Dhalgren (101 page)

"I want to ask you a few questions about your gang -your nest. And then something about your work… your poetry. All right?"

Kid shrugged. He was excited and uncomfortable; but the two states, vivid as feelings, seemed to cancel any physical sign of either.

He looked at Lanya.

She had folded her arms and was listening rather like someone who had just passed by and stopped.

Denny was looking at the control box, wanting to play with it, but also wondering if this were the time.

Lanya hovered among various blues.

Bill ran his hand from the mike along the wire to the recorder, turned a knob, and looked up again. "Tell me first, how do you feel having your book published? It's your first book, right?"

"Yeah. It's my first. I like it, all the commotion. I think it's stupid, but it's… fun. There aren't very many mistakes in it … I mean the ones the people who put the type together made."

"Well, that's very good. You feel, then, the poems are as you wrote them; that you can take full responsibility for them?"

"Yeah." Kid wondered why the muffled accusation did not make him more uncomfortable. Possibly because he'd been through it already in silence.

"I mean," Bill went on, "I remember Ernest Newboy telling us, one evening, about how hard you worked on the galleys. He was very struck by it. Did Mr Newboy help you much with the poems themselves? I mean, would you say he was an influence on your work?"

"No." He
does
think, Kid thought, that I'm seventeen! He laughed, and the familiarity of the deception put him even more at ease. He moved back on the lounge and let his knees fall apart. So far it wasn't so bad.

Something moved at the corner of Kid's eye. Bill looked up too.

Revelation stood behind them with Milly, who he had not seen since they had surprised her in the bushes.

Denny went,
"Shhhhh,"
took his finger from his lips and pointed to the recorder.

"Can you tell me—"

Kid looked back.

Bill coughed. "—tell me something about the scorpions, about the
way
you live, and
why
you live that way?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Do you like it?"

"Sure."

"Do you feel that this way of life offers you some protection, or makes it easier for you to survive in Bellona? I guess it's a pretty dangerous and unknown place, now."

Kid shook his head. "No… it isn't that dangerous, for us. And I'm getting to know it pretty well."

"You all live together, in a sort of commune—nest, as you call it. Tell me, do you know the commune of young people that used to live in the park?"

Kidd nodded. "Yeah. Sure."

"Did you get along well with each other?"

"Pretty much."

"But they're fairly peaceful; while your group believes in violence, is that right?"

"Well, violence—" Kid grinned—"that isn't something you believe in. That's something that happens. But I guess it happens more around us than around them."

"Someone told me that, for a while, you were a member of this other commune; but apparently you preferred the scorpions."

"Yeah." Kid pressed his lips and nodded. "…well, no, actually. I was never a member of the other commune. I hung around; they fed me. But they never made me a part of it. The scorpions, now, soon as I got with them, they took me right in, made me a part. That's probably why I like it better. We had a couple of kids hanging around our place who should probably have ended up with the park people; but we fed them too. Then they drifted on. That's what you have to do."

Bill nodded, his own lips pursed. "There's been talk that some of the things you guys indulge in get pretty rough. People have been killed… or so one story goes."

"People have been hurt," Kid said. "One guy was killed. But he wasn't a scorpion."

"But the scorpions killed
him…?"

Kid turned up his hands. "What am I supposed to say now?" He grinned again.

Behind Bill, a dozen others had gathered. Another cough, behind Kid, made him realize another dozen had come up to listen.

Bill's eyes came back to Kid. "Do you think, objectively, that the way you're living is… a good way?"

"I like it." Kid felt his jaw with his wide fingertips and heard five-hour stubble rasp. "But that's subjective. Objectively? It depends on what you think of the way the rest of the world is living."

"What do you think of it?"

"Well, look at it," Kid said. Then he coughed, which caused some general laughter, defining the audience he had not looked at yet as thirty, or even forty: scorpions and other guests.

Nightmare stepped into the clearing, said, "Say, what's everybody—?" then got quiet and went to sit on the grass next to Dragon Lady. .

"How would you describe life in the nest?"

"Fucking crowded!"

"Oh,
man!"
D-t slapped Tarzan's palm. "He said fucking crowded!"

"Shut up, you two," Raven said.

"And with all the crowding, and all the violence, you still manage to work—to write."

"When I get a chance."

Lanya laughed at that. She was the palest orange, flaking to palest pink and purple. Denny held the box between his knees; his arms were folded.

"A lot of people have commented on the, how shall I say, colorfulness of your poems, their vivid descriptive quality. Is there any connection between the violence and that?"

"Probably. But I don't know what it is."

"Do your friends in the nest like your book?"

"I don't think most of the guys read too much."

"Hey, man!" Nightmare called out. "I ain't even
in
his fuckin' nest and I read every fuckin' one!" which caused someone else to call: "Yeah, they're great! The Kid writes great," and someone else: "Sure, ain't you got this party for him?"

Kid leaned back and laughed and closed his eyes. His own laughter had begun in the calamity of shouts and calls.

"Come on," Bill said loudly. "Come on, now. I just want to ask the Kid a few more questions. Come on…"

Kid opened his eyes and found his lashes wet. Light around the garden glittered and streaked. He shook his head.

"I want to ask you, Kid—"

"Come on, be quiet!" Lady of Spain said. "Come on, shut up, man! He's trying to ask the Kid some questions!"

"—want to ask you: How would you sum up what you're trying to say in your poems?"

Kid leaned his elbows on his knees. "How the hell am I supposed to do that, sum up what I'm trying to say?"

"I guess you'd rather we just read—"

"Shit, I don't care if you read it or not"

"I just meant that—"

"I'm trying to—" Kid looked up at Bill, frowning in the pause—"to construct a complicitous illusion in lingual catalysis, a crystalline and conscientious alkahest."

"…again?" Bill asked.

"You listen to that too carefully and you'll figure out what it means." Kid let the frown reverse into a grin. "Then the words will die on you and you won't understand any more."

Bill laughed. "Well, do you feel that your work accomplishes what… ever you set out to do?"

"How am I supposed to decide that?" Kid sat back again. "I mean suppose one person liked something I wrote. I'd want to make what I say here mean something to him. Suppose somebody else didn't like it. I'm a snob. I'd like to be able to talk to him too. But somebody you've had a good time with and somebody you've had a bad time with, you talk to in different ways. There isn't much overlap in what you can say to both. Maybe, just, I did it." Kid sat back. "And maybe, you know, other people can think of reasons not to even insist on that too much. Look, the guys are getting fidgety. I've made too much noise already." He looked around at the gathered nest. "I guess Mr C just isn't going to make it this evening."

Ernestine Throckmorton (Spider stood beside her, his belly lashed with gauze and adhesive) said: "I guess he isn't. He'll be absolutely mortified he missed you. I just don't know where—"

"You think something happened to him?" Raven looked around with swaying top-knot. "You want us to go out and look for him?"

"Oh, no!" Ernestine said. "No, that's not necessary. When he left, he said he… might be late. That's why he put the Captain and myself in charge."

Neither the Captain nor Frank were present. Paul Fenster, with a beer can at his hip, stood directly opposite.

"Look, we've got most of my guys here, just about." Kid stood, feeling among his neck chains. "It's getting time for me to split. Any of you guys who want to come along with me, come on." He caught his shield (nicked his thumb knuckle on an orchid prong and thought: The price of dramatic exits) and flipped the pip.

The scorpions on the grass squinted in blue light. Denny did something with the box and laughed: And Lanya stood up a-swirl in crimson and indigo.

Where Dragon Lady had been, her dragon rose.

"Uh…
thank you." Bill looked about.
"Eh,
thank you an awful lot. I'm sure Roger will have what he… I mean you gave some very interesting…"

People got to their feet amidst the glowing, growing menagerie.

The 3-D Rohrschach that was Denny turned and turned and moved through the crush.

Kid doused long enough for Lanya to see him. She caught his hand. Branches cut through the insubstantial luminosities wheeling the garden.

"How'd I do?"

"Lord," she said. "This has been a party! Roger doesn't know what he missed—then again, maybe he does."

In another garden, beyond some dozen guests, Kamp and Fenster had become deeply embroiled in animated agreement.

Heavy Cathedral, with white California (greasy hair swinging long as his chains), was very drunk in the corner:

"We goin'? Oh, shit… Oh, shit, I can't go…"

"What we goin' for?"

"I think we gotta go, you know…?"

"We gotta go already…?"

Three others went splashing through the pool in May.

And Copperhead began to laugh and point so vigorously, Kid thought: He's drunk enough to fall down in a minute. Moments later, however, along with Glass, the girl, Dollar, and Spitt, Copperhead was ambling across the terrace.

Kid thought (and saw Captain Kamp look up and thought as counterpoint to that first thought: He's thinking the same thing): They're going to start breaking up the place.

They didn't.

"Oh," Kamp said to Ernestine, "you mean they're
going
now… well, eh… Good night!"

Revelation said: "Hey, man, I can't go." He shook his head, deviling his hair to a gold cotton. Yellow chains rattled over his pink, pink chest. "I got something goin' here, you know? And I'm so fuckin' smashed… look, you go on, and maybe I'll see you back there in the morning."

Kid nodded, pushed past and came up before Thelma who opened her mouth, said,
"Um…"
and was gone.

Angel, at the bar table, picked up a full bottle of whiskey, put it under his thin arm, and started after the others.

"Hey…" the black bartender said.

Captain Kamp hurried up.

I could be a hero, Kid thought, and make him put it back. Suddenly he said, "Shit…" pulled away from Lanya, and loped over to the bar. "Captain, we've got a long—"

"Your friend," Captain Kamp said, "just walked off with a full bottle of—"

"—got a long walk back. And I just don't think one is going to be enough." Kid picked up another bottle (he chose it because it had the cap on, but saw, when it was in his hand that it was only half full: Well, it was a gesture) and, to the Captain's frown, flipped on his shield. "Tell Mr Calkins thanks. Good night."

Kamp squinted and pulled back, his face washed with light the same pale blue as his shirt. His eyes, widening, rose.

When Kid left the terrace steps and was halfway across the lawn, "You," Lanya told him, "are a perfect child!"

"Fuck you. You want to go put it back?"

"No. Come on."

"Hey," Angel was saying to the young Filipino gate keeper, "you want a fuckin' drink? How come they didn't let you up to the party?"

"Thank you, no. That's all right—"

"You got just as much right to a party as we got! You wanna drink?"

"Thank you, no. Good night."

"God-damn motherfuckers! Keep a God-damn gook down here workin' his ass off all night while everybody else is up having a good time—"

"Come on," Kid said. "Let's get going. Go on, get out. Hurry up, will you."

"Hey, gook; are you from Nam? I was in Nam…"

"Come
on!"

"I was in Nam," Angel said. "We should give him a fuckin' drink!"

As they herded, blindingly, through the gate, Lansang said: "Excuse me, I've got something for you."

"Huh?" Kid turned.

The brown hand went under the brown lapel for an inside pocket. "Here." On the envelope's corner was a small
Times
masthead. "Mr Calkins asked me to give this to you if, by any chance, he didn't get back before the evening was over."

"Oh." Kid folded the envelope and slid it into his pants pocket beside Lanya's harmonica.

"What's that?" Lanya asked. Her arm was around Denny's shoulder.

Kid shrugged. "Where's Madame Brown?"

"She left with Everett, a long time ago."

"Oh."

Spider, dragon, newt and waddling bird lit the street.

"Hey, can I have some of that?" Jack the Ripper asked as they reached the corner.

"Sure. You can carry it too."

"Thanks." The Ripper took the bottle, removed the cap, swigged, and belched. "God damn!" He put the cap back on. "That's good!" He shook his head like a terrier. "Yeah… hey, did you see that old white guy from Alabama with the bald head? He's supposed to be some sort of colonel or something…"

"I saw him," Kid said. "Didn't meet him."

"He's a funny guy," the Ripper said. "Man, he just loved me. Wouldn't let me alone the whole God-damn night."

"What'd he want?"

In the glow of shifting beasts, the Ripper smiled down at the bottle. "T' suck on my big, black dick."

Kid laughed. "You let him?"

"Shit." The Ripper wiped the bottle neck with the paler heel of his hand, then put the cap back on. "If I was in Atlanta, I could've got ten, twenty dollars out of that old guy, you know? Even a steady thing, you know, where you drop in every couple of days, pull down your pants and pick up your pay. It ain't so bad. But around here, there ain't even any God-damn money or anything, you know?" The Ripper reached among the heavy links, tucked his shallow chin back in his neck to look for his shield, found it, flipped it. "…But he ain't so bad," he repeated.