Samuel Delany - Dhalgren

Holding in the hash, Kidd noticed the mirror on the side wall, the end table with the crumpled antimacassar lingering from previous occupancy. He coughed: "How—" plosive with smoke—"long have you guys been down here?" What covered the door hole was the framed photograph of mother, father, and three children in their dated sailor suits, with the cracked coverglass.

"Too—" Thirteen exploded smoke of his own—"much. Somebody left that in the hallway, you know?"

He nodded.

Thirteen went on, "I just been here a couple of weeks. I mean in this place. Guys in and out here all the time. I don't even know how long I been in the city. Months, maybe. Cool. You?"

"Days." He looked again to Faust.

Faust was looking intently at the shape in the blanket.

Thirteen looked too, shook his head. "She got messed up, you know? I think she's got an infection or something. Course, it could be bubonic plague for all I know." He jabbed Kidd with his elbow. "Long as you're healthy, Bellona is great. But there's no doctors or nothing, you know?"

"Yeah. That must be bad."

From the kitchen; "What did you put in this shit, huh?"

"Will you stop bitching? Half of it's from last night."

"Then I know half of it won't kill me."

"Here, do something huh! Scrape that." A kitchen knife growled over metal.

"This place used to be all scorpions." Thirteen nodded toward the bed. "That's when she came here; she decided to be a member. Which is fine if you can do it. Guys get messed up like that too. But now she got an infection… If that's what it is."

Smokey returned with the waterless pipe, waiting at Thirteen's shoulder.

Kidd took it, sucked; Thirteen nodded approval.

"You… guys… are…?" Kidd loosed smoke-spurts between his words.

"— Scorpions? Shit, no… Well, you know." He scrunched his face, with an appropriate hand joggle. "I don't intend to be, again, ever; and Denny in there," he thumbed at the boy from the shower who passed by the kitchen door, "ain't exactly on active duty any more."

And that one's Denny, Kidd thought.

Thirteen took the pipe, sucked, and went off into a coughing fit.

"Hey, will she be all right?" Kidd asked, coming to the bed.

Faust made some noncommittal lip movement, lost in beard. "Somebody ought to take care of this girl." He kneaded his maroon and raveled knee.

She she she "She asleep?" sleep sleep. The hash was coming on. Sleep.

The olive landscape, mountains of shoulder and hip, was immobile.

Nobody there. Pillows?

Faust moved over for him.

Kidd sat on the bed's edge, warm from Faust.

"Isn't there a doctor any place in the city?" all over the city, city?

Faust's wrinkles shifted around on his face. "These sons of bitches wouldn't know if there was. I can't figure out whether to let her sleep or make her eat."

"She must be pretty tired if she can sleep through all this noise," Thirteen said. Coming up, Smokey handed the pipe to Faust, who closed his wrinkled eyelids when he sucked. When he. When.

"Maybe," Kidd suggested, "you better let her sleep. Save some food for when she wakes up," akes, akes.

"That—" Thirteen shook a tattooed finger—"is brains at work, Joaquim. Which are in short supply around here… Man!" He shook his head, turned away.

"Maybe," Faust nodded.

Kidd wondered whether it was Faust or the hash that muddled the meaning.

"Here."

He looked up for the pipe. Pipe. Plate? A plate of. Denny, face and chest still wet, stood in front of him, holding out a plate in a white, bath-wrinkled hand.

"Oh, thanks."

Faust took the other one.

"You ain't got no fork?" Denny asked.

"No." It was rice, it was onions, it had string beans in it, and corn. "Thanks." He looked up and took the fork. Water tracked on the white arm, shimmered in adolescent chest-hair, broken with acne.

Thirteen said, "You gotta give people food, you know? I mean, to be peaceable." Behind him, Smokey, plate just under her chin, ate eagerly.

It had meat in it too. Hash brought edges out from the grease that transformed the odor. He ate. And those were… nuts? No. Crisp potatoes. As the tastes staggered in his mouth, a muffled man's voice said something? something like, "Stop it! Now, stop it!" and a woman's wail rose toward the metallic.

He looked around, wondering which other room they were in.

Faust glanced at the ceiling.

So did Thirteen. "See what I'm talking about?" He sucked his teeth and shook his head. "They really go on up there."

The wail, which began to balk now toward sobbing, could have been either June or Mrs Richards. He had not realized before four for how alike their voices were.

Frowning, he ate more of the greasy rice (Bacon grease? Well, at any rate, bacon) and listened to forks tick tin.

Denny ate on one of the mattresses on the floor, back to Kidd: The marble knobs of vertebrae disappeared under the corn-colored hair which dried, lightened, curled.

Thirteen came from the kitchen at the rap on the door. "Hey, it's Nightmare!" Thirteen stepped back on his sudden shadow. "Sweetheart, you just made hash time! And have something to eat for dessert."

It and the blazing apparition in the doorway went out.

"Come on in." Thirteen stepped back again. "What can we do for you?"

The tickings had stopped.

"I'm looking—" Nightmare stepped forward, jingling — for motherfuckers who want to run." He pushed away the tangled braid from his shoulder; his hand stayed to massage the heavy muscle below the scratches, favoring that arm. "I'm not even gonna ask you, Thirteen. You're chicken shit." He nodded toward Faust. "Ain't she got out of the fuckin' bed yet?" Faust jammed another fork of rice somewhere into his beard and shook his head.

Thirteen stepped back to one side of the door, Smokey to the other.

Nightmare walked forward between them. His lips pulled from his broken tooth and his face creased with something like concern. Then he shook his head.

Kidd thought how many different meanings could reside in one gesture. The thought prickled through his stuttering ering ing mind. Nightmare — his eyes were the grey-green of wet, wet clay — looked at him. And blinked.

"You staring like you got toothpicks propping up your eyelids again," Nightmare said, grimacing. "Every time I seen you. Which is twice. I don't like that."

Confused, Kidd looked at his plate.

"I ain't gonna do anything about it," Nightmare went on. "I'm just telling you I don't like it, understand? I mean I like to make things clear."

He looked up again.

Nightmare laughed, a short, rough thing happening in his nose. "Okay, now. Which of you cocksuckers wants to run? Hey, Denny, wrap something around your neck and come on."

"I ain't finished eatin'," Denny said from the floor.

Nightmare grunted and stepped over him. Denny ducked.

"Hey, is that shit any good?"

Kidd hesitated in glistening sheets of clarity. Then he held out his plate and fork, and watched Nightmare warily decide to take the dare.

The scorpion took the fork in his fist, swept through the mixture, spilling some, and, fork still in his mouth, chewed, with grains about his lips. Still chewing, he grinned. "Hey, that's okay." As he handed Kidd back the fork, Thirteen broke the tensions that, with the hash, had almost grown visible about the room.

"Well, have a God-damn plate, will you? Here, Nightmare, I'll get you some. Hey—" he turned to Smokey—"take him some hash, while I get him something to eat."

Nightmare sat down on the bed, between Faust and Kidd, leg against Kidd's leg, arm against Kidd's arm. The figure under the blanket behind them didn't move. Nightmare sucked the pipe. He let out, with his smoke, "Now you want to tell me what you lookin' for, kid, all the time?"