Dhalgren

  "You do that nice tunafish casserole," Mr Richards called after her. "That's very good."

  "Ugh," Bobby said. "Bobby!" June said.

  "Yes, I know, Arthur." Mrs Richards returned with a gravy boat, set it on the table, and sat. "But I just feel so funny about fish. Wasn't it a couple of years back all those people died from some canned tuna that had gone bad? I just feel safer with vegetables. Though Lord knows, they can go bad too."

  "Botulism." Bobby said.

  "Really, Bobby!" Madame Brown laughed, a hand against her sparkling chains.

  "Oh, I don't think we're doing so badly. Mashed potatoes, mushrooms, carrots-" Mrs Richards indicated one and another of the bowls-"and some canned eggplant stuff I've never tried before. When I went to that health-food restaurant with Julia-when we were in Los Angeles?-she said they always use mushrooms and eggplants in place of meat. And I've made a sauce." She turned to her husband, as though to remind him of something. "Arthur . .. ?"

  "What?" Then Mr Richards too seemed to remember. "Oh, yes ... Kidd? Well, we've taken up this little habit of having a glass of wine with our meals." He reached down beside his chair, brought up a bottle, and set it beside the candle at his end of the table. "If it isn't something that appeals to you, you're perfectly welcome to have water-"

  "I like wine," Kidd said.

  Mrs Richards and Madame Brown had already passed their wine glasses up. So Kidd did too; though the water glass at the head of his knife seemed the better size for wine drinking as he was accustomed to it.

  Mr Richards peeled away gold foil, pulled loose the plastic stopper, poured, passed back the glasses.

  Kidd sipped; it was almost black in candlelight. At first he thought his mouth was burning-the wine was bubbly as soda pop.

  "Sparkling burgundy!" Mr Richards grinned and doffed his glass. "We haven't tried this one before. 1975. I wonder if that's a good year for sparkling Burgundy?" He sipped. "Tastes okay to me. Cheers."

  The candle flame staggered, stilled. Above and below the ornate label, green glass flickered.

  "I put a little wine in the gravy," Mrs Richards said. "In the sauce, I mean-it was left over from last night's bottle. I like to cook with wine. And soy sauce. When we went to Los Angeles two years ago for Arthur's conferences, we stayed with the Harringtons. Michael gave Arthur that shaving soap. Julia Harrington-she's the one who took me to that Health Food restaurant-made absolutely everything with soy sauce! It was very interesting. Oh, thank you, Arthur."

  Mr Richards had helped himself to mashed potatoes and now passed the dish. So had Madame Brown.

  Kidd checked his fingers.

  The rubbing had not removed any dirt; but it had divided it fairly evenly between both hands; the rough strips of nail back on the wide crowns were once more darkly ringed, as though outlined, nub and cuticle, with pen. He sighed, served himself when the dishes passed him, passed them on, and ate. His free hand back beneath the tablecloth, found the table leg, again explored.

  "If you're not a student," Madame Brown asked, "what do you put down in your notebook?-none of us could help noticing it."

  It was inside, on the table by the chair; he could see it beyond her elbow. "I just write things down."

  Mrs Richards hung her hands by the fingertips on the table edge. "You write! You're going to be a writer? Do you write poetry?"

  "Yeah." He smiled because he was nervous.

  "You're a poet!"

  Mr Richards, June, and Bobby all sat back and looked. Mrs Richards leaned forward and beamed. Madame Brown reached down with some silent remonstrance to Muriel.

  "He's a poet! Arthur, give him some more wine. Look, he's finished his glass already. Go on, dear. He's a poet! I think that's wonderful. I should have known when you took that Newboy book."

  Arthur took Kidd's glass, refilled it. "I don't know too much about poetry." He handed it back with a smile that, on a college football player, would have purveyed sheepish good will. "I mean, I'm an engineer ..." As he took his hand away, wine splashed on the cloth.

  Kidd said, "Oh, hey, I-"

  "Don't worry about that!" Mrs Richards cried, waving her hand-which knocked against her own glass. Wine splashed the rim, ran down the stem, blotched the linen. While he wondered if such a thing were done on purpose to put strangers at ease (thinking: What an uncomfortably paranoid thought), she asked: "What do you think of him? Newboy, I mean."

  "I don't know." Kidd moved his glass aside: through the base, he could see the diametric mold line across the foot. "I only met him once."

  At the third second of silence, he looked up, and decided he'd said something wrong. He hunted for the proper apology: but, like a tangle of string with a lost end, action seemed all loop and no beginning.

  "You know Ernest Newboy? Oh, Edna, Kidd's a real poet! And he's helping us, Arthur! I mean, move furniture and things." She looked from Mr Richards to Madame Brown, to Kidd. "Tell me-" She spilled more wine- "is Newboy's work just-wonderful? I'm sure it is. I haven't had a chance to read it yet. I just got the book yesterday. I sent Bobby down to get it, because of that article in the Times. We have this very nice little book-and-gift shop down the street. They have just everything like that- But after the article, I was afraid they were going to be all out. I think it's very important to keep up with current books, even if it's just bestsellers. And I'm really interested in poetry. I really am. Arthur doesn't believe me. But I do-I really do like it."

  "That's just because you went to that coffee shop with Julia in Los Angeles where they were reading that poetry and playing that music."

  "And I told you, Arthur, the evening we came back, though I don't pretend I understood it all, I liked it very much! It was one of the most-" she frowned, hunting for the right description-"exciting things I've . . . well, ever heard."

  "I don't know him very well," Kidd said, and ate more mushrooms; that and the eggplant weren't bad. The mashed potatoes (instant) were pretty gluey, though. "I just met him . . . once."

  "I'd love to meet him." Mrs Richards said. "I've never known a real writer."

  "Mike Harrington wrote a book," Mr Richards objected. "A very good book, too."

  "Oh, Arthur, that was an instruction manual ... on stresses and strains and the uses of a new metal!"

  "It was a very good instruction manual." Mr Richards poured more wine for Madame Brown and himself.

  "Can I have some?" Bobby said.

  "No," Mr Richards said.

  "How long have you been writing poetry?" Madame Brown asked, helpfully.

  Kidd looked up to answer-Madame Brown was waiting with a forkful of well-sauced eggplant, June with one of carrots; Mrs Richards had a very small fluff of potato on the tine tips of her fork-when it struck him that he didn't know. Which seemed absurd, so he frowned. "Not very . . ." long, he'd started to say. He had a clear memory of writing the first poem in the notebook, seated against the lamp post on Brisbain Avenue. But had he ever written any poems before? Or was it something he'd wanted to do but never gotten around to? He could see not remembering doing something. But how could you not remember not doing something? ". . . for very long," he finally said. "Just a few days, I guess," and frowned again, because that sounded silly. But he had no more surety of its truth or falsity than he had of his name. "No, not very long at all." He decided that was what he would say from now on to anyone who asked; but the decision simply confirmed how uncertain he was of its truth.

  "Well I'm sure-" there was only one more fluff ï of mashed potatoes on Mrs Richard's plate-"they must be very good." She ate it "Did Mr Newboy like them?"

  "I didn't show them to him." Somehow silverware, glasses, sideplates, and candles didn't seem right for talking about scorpions, orchid fights, the invisible Calkins and the belligerent Fenster-

  "Oh, you should," Mrs Richards said. "The younger men in Arthur's office are always bringing him their new ideas. And he says they've been coming up with some lulus lately-didn't you, Arthur? Arthur's always happy to talk to
the younger men about their new ideas. I'm sure Mr Newboy would be happy to talk to you, don't you think, Arthur?"

  "Well," Mr Richards reiterated, "I don't know too much about poetry."

  "I'd certainly like to see some of what you'd written," Madame Brown said and moved Mrs Richards' wine glass away from her straying hand. "Maybe some day you'll show us. Tell me, Arthur-" Madame Brown looked over joined fingers-"what is going on at Maitland, now? With everything in the state it's in, I'm amazed when I hear of anything getting done."

  She's changing the subject! Kidd thought with relief. And decided he liked her.

  "Engineering." Mr Richards shook his head, looked at Mrs Richards- "Poetry . . ." changing it, rather bluntly, back. "They don't have too much to do with one another."

  Kidd decided to give it a try himself. "I met an engineer here, Mr Richards. His name was Loufer. He was working on ... yeah, converting a plant. It used to make peanut butter. Now it makes vitamins."

  "Most people who like poetry and art and stuff," Mr Richards adhered, "aren't very interested in engineering-" Then he frowned. "The vitamin plant? That must be the one down at Helmsford."

  Kidd sat back and saw that Madame Brown did too.

  Mrs Richards' hands still spasmed on the table.

  Mr Richards asked: "What did you say his name was?"

  "Loufer."

  "Don't think I know him." Mr Richards screwed up his face and dropped his chin over the smooth gold-and-mustard knot of his tie. "Of course I'm in Systems. He's probably in Industrial. Two completely different fields. Two completely different professions, really. It's hard enough to keep up with what's going on in your own field, what your own people are doing. Some of the ideas our men do come up with-they're lulus all right. Like Mary says. Sometimes I don't even understand them-I mean, even when you understand how they work, you don't really know what they're for. Right now I'm just back and forth between the office and the warehouse- lord only knows what I'm supposed to be doing."

  "Just keeping up," Madame Brown said, and leaned one elbow on the table. As she moved, the candle flame drifted back and forth across her left eye. "At the hospital, it was all I could do to read two or three psychology bulletins a week, what with the behaviorists and the gestaltists-"

  "Peaches?" said Mrs Richards, leaning forward, knuckles like two tiny mountain ranges on the table edge. "Would anyone like some peaches? For dessert?"

  Maybe, Kidd thought, she really did want to talk about poetry-which would be fine, he decided, if he could think of anything to say. His own plate was empty of everything except the sauce-and-mashed-potato swamp. "Sure."

  He watched the word hang over the table, silence

  on both sides.

  "I don't want any!" Bobby's chair scraped.

  Both candlesticks veered.

  "Bobby-!" Mrs Richards exclaimed, while June caught one and Mr Richards caught the other.

  Bobby was off into the living room. Muriel barked and ran after him.

  "I'll have some, dear." Mr Richards sat back down. "Let him go, Mary. He's all right."

  "Muriel? Muriel!" Madame Brown turned back to the table and sighed. "Peaches sound lovely. Yes, I'll

  have some."

  "Yes, please, Mother," June said. Her shoulders were rather hunched and she was still looking at her lap, as though considering something intensely.

  Mrs Richards, blinking after her son, rose and went

  in the kitchen.

  "If I went to school," June blurted, looking up suddenly, "I'd go into psychology-like you!"

  Madame Brown, slightly flattered, slightly mocking, turned to June with raised brows. Mocking? Or, Kidd wondered, was it simply surprise.

  "I'd like to work with . . . mentally disturbed children-like you!" June's fingertips were over the table edge too, but tightly together, and even, so that you'd have to count to find where right fingertips ended and left began.

  "In my job, dear, at the hospital-" Madame Brown lifted her glass to sip; as she bent forward, loops of optic chain swung out like a glittering bib, and back-"I have more to do with the disturbed parents."

  June, now embarrassed by her outburst, was collecting plates. "I'd like to ... to help people; like a nurse or a doctor. Or like you do-" Kidd passed his over; it was the last-"with problems in their mind."

  He dragged his hands back across the cloth (spotted with sauce, soup, pieces of carrot, the purple wine blot) and let them fall into his lap.

  Mrs Richards' place was nearly as messy as his own. "I know it's a cliche-" Madame Brown shook her head-"but it really is true. The parents need the help far more than the children. Really: they bring their totally demolished child to us. And you know what they want in the first interview? It's always the same": they want us to say, 'What you should do is beat him.' They come in with some poor nine-year-old they've reduced to a state of numb, inarticulate terror; the child can't dress itself, can't talk above a whisper, and then only in some invented language; it soils its clothing, and the only coherent actions it can make are occasional attempts at murder or, more frequently, suicide. If I said to them, 'Beat her! Hit him!' they would glow-glow with delight. When they discover we want to take the children away from them, they're indignant! Under all the frustration and apparent concern, what they actually come hoping is that we will say, 'Yes, you're handling it all marvelously well. Just be a little firmer!' The reason I'm successful at my job at all-" Madame Brown touched June's shoulder and leaned confidentially-"as all I really do is pry the children loose from their parents-is because what I'm saying, underneath all my pleasant talk about how much better it would be for the rest of the family if they let little Jimmy or Alice come to us, is: Wouldn't it be ever so much more fun to work on one of your other children for a while? Wouldn't it be ever so much more interesting to fight someone with a little more strength left than this poor half-corpse you've just brought in. Why not clear the field and start in on little sister Sue or big brother Bill? Or maybe each other. Try to get an only child away from its parents once they've driven it practically autistic!" Madame Brown shook her head. "It's very depressing. I really think, sometimes, I'd like to change my field-do individual therapy. That's what I've always been interested in, anyway. And since there's nobody at the hospital now anyway-"

  "But don't you need licenses, or special examinations to do that, Edna?" Mrs Richards asked from the kitchen. "I mean, I know it's your profession, but isn't fiddling with people's minds dangerous? If you don't know what you're doing?" She came in with two long-stemmed dessert dishes, gave one to Madame Brown, and one to Mr Richards. "I read an article-" She paused with her hands on the back of her chair-"about those encounter group things, I think they call them? Julia Harrington was going to one of those, two years ago. And the minute I read that article, I cut it out and sent it to her-it was just terrifying! About all those unskilled people leading them and how they were driving everybody crazy! Touching each other all over, and picking each other up in the air, and telling each other about everything! Well, some people just couldn't take it and got very seriously ill!"

  "Well I-" Madame Brown began some polite protest.

  "I think it's all poppycock," Mr Richards said. "Sure, people have problems. And they should be put away where they can get help. But if you're just indulging yourself, somebody telling you to straighten up and fly right may be what you need. A few hard knocks never hurt anybody, and who's in a better position to give out a few than your own parents, I say-though I've never lifted a hand to my own." Mr Richards lifted his hand, palm out, to his shoulder. "Have I, Mary? At least not since they were big."

  "You're a very good father, Arthur." Mrs Richards came back from the kitchen with three more dessert glasses clutched together before her. "No one would ever deny that."

  "You kids just be glad your parents are as sane as they are." Mr Richards nodded once toward Bobby's (empty) chair and once toward June's; she was just sitting down in it after taking the plates into the kitchen. She
put a cut glass bowl, filled with white, on the white cloth.

  "Here you are," Mrs Richards said, passing Kidd his fruit.

  In its long-stemmed dessert dish, the yellow hemisphere just cleared the syrup.

  Kidd looked at it, his face slack, realized his lips were hanging a little open, so closed them.

  Beneath the table, he clutched the table-leg so tight a band of pain finally snapped along his forearm. He let go, let out his breath, and said: "Thank you .. ."

  "It's not terribly exciting," Mrs Richards said. "But fruit has lots of vitamins and things. I made some whipped cream-dessert topping, actually. I do like real cream, but this was all we could get. I wanted to flavor it almond. I thought that would be nice. With peaches. But I was out of almond extract. Or vanilla. So I used maple. Arthur, would you like some? Edna?"

  "Lord, no!" Madame Brown waved the proffered bowl away. "I'm heavy enough as it is."

  "Kidd, will you?"

  The bowl came toward him between the candles, facets glittering. He blinked, worked his jaw slowly inside the mask of skin, intent on constructing a smile.

  He spooned up a white mound-with the flame behind it, its edges were pale green.

  Madame Brown was watching him; he blinked. Her expression shifted. To a smile? He wondered what his own was. It was supposed to be a smile too; it didn't feel like one . . .

  He buried his peach. White spiraled into the syrup.

  "You know what I think would be lovely?" Mrs Richards said. "If Kidd read us one of his poems."

  He put half his peach in his mouth and said, "No," swallowed it, and added, "thanks. I don't really feel like it." He was tired.

  June said, "Kidd, you're eating with the whipped cream spoon."

  He said: "Oh . . ."

  Mrs Richards said, "Oh, that's all right. Everybody's had some who wants some."

  "I haven't," Mr Richards said.

  Kidd looked at his dish (a half a peach, splayed open in syrup and cream), looked at his spoon (the damasking went up the spoon itself, streaked with cream), at the bowl (above the faceted edges, gouges had been cut into the heaped white).