Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

"Wasn't there something about some pictures in the paper of him… raping some girl? That's what the newspaper man told me this morning."

"Oh yeah." Tak put down another jar, drank more of his brandy. "Yeah, that business with the white girl, in the paper, during the riot. Well, like I said: George just likes to get his picture taken. He's a big nigger now. Might as well enjoy it. I would if I was him."

"What is this, Tak… octopus!" Lanya, with a wrinkled nose, bit. "Sort of tough… it tastes all right."

"Jesus!" Jack exclaimed. "That's salty!"

"Have some brandy," Tak reiterated. "Spicy food is good with booze. Go ahead. Drink some more."

"You know—" he still considered the poster—"I saw that thing hung up in a church this morning?"

"Ah!" Tak gestured with his glass. "Then you were down at Reverend Amy's. Didn't you know? She's the chief distributor. Where do you think I got my copy?"

He frowned at the poster, frowned at Tak (who wasn't looking), frowned at the poster again.

Eyes of ivory, velvet lips, a handsome face poised between an expression disdainful and embarrassing. Was it… theatrical? Perhaps theatrical disdain. The background was a horizonless purple. He tried to put this rough face with his memory of the astounding second moon.

"Try this!" Lanya exclaimed. "It's good."

It was. But mumbling through the tasteless crumbs under it, he stepped outside and breathed deep in the thick smoke. He couldn't smell it, but he felt his heart in his ears in a moment, very quick and steady. He searched for either blotted light. A rapist? he thought. An exhibitionist? He is approaching the numinous: gossip; the printed word; portents. Thrilled, he narrowed his eyes to search the clouds for George once more.

"Hey," Lanya said. "How you feeling?"

"Tired."

"I left my blankets and stuff in the park. Let's go back."

"Okay." He started to put his arm around her — she took his hand in both of hers. She cupped his from the wrist, her fingers like orchid blades. Blades closed, and she held his little finger, his forefinger, kissed the horny palm, and would not look at his confusion. She kissed his knuckles, opening her lips, and lay her tongue there. Her breath warmed in the hair on his hand's back.

Her face was an inch away; he could feel the warmth of that too. In his reiterate curiosity, and his embarrassment, he offered, obliquely, "You know… the moon?"

She looked at him, still holding his fingers. "What moon?"

"I mean… when we saw the two moons. And what you were talking about. Their being different."

"Two moons?"

"Oh, come on now." He lowered his hand; hers lowered with it. "Remember when we came out of the bar?"

"Yes."

"And the night was all messed up and streaked?" He glanced at the enveloping sky, fused and blurred.

"Yes."

"What did you see?"

She looked puzzled. "The moon."

"How—" something awful at the base of his spine— "many?" — clawed to his neck.

Her head went to the side. "How many?"

"We were all standing outside the bar, and in the sky we saw…"

But she laughed and, laughing, dropped her face to his hand again. When she looked up, she halted the sound to question. "Hey?" And then, "Hey, I'm kidding you…?"

"Oh," he said.

But she saw an answer that confused. "No, really, I'm just kidding. What were you going to say about it?"

"Huh?"

"You were about to say something?"

"Naw, it's nothing."

"But…?"

"Don't do that again. Don't kid like that. Not… here."

She looked around too when he said that. Then pushed her face against his hand again. He moved his fingers between her lips. "I won't," she said, "if you'll let me do this," and slid her mouth around his wrecked thumb.

As expression releases the indicated emotion, as surface defines the space enclosed, he felt a strange warmth. It grew behind his face and made his breath shush out. "All right," he said, and, "Okay," and then, "…Yes," each more definite in meaning, each more tentatively spoken.

Tak pushed the door back hard enough to make the hinges howl. He walked up to the balustrade, fingering his fly and mumbling, "Shit!" saw Lanya and stopped. "Sorry. I gotta take a leak."

"What's the matter with you?" she asked the swaying Loufer.

"What's the matter? Tonight's trick isn't going to put out. Last night's is all caught up the biggest fag-hag in the city." His zipper hissed open. "Come on, I want to take a leak." He nodded to Lanya. "You can stay here, sweetheart. But he's gotta go away. I got this hangup. I'm piss-shy in front of men."

"Fuck off, Tak," he said, and started across the roof.

She caught up, her head down, making a sound he thought was crying. He touched her shoulder, and she looked up at him in the midst of a stifled giggle.

He sucked his teeth. "Let's go."

"What about Jack?" she asked.

"Huh? Fuck Jack. We're not going to take him with us."

"Oh, sure; I didn't mean…" And followed him toward the stairwell.

"Hey, good night, Tak," he called. "I'll see you around."

"Yeah," Loufer said from the cabin door, going in: the hair on his shoulder and the side of his head blazed with back-light.

"Good night," Lanya echoed.

The metal door grated.

A flight into the dark, she asked, "Are you mad at Tak… about something?" Then she said: "I mean, he's a sort of funny guy, sometimes. But he's—"

"I'm not mad at him."

"Oh." Their footsteps perforated the silence.

"I like him." His tone spoke decision. "Yeah, he's a good guy." The newspaper and the notebook were up under his arm.

She slipped her fingers through his in the dark; to keep from dropping the notebook, he had to hold her near.

At the bottom of the next flight, she asked, suddenly: "Do you care if you don't know who you are?"

At the bottom of the next, he said, "No." Then he wondered, from the way her footsteps quickened (his quickened to keep up) if that, like his hands, excited her.

She led him quickly and surely through the basement corridor — now the concrete was cold — and up. "Here's the door," she said, releasing him; she stepped away.

He couldn't see at all.

"Just a few stairs." She moved ahead.

He held the jamb unsteadily, slid his bare foot forward… onto board. With his other hand, he raised notebook and newspaper before his face, thrust his forearm out.

Ahead and below, she said, "Come on."

"Watch out for the edge," he said. His toes and the ball of his foot went over the board side and dangled. "And those damn meat hooks."

"Huh…?" Then she laughed. "No — that's across the street!"

"The hell it is," he said. "When I came running out of here this morning, I nearly skewered myself."

"You must have gotten lost—" she was still laughing—"in the basement! Come on, it's just a couple of steps down."

He frowned in the dark (thinking: There was a lamp on this street corner. I saw it from the roof. Why can't I see anything…) let go the jamb, stepped… down: to another board, that squeaked. He still held his arm up before his face, feeling for the swaying prongs.

"One of the corridors in the basement," she explained, "goes under the street and comes up behind a door to the loading porch across from here. The first few times I came to visit Tak, that happened to me too. The first time, you think you're losing your mind."

"Huh?" he said. "Under the… street?" He lowered his arm.

Maybe (the possibility came, as relieving as fresh air in these smoke-stifled alleys) he'd simply looked down from the roof on the wrong side; and that was why there was no street-light. His semiambidextrousness was always making him confuse left and right. He came down two more board steps, reached pavement.