Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

Lanya didn't, and asked, "What?"

"A whole bunch of black kids, back in April, they've got this whole routine worked out. They've got this white boy, called Tarzan: And they were just performing! And of course Roger's nice old colonel from Alabama was there — the one I was telling you about who gave me so much trouble when I was visiting — and of course he was laughing harder than anybody else. I kid you not, they were swinging from the God-damn trees!"

"What did you do?" Lanya had begun to laugh.

"Sweated a lot," Fenster said. "And tried to think of some way to leave. You know, guys who come to parties like this in berets and talk about liberating the furniture: Now I'm pretty into that. But I guess that type all had sense, enough to get out of Bellona while there was some getting. This Stepin Fetchit stuff, though — well, all I can say is, it's been a while!"

"Suffering's supposed to be good for the something-or-other," Kid said.

"It damn," Fenster replied, "well better be!" He grunted (simianly?) and walked on across the bridge.

Lanya took Kid's hand. "…Denny?"

"Yeah."

"I just left him." Her dress was shimmering black. A silver circle rose on the hem. "In March." She gestured with her head.

He said, "You're beautiful."

He thought, she's wistful.

"Thank you. You really like the dress?"

He nodded, kept nodding, and suddenly she laughed and closed his mouth with her fingers.

"I believe you. But I was beginning to think it was too much. Of course I was expecting just to stand around in some elegantly arbored corner holding court; not run around working. Where, I wonder, is Roger?"

Kid held her cool hands against his face with his warm ones. "Let's find Denny."

Dawn broke on her waist. "You find him," she said. "I'll see you a little later." A scarlet sun, haloed in yellow, eclipsed the silver moon.

He wondered why but said. "Okay," and left her on the bridge.

The stream became a pool in March, scaled with immobile leaves.

"I told that bitch!" Dollar stood and rocked on bowed legs. "I told that bitch. After what she tried, you know? I just told her."

Denny sat cross-legged on the stone bench and didn't look like he was listening too hard.

Kid walked around the pool. "You trying to get in trouble at my party?"

Dollar's head jerked: he looked scared.

Denny said, "Dollar's okay. He ain't done nothing."

"I ain't done nothing," Dollar echoed. "It's a real nice party, Kid."

Kid put his hand on the back of Dollar's pitted neck and squeezed. "You have a good time. Don't let anything get you, you know? You got a whole lot of space to walk around in. Something gets you here, you walk on over there. Something gets you there, you go on someplace else. If it happens a third time, come tell me about it. Understand? There's no strange sun in the sky tonight."

"Nothing's wrong, Kid. Everything's okay." The distressful smile went; Dollar just looked sad. "Really."

"Good." Kid let go Dollar's neck and looked at Denny. "You having a good time?"

"I guess so." Denny's shirt, unbuttoned, hung out of his pants. "Yeah."

A group came through the ivied gate, scorpions and others, following Ernestine Throckmorton.

Dollar said, "Oh, hey!" and jogged, jangling, after them, around the pool and out another entrance.

"I'm going to take this off." Denny shrugged from his vest, got the control box from his pocket, slipped out of his shirt, and sat, turning the box in one hand, the other slung among his chains. "Lanya says I've been doing a good job. This little thing is something, huh?"

Kid sat down and put his hand on Denny's dry, knobby back. In the boy's glance some relief flickered.

Kid rubbed his back.

Denny said, "Why you doin' that?" But he was smiling at his lap.

"Because you like it." Kid moved his hand up the sharp shoulder blade and down, pressing. Denny rocked with each rub.

"Sometimes," Lanya said and Kid turned, "I envy you two."

Kid did not stop rubbing and Denny did not look up.

"Why?" Denny moved his shoulders, reached up to scratch his neck.

"I don't know. I supposed it's because you can let people — let Kid know you want things I'd be afraid to ask for."

"You want your back rubbed?" Kid asked.

"Yes." She grinned. "But not now."

"I watch the two of you," Kid said, "when you're playing. When you're throwing things at one another; tugging one another around all the time. I envy you."

"You…?" Lanya reached for Denny's shoulder.

But Denny suddenly stood and stepped forward.

Kid wondered if he'd seen her reaching, watched her face pass through hurt and her hand withdraw.

Denny turned on the pool edge and laughed. "Aw, you two are all—" He twisted a knob.

From neck to hem she glittered black; black granulated silver; scarlet poured about her. "Hey, see, I got it good!"

"You sure do," Lanya said.

Kid stood and took her arm. "Come on."

"Where are we …?"

Kid grinned: "Come on!"

She raised a brow and came, intently curious.

Denny followed them; his confusion looked much less sharp than hers.

On the other side of the ivied stone, Ernestine apostrophized: "… chunk crab meat, not the stringy kind! Then eggs. Then a few bread crumbs. And bay seasoning. When I lived in Trenton, I'd have to have it sent up from Maryland. But Mrs Alt — nobody could have been more surprised than I was — found an entire shelf full in a store down on Temple…"

At the silent edge, Dollar muttered reverently: "…God damn…"

"Bay seasoning," Ernestine reiterated as Kid and Lanya and Denny passed around her, "is the most important thing."

On the path to the next garden, Denny whispered: "Where are we going?"

"Through here," Kid said. "The lights are out in here…"

"August," Lanya said.

They stepped into flakey darkness. Grass slid cool between Kid's toes. He clutched; it slipped away with the next step; tickling again.

The next stop was surprising stone.

He rocked his naked foot: Wet, cold… rough. His shod one stayed steady.

"I think there's a—". Lanya's voice echoed. She paused to listen to the reverberations—"some sort of underpass."

They came from under it four steps later.

"I didn't even see us go in." Denny stepped forward in the night grass.

Kid curled his free toes again, lifted his foot; grass tore.

"Hey, you can see the city, almost," Denny said.

Beyond a ruffed, stone beast, blurs of light were snipped off across the bottom by buildings. Implied hills, slopes, or depressions patterned the darkness around.

"Calkins' place can soak up a lot of people." The high trees — like small cypresses — were carbon dark against the muzzy night. Kid tried to see down into Bellona. One tall… building? It had perhaps a dozen windows lit.

"How odd," Lanya said. "All the limits go, and you can't believe there's really any more to it. We're used to objects like icebergs or oilwells where you know most of it is under ground or water. But something like a city at night, with great stretches of it blotted or obscured, that's a very different—"

"You guys," Denny interrupted. "I don't envy you… I guess. But you two can talk about things that, you know, are just so far beyond me I don't even know how to ask questions sometimes. I listen. But sometimes when I don't understand-or even when I do, I just wanna fuckin' cry, you know?" When they were silent, he asked again, "You know?"

Lanya nodded. "I do."

Denny breathed out and looked.

They stood apart and felt very close.

Kid watched her dress catch what light there was and glitter dim crimson, with waves of navy, or green of the evening ocean.