Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

"Come in, Bobby. This is a young man Edna Brown sent over."

"Gee." Bobby stepped into the living room. Blond as his sister, where her features suggested shyness, his sharper nose, his fuller mouth hinted belligerence. Under his arm was a newspaper. "Are you just living out in the street, huh?"

He nodded.

"You want to use the bathroom or wash or something?"

"Bobby!" from June.

"Maybe," he said.

Mrs Richards laughed. "Isn't it rather difficult for you, and dangerous?"

"You… have to keep your eyes open." That sounded inane enough.

"We'll go upstairs and look around."

"I wanna stay and read the—"

"We'll go together, Bobby. All of us."

"Oh, Bobby," June said, "come on!"

Bobby stalked through the living room, threw the paper at the coffee table, said, "Okay," and went into the kitchen. "I have to put the bread away first."

"Well, put it away," Mrs Richards said. "Then we'll go."

"I could only find half a loaf," Bobby called.

"Did you ask for a whole one?" Mrs Richards called. "I'm sure if you asked them politely for a whole loaf, they would have tried to find one for—"

"There wasn't anybody in the store."

"Oh, Bobby—"

"I left the money."

"But you should have waited for somebody to come back. Suppose someone had seen you going out. They wouldn't have known you'd—"

"I did wait. Why do you think I was gone so long. Hey, this has got mold in it."

"Oh, nooo," Mrs Richards cried.

"Not a lot," from the kitchen. "Just a little spot on one corner."

"Does it go all the way through?"

"It's on the second slice. And the third—"

"Oh stop tearing in it!" Mrs Richards exclaimed, punched the cushion, stood, and followed her son into the kitchen. "Let me see."

Perhaps it was the discomforting lucidity centered in the recapitulation: he said to June: "Last night, did you ever find—?"

Cellophane rattled from the kitchen.

By the door frame, June's eyes widened in recognition — finally. Her forefinger brushed her lips awkwardly for silence, brushed, and brushed again, till it wiped all meaning from the gesture.

She blinked.

The cellophane rattled.

Bobby came out, sat in front of the coffee table, and pulled the paper onto his lap. When he saw his sister, he cocked his head, frowning, then looked back at the paper, while June's hand worked down the front of her sweater to her lap.

"It's through," announced Mrs Richards. "All the way through. Well, it isn't very large. Beggars can't be choosers." She came into the living room. "We can cut it out, and all have sandwiches with little rings in them. We are all beggars till this thing gets straightened out, you know. Are you reading that again?"

Mrs Richards put a fist against her hip.

Bobby did not look up.

"What is it talking about today?" in a gentler tone. The fist dropped.

Bobby read on.

He said, "That whole business last night, with the moons."

"What?"

June offered, "I… I told you, Mother. Last night, when I went out—"

"Oh, yes. And I told you, June, I didn't like that. I didn't like that at all. We'd better go upstairs. Bobby?" who only grunted.

"Some people said they saw two moons in the sky." He stood up from his chair. "They named one of them George," and didn't watch June but the back of Bobby's head; and knew June reacted anyway.

"Two moons in the sky?" Mrs Richards asked. "Now who said they saw that?"

"Calkins doesn't say," Bobby mumbled.

"The guy who wrote the article didn't see them," he told Mrs Richards.

"Two moons?" Mrs Richards asked again. "June, when you came in, you didn't say anything about—"

June had left the room.

"June! June, we've got to go upstairs!"

"Do I have to come too?" Bobby asked.

"Yes, you have to!"

Bobby folded the paper loudly.

"June!" Mrs Richards called again.

He followed mother and boy to the door, where June waited. While Mrs Richards opened first the upper, then the lower, at last the middle lock, June's eyes, perfectly round, swept his, implored, and closed.

"There we are."

All blinking for different reasons, they entered the hall. He followed till Mrs Richards announced, "Now," and continued, "I want you — what is your name? — to walk up in front."

It was surprisingly easy to say, "Kidd," as he stepped around the children.

"Pardon?" Mrs Richards asked.

"Kidd. Like Captain Kidd."

"Like Billy the Kid?" Bobby asked.

"Yeah."

"Neither of them were too terribly nice people," said June.

"The Cisco Kid," Bobby said. Then, with raised eyebrows and small smile, droll as an adult of thirty: "Pow, pow…?"

"Bobby, stop!"

He walked with Mrs Richards. Her heels clunked; his sandal lisped, his bare foot hardly whispered.

As they reached the elevators there was noise above. They looked at the stairwell door with its wire-webbed glass and EXIT in red letters across it. Trundling footsteps grew louder—

(His hand pressed against his leg, across one turn of chain.)

— grew louder still, till shadows crossed the glass. The footsteps, dropping below, softened.

Mrs Richards' hand, grey as twigs from fire, hung against the wall by the elevator bell. "Children," she said. "It must be children. They run up and down the stairs, in the hall, banging on the walls, the doors. They don't show themselves, you know. That's because they're afraid." Her voice, he realized, was hoarse with terror. "They're afraid of us. They, don't have to be. We're not going to hurt them. I just wish they wouldn't do that That's all. I just wish they wouldn't."

Two separate elevators opened.

From one a man said, "Oh," a little gruffly. "Honey. It's you. Scared me to death. Where're you going?"

From the other came a faint wind, from a long way up or a long way down.

"Arthur! Oh, Arthur, this is Kidd! Edna Brown sent him to help. We're taking him to see the new apartment"

He shook the large, moist hand.

"Pleased," Arthur Richards said. The closing door k-chunked his shoulder, retreated, then tried to close again.

"Edna sent him over to help us with the cleaning and the moving."

"Oh. Edna coming over later?"

"She said she'd try this afternoon, Mr Richards."

K-chunk.

"Good. Hey, let's get in this thing before it knocks me down." Mr Richards guffawed. His white collar made folds in his fleshy neck. His hair was so pale, possible white was lost in the gloom. "Sometimes I think this thing doesn't like me. Come in."

K-chunk.

They ducked before the door swung them into darkness.

"19" hung, orange, on the black.

"Arthur," Mrs Richards said in the humming dark, "they've been running in the hall, again. They came and beat on the door. Twice. Once this morning, and once right after Kidd came. Oh, I was so glad he was there!"

"That's all right, honey," Mr Richards reassured. "That's why we're moving."

"Management has just got to do something. You say you have been down to the office and told them?"

"I've been down. I told them. They said they're having difficulty right through here. You've got to understand that, sweetheart. We're all having difficulty."

June breathed beside him. She was the closest person to him in the elevator.

"You'd know how upsetting it was if you ever heard it, Arthur. I don't see why you can't take a day off of work. Just so you'd know."

"I'm sure it's upsetting."

The door opened; in the hall he could see two ceiling globes were working.

Mrs Richards looked across her husband's chest. "They wouldn't do it if Arthur was home."