Dhalgren

  He gestured with his head for her to follow.

  Stepping around one person and over another, they went into the hall.

  The noise erupted and trundled and careered.

  Looking for the room with Denny's loft, Kid pushed open the second door he saw. But there was too much light-

  Siam on a crate by the green sink, said, "Hey!" and put the newspaper over his lap. He looked at Kid with a smile that fell apart into awed confusion. "I was . . . was reading the paper." At the edge of the bandage over his hand, the flesh was scaling. Siam offered his brown smile again, thought better, took it back. "Just reading the paper." He stood; the paper fell on the floor. The boards had once been painted maroon.

  There was neither glass nor screening in the wide porch window. The city sloped away down the hill.

  "You can see . . . so far," Lanya said at Kid's shoulder.

  She took another sip of coffee. "I didn't realize you could

  see so far from here." v

  But Kid was frowning. "What's that?"

  Beyond the last houses, beyond the moiled grey itself, at a place that might have marked the horizon, a low, luminous arc burned.

  "It looks like the sun coming up," Lanya said. "Naw," Siam said. "It's the middle of the afternoon. Maybe it's . . ." He looked at Kid again, stopped.

  "Maybe it's a fire," Kid said. "It's too wide for the sun."

  Siam squinted. The arc was reddish. Beyond the gash of the park, a few houses were touched here and there with a copper that, in the haze, paled almost to white gold. "Sometimes," Siam said, "when you see the moon real close to the horizon, like that, it looks much bigger. Maybe the same thing happens to the sun, sometimes?"

  "But you just said it was the middle of the afternoon." Kid squinted too. "Besides, it's still ten times too wide." He looked back at Lanya. "Let's go."

  "Okay." Lanya took his hand, the bladed one, slipping her fingers between the metal, to hold two of his.

  They went back into the hall.

  The room with Denny's loft didn't have a door.

  "If there's nobody in here," Kid said, "we can talk."

  "Want any more coffee?"

  "No."

  She finished half the cup (while he thought how hot it must be) and put it down on a cluttered ironing board behind the motorcycle.

  "Get up in the loft."

  She climbed, looked back. "Nobody's up here."

  "Go on."

  She crawled over, first one tennis shoe, then the Other disappearing.

  He came up after her.

  "Look," she said, as he got his other knee over, "I came by because I wanted to apologize for being so- well, you know. Running off like that. And acting so angry."

  "Oh," he said. "That's okay. You were angry. I'm just glad you come." One fist balled on the blankets, he settled to his haunches, watching her silhouette against the windowshade. "How did you know I was here?" He wanted to put his head in her lap; he wanted to nuzzle between her legs. "How did you find me, this time? Who saw me wander up here this morning and came running back to tell you?"

  "But this is where they said you'd been for-"

  "I know!" He sat back, laughed sharply. "I've been gone another five days! Right?"

  Her silhouette frowned.

  "Or six. Or ten ... people have been talking about me again, saying how I've been living it up here, running with the scorpions, making my rep." He wanted to cup her warm cheeks in his rough, ugly hands. He said, and his voice suddenly became rough, ugly: "I've seen you every day since I met you . . ." He dragged his hands, bladed and unbladed, into his lip, where bone and muscle and chain and leather and nerve and metal, all mixed up, lay, heavy and confused and gripping. "I have!" He said, swallowed. "That's what it feels like. To me . . ."

  She said: "That's one of the things I wanted to talk about. I mean, after I left you asleep, in the church, I thought maybe you'd want to know some of what happened while you . . . were away. You told me you went looking for me at the park commune. I thought you'd want to know what happened there after that guy with the gun-"

  "I-" fingers and metal and harness moved in his lap-"I don't ... I mean, I live in one city." He moved but couldn't lift. "Maybe you live in another. In mine, time . . . leaks; sloshes backwards and forwards, turns up and shows what's on its ... underside. Things shift. Yeah, maybe you could explain. In your city. In your city, you're sane and I'm crazy. But in mine, you're the one who's nuts! Because you keep telling me things are happening that don't fit with what I see! Maybe that's the only city I can live in. Some guy with a gun? In the park?"- He laughed, harshly. "I don't know if I want to live in yours!"

  She was silent; once he saw her head jerk at some idea; but she decided not to say that one, seconds later decided to say another: "You say you saw me ... last night, at the church? And then before that, yesterday . . . morning? In the park? All right. I'll accept that's what it looks like to you, if you'll accept that it doesn't seem that way to me. All right." She gestured toward his knee, did not quite touch it. "I'm curious about your . . . city. But some time soon, ask me about what goes on in mine. Maybe something's there that can help you."

  "You have my notebook?"

  "Yes." She smiled. "I figured you were so out of it, you just might leave it behind on the floor. You've written some strange stuff in there."

  "My poems?"

  "Those too," she said.

  Which made him frown because some of this warmth, still unresolved, was connected with wanting to write.

  "I'm glad you have it. And I'm glad you came to see me. Because I-"

  Footsteps below.

  And Denny's head came up over the loft edge.

  "Hey, look. This is-oh. You." Denny crawled up over while someone else climbed.

  She stopped with her head just visible, and recognized Kid with a frown that faded to resignation, then climbed the rest of the way, breasts swinging in blue jersey.

  "Urn . . . this loft is theirs," Kid said to Lanya.

  "It's his," the girl said. "It isn't mine. All the junk up here is his. We just came to get away from the mob."

  "You see," Kid said, "instead of telling me what's been going on while I was there, you should be finding out what's been going on here."

  "Sure," Lanya said. "What?"

  "I been balling these two, for one thing. That seemed like days . . ."

  Denny's chin jerked.

  The girl sighed a little.

  "Denny's a good fuck," Kid said. "She is too. But sometimes it gets a little hectic."

  "Denny . . . ?" the girl said.

  Denny, sitting back on his heels, darted his eyes from Lanya to Kid.

  "Maybe," Kid said, and suddenly his hands came apart, "we all could ball again. I mean the four of us. That might work out better-"

  The girl said, "Denny, I'm supposed to be going some place with Copperhead and his friends. I told you that before. Look I gotta ..."

  "Oh," Denny said. "Well, okay."

  "You sure?" Kid asked the girl. "I mean, the whole idea was because I thought maybe it would make you feel better if..."

  The girl poised at the edge of the loft. "Look," she said. "You're probably trying to be very nice. But you just don't understand. It isn't my thing. Maybe it's his." She nodded toward Denny. "I don't know ... is it yours?" That was to Lanya.

  "I don't know," Lanya said. "I've never tried."

  "I don't mind somebody watching," the girl said, "if it's a friend. But what we were doing," she shrugged; "It isn't me." She got down from the platform, paused again, just a head showing. "Denny, I'll see you later. Goodbye," with the same tone Kid remembered from the sixteenth-floor apartment in the Labrys. A second later she tripped on something, gave a startled, stifled, "Shit . . ." and was gone.

  Kid looked from Denny to Lanya, back to Denny. "We . . ." he started. "We were just ... we figured we'd use your loft because, well, there were so many other people around. Like she said; the mob." .

  "That
's okay," Denny said. He crossed his arms. "Is it okay if / watch?"

  Lanya laughed and sat back against the window edge. A scar of light from beside the shade lay on her hair.

  Denny looked at her. "That's what I like to do. Sometimes, I mean, since it's my place. He knows."

  "Sure," Lanya said. "That's reasonable." She nodded, laughed again.

  "We were just using it to talk," Kid said.

  "Oh," Denny said. "I just thought because you were saying we should all ... you know. All of us."

  "You do live in a strange city," Lanya said. "Maybe I do too." She looked at Denny. "Where do you live?"

  "Right here." Denny frowned. "Most of the time."

  "Oh." After a moment, Lanya said: "You two've been at it? Why don't you two make it then-" she moved her tennis shoes from beneath her, raised her knees," dropped her meshed fists between-"and I'll watch. I've been in the other room when two guys were balling. But I've never been in the same bed. The idea sort of turns me on."

  Kid said: "I just meant-"

  "I know," Lanya said. "You want Denny and me to ball, and you want to watch. Well-" she shrugged, tossed her hair and grinned-"I think you're cute-" at Denny. "I wouldn't mind that."

  "Gee," Denny said, "I don't know if . . ." and shifted into some other emotional gear: "because you see that's what we were . . ." and into another: "before. It was okay. But . . ." He went forward on his fists, lowered his haunches. "It's just that it wasn't her . . ." He glanced over the edge. "Like she said. And I'd never done it that way either."

  "Oh." Lanya said, pushing her elbows together.

  Kid thought: I still don't know her name. "Hey," he said to Lanya. "Come here."

  Lanya pursed her lips, hesitated with stiffened arms; then they unstiffened. She came forward.

  "You too, mother-fucker." Denny practically fell against his side. Kid caught the boy's neck in the crook of his arm. The blades swung beyond Denny's face, dim in half light. Kid pulled his arm tight around Lanya's shoulder, his hand an epaulet over blouse, collar bone, muscle.

  "If you don't play, you don't watch." He had been planning to squeeze them affectionately, maybe say something else funny, and let go. But, for a moment, he was aware they were two entirely different temperatures; and something in his own heat was defined) resolved, released. And Denny (his shoulder hot and still powdery dry) reached across Kid's chest, put two fingers against Lanya's cheek (her neck against Kid's arm cooler and softer, as though it had been recently dried after rain) and said. "You're . . ." and stopped when she reached out and put her palm on Denny's neck. Kid said: "Yeah . . ." She watched, something happening in her face, which became quiet laughter, her eyes going back and forth between Kid's and Denny's, pulling herself closer.

  Denny's head suddenly moved. His laugh back was sharp, shrill. Still, whatever tensions were in it eased in it. "You open your mouth after this morning, cock-sucker," Kid said, "and it won't be my dick you get in it-"

  ï "Kid ..." Lanya's protest was real.

  But Denny caught Lanya's forearm, turned his face into her palm.

  Something in the machinery between Kid's belly and loin tightened. Denny was trying to climb over him. Kid moved a leg between them-something scraped. Lanya got one elbow under her. Kid's hand dragged her back. It's clumsy, Kid thought. It is clumsy! and a despair that he had been trying to hold in suspension for-how long? broke. He thought he was going to cry. What came out was a great, voiceless gasp.

  Denny lay his head down on Lanya's hand that was on Kid's chest. Then he said, softly, "Aren't we gonna take our clothes off ... this time?"

  Lanya moved her other hand down Denny's head till she was holding his ear.

  "Don't pull," Denny said. "I'm not pulling," she said. "I'm tickling."

  "Oh," Denny said. And then: "That's nice." And then, raising his head, "I think you better take that thing off-at least."

  (Kid looked at his hand still in the air. It was quieter in the other room.)

  Lanya suddenly sat. "Oh wow. Sure." She wore one of her stranger expressions. "I didn't even see!"

  Kneeling over him, she took Kid's wrist, got the clasp. Kid was completely astonished when Denny's hands joined hers and, with no clumsiness, the blades opened, fell away: the harness was lifted from his tingling wrist.

  Lanya put it on the window ledge by the blind, where it stood, upright, a long, bright crown.

  Kid turned his freed hand in the air, looking at the hirsute joints and ruined tips flex, horny palms and knuckles folding, opening, till, tired, it began to waver, fall. Someone tugged at his belt. Someone pulled at his vest shoulder. He laughed, turning, while through some door in another room a lot of people left.

  They made love.

  It was energetic. It was graceful. It was intense. He was a warmth that moved around and between them. They were warmths that moved around him, between him and each other. Once, eyes closed against the damp blanket, he moved his hand across her rib cage, brushing beneath her breasts with the knuckle of his thumb (she caught her breath . . .) till he reached her arm (. . . then let it out) and followed her arm to where her elbow bent on Denny's belly, and on to where her hand held Denny's penis.

  After moments, his hand came away, against the embankment of her hip, crossed it. He pressed his fingertips in the hair over her pubic bone, slid them down to cup, to press in. First one, then the other, he touched their genitals. Finally he pushed himself to his knees, put one knee across them, watched them watch him, blinked. Sweat dribbled his cheek. A drop caught in his eyelash and shook. He bent his head.

  Is it only an hour, he wondered, that encompassed three people's four orgasms? Now I know why, though foreplay can be delineated in all its fascinating and psychotropic detail, a poet must use asterisks or blank paper for orgasmic mechanics that satisfying: they open to something so wide you can now understand why, when sex is that good, you may say, "The sex is not the most important part," and feel these words analogue some shadow of truth.

  Then he remembered, amidst his auto-pontifications, there were two other people who would have to agree with him before he could even suspect such maunderings correct. Grinning, he pushed up on his hands, climbed over one of them (stopped to stare at the sleeping face, full up, lips momentarily pressing, nostrils flaring, two fingers coming to scratch the nose and fall away, still in sleep), looked over at the other (this one on the side, lips parted, lower eyelid mashed slightly open revealing an albumen line, breath whispering against curled knuckles) and, after taking the pen from Lanya's pocket and putting it in a bottom hole of his vest, climbed down, dragging his clothes on top of him.

  He wondered, if they woke, would they think he had gone to the bathroom.

  In the doorway, he pulled on his pants, put on his vest. There was a cold line against his chest . . . The pen. The chain around him was hot. He ran his fingertips along it, concerned and trying to recall why.

  In the strangely quiet hall, he went to the porch door, opened it. And squinted. Gold trapezoids lay high up the lapped-plank wall. His moist skin was slathered with bronze. Each hair on his forearm glowed amber.

  He heard his own loud breath; he closed his mouth.

  Looking down at his chest, before his vision blurred with tears, he saw that one prism had laid out on his skin a tiny chain of color.

  The house was perfectly silent behind him.

  He rubbed his eyes, shook his head.

  The tearing stopped, anyway.

  He raised his eyes again, looked out the porch window at the horizon again-

  When he'd first moved to New York City to go to Columbia, he had brought with him an absolute panic of the Bomb. It had been October; he had no Thursday morning classes, was still half-asleep in the sweaty sheets of a persistent, Indian summer. Sirens woke him-he remembered no scheduled test. A jet snarled somewhere on the sky. He got chills and immediately tried to logic them away. This is the sort of coincidence, he thought, blinking at the dull window, that can ruin a good da
y.

  Then the window filled with blinding yellow light.

  He'd leaped from the bed, taking the sheets with him. His throat cramped and his heart exploded while he watched gold fire spill from window to window in the tenement across the street.

  The fireball! he thought, beyond the pain in his terrified body. The light's here now. The shock and the sound will arrive in four seconds, five seconds and I will be dead . . .

  Four seconds, five seconds, seven seconds, ten seconds later, he was still standing there, shaking, panting, trying to think of someplace to hide.

  The clouds, in coincidence compounded, had pulled away from the sun. The plane was gone. The clock radio in the bookshelf said noon. The siren lowered its pitch, softened its whine, and ceased.

  What he'd felt then had been active terror.

  What he felt now was its passive equivalent.

  It couldn't be a fireball, he thought. That was impossible.

  Beyond the mist, it shone through as moon or sun shone through an even veil of clouds. It was the color of the sunrise: perhaps a sixth of the circle had risen, secanted by the horizon. But already it was, what? A hundred? Three hundred? Six hundred times the area of the platinum poker chip he remembered as the sun.

  ... If the sun went nova! he thought. Between his loudening heart he ferreted this information: If that's what it was, then the earth would boil away in seconds! His heart stilled. What a silly fact to base one's confidence on before this light!

  The clouds over half the sky were a holocaust of pewter and pale gold.

  Was the light warm?

  He rubbed his bronzed forearm.

  The verdigrised spigot on the wall dropped molten splashes on the muddy drain. Torn paper tacked to the frame of the window filigreed the shadow on the wall beside him.

  When he had thought the bomb had fallen, back in New York, he had been left with a tremendous energy, had paced and pondered and searched for something to do with it, had ended up just walking it away.

  I may be dead, he thought, in ... seconds, minutes, hours? He squinted at the brilliant arc, already perhaps thirty houses wide. The thought came with absurd coolness, I'm going to write something.