Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

the grease line are easier to nucleate on; so you get this definite cutoff—"

"You mean," I said, "the dishwasher sticks his finger less and less far down the glass every day?"

Tak laughed and nodded "Aren't you glad you know some one with some idea of technology? Rising water tables, lowering pressure. You could get paranoid over stuff like that if you don't know what you're doing."

"Yeah," and I took the bottle and drank.

And over the next fifteen seconds, the afternoon sky, dull as an aluminum pot bottom, darkened to full night.

creaking shutter or anything. I don't know what it was. Bolted to the wall was a plank on which they had carved their initials, names, phrases, some written in fancy combinations of collored magic markers, others scrawled in plack pentel. Near the bottom, cut clearly with some small blade: June R.Lanya says she'll have to find some abandoned drugstore or someplace to get birth control pills now, in the next three months. Denny is worried about his little girlfriend. He says she was sick the last time he was over there,"… with a fever, man. And every thing. She wouldn't hardly move, under the blankets." No one at the commune, or the bar, or the church — neither George nor Reverend Amy — know where they all went or even what really happened. But if someone would do that to the House, I just wonder about the nest. Was the blond girl they described June? I guess I hope so.

Five seconds into the darkening, Denny said, "Jesus, what—?" and stood up.

There was a noise like a plane coming. It kept coming too, while I watched Denny's features go night blue.

Lanya grabbed my arm, and I turned to see her blue face, and all around it, go black.

If it was a plane, it was going to crash into us.

I jerked my head around left and right and up (hit the back of my head on the wall) and down, trying to see.

Another sound, under the roar, beside me: Tak standing?

Something wet my hand on the tar-paper beside me. He must have kicked over the brandy.

White light suddenly blotched the horizon, cut by the silhouette of a water tower.

I didn't feel scared, but my heart was beating so slow and hard my chin jerked, each thump.

Light wound up the sky.

I could just see Tak standing now, beside me. His shadow sharpened on the tar-paper wall.

The sound… curdled!

The light split. Each arm zigged and zagged, separate, ragged-edged and magnesium bright. The right arm split again. The left one was almost directly above us.

And Tak had no shadow at all. I stood up, helped Lanya to…

Some of the light flickered out. More came. And more.

But what is…?" she whispered right at my ear, pointing. From the horizon, another light ribboned, ragged, across the sky.

"Is it… lightning?" Denny shouted.

"It looks light lightning!" Tak shouted hack.

Someone else said: " 'Cause George don't shine that bright!"

Tak's bleached face twisted as if beat by rain. The air was dry. Then I noticed how cool it was.

Nodes in the discharge were too bright to look at. Clouds — sable, lead, or steel — mounded about the sky, making canyons, cliffs, ravines, for lightning it was too slow, too wide, too big!

Was that thunder? It roared like a jet squadron buzzing the city, and sometimes one would crash or something, and Lanya's face would

Here one page, possibly two, is missing.

as loud as I could: "Lanya! Denny!" If they answered, I couldn't hear; and I was hoarse from shouting. The street sign chattered in its holder — the wind had grown that strong.

I took another half dozen steps, my bare foot on the curb, my boot in the gutter. Dust fits

Don't remember who had the idea, but during the altercation, for a while I argued: "But what about Madame Brown? Besides, I like it here. What are we going to do when you're at school? Your bed's okay for a night, but we can't all sleep there that long."

Lanya, after answering these sanely, said: "Look, try it. Denny wants to come. The nest can get along without you for a few days. Maybe it'll do your writing some good." Then she picked up the paper that had fallen behind the Harly, climbed over it, came out from under the loft, tip-toed with her head up and kissed me. And put the paper in her blouse pocket — bending over, it had pulled out all around her jeans.

I pushed myself to the loft edge, swung my legs over, and dropped. "Okay."

So Denny and I spent what I call three

hit my face. My shadow staggered around me on the pavement, sharpening, blurring, tripling.

People were coming down the street, while the darkness flared behind them.

That slow, crazy lightning rolled under the sky.

The group milled toward me; some dodged forward.

One front figure supported another, who seemed hurt. I got it in my head it was the commune: John and Mildred leading, and something had happened to John. A brightening among the clouds—

They were thirty feet nearer than I'd thought:

George, looking around at the sky, big lips a wet cave around his teeth's glimmer, his pupils underringed with white, and glare flaking on his wet,

days and she calls one ("You come in the evening, spent the night and the next day, then left the following morning! That's one full day, with tag ends." "That should at least count for two," I said. "It seemed like a long time…") Which wasn't so bad but… I don't know.

The first night Madame Brown put supper together out of cans with Denny saying all through: "You wanna let me do something…? Are you sure I can't do nothin'…? Here, I'll do…" and finally did wash some pans and dishes.

I asked, "What are you making?" but they didn't hear so I sat in the chair by the table alternately tapping the chair-back on the wall and the front legs on the floor; and drank two glasses of wine.

Lanya came in and asked why I was so quiet.

I said: "Mulling."

"On a poem?" Madame Brown asked.

We ate. After dinner we all sat around and drank more, me a little more than the others, but Madame Brown and I actually talked about some things: her work, what went on in a scorpion run ("You make it sound so healthy, I mean like a class trip, I'm not so sure that I like the idea as much now. It sounded very exciting before you told me anything about it."), the problems of doctors in the city, George. I like her. And she's smart as hell.

Back in Lanya's room, I sat at the desk In the bay window, looking at my notebook. Lanya and Denny went to bed ("No, the light won't bother us."), and after about fifteen minutes, I joined them and we made cramped, langerous love which had this odd, let's-take-turns thing about it; but it was a trip. I nearly knocked over the big plant pot by the bed four times.

I woke before the window had lightened, got up and prowled the house. In the kitchen, considered getting drunk. Made myself a cup of instant coffee instead, drank half, and prowled some more. Looked back into Lanya's room: Denny was asleep against the wall. Lanya was on her back, eyes opened. She smiled at me.

veined temples, supporting Reverend Tayler; she leaned forward (crying? laughing? cringing from the light? searching the ground?), her hair rough as shale, her knuckles and the backs of her nails darker than the skin between.

The freckled, brick-haired Negress, among darker faces, walked behind them; with the blind-mute; and the blond Mexican.

Someone was shouting, among others shouting: "You hear them planes? You hear all them planes?" (It couldn't have been planes.) "Them planes are awfully low! They gonna crash! You hear—" at which point the building face across the street cracked, all up and down, and bellied out so slow I wondered how. Cornices, coping stones, window