Dhalgren

by Samuel R. Delany

  Kidd frowned.

  "You say you've only been writing these for a few] weeks?"

  Kidd nodded, still frowning.

  "That's quite amazing. How old are you?"

  "Twenty-seven."

  "Now there." Mr. Newboy pulled back. "I would have thought you were much, much younger. I would have assumed you were about nineteen or eighteen and had worked most of your life in the country."

  "No. I'm twenty-seven and I've worked all over, city, country, on a ship. What's that got to do with it?"

  . "Absolutely nothing." Newboy laughed and drank. "Nothing at all. I've only met you a handful of times, and it would be terribly presumptuous of me to think I knew you, but frankly what I've been thinking about is how something like this would be for you. Twenty-seven . . . ?"

  "I'd like it."

  "Very good." Newboy smiled. "And the decision I've come to is, simply, that so little poetry is published in the world it would ill behoove me to stand in the way of anyone who wants to publish more. Your being older than I thought actually makes it easier. I don't feel quite as responsible. You understand, I'm not really connected with the whole business. The idea came from Mr Calkins. Don't let this make you think ill of me, but for a while I tried to dissuade him."

  "Because you didn't think the poems were good enough?"

  "Because Roger is not in the business of publishing poetry. Often unintentionally, he ends up in the business of sensationalism. Sensationalism and poetry have nothing to do with one another. But then, your poems are not sensational. And I don't think he wants to make them so."

  "You know, I was just talking to another poet, I mean somebody who's been writing a long time, and with a book and everything. He's got poems in Poetry. And that other magazine . . . the New Yorker. Maybe Mr Calkins would like to see some of his stuff too?"

  "I don't think so," Mr Newboy said. "And if I have one objection to the whole business, I suppose that's it. What would you like for the name of your book?"

  The muscles in Kidd's back tightened almost to pain. As he relaxed them, he felt the discomfort in the gut that was emblematic of fear. His mind was sharp and glittery. He was as aware of the two men in leather talking in the corner, the woman in construction boots "coming from the men's room, of Fenster and Loufer still in their booth, of the bartender leaning on the towel against the bar, as he was of Newboy. He pulled the notebook into his lap and looked down at it. After the count of seven he looked up and said, "I want to call it-Brass Orchids."

  "Again?"

  "Brass Orchids."

  "No 'The' or anything?"

  "That's right. Just: Brass Orchids."

  "That's very nice. I like that. I-" Then Newboy's expression changed; he laughed. "That really is nice! And you've got quite a sense of humor!"

  "Yeah," Kidd said. "Cause I think it takes some balls for me to pull off some shit like that. I mean, me with a book of poems?" He laughed too.

  "Yes, I do like that," Newboy repeated. "I hope it all works out well. Maybe my hesitations will prove unfounded after all. And any time you want to get us copies of the poems, in the next few days, that'll be fine."

  "Sure."

  Newboy picked up his glass. "I'm going to talk to Paul Fenster over there for a while. He left Roger's today and I'd like to say hello. Will you excuse me?"

  "Yeah." Kidd nodded after Newboy.

  He looked at his notebook again. With his thumb, he nudged the clip on the pen out of the spiral where he had stuck it, and sat looking at the cover: click-click, click-click, click.

  He lettered across the cardboard: Brass Orchids. And could hardly read it for dirt.

  Brushing to the final pages (pausing at the poem called Elegy to read two lines, then hurrying past), he felt a familiar sensation: at the page where he'd been writing before, listening for a rhythm from his inner voice, he turned to strain the inner babble-

  It hit like pain, was a pain; knotted his belly and pushed all air from his lungs, so that he rocked on the stool and clutched the counter. He looked around (only his eyes were closed) taking small gulps. All inside vision blanked at images of glory, inevitable and ineffably sensuous till he sat, grinning and opened mouthed and panting, fingers pressing the paper. He tore his eyelids apart, the illusory seal, and looked down at the notebook. He picked up the pen and hastily wrote two lines till he balked at an unrevealed noun. Re-reading made him shake and he began automatically crossing out words before he could trace the thread of meaning from sound to image: he didn't want to feel the chains. They drew across him and stung.

  They carried pain and no solution for pain.

  And incorrectly labeled it something else.

  He wrote more words (not even sure what the last five were) when once more his back muscles sickled, his stomach tapped the bar edge, and inside the spheres of his eyes, something blind and luminous and terrifying happened.

  Those women, he thought, those men who read me in a hundred years will . . . and no predicate fixed the fantasy. He shook his head and choked. Gasping, he tried to read what he had set down, and felt his hand move to X the banalities that leached all energy: ". . . pit . . ." There was a word (a verb!), and watched those on either side suddenly take its focus and lose all battling force, till it was only flabby, and archaic. Write: he moved his hand (remember, he tried to remember, that squiggle is the letters ". . . tr . . ." when you go to copy this) and put down letters that approximated the sounds gnawing his tongue root, "Awnnn . . ." was the sound gushing from his nose.

  Someday I am going to ... it came this time with light; and the fear from the park, the recollections of all fear that stained and stained like time and dirt, page, pen, and counter obliterated. His heart pounded, his nose ran; he wiped his nose, tried to re-read. What was that squiggle that left the word between ". . . reason . . ." and ". . . pain . . ." indecipherable?

  The pen, which had dropped, rolled off the counter and fell. He heard it, but kept blinking at his scrawl. He picked the notebook up, fumbled the cover closed, and the floor, hitting his feet, jarred him forward. "Mr New-boy ... !"

  Newboy, standing by the booth, turned. ". . . yes?" His expression grew strange.

  "Look, you take this." Kidd thrust the notebook out. "You take this now ..."

  Newboy caught it when he let it go. "Well, all right-"

  "You take it," Kidd repeated. "I'm finished with it . . ." He realized how hard he was breathing. "I mean I think I'm finished with it now . . . so-" Tak looked up from his seat-"you can take it with you. Now."

  Newboy nodded. "All right." After a slight pause, he pursed his lips: "Well, Paul. It was good seeing you. I'd hoped you'd have gotten up again. You must come sometime soon, before I leave. I've really enjoyed the talks we've had. They've opened up a great deal to me. You've told me a great deal, shown me a great deal, about this city, about this country. Bellona's been very good for me." He nodded to Tak. "Good meeting you." He looked once more at Kidd, who only realized the expression was concern as Newboy-with the notebook under his arm-was walking away.

  Tak patted the seat beside him.

  Kidd started to sit; halfway, his legs gave and he fell.

  "Another hot brandy for the Kidd here!" Tak hollered, so loud people looked. To Fenster's frown, Tak simply shook his grimacing head: "He's okay. Just had a rough day. You okay, Kidd?"

  Kidd swallowed, and did feel a little better. He wiped his forehead (damp), and nodded.

  "Like I was saying;" Tak continued, as blond arms with inky leopards set Kidd a steaming glass, "for me, it's a matter of soul." He observed Fenster across his knuckles, continuing from the interruption. "Essentially, I have a black soul."

  Fenster looked from the exiting Newboy. "Hum?"

  "My soul is black," Tak reiterated. "You know what black soul is?"

  "Yeah, I know what black soul is. And like hell you do."

  Tak shook his head. "I don't think you understand-"

  "You can't have one," Fenster said. "I'm black
. You're white. You can't have a black soul. I say so."

  Loufer shook his head. "Most of the time you come on pretty white to me."

  "Scares you I can imitate you that well?" Fenster picked up his beer, then put the bottle back down. "What is it that all you white men suddenly want to be-"

  "I do not want to be black."

  "-what gives you a black soul?"

  "Alienation. The whole gay thing, for one."

  "That's a passport to a whole area of culture and the arts you fall into just by falling into bed," Fenster countered. "Being black is an automatic cutoff from that same area unless you do some fairly fancy toe-in-the-door work." Fenster sucked at his teeth. "Being a faggot does not make you black!"

  Tak put his hands down on top of one another. "Oh, all right-"

  "You," Fenster announced to Loufer's partial retreat, "haven't wanted a black soul for three hundred years. What the hell is it that's happened in the last fifteen that makes you think you can appropriate it now?"

  "Shit." Tak spread his fingers. "You can take anything from me you want-ideas, mannerisms, property and money. And I can't take anything from you?"

  "That you dare-" Fenster's eyes narrowed-"express, to me, surprise or indignation or hurt (notice I do not include anger) because that is exactly what the situation is, is why you have no black soul." Suddenly he stood-the red collar fell open from the dark clavicle- and shook his finger. "Now you live like that for ten generations, then come and ask me for some black soul." The finger, pale nail on a dark flesh, jutted. "You can have a black soul when I tell you you can have one! Now don't bug me! I gotta go pee!" He pulled away from the booth.

  Kidd sat, his finger tips tingling, his knees miles away, his mind so opened that each statement in the altercation had seemed a comment to and/or about him. He sat trying to integrate them, while their import slipped from the tables of memory till Tak turned to him with a grunt, and with his forefinger hooked down the vizor of his cap. "I have the feeling-" Tak nodded deeply- "that in my relentless battle for white supremacy I have, yet once again, been bested." He screwed up his face. "He's a good man, you know? Go on, drink some of that. Kid, I worry about you. How you feeling now?"

  "Funny," Kidd said. "Strange . . . okay, I guess." He drank. His breath stayed in the top of his lungs. Something dark and sloppy rilled beneath.

  "Pushy, self-righteous." Tak was looking across to where Fenster had been sitting. "You'd think he was a Jew. But a good man."

  "You met him on his first day here too," Kidd said. "You ever ball him?"

  "Huh?" Tak laughed. "Not on your life. I doubt he puts out for any one except his wife. If he has one. And even there one wonders. Anyplace he's ever gone, I'll bet he's gotten there over the fallen bodies of love-sick faggots. Well, it's an education, on both sides. Hey, are you sure you didn't take some pill you shouldn't have, or something like that? Think back."

  "No, really. I'm all right now."

  "Maybe you want to come to my place, where it's a little warmer, and I can keep an eye on you."

  "No, I'm gonna wait for Lanya." Kidd's own thoughts, still brittle and hectic, were rattling so hard it was not till fifteen seconds later, when Fenster returned to the table, he realized Tak had said nothing more, and was merely looking at the candlelight on the brandy.

  Voiding his bladder had quenched Fenster's heat. As he sat down, he said quite moderately, "Hey, do you see what I was trying to-"

  Tak halted him with a raised finger. "Touche, man. Touche. Now don't bug me. I'm thinking about it."

  "All right." Fenster was appeased. "Okay." He sat back and looked at all the bottles in front of him. "After this much to drink, it's all anybody can ask." He began to thumb away the label.

  But Tak was still silent.

  "Kidd-?"

  "Lanya!"

  Wind sprang in the leaves, waking her, waking him beneath her turning head, her moving hand. Memories clung to him, waking, like weeds, like words: They had talked, they had walked, they had made love, they had gotten up and walked again-there'd been little talk that time because tears kept rising behind his eyes to drain away into his nose, leaving wet lids, sniffles, but dry cheeks. They had come back, lay down, made love again, and slept.

  Taking up some conversation whose beginnings were snarled in bright, nether memories, she said: "You really can't remember where you went, or what happened?" She had given him time to rest; she was pressing again. "One minute you were at the commune, the next you were gone. Don't you have any idea what happened between the time we got to the park and the time Tak found you wandering around outside-Tak said it must have been three hours later, at least!" He remembered talking with her, with Tak in the bar; finally he had just listened to her and Tak talk to each other. He couldn't seem to understand.

  Kidd said, because it was the only thing he could think: "This is the first time I've seen real wind here." Leaves passed over his face. "The first time."

  She sighed, her mouth settling against his throat.

  He tried to pull the corner of the blanket across his shoulders, grunted because it wouldn't come, lifted one shoulder: it came.

  The astounded eye of leaves opened over them, turned, and passed. He pulled his lips back, squinted at the streaked dawn. Dun, dark, and pearl twisted beyond the branches, wrinkled, folded back on itself, but would not tear.

  She rubbed his shoulder; he turned his face up against hers, opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again.

  "What is it? Tell me what happened? Tell me what it is.!'

  "I'm going ... I may be flipping out. That's what it is, you know?"

  But he was rested: things were less bright, more clear. "I don't know. But I may be ..."

  She shook her head, not in denial, but wonder. He reached between her legs where her hair was still sticky, rubbed strands of it between his fingers. Her thighs made a movement to open, then to clamp him, still. Neither motion achieved, she brushed her face against his hair. "Can you talk to me about it. Tak's right-you looked like you were drugged or something! I can tell you were scared. Try to talk to me, will you?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I ..." Against her flesh, he giggled. "I can still screw."

  "Well, a lot, and I love it. But even that's sort of ... sometimes like instead of talking."

  "In my head, words are going on all the time, you know?"

  "What are they? Tell me what they say."

  He nodded and swallowed. He had tried to tell her everything important, about the Richards, about Newboy. He said, "That scratch . .."

  "What?" she asked his lingering silence.

  "Did I say anything?"

  "You said, 'The scratch.' "

  "I couldn't tell . . ." He began to shake his head. "I couldn't tell if I said it out loud."

  "Go on," she said. "What scratch?"

  "John, he cut Milly's leg."

  "Huh?"

  'Tak's got an orchid, a real fancy one, out of brass. John got hold of it, and just for kicks, he cut her leg. It was . . ." He took another breath. "Awful. She had a cut there before. I don't know, I guess he gets his rocks off that way. I can understand that. But he cut-"

  "Go on."

  "Shit, it doesn't make any sense when I talk about

  it.

  "Go on."

  "Your legs, you don't have any cut on them." He let the breath out; and could feel her frowning down in her chest. "But he cut her."

  "This was something you saw?"

  "She was standing up. And he was sitting down. And suddenly he reached over and just slashed down her leg. Probably it wasn't a very big cut. He'd done it before. Maybe to someone else. Do you think he ever did it to anyone else-?"

  "I don't know. Why did it upset you?"

  "Yes . . . no, I mean. I was already upset. I mean because . . ." He shook his head. "I don't know. It's like there's something very important I can't remember."

  "Your name?"

  "I don't even . . . know if that's it. It's just-very

&n
bsp; confusing."*

  She kept rubbing till he reached up and stopped her hand.

  She said: "I don't know what to do. I wish I did. Something's happening to you. It's not pretty to watch. I don't know who you are, and I like you a lot. That doesn't make it easier. You've stopped working for the Richards; I'd hoped that would take some pressure off. Maybe you should just go away; I mean you should leave . . ."

  In the leaves, the wind walked up loudly. But it was his shaking head that stopped her. Loudly wind walked away.

  "What were they . . . why were they all there? Why did you take me there?"

  "Huh? When?"

  "Why did you take me there tonight?"

  "To the commune?"

  "But you see, you had a reason, only I can't understand what it was. It wouldn't even matter." He rubbed her cheek until she caught his thumb between her lips. "It wouldn't matter." Diffused anxiety hardened him and he began to press and press again at her thigh.

  "Look, I only took you there because-" and the loud wind and his own mind's tumbling blotted it. When he shook his head and could hear again, she was stroking his thick hair and mumbling, "Shhhhh . . . Try and relax. Try and rest now, just a little . . ." With her other hand, she pulled the rough blanket up. The ground was hard under shoulder and elbow.

  He propped himself on them while they numbed, and tried out memory.

  Suddenly he turned to face her. "Look, you keep trying to help, but what do you . . ." He felt all language sunder on silence.

  "But what do I really feel about all this?" she saved him. "I don't know-no, I do." She sighed. "Lots of it isn't too nice. Maybe you're in really bad shape, and since I've only known you for a little while, I should get out now. Then I think, Hey, I'm into a really good thing; if I worked just a little harder I might be able to do something that would help. Sometimes, I just feel that you've made me feel very good-that one hurts most. Because I look at you and I see how much you hurt and I can't think of anything to do."