Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

Kid turned, staring.

"They burned the whole damn thing up tonight."

"What in the… I mean how did it…?"

George tugged Kid's shoulder. A few feet ahead, the paving sank under a puddle like a hole in hellroof. "Niggers done set the whole of Jackson to burning, don't it look like?" They walked. "Ain't got no water now, when the pipe broke. Shit."

Kid's bare foot struck a tepid pool; it shook like goldleaf.

"You scared?" George's fingers were hard, hot and tight. "Nothing going to hurt you. Look at that burn, burn up like a motherfucker; it's beautiful, huh? Like walking on the sun." He smiled on big, yellow teeth in gums mottled pink and grey like a dog's. "Get its light from the sun and shine all night." His lids narrowed on eyes, blood-webbed and tan. "It burn and it burn and it don't never stop. It send the folk all down running through the city of the sun," or at least that's what Kid thought he said. "Nobody's here." George looked around. "The niggers all going to starve to death. Shit. Everybody going to starve."

Kid's lips were hot. He closed his mouth, his teeth, closed his lips again because they had come open. "There was this old black woman," Kid said. They passed a smoking (or was it steaming?) grate. "She broke into the school to steal food. She said there wasn't any more food in—"

The street sign said:

CUMBERLAND PARK

They passed around. The other extension of the L-shaped sign said:

JACKSON AVENUE

George nodded heavily.

Twenty yards ahead, a ton of fire fell onto the side walk.

"What…" Kid began, "What are you doing here?" while he tried again to reconstruct the steps coming: D-t had said—

"There may…" George's face lined over, straining at reason. "There may be people in there. We got to go help them."

"Oh," Kid said with the thought: He's crazy, which is like (with the afterthought) the pot calling the kettle a rusty son of a bitch.

They walked through the sun.

George was still laughing.

"What…?" Kid asked, expecting no answer.

George said: "You ain't scared?"

"I think," Kid said, "if somebody jumped out right now and went boo, I would shit."

"Watch it," George pushed Kid away, but Kid wasn't sure from which piece of rubbish about them.

I just may live to be an old man, and live through the process called dying, then I won't be living any more, no matter what revelations I do or do not go through here, Kid thought and grew cold. He looked up; fire rip-sawed the night.

"You think we going to get out of this alive?" George still grinned.

What, Kid wondered, has June got to do with his moment in this man's life? The fire and her hair are two different golds! And yet she circles…! Kid's eyes went round. "There—!" He pointed. "It isn't burning down that way! We can go—"

"Boy, there may be people in here, burning up alive!"

"You think there're people?"

"Well, we ain't going to know unless we look."

"Okay," Kid said because there was nothing else to do.

A charred six by six lay across the gutter. Kid stepped over it.

On the cobbles, puddles lay under it, alive and molten.

Water, Kid thought as they walked between two, is molten ice. It was that hot.

"Hey, George! George?… You hear something up there?"

"Where?"

[We do not know who typed this transcript, nor if every relevant entry was included, nor, indeed, the criteria for relevance. Previous publication of Brass Orchids possibly weighted the decision not to include their various drafts here. (The fate of the second collection we can only surmise.) Generous enough with alternate words, marks of omission and correction, the transcriber still leaves his accuracy in question: Nowhere in the transcript is there a formal key.]

it into her shoulder and tore /it/ out.

Dragon Lady let go all her breath in some way still not a scream. Nightmare danced back across the kitchen twisting his orchid, (jerking a little); as though/I thinkI think he was trying to under stand what he'd done. Dragon Lady threw herself at him,cutting for his face and kicking. ( I kept thinkingThinking: There's an art to these Weapons I don't begin to understand.)

He fought himself away, bleeding from the jaw and neck.

She flung herself again. I thought she was trying towas going to/would/ be impale[d].

Her white jeans were bloody to the knee. A good deal of the blood was his.

Copperhead, like ain delayed reaction, said, "Hey…" with a voice I'd never heard: he was scared to death.

Raven, Thruppence, and D-t hit the doorway [and] one another/anothe[r], peering, over eachone another's shoulders. (Thinking:! used to break up Dollar's scuffles, but I would no more get into this than chop off my thumb.)

Nightmare flailed backward out the screen door, Hhis forearm/ going/ making a crack ed theon the jamb.

Everybody poured after them — somebody knocked something off the sink. I heard a garbage bag fall and tear under someone's boots. Two of the little boys (Woodard and Stevie) were holding hands and butting their shoulders against each other, Rose, the youngest (seven?), and brightest girl, was right up there up trying to see with everybody else. She went through the door with me.

Horsing around in the yard with Nightmare, Raven, Filament, and Glass, tripped and scratched my calf on the edge of the steps. Later, Lanya came into the loft and saw me. "Hey," she said. "You should put something on that. Don't play with it that way. You've practically rubbed it raw. You don't want it to get infected."

Dragon [Lady] wassnapp inged her own bladed fist back and forth as though her arm were a whip. (Her elbow dripped. Nightmare spun away: gravel chattered against the bottom step. Drops splatted the ground.

The sky gleamed dull as zinc.

I looked up the alley — thinking: You can't /even/ see the end, when Thirteen came hurrying out of the mist. He stopped twenty feet away, Smokey and Lady of Spain behind collided withhim.

Dragon Lady staggered, swayed — I thought she'd tripped.

But she shook her head, hard, gave a tiny cry, turned; and fled downup the street.

Smokey collided with Thirteen. Lady of Spain stepped back.

Nightmare stood, panting, both arms going wide and around, getting back his breath.

Among his chains, the optical one caught light. At first I thought it was lengthening… Broken, it slipped across his stomach and tinkledcoiled made atinkling/ puddle between his feet/ beside his boot/against his boot where the sole had pulled off the upper. Not seeing, he lurched away. The chain slipped half over the curb.

Thirteen caught his armhim, "You're all right…?" and staggered with him.

Behind me the door creaked; two people had gone back in.

"You come on with me," Thirteen said, "now you just come on."

Back in the living room, California was looking at the wall by the door. He'd pulled all his hair in front of his shoulder and was sort of hanging on it "Jesus Christ," he said. "Will you look at that. I mean, Jesus Christ That's where she splattered when she went through." He started to touch one of the dime-sized spots, already dried browndry, but shook hiswent back to hanging on his hair. "/I mean,/Jesus."

Raven, Copperhead; and Cathedral came in frowning at the constellations of her blood, but kept on going

"You see the way she went at that motherfucker," Pepper said somewhere out in the hall. "I thought she was gonna kill him. I wouldn't blame her, man. I wouldn't blame her one bit the way that motherfucker done. Did you see the way they were going after each other, man? I never seen anything like that before in my life. I really thought we was gonna have chopped meat for dinner the way he lit into her with thosethat orchid, man, I really thought…"