Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany

  He turned it in horny fingers. But it doesn't explain it, he thought. Then blinked, because his eyes were filled with water. It doesn't! Gooseflesh settled over his shoulders, his back, his buttocks, like gauze. What could anybody want with . . .

  He blinked again.

  The tear fell on the cap's matte surface. Where it spread, the color deepened to the luster of scarlet glass.

  No: That was a double thought, with and without word, and hardly an overlap.

  The cap cracked in his fingers.

  He dropped it in the box, stood in a motion. He let out all his breath, took in some more, and swallowed in surprise at the echo.

  He stepped back.

  When do they put them on? When do they take them off?? Where do they put them . . . I would rather think (the thought kaleidoscoped and went lucid) that these have nothing to do, nothing to do with . . .

  Kid stepped back again, turned, hurried up the balcony.

  Tak, the lame folded over his arm, squatted by another box. "I got everything I need. Find anything interesting?"

  From where Kid stood, looking down, the visor masked the engineer's eyes.

  The terrible thing, Kid realized, is that I'm too scared to ask!

  "Hey, are you all right?" Tak raised his head. The shadow bobbed on the top half of his face. "You're not going to go into another one of your flip-outs, are you?"

  Kid tried to say, I'm all right. All he did was expel another breath.

  From the carton Tak removed some square piece of metallic equipment and stood. "Let's go." He sighed.

  Halfway down the stairs Kid managed to say, "I'm all right." It hung detached in dusty light, blunted by echoes. Tak gave him a sarcastic glance.

  Is this, Kid thought, one of the things that, a minute hence, will slip from the register of memory to take some inaccessible address beside my name? (He closed his mouth, and the roar he had moved through for the last minutes ceased.) More likely it is one of those things that I will never be able to speak of, and never forget.

  They were halfway to the door before the first voice proportioned with amusement yawned somewhere and inquired, Never? then giggled, turned over, and went to sleep.

  Well not for a hell of a long time.

  But he felt a little bit better.

  "Did you see those?" Tak nodded down another aisle of crates.

  "What?" Kid's heart still beat very fast. He felt light-headed.

  "Come on." Tak led him along.

  The orchids hung on wooden racks pegged over with dowels.

  Kid walked to one stand. "This is ... the fancy kind." He looked back. "Like you have, isn't it?"

  "Plain ones are over there." Tak stepped beside him. "I really thought you'd probably been in here before."

  To Kid's questioning glance, Tak took down the nearest. Beneath it was lettered:

  BRASS ORCHIDS

  Kid laughed. It made a weak sound in his "throat, but echo lent it body. "Here, let me see that?" Kid took the scrolled contrivance and turned it around and around. "I guess it would be okay if I took this one . . . wouldn't it?"

  Tak shrugged. "Why not?"

  Kid folded his fingers together and pushed them through the wrist band. "I left my other one back at the nest. Might as well have two-one for special occasions." He made a sudden feint at Tak. "You like that?" He laughed again.

  "Come on." Tak had not moved at all. "Let's go."

  They were in sight of the door when Kid got another attack of gooseflesh. But this one just made him grin. He looked up at the skylight, hunched his shoulders, and hurried after Tak. I'll probably never be able to find this place again, he thought. To steal a souvenir (he looked down at the yellow blades about his hand) seemed suddenly the ultimate cunning.

  Outside, Tak smoothed the folded material across his arm. "Since this is going to be your girl friend's ball gown, I shouldn't show you how it works. But it's sort of neat. Just a second." He took out of his pocket the piece of equipment-a metal box the size of a cigarette pack with three dials, two knobs, and a small light on one corner. "Give me a loan of the battery in your shield."

  "Oh, sure." Kid fumbled the sphere through the blades. The projector clicked open. "I only got one hand. You take it out."

  "Right."

  Tak opened the back of the box and put the battery in.

  "Now watch."

  He turned a knob.

  The light on the box's corner flickered argon-orange.

  "Here we go."

  He turned another.

  The cloth over Tak's arm-at first Kid thought Tak was shaking it-turned purple.

  "Huh?" Kid said.

  The metallic scales from which the cloth was made all seemed to have reversed. Some reversed again, and a blot of scarlet grew in one corner, occluded the purple, till it in turn was swept by glittering green.

  "Oh, hey ... !" Kid stepped back. "That's going to be a dress?"

  "Pretty, isn't it?"

  The parti-colored flicker, like insect wings, resolved to blue that deepened, and deepened more, to black.

  Tak turned off the box. Most of the cloth fell into dull silver. He shook it; and it was all one metallic grey.

  "You know how it works?"

  "Um-hm." Tak put the box back in his pocket. "It's simple, really. Hey, don't tell Lanya I showed you this. She wanted it to be a surprise."

  "Oh, sure," Kid said. "Sure." He looked back at the warehouse. "Hey, Tak, who . . . ?"

  "Now that question," Tak said at his shoulder, "if I knew the answer to, I would have already told you."

  "Oh," and Kid began to list those to which that could have been an adequate response. "You want to come up and have a drink?" Kid said, "Hey, let me see how that stuff works again. That's what I want to see." Tak sighed. "Sure."

  ". . . gonna kill you, mother-fucker!" shrieking like a baby in pain. Kid leaped from the loft, pivoted around the door jamb. Dollar danced in the hall, swinging the plank above his head.

  "Hey . . . !" Copperhead stepped back, his arm before his face.

  "-Kill you if you don't leave me alone!"

  Copperhead ducked. The plank hit the wall.

  Three scorpions (two black, one white) crowded the living room doorway. Two (one man, one woman) stepped in, staring, from the service porch.

  Dollar's head went back. '

  Kid lunged and grabbed; his hand tangled Dollar's hair. He grasped the scorpion's shoulder and spun him back against the wall. Dollar crashed, and clicked his long teeth. The plank corner hit Kid's shoulder and clattered to the floor, while Dollar opened his mouth again. His lips strung out gummy saliva. Dollar tried to shove forward, gasping, Copperhead was trying to pull Kid away.

  Kid jammed his elbow back. "Get off!"

  "I'm gonna kill 'im!" Dollar shrieked in Kid's face. "He won't leave me alone. I'm gonna kill 'im! He knows I'm gonna kill 'im! I'm gonna kill 'im! I'm gonna kill-"

  Kid flung himself against Dollar, spread-eagled them both on the wall. Then his shoulder, still stinging from the plank, exploded in pain, so surprising he couldn't cry out. He just grunted and clawed at Dollar's head. Dollar's teeth came open with a rush of air. He heard Dollar's skull hit the wall twice, and realized he was pounding it. He felt blood dribbling bis arm. Dollar's eyes were unfocused. He was trying to shake his head. His upper teeth were filmed with blood, his lower lip flecked with it.

  "You gonna let me take care of him?" Copperhead's voice came out a fifth too low; his words wobbled. "This fuckin' loony is gonna hurt somebody! And then there ain't gonna be no telling. You gonna let us take care of him?"

  Kid looked back. Copperhead's bearded chin was buried back in his neck. His freckled fists opened and closed, and he swayed and panted.

  "You gonna let us take care of him?"

  Dollar rocked his head over the wall. "You tell him to leave me alone!" Tears made the lashes of his. left eye glisten. "I'm gonna kill 'im! He knows it!" Dollar blinked. Tears rolled into the stubble that grew high up h
is pustuled cheek.

  In the stillness, Kid's panic died. What surged in its place was rage. But he could find no words to bellow. He raised his hands and let a roaring breath.

  Copperhead blinked and stepped back.

  Dollar's eyes stopped rolling.

  Kid felt some muscle leaping in his jaw and flexed his mouth to control it. He rubbed his sticky shoulder.

  Glass stood in the bathroom door, Spitt, a few steps behind of him. In the open front door, Denny had one hand on the knob and the other on the molding.

  Waiting for words to come to him, Kid heard talking.

  ". . . You see that? You see that, the way he did? . . ." Pepper crowded in the living room door, whispered intently the D-t, who wasn't listening. ". . . You see the way Dollar went after that nigger, with a damn board? I bet he would've really messed him up, I bet. He better watch out for Copperhead, now, 'cause Copperhead gonna get him. You think he could beat up Copperhead? Huh? If Kid ain't come in to stop it, who do you bet would've got the other one first, huh? If Kid ain't come in ..."

  Between thin shoulders, heavy with chain, Pepper's face bore its ecstatic, rotted grin.

  "You wait, Copperhead," Kid said, "till I tell you to."

  Copperhead closed his lips and, more just to move his head than to agree, nodded.

  "Go on," Kid said. "Just don't bother with him."

  ". . . Yeah," Copperhead said. His fists opened, ". . . only 'cause that's what you sayin' . . ." He turned and walked up the hall; Glass and Spitt shifted their weight.

  "I'm gonna kill 'im! He knows I'm gonna-"

  Copperhead turned and barreled back.

  Kid hit Dollar on the side of his face with both fists meshed. It was a weak and awkward blow (and his shoulder stung and throbbed beneath the sting) but Dollar crumpled with his hands over his ears.

  Copperhead grabbed Kid's shoulders (the pain in the left one went up another level) and got two kicks in around Kid's legs.

  "Owe . . . ! Naw . . . !"

  Kid shoved Copperhead back. "Someone get him out of here!"

  No one moved.

  "You two! Get this bastard out of this God-damn nest before somebody kills him!" He turned and put both hands on Copperhead's chest. Copperhead's vest hung down one arm. A chain had fallen over the other. "You leave him alone . . . otherwise I'm gonna have to bust you too, and then we'll both get hurt!"

  Behind him there was a scraping and jangling.

  He looked over his shoulder. Denny and another scorpion (neither were the two he had yelled at) supported Dollar, who panted, lurched, and couldn't get his feet under him at all. Kid thought: He must be faking. Damn it, nobody hit him that hard.

  Copperhead took another breath, swallowed, shook his head, took another.

  ". . . Dollar would have really busted up Copperhead if Kid didn't stop him, I bet? You think he would've killed him? I bet he would've, I mean you see the way he went after Copperhead with that board? Then Kid just runnin' in like that. . ."

  The front door opened; Dollar's feet struggled with the steps.

  Kid breathed hard, clapped Copperhead's shoulder and walked past. He tried to atomize the fragments of the action. He felt terribly clear-headed. But for all his clarity, he could trace no motivations through the memories of blows and pain.

  He stood on the service porch kneading his shoulder, listening to people moving again in other rooms.

  "Kid . . . ?"

  The girl Dollar had been necking with last night (from her clothes, Kid saw, she wasn't a scorpion) tucked under one arm, Copperhead, still breathing hard, stepped onto the porch. Spitt and Glass were wedged behind him.

  "What?" Kid squeezed his shoulder again. "What do you want?" The scrape from the plank had done more harm than Dollar's bite. Rabies, he thought; I'm gonna get rabies from the bastard.

  "You let us go out and take care of him, okay? He's hanging around the house. He's just gonna try and make trouble. We work him over, and he'll be all quiet and nice again, once he gets better. I don't know what you're trying to do," Copperhead said. "But it won't work no other way."

  "I don't care," Kid said, mainly because his shoulder hurt, "what you do with him as long as you do it outside."

  Copperhead looked back at the other two scorpions. "Okay," he said thickly. "Come on."

  The girl stood in the doorway alone, fingering the waist of her maroon jeans. "They shouldn't do that," she said, with an accent out of Florida and an expression of concern.

  As clear as he had felt moments back, Kid felt that dull now. Mouth opened, he nodded at her.

  Later he stalked through the house, ignoring the people who moved around him. He stood at the front door, then suddenly turned and went to the porch, and stood before the door there, not really looking at the yard outside; when he became aware of it, he went into the kitchen.

  Outside the screening a girl was asking: ". . . inside? Do you know if he's in there? The big . . ."

  Kid opened the door.

  Her knuckle leaped to her chin. Her blonde hair, caught in a barrette with plastic flowers, slipped off her shoulder as she turned her head.

  "You're about eight blocks off Jackson," Kid said.

  June shook her head. "I wasn't looking for . . ."

  Raven (one of the scorpions who owned the Harley) rubbed his dirty hands on his vest, squeezed his long, rough hair together, took the thong from between his teeth, and tied a top-knot large as his head. "I don't know what she wants."

  "You . . . you live here?" June asked.

  Kid nodded. "What do you want? If you're not looking for George, who are you looking for?"

  Her hand fell from button to button on her blouse. "My brother."

  Kid frowned.

  "My big brother, Edward."

  "Oh . . ." Kid frowned harder. "What makes you think you'll find him here?"

  "Somebody saw . . . said they saw . . . you just . . ." She looked at Raven. He had settled his thumb in his belt and stared back.

  Kid beckoned her inside with a nod. She came sideways through the door. Because the sink had filled up once more, somebody had put the kettle, sides streaked . with hardened soup, in the middle of the floor.

  June looked at it.

  Kid tried to remember how long he'd been stepping around it.

  "Somebody told my mother that they'd . . . they thought they'd seen somebody who . . ."

  They went into the next room.

  "My parents don't know I came," she said. "They wouldn't have wanted me to ... come here."

  Two black girls turned to watch her. A blond boy came up behind them, leaned on their shoulders, sucked in his lower lip and drawled. "Shit . . ." The three laughed.

  "He isn't one of them?" Kid asked. "Is he?"

  She looked at the toes of her black shoes; spots of red spread her cheek.

  "You want to hunt around?"

  She nodded and hurried ahead to interpose him between the leering scorpions and herself. Two more passing the doorway, the short-haired white woman (with a tattoo on her arm) and D-t, caught her eyes, till she suddenly jerked her head away and closed her mouth.

  "Come on, I'll show you around."

  In the hallway the girl in maroon Levis was talking to Siam. June looked at the photograph with its cracked glass at the same time Siam and the girl looked at her.

  It's because, he realized, she stands so far away from me, so nervously, that makes them stare like that. She circles, she still circles, she circles in. Yet she's so far away! It's not even (the realization went on) that she's a pretty girl, but rather that there are over two dozen people living in here and the isolation she demands about her destroys our concept of human space. That their hostility comes out in sexual leers and sexual jibes ("You see that pussy walk through here?" somebody, male or female, he wasn't sure, said in the next room. "Where's my knife and fork?") is a generic response to something far more personal than her gender-though she may not understand that for years. Some people are very young at
seventeen. "You don't live in the park any more?" June asked.

  "Nope." He looked out on the porch and into the yard. "He's not one of those?"

  ï She shook her head without, he thought, looking.

  "Maybe in here." They crossed the hall; Kid opened the door.

  It was hot and even Kid sometimes wondered how they slept in the charred half-dark. Four, a girl among them, naked on the big mattress in the corner, sweated inertly, breaths hissing in different rhythms. Cathedral with his back against the wall reading a book whose cover had come off (-Brass Orchids: Kid recognized the title page). In deference to the sleepers, he had not raised the shade. The lion, crouched on the sill, read over his shoulder.

  Kid stepped forward.

  June, her hand loose before her face once more, followed.

  The closet door had been taken down and propped up on boxes. An open sleeping bag hung off it onto the floor. A boy and girl, both with long hair, slept there together. Neither were scorpions and the boy (his hand curled against her neck) looked as though he would have slept easier in the commune.

  Someone (Angel?) rummaged inside the closet. Things rumbled and fell and growled, punctuated by, ". . . shit . . ." and ". . . God damn . . ." and ". . . shit! ..." and "... shit. .."

  Since Kid had last been in the room, someone had hung up a poster of George as the Moon. Around it were a half dozen Playboy centerfolds, two covers from Black Garters, and lots of naked women playing tennis at some nudist camp.

  June closed her fists so tightly in the skirt of her green jumper, they shook.

  This is an act, Kid thought. But then, so is this.

  "Eddy?" Her voice was firm for all her quivering arms.

  "Huh? . . . Oh, hey . . ." It was the square-jawed blond scorpion who'd harassed Pepper. "What are you . . . just a second." He pushed the blanket off his feet and began to lace his sneakers. He snapped his jeans together and searched for his vest. Hair, light as his sister's, made a crushed and sprung helmet of gold foil too big for his head.

  "I've . . . I've never seen anything like this in my life!" June accused, softly. Her face looked as though, expecting milk, she had swallowed orange juice. She actually said: "Eddy . . . is it really you?"

  "Just a second," the blond repeated, got his vest on, and stood, unsteadily on the mattress. He looked too old for Kid's picture of June's other brother. His forehead was creased. His temples were high. Like I'm a baby face, Kid thought, maybe you'd just think he was over twenty-five: but there was a certain youthful unsurety of movement. Like his sister's. Their eyes and upper lips were identical. His lower one was fuller than hers-more like Mrs Richards'. He came toward them. "What'd you come here for?"