinary people . . . poets- can feel comfortable. Do you see?"

  He nodded.

  He rocked.

  "That man Calkins, the one who runs the Times, do you think he has a home? They're always writing articles about the people who're staying with him, visiting with him, those people he's decided are important. Do you think I'd want a place like that? Oh, no. This is a real home, a place where real things happen, to real people. You feel that way, I know you do. You've become practically part of the family. You are sensitive, a poet; you understand that to tear it all apart, and set it up again, even on the nineteenth floor: that's taking a desperate chance, you see? But I'm doing it. To you, moving like this is just a gesture. But you don't understand how important a gesture can be. I cannot have a home where I hear the neighbors shrieking. / cannot. Because when the neighbors are shrieking, I cannot maintain the peace of mind necessary for me to make a home. Not when that is going on. Why do you think we moved into the Labry? Do you know how I thought of this moving? As a space, a gap, a crack in which some terrible thing might get in and destroy it, us, my home. You have to take it apart, then put it back together. I really felt as though some dirt, or filth, or horrible rot might get in while it was being reassembled and start a terrible decay. But here-" once more she waved her hand-"I couldn't live here any more."

  "But if everything outside has changed-"

  "Then I have to be-" she let go her skirt-"stronger inside. Yes?"

  "Yeah." He was uncomfortable with the answer forced. "I guess so."

  "You guess?" She breathed deeply, looking around the floor, as if for missed fragments. "Well, I know. I know about eating, sleeping, how it must be done if people are going to be comfortable. I have to have a place where I can cook the foods I want; a place that looks the way I want it to look: a place that can be a real home." Then she said: "You do understand." She picked up another ceramic lion from the nest tables. "I know you do."

  He realized it was its twin that had shattered. "Yeah, Mrs Richard's but-"

  "Mom?" June said over the sound of the opening door. She glanced hesitantly between them. "I thought you were going to come right back up. Is that my shell box?" She walked to the cluster of remaining furniture. "I didn't even know we still had it in the house."

  "Gee," Bobby said from the doorway. "We've almost

  got everything upstairs. You want me to take the tele

  vision?"

  "I don't know why," June said. "You can't get any picture on it any more; just colored confetti. You better let Kidd take the teevee. You help me carry the rug."

  "Oh, all right."

  June dragged the carpet roll by one end. Bobby caught the other.

  "Are you sure the two of you can manage that?" Mrs Richards asked.

  "We got it," June said.

  It came up like a sagging fifteen-foot sausage between them. They maneuvered across the room-Mrs Richards slid the nest tables back, Kidd pushed aside the television -June going forward and Bobby going backward.

  "Hey, don't back me into the damn door," Bobby said.

  "Bobby!" his mother said.

  June grunted, getting the rug in a firmer grip.

&nbs
p; "I'm sorry." Bobby hugged the rug under his arm, reached behind him for the door knob. "Darn door . . . Okay?"

  "You got it all right?" June asked; she looked very intense.

  "Uh-huh." Bobby nodded, backing out into the hall.

  June followed him: the edge of the rug hissed by the jamb. "Just a second." She shoved the door with her foot; and was through.

  "All right, but don't push me so fast," Bobby repeated out in the echoing corridor.

  The door swung to.

  "Mrs Richards, I'll take the television ... if you want?"

  She was stepping here and there, searching.

  "Yes. Oh. Certainly, the television. Though June's right; you can't see anything on it. It's terrible the way you get to depend on all these outside things: Fifty great empty spots during the evening when you wish a radio or something were there to fill them up. But the static would just be awful. Wait. I could take the rest of these things off the tables, and you could carry them up. Once we get the front room rug down, I'm going to try putting that end table beside the door to the balcony. That's what I really like up there, the balcony. When we came here, we applied for an apartment with a balcony but we couldn't get it then. I'm going to split these up and put them on either side of-"

  Out in the hall, June screamed: a long scream he could hear empty her of all breath. Then she screamed again.

  Mrs Richards opened her mouth without sound; one hand shook by her head.

  He dashed between the television and the tables, out the door.

  June, dragging one hand against the wall, backed up the hall. When he caught her shoulder, the scream cut and she whirled. "Bobby . . . !" That had almost no voice at all. "I ... I didn't see the . . ." Shaking her head, she motioned down the hall.

  He heard Mrs Richards behind him, and ran three more steps.

  The rug lay on the floor, the last foot sagging over the sill in to the empty elevator shaft. The door nudged it, went K-chunk, retreated, then began to close again.

  "Mom! Bobby, he fell in the-"

  K-chunk!

  "No, oh my dear God, no!"

  "I didn't see it, mom! I didn't! I thought it was the other-"

  "Oh, God. Bobby, no he couldn't-"

  "Mom, I didn't know! He just backed into it! I didn't see-"

  K-chunk!

  Kidd hit EXIT with both palms, vaulted down the flight, came out on sixteen, sprinted to the end of the hall, and beat the door.

  "All right, all right. What the fuck you-" Thirteen opened for him-"banging so hard for?"

  "A rope . . . !" Kidd was gasping. "Or a ladder. You guys got a rope? And a flashlight? The boy from upstairs, he just fell down the elevator shaft!"

  "Oh, wow . . . !" Thirteen stepped back.

  Smokey, behind his shoulder, opened her eyes very wide.

  "Come on! You guys got a light and a ladder? And a rope?"

  A black woman with hair like two inches of Brillo with hints of rust, shouldered Smokey aside, stepped around Thirteen: "Now what the fuck is going on, huh?" Around her neck hung some dozen chains, falling between her breasts between the flaps of a leather vest laced through its half-dozen lowest holes. Her thumb hooked a wide, scuffed belt; her wrists were knobby, the back of her hands rough. Dark skin rounded above the belt and below the vest bottom.

  "A boy just fell down the God-damn elevator shaft!" Kidd took another breath and tried to see past the crowd that had gathered at the door. "Will you bastards get a ladder and a rope and a light and come on! Huh?"

  "Oh, hey, man!" The black woman looked over her shoulder. "Baby! Adam! Denny, you had that line! Bring it out here. Some kid fell down the shaft." She turned back. "I got a light." A brown triangle of stain, that looked permanent, crossed her two, large, front teeth. "Come on!"

  Kidd turned away and started back down the hall.

  He heard them running behind him.

  As he ducked into the stairwell, Denny's voice separated from the voices and footsteps around it: "Fell down the elevator! Oh, man," and a barking laugh. "All right. All right, Dragon Lady-I'm with you."

  Sudden light behind him flung his shadow before him down the next flight. At the landing he glanced back:

  The bright scales, claws, and fangs careened after him, striated and rigid as a television image from a monster film suddenly halted in its projector: it was the dragon he'd seen his first night in the park with Tak. He could tell because griffon and mantis glimmered just behind, and sometimes through it. Bleached out like ghosts, the others clustered down, streaked with sidelight. Kidd ran on, heart hammering, breath scoring his nasal roof.

  He fell against the bottom door; it sagged forward. He staggered out. The others ran behind. Harsh light lay out harsh shadow, dispersing the lobby's grey as he crossed.

  "How do you get down into the fucking basement?" He hammered the elevator bell.

  "The downstairs is locked," Thirteen said. "I tried to get in when we first got-"

  Both elevator doors rolled open.

  Dragon Lady, light extinguished, swung around him into the one with the car, wrenched away the plate above the buttons: The plate clattered on the car floor as she did something with switches. "Okay, I got both doors locked open."

  Kidd looked back-the two other apparitions swayed forward among the others standing-and called: "Where's the rope?" He held the other jamb and leaned into the breezy shaft. Girders rose by hazy brick. "I can't see too much." Above and in the wind a voice echoed:

  Oh, no! He's down there! He must be terribly hurt!

  And another:

  No, Mom, come back. Kidd's down there. Mom, please!

  Bobby, Bobby, are you all right? Please, Bobby! Oh, dear God!

  Kidd strained to see: the vaguest suggestion of light up in the distance-was it some upper, open door? "Mrs Richards!" His shout vaulted about the shaft. "You get back from that door!"

  Oh, Bobby! Kidd, is he all right? Oh, please, let him be all right.

  Mom, come back, will you?

  Then lights around him moved forward, harshening the brick, the painted steel. On the shaft wall shadows of heads swung; some grew, some faded; new shadows grew.

  "You see anything?" Dragon Lady asked, crowding his shoulder. "Here." Her arm came up, hooked his. "Lean on out further if you want."

  He glanced back at her.

  She said, her head to the side: "I ain't gonna let you fall, motherfucker!"

  So he hooked up his arm. "Got me?"

  "Yeah."

  Their elbows made a hot, comfortable lock.

  He leaned forward, swaying into the dark. She let him slowly out.

  The other lights had filled the door, flushing the shaft with doubled shadows.

  "You see anything in there?" which was not Dragon Lady's voice but Denny's.

  The junk down there: On darkness like velvet, cigarette packages, chewing-gum papers, cigarettes and cigarette butts, match books, envelopes and, there to one side, heaped up ... the glitter in it identified the wrist. "Yeah, I can see him ... I think."

  Can you see where he is? Bobby? Bobby, Kidd, can you see him? Oh, my God, he fell all that way! Oh, he must be hurt, so badly! I can't hear him. Is he unconscious? Oh, can't you see where he is yet?

  Momma, please, please come back from here!

  Behind him, Dragon Lady said with soft brutality: "Christ, I wish that bitch would shut the fuck up!"

  "Look, man," Thirteen said, behind them, "that's her kid down there!"

  "Don't 'man' me, Thirteen," Dragon Lady said; and Kidd felt her grip-well, not loosen so much as shift, about an inch; his shoulder tensed. "I still wish she'd keep -quiet!"

  "I brought the crowbar," somebody said. "And a screwdriver. Do you need a crowbar or a screwdriver?"

  "After that fall," Dragon Lady said, "there can't be too much left of him. He gotta be dead."

  "Shit, Dragon Lady," Thirteen said, "his Momma's right up there!"

  "I said: He's gotta be dead! You heard me?"

  Mo
m, come on!

  Can you see him down there? I can't see anything. I can't hear anything. Oh, Bobby, Bobby! Can you hear your mommy? Please, Bobby!

  The grip suddenly sagged; for a moment Kidd

  thought he was falling-Dragon Lady, still holding, had

  leaned in behind him. Her voice roared about his ears.

  "YOUR SON IS DEAD, LADY!" And Kidd was pulled

  away. "Come on, let's get you back."

  Thirteen, with an unhappy expression, shook his head.

  Denny, up front now, gripped a length of wound clothes line. "You want to get him up? You take the rope. We'll hold you while you go down."

  Kidd took hold of the doubled end, ducked his head through, and hooked his arms over. (Griffon and Mantis flanked the door.) Thirteen, Denny, and Dragon Lady were handing out the other end among them.

  "You just hold on," Kidd said. "I'll climb down." He got onto his knees at the sill, holding the edge (one rough hand lost in griffon light), dropped one leg down, then the other. The shaft at his back was cool. He could not tell if the wind came from above or below. He went over the edge, had to keep away from the wall first with his knee, then with his foot. "You all right?" Denny asked, legs wide, fists close.

  Kidd grunted, pulling on the ropes, taut around his back (pushing something glass into his back) and taut under his arms: "Yeah." The slanted bar of the door mechanism slid under his bare foot. His sandal toe scraped metal.

  Swaying at either side of the door, the apparitions loomed, luminous.

  Once he called; "You can lower it a little faster than that. I'm okay."

  "Sorry," which was Thirteen, catching his breath; and the rope.

  His shin scraped the basement door-sill. His bare foot hit something and slipped, in either grease or blood.

  He turned, while the rope sagged around him, and looked at the-he had to be dead.

  The shaft was momentarily silent, except for wind.

  Finally Dragon Lady called down: "You still okay . . . ?"

  "Yeah." Kidd took a breath. "I'll tie the rope around him. You can haul him up." He slipped the rope from under his arms, pulled it over his head, but left it around one shoulder; he stepped forward on the oozy filth, stooped, and tugged a leg from where it had wedged between two blackened bumper plates.