Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

"Hey, we been in Europe," Angel said. "You gonna tell us about the moon? You the only one here's been there."

"Shit, I seen that on television," Lady of Spain said. "Live. I never seen anything in Europe on television. Except in pictures."

Kamp chuckled. "Now I was on the earth for thirty-eight years." He looked down. "I was on the moon for six and a half hours. And I've been back from the moon, well… a handful more years. But that six and a half hours is the only thing anybody is really interested in about me, now."

"What was it like?" Tarzan asked, as though that followed perfectly from what Kamp had said.

"You know?" Kamp stepped around the telescope. "It was like coming to Bellona."

"How do you mean?" Priest put both hands on the stone steps and leaned forward, waiting to see whether what Kamp had said was from hostility, or just a new thought; or both.

"When we got to the moon, now, we knew a lot about where we were; and at the same time, we hardly knew anything about it at all. And that's just what it's like here. After six and a half hours—" Kamp mused, his eyes narrowing in the smoke—"it was time to go. And if I can't figure, out where we are this evening, now, I think it will be time for me to leave here too."

Lady of Spain looked at the sky, then at me—"Where would you go? — " then at the sky again.

"Someplace where I can tell where I am."

The sky was fused, side to side.

"Good luck," Cathedral said.

"I guess that's good-bye too, then," I said.

Priest stood up from the steps.

Kamp nudged one leg of the tripod with the toe of his shoe. "Maybe it is." The metal tip scraped awfully loud.

"So long," Cathedral said.

We walked down the hill.

Angel wanted to know what Kamp had said about information at the party. I tried to reconstruct. Which turned Angel on, and he began a sort of dithyramb about how much everything, while we

Speech is always in excess of poetry as print is always inadequite for speech. A word sets images flying through the brain from which auguries we recall all extent and intention. I'm not a poet because I have nothing to give life to make it due, except my attention. And I don't know if my wounded sort is enough. People probably do hear watches go tic-tok . But I'm sure my childhood clock went tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic-tic … Why do I recall this in a city without time? What hairy men find on their bodies is amazing.

walked through brash and rocks and brushes, told him about the park; that was much fun.

We came out of the trees, talking a lot to each other just as somebody jammed a log into the furnace. Sparks went high into the late, grey afternoon; the smoke plume thinned.

"Hey!" John said and came over, through, and around the kids sitting and standing. "How are you guys? How you guys been?"

I watched the smoke.

Thinning.

Two kids (pink tank-tops; long, straw-colored hair) hauled sleeping bags from under the picnic bench.

Overtaking John, Woodard, yellow as a leaf and woolly as … well, Woodard, came to a dead stop and blinked at me (us?). I think at first he'd thought he knew us, but then wasn't sure.

I was going to say hello but John overtook him, now, ruffling at the boy's hair, and said, "Kid, I haven't seen you around for a long time." His hands were just as clean, but his blanket-vest looked like he'd actually done something in it since that last I'd seen.

"How's it going?" I asked.

John gave a tepid grin. "About as well as it can, I guess."

I felt something was wrong; as if I was looking at a place I didn't recognize but should — or did recognize, even though I'd never seen it.

"Kid!" which was Milly.

They went on talking without giving me a chance to introduce the others, which I thought was silly, but Milly and John did things that way. Talking the most, Milly stepped forward over a sleeping bag where an older guy sat up and began to rub his-glasses on the tail of a Sweet-Orr workshirt.

Then I figured, fuck it, they better know who everybody was so I just said, loud enough to make them stop talking: "This is Cathedral. And this is…" going down the line. While I was doing that, I saw this guy walk into the clearing with a gun under one arm, which was what started the fight.

And which, after going through all this, I don't really feel like describing again because I've been over it with so many people at that bar and at the nest already. Lady of Spain was all enthusiastic and kept asking where the guy was from. John and Milly I think were going to say they didn't know, but Jommy said he was from the God-damn downtown department store, and Milly said, "You don't know he's from the Emboriky for certain," and Jommy said, Shit, he knew, and that they'd already run them from one side of the damn park to the other; which I didn't even know about. "Man," John said, beating at my shoulder and grinning, "You're really crazy, Kid; you're really crazy…" He shook his head, laughing like something was very funny. "Man!"

Second thoughts: since there've been so many repercussions, I should go into it once more just to clear it up for myself. A few things stick with me: like, they had the box of food all ready for him, sitting up on the end of the picnic table (like it used to be for Nightmare). And he was wearing very high-waisted khaki pants, a khaki shirt (army? marine? I don't think so), and orange construction boots — shirt, pants, and boots all looked brand new. But I couldn't tell you the color of his hair Also: the riffle, which I mentioned right off, didn't strike me as odd at the time. Until he started talking and waving it around and once pointing at the guy still sitting in the sleeping bag. I was going through something about maybe he was some loner friend of theirs like Tak, and had I seen him before; and where? I've told a couple of people since that he was somebody I'd met before, to sort of explain that feeling away. I'm not sure now; but for one moment I was certain it was the guy who'd sat in the balcony that night at George's. But now I'm just as certain (however certain that is) it wasn't. Cathedral actually moved first-something no one mentions when they talk about it. I thought he was going to take the food carton for himself I guess the guy did too; that was what made him raise the gun.

What were the dozen people standing around thinking?

What was I thinking?

I grabbed the barrel with one hand and hammered the heel of the other against the stock so hard I thought my wrist had green-sticked. Thinking (all part of that first feeling of displaced familiarity): I've done this before… No … I've never done this before, but if I'm ever going to, I've got to do it now! And if I didn't get shot in the chest, it was because the guy was too scared or just not used to killing people. For which I'm very glad. I twisted, with my arm on fire, and

"You want the carton?" Milly was saying. "We should give that food to them, John. We used to give food to Nightmare."

"Shit," Priest said. "We got a whole cellar full of food."

"Come on," I said. Come on, let's get out of here and leave these poor-ass motherfuckers alone!" Which I delivered right at John (and it went right over his shoulder to Frank who was sitting on the table beside the food carton as if he was guarding it. And you know, all the bastards kept grinning right through). So we left.

Angel kept prancing around and started tugging on me just like John (Priest was carrying the rifle and had started examining it, and I said: "Man, throw that

watched his face go from surprise to pain as his fingers wound in the trigger guard.

The gun cracked! I thought the explosion had happened in my mouth. But the barrel was pointing over my right shoulder. (If you'd asked me then, I would have said I felt the bullet tip my ear-but that's impossible, I guess.)