Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany

  I took the orchid from the chain around my neck, I raised my hand and slipped it into the take. I'm going to kill you." On my hand-it swung up at Tarzan's chest-was the orchid. "That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to play tic-tac-toe on your face, and then I'm-"

  "Hey . . ." Tarzan whispered, "you're crazy. . . !" looking very scared, looking at Denny, then D-t; but they had stepped away, and he looked scareder.

  "Yeah?" I nodded. "You didn't know I was crazy?"

  I held the clutch of blade-points right in front of his left tit. While everybody held their breath, I thought: It would be easier here than any place else. Then I said: "Aw, shit! Run, mother-fucker!"

  Tarzan looked confused.

  I dropped my hand. "I want to see you run! And that's the last I want to see of you till after the sun comes up tomorrow. Otherwise, I will beat the shit out of you, carry your broken, bleeding, and unconscious body back to your mother's and father's door sill, apartment nineteen-A, and leave you there!"

  "They don't live in..." Then his mind clicked back to where he was; he sighed-I guess it was a sigh-and lunged for the door. He collided with a pigeon-chested man in the bluest shirt I've ever seen ("Hey, watch it! You okay . . . ?") and fled down the hall.

  The man looked confused too.

  Not that his hair was long; but for the type of person he was, your first thought would naturally be: He needs a haircut "She said," he said, "I should go out this way . . . ?"

  "Okay," Denny said. "There's the door."

  Dragon Lady had come up the steps and was standing outside it, watching.

  "I gave her the money. Hey, thanks a lot. That was really nice. Maybe I'll be back." He looked at me, then looked just a little more confused.

  Dragon Lady opened the door for him and he hurried down into the yard. She looked after him, then let the door close, but stood outside on the top step. I looked at the orchid.

  harness, and the sky darkened outside the windows, the sky roared outside the window screens, and I snapped the collar on my wrist, and the light split in two, each arm growing, ragged-rimmed, with magnesium bright edges, arching the sky, and I swung my hand up at Tarzan's chest.

  It isn't despair. That vanishes with enough laughter and reason. I have both of those

  I don't remember putting it on.

  I took it off.

  "You like him," I asked, "D-t?"

  "Who?" D-t said. "Tarzan? Man, he's okay. He just don't know when to keep his mouth shut. That's all."

  "You made him piss all in his pants," Denny said. Then he laughed. "You see that? He was getting wet, all down the side of his leg." He gestured at his own thigh.

  "Huh?" I said.

  "He wet all over himself." Denny laughed again, sharp, and barking, like a puppy.

  "I wish I'd seen it," I said. "It would have made me feel better."

  "I . . . don't mind Tarzan," Denny said.

  "Look, man," D-t said. "Tarzan's just a kid. He don't know anything."

  "Shit!" I slipped the orchid back on my neck again. "He's older than Denny!"

  "He comes," D-t said, "from a very strange family. He's told some of us all about them. You got to make allowances."

  "They're not that strange," I said.

  "I mean," D-t said, "they didn't teach him too much. I mean about the way things are."

  "Yeah?" I took a very large breath. "Maybe what gets me is how much his family reminds me of my own."

  Then I went down the hall and into my own room.

  Lanya, visible down to her nose, looked over the edge of the bed like a cartoon Kilroy.

  "Hello," I said. "How are you?"

  "When I heard you come in," she said, "I thought Denny would keep you in the front room. That's why I sent the guy out the back."

  I climbed up into the loft.

  She sat up and made room; she was wearing her jeans, but they weren't buttoned yet. "You know what turned him on most? That I was a chick who balled scorpions," she said immediately. "That was all that really interested him. He was nice enough. But I could have been a piece of liver one of you guys had jerked off in; he would have been just as happy." She touched my knee, tentatively. "I mean, I don't mind being a ... what do they call it, 'a homosexual bridge' if I enjoy both ends. Really-he was too funny."

  a-plenty. I guess most people, when all is said and done, lead lives as interesting as they can possibly bare. But I don't remember putting it on. I don't "I was going to ask you," I said, "whether you had completely lost your mind. But coming from me, I suppose, the question is presumptuous to the point of quaintness."

  "I don't think I'm out of my mind." She frowned. "To finish up the fantasy, I should turn this-" she pulled a five dollar bill from under her knee-"over to you. Or Denny . . ." She sucked in her lower lip, then let it go. "Actually I'd like to keep it."

  "Fine by me," I said. "Just don't get into this money thing too seriously. You'll end up like Jack."

  "It isn't the money," she insisted. "It's a symbol."

  "That's just what I mean."

  "I think you should take your own advice."

  "I try," I said, "Hey-this wasn't intended as some kookie way to get back at me for mugging that guy in the street?"

  "Kid!" She sat back. "You just shocked me for the first time since I've known you!"

  "Tread delicately," I said. "Where do you come off with this shit about me shocking you?"

  "I didn't even think of it. I mean, how are they even comparable? I mean what would . . . Wow! Is that what you thought?"

  "No," I said. "I didn't know. So I asked." We sat for a few seconds, rather glumly. Then I said: "Was he any good?"

  She shrugged. "It's five bucks."

  Then, because there was nothing else to do, I began to laugh. She did too. I put my arms around her and she sort of fell into them still laughing.

  "Hey!" Denny came up over the edge. "He was a real creep, huh? I'm sorry. Some guys you get, they aren't so bad. Some are even pretty nice. I figured, you know, if I'm gonna get some john set up for your first time, you know, I should find somebody nice. I thought he was nice when I brought him back here but-what's so funny?"

  Which got us going all the harder.

  Denny crawled behind us. "I wish you'd tell me what's so funny about trickin' with a creep like that?"

  "While we're skirting the subject," I got myself together enough to ask, "have you balled any of the other guys in the nest?"

  Lanya wriggled a little in my arms. "In the nest? Well, not here-" "Where did you ball 'em?" Denny asked, rather sharply.

  "Who," I asked, "did you ball?" I guess I was surprised again.

  "Revelation," Lanya said.

  I nodded.

  ". . . and, well, Copperhead."

  "Jesus," Denny said. "When?"

  Lanya raised a forefinger to bite on the green polish. "You remember the night of Kid's party, when he went off to Cumberland Park, during the fire, and found those kids, with George? You'd wandered off somewhere, Denny, and I was just sitting around here talking with everybody. Gladis and I were telling them about the House-that place where all the girls stay? They were very interested. So finally Gladis and I took Copperhead, Spitt, and Glass over-that's where I pick up my birth-control stuff, anyway. The evening is a little hazy, but as I recall, Revelation wandered in just a little later-" She sat up, scowling at her lap. "Spitt retired early with a young lady he met right away-they just went upstairs. And Glass wasn't feeling well so he left to come back here. But Copperhead and Revelation stayed around downstairs with the rest of us- Dragon Lady had come there, and everybody was yakking about old times-and got incredibly stoned. And-" She paused, her expression between consideration and confession-"eventually, I balled them. And-" she nodded at Denny-"your little girl friend there balled them. And Gladis balled them. And Filament. And Dragon Lady. And, all in all, about-" she raised her fist and began opening it, finger at a

  time; raised her other fist-"nine other women balled them too. No
t in that order: I was fifth or sixth."

  Denny said slowly and wondrously, "Wow. . . !"

  "It was very funny." Lanya dropped her

  In the middle of a corrective complaint about Risa's/Angel's joint cooking effort, Lanya turned to me as I came into the kitchen and said: "Kid, I had a thought, about your memory thing."

  "You all full of thoughts," Angel said. "Whyn't you shut up and let us cook?"

  "She's just helpin'," Risa said.

  "And she knows I'm just jokin'," Angel said. "Don't you?"

  "I'll shut up," Lanya said.

  I sat on a corner of the kitchen table. "What's your idea?" A piece of silverware fell on the floor.

  "Actually-" Lanya picked it up- "you have an amazing memory! I was snooping in shoulders. "I really thought the two of them had flipped out or something, at first. I was sort of scared for them. I don't think they could have stood up and walked. It was almost like they were in some sort of half-trance. Revelation was lying on his back crying through most of it. That part didn't turn me on too much. But it got some of the ladies off, and how! And he didn't loose his hard-on."

  I was surprised and I was curious: "Did they come?"

  "Maybe a couple of times at first. I think. But after that, they were just permanently up. Nobody gave 'em a chance to go down. You just did anything you wanted with them. And anyone who was interested did."

  "All girls?" Denny asked.

  Lanya nodded.

  "Shit."

  Lanya leaned against me. "I've never seen men in a state like that before. The whole thing was really very dyke-y." She crossed her arms under her breasts. "I dug it. It was a little scarey. But it was . . . an experience."

  your notebook again-forgive me, and I know you will: but your memory for conversation is practically photographic!"

  "No it's not," I told her.

  "I said 'practically.'"

  "No," I said again. "About a third of any conversation I write down is just paraphrase."

  "Being able to remember two thirds of what people say, even a few minutes after they've said it, is very unusual. Even your account of the night in the park; and you told me you hardly remembered any of that."

  "I just wrote down what you said happened."

  "If you don't have the lines right, you've certainly got the feeling! And with my hustling escapade, you've got all the lines. Those I remember."

  I said: "You read that too?"

  "And also your accounts of some of the talks we've had together. I don't know how they would stack up next to a transcript, but it's still impressive."

  "So what's your idea?"

  "Just that, maybe, since you've got such memory for details has something to do with your loosing track or whole periods of time or ... well, you know."

  "That's so interesting," I said, "I think I'll forget it right now."

  "She's just tryin' to help!" Risa said from the stove, clashing pot tops.

  "And she too knows I am joking," I said. "But even if you're right, so what?"

  Of course I didn't forget it, witness this. Still, I suspect my highly creative renderings are more convincing than accurate, no matter what she says-I think (hope?). "You're just having experiences one after the other, aren't you?" The first thing I thought of was what Risa had said to me that day out in the yard; what I found myself grinning at was that the possibility of a genital expedient for taking her suggestion left me just as dubious as an anal one about whether or not I wanted to go through something like that. Oh, well; maybe some people can't have everything.

  Lanya grinned up at me -"Um-hm" - and kissed my nose.

  "What does your Madame Brown think about all this?" I asked.

  "That I lead a wild and fascinating life."

  "Oh." I nodded.

  "She just wonders how I manage to get to school every day on time."

  "How do you manage to get to school every day on time?"

  Lanya

  shrugged. "Just conscientious, I guess."

  "Jesus!"

  Denny sat back, his hands in his lap. "You gang-shagged Revelation and Copperhead! Hey-who was better, Pinky or the nigger?"

  Am writing this comment on what Lanya said about the girls shagging the two guys at the house right after finishing putting down my account of our chaos and confusion with the Emboriki (with Jack, wouldn't you know, being that much help and making that much trouble!) because a lot of what happened there, what we said to them, what they said to us, pushed my mind back to it. I note that Copperhead and Revelation are pretty much exclusively-in-terested-in-girls guys; remember from last night (significant in terms of today?) Revelation politely trying to tell a pretty drunken Angel. Really, it was nothing personal but, no, he didn't want to fuck around with him, and no, he had never really tried it before, and no he didn't want to, at least not now; and the two of them went on like this, quietly out on the service porch, for half an hour. The truth, of course, is that Revelation was vastly flattered by that much attention from someone that much quicker than he is and wanted to extend it as much as possible. (Did we think by paying them serious attention we were going to flatter them into getting their foot off our necks?) I think, sometimes, the difference is that they are sure that any social structures that arise, grow out of patterns innate to The Sex Act-whatever that is; while we have seen, again and again, that the psychology, structures, and accouterments that define any sex act are always internalized from social structures that already exist, that have been created, that can be changed. All right: Let me ask the terrible question: Could it be that all those perfectly straight, content-with-their-sexual-orientation-in-the world, exclusive-heterosexuals really are (in some ill-defined, psychological way that will ultimately garner a better world) more healthy than (gulp . . . !) us? Let me answer: No way! "Neither of them - " she leaned forward and kissed Den-ay's nose-"was as sweet as you."

  "And by the way," Denny said, "where's my five bucks?"

  I cuffed him.

  "Hey, you want to hear what happened to me today?"

  "It's my five bucks, babes!" Lanya said.

  "Aw, shit! I went out in the damn street to pimp the fuckin' John-"

  "Look, shut up!" I told them. "Listen." Then I described what had happened back in the park. I thought it was funny. But they both thought it was pretty serious, while we talked about it.

  We talked about it a long time too.

  Three conversations in which Lanya took part her last few days here. (Stayed overnight; which I liked. Maybe I'm ready to go spend some time at her place? The nesting instinct is not the same as the homing one. Which pales first?) She was talking with Gladis when I came into the yard:

  "Oh-!" and ran up to me, blocked me halfway down the steps.

  I focused on her, as on a memory of mountain rain, autumn light, sea fizz.

  (She has green eyes!)

  The most natural thing, she turned me around on the steps and led me back to the porch-when I realized I was being led, she pulled a little harder; urged, "Come on," and took me into the loft room:

  "Where's your notebook? Or your new poems, anyway."

  "Huh? I thought you wanted to fuck."

  "Oh, if you want-" imitating another kind of girl, then she laughed at the imitation's success-"here!" The notebook corner stuck over the loft's edge; she pulled it down. Two loose pages fell.

  The active ones (of whichever sex) are denser and crueler. The passive one (of whichever sex) are lazier and more self-satisfied. In a society where they are on top, they cling like drowners to their active/passive, male/female, master/servant, self/other set-up not for pleasure, which would be reasonable, but because it allows them to commit or condone any lack of compassion among themselves, or with anyone else, and that (at least in this society, as they have set it up) is immoral, sick, and evil; any madness is preferable to that. And madness is not preferable! She picked them up. "Can I have these to take home?"

  "Sure," I said, "-no; not that one," and took back th
e sheet of blue paper (from the package of stationery Raven brought home).

  She folded the page I'd left her and put it in her shirt pocket. I put the other inside the cover and slid the notebook back up on the bed. "Why do you want these?"

  "Why do you write them?"

  "I don't know . . . any more."

  "Ditto," she said, disturbed; which disturbed.

  "Hey," I asked. "You haven't seen Mr Calkins again recently, have you?"

  "No?" in a way that asked why I'd asked.

  "I mean this isn't his idea . . . to get my new poems from you? You're not just keeping them for somebody else?"

  "Of course not. I just thought I had less chance of losing them than you did."

  "Mr Calkins talked to me about stealing them. I thought he was joking--you haven't showed them to anybody?"

  "Of course not . . ." Then she said: "Would it be so awful if I had? I did read one-a few to Madame Brown. And a friend of hers who came over that night to visit"

  "It wouldn't be awful."

  "You look unhappy about it, though."

  "I don't know. I'm just confused. Why did you read them? You just liked them?"

  "Very much. Everett Forest-Madame Brown's friend -asked me to, actually. We were talking about you, one night when he had dropped over. It came up that I had some of your unpublished work; he was very anxious to see it. So I read three or four of my favorites. I suppose-" she said and sat down on the motorcycle's seat-"-this is the part I shouldn't tell you: He wanted to copy them. But I didn't think he should . . . Kid?"

  "What?"

  "There's a lot of people in Bellona who are very interested in practically any and everything about you."

  "There're aren't a lot of people in Bellona," I said. . "Everybody keeps telling me this; what are they interested in me for?"

  "They think you're important, interesting . . . maybe some combination of the two. Make copies of your poems? I know people who, if I gave them your laundry list, would type careful reproductions as if they were for some university library or something."