Dhalgren (87 page)

"Hey, there, pops!" Nightmare saluted the bearded gentleman in the photo. "Kid, I'm gonna split. Thanks for the invitation. I'll tell the Lady. We're all waiting to hear about your next run."

Nightmare opened the door.

Their shadows spilled the steps into night.

"So long." Nightmare trampled his own down to the sidewalk, waved, and stalked away.

Kid looked back down the hall. All three light bulbs were working, as well as the one in the bathroom. I guess, he thought, I picked a good nest. The films of his thought hanging beyond words curled and withered, made all the motions of the thinnest tissue caught in blasting flame. I guess…

Spitt stepped out of the living room. "We gonna eat out back, hey, Nightmare still here?" His hand, straying on his chest, concentrated its motions around the scar.

"Nope."

"Oh."

Behind Kid, the closing door clicked.

"He could'a stayed," Spitt said. "We got plenty of food for tonight—"

Kid wandered down the hall.

I am a parasite. I have never made a home. Even here, I have not instructed a home to be made. In my whole stay, though I cannot recall looking for food, among these twenty, twenty-five faces, some among them must take that care. I crawl from place to place, watching homes created or crumbling around me.

He wondered what kind of party Calkins expected.

Breath bucked from his nose; that was laughter.

On the service porch, Kid looked down into the yard (fire light on the ceiling beams), grabbed the sill of the window, reared back, vaulted: "Whooop-
peee!"

Others laughed.

"Jesus Christ," Raven said. "You'll break your fuckin' neck!"

Kid staggered, agonized.

Three hands came to steady him.

And three voices:

"Man, that must be fifteen feet!"

"It ain't fifteen feet—ten? Twelve? Here, Kid, have a drink. You know there's a God-damn liquor store just around the corner and ain't nobody even broken in the window?"

"It's broken now. Shit. We're gonna have to work a week to drink up all that booze."

Kid took another step, grinning, between the scorpions who flanked him. Pain shot again from calf to thigh. Did I break my knee, he thought. No. It'll be all right in a minute…

"You all right, Kid?" That was one of the black girls with bare breasts joggling jingling links. "Man, you scared me good when you come leaping out like that!"

Kid took another breath and grinned. "I'm okay." He leaned on the black shoulder, while she pulled away from another girl to support him. She laughed, shifted, steadied; and Kid pulled away, took another step, another breath. "Yeah, I'm okay. What we got to eat?"

The Ripper, with a can opener, kneeled over a big, odd-shaped can. "One of them canned hams." The tin wept gelatin down its red and blue label. "We found three of them."

The fire crackled on the bottom of a kettle hung on a pipe propped on cinderblocks. "The gas isn't working in the stove?"

"Yeah," Denny said, across the fire, "but we thought we'd cook out."

The first bubble on the… soup? stew? grey at the kettle edge, shook its reflection of the porch window frame, and burst. Another bubble grew.

Kid took his weight off his throbbing leg. Better. He flexed, feeling the tender machinery of knee and ankle jarred from place. It was his booted leg. Perhaps the soft sole had hit a rock?

"Don't throw your God-damn bottle in the yard, man. Don't you know about pollution? We gotta live here."

"You shut up, or I'll pollute you!" a short-haired white woman said.

"Throw your fuckin' bottle over in the
next
yard, will you?"

"Okay, okay…"

Light snarled in the loops of chain, laid out dull splashes on dark leather, lit the trough beneath a black lip, put wires of light in greasy brass hair, glistened on the puffed rim of a lashless eye, sank in the graphite nap bushing an ovoid skull.

The Ripper laughed and bent and wiped at his mouth with his wrist. The orchid, from the chain at his neck, spun bright petals.

"Here…!" A bottle neck hit Kid's mouth, clicked his teeth, hurting his gum.

"Christ, man!" Kid beat it away. "I don't want no God-damn wine," which was the taste he licked
from
his lower lip; he rubbed his mouth. "Somebody get me something real."

"You want this?" Denny asked.

"Yeah. What is it?" Kid drank, and cleared his burning throat. "You know when I was your age I use to be a fuckin' booze hound? I don't even like the stuff now." He took another, smaller drink, and handed the bottle back to Denny; "But I was a fuckin' hound." Guys argued:

"Now
what you gonna do with that?"

"Cut it up, cook it over the fire."

"You can eat it right out of the can like that."

"Hell, no. That's ham, man. You'll get trichinosis!"

"Man, you can't get trichinosis from no canned ham!"

"Well, you're gonna cook mine before I eat any."

Somebody passed out long-handled kitchen forks. ("That's all right. I got my huntin' knife.") Bubbling soup dribbled the kettle's side. Kid's leg felt about okay. He turned, smiling at the dark, as scorpions joggled him to get at the meat. ("Hey, somebody start opening up the other one, will you?") Soup hissed and chattered in the flame. The edges of the evening softened with the liquor. He looked for Denny and Denny's bottle.

"Hey,
Kid!" The smile was a pit of flickering rot and silver. "You really doing nice here, huh? Beautiful, yeah. Beautiful."

"Well, I'll be a motherfucker!" Kid announced. "I didn't even think you were gonna
live
another twenty-four hours, much less show up here."

Pepper gaped wider. "Sort of…
hungry!"
His chin jutted on the syllable. He joggled a wine bottle in his spiky hand. "You got a really nice nest here; and I'm all ready for a run."

"Help yourself." Kid gestured over the heads around him. "You just go right on and help yourself."

A very blond and square-jawed scorpion pushed from the center of a bunch of blacks (Raven, Jack the Ripper, Thruppence, D-t, Spider) stepped up behind Pepper, and said, "Jesus Christ… Shit!" He seized Pepper's scrawny shoulder. "What are you doing back here, you sad-assed motherfucker? Why don't you get your ass out of here before I—"

"Hey, now…" Pepper said. "Hey…!"

Others, looking, moved aside. The short-haired woman stepped forward. Copperhead stopped her with a freckled hand on her chained and vested shoulder.

"Come on and get the fuck out of here," the square-jawed blond said. "Nobody wants you around stinking up the place now. You been run out twice. Somebody gotta run you out again?"

"Man, I'm
hungry!"
Pepper complained. "Kid said I could—" And under the thrusting hand, stumbled into Kid.

Kid stepped back, thought, no, with no word on top of it. He swung his hand, and caught the back of the blond head so hard his palm stung.

"Owee…
!" came unaccountably from Pepper, who scurried to the side.

The scorpion Kid had hit turned, his face screwed up.

No, Kid thought, this time
with
the word. I got a bum leg, I'm half drunk, and I'm beating on people? No. This is going to get me in trouble. "Leave him
alone!"
Kid said loudly.

Scorpions shuffled in the silence.

Priest kneeling over the ham squinted. He was so close to the fire his dark shoulders sweated.

Kid walked toward the scowling blond and took his shoulder. "Now you just go
on
and get yourself something to
eat!"
He shook the scorpion's shoulder in large motions. "There's enough for everybody, see?" Am I really getting away with this? Kid began to laugh. "Come on, give him a piece of ham." He pushed the scorpion toward the fire. And I'll just turn, walk away, and wait for a fork in my shoulder.

Kid turned.

Copperhead stood before the others, arms crossed, Glass to one side of him, Spitt to the other. The short-haired woman, shaking her head, was walking away.

Kid moved toward them thinking; I can't tell whether they're about to back me or jump me. Do the others know? "Whyn't you get yourself something to eat, too?" He walked by.

Some tension had broken with his laughter.

Thruppence said, "You got a ladle or a cup or something?"

Jack the Ripper said, "We got bowls and cups and things. Somebody washed all the fuckin' dishes."

Half a dozen crouched together behind the fire, shoulders smooth as great plums, hair wrinkled as prunes, holding forks over the coals, shifting hands suddenly sucking their knuckles.

He looked at a bottle.

"You want some of—?"

"Yeah." He took the bottle and another drink, "Thanks," and kept circling. Two were necking under a tree. Momentarily he thought they were both boys.

Dollar lifted his face from the girl's disarrayed hair. "Hey, Kid…" He blinked in the firelight, his stubbly jaw blebbed here and there.

Kid stepped over Dollar's boots.

"You got something to eat yet?" Denny asked.

Kid shook his head.

"You take this. I'll get another one."

The cup was hot and soup had run down the sides. "Thanks."

"You won't get trichinosis from that ham if it isn't cooked through, will you?" Denny asked.

"If it comes out of a can," Kid said, "it's cooked."

"That's what I thought," Denny said.

He sipped, stinging the roof of his mouth. The sensation took seconds to subside to simple heat. He was looking, desultorily, for either Pepper or the scorpion who'd harassed him. He could spot neither around the fire. And people were going in and out of the house again.

Glass, Spitt, and Copperhead, less formally posed, but still together, stood to the side of the yard eating ham and soup. Kid doffed his cup.

"Can you hear that?" Glass asked.

"Hear what?"

"Listen," Spitt said.

Kid bent over the soup while it steamed his chin. The yard was filled with voices. "What?"

"There," Spitt said.

Perhaps two blocks away, a man screamed. The sound went on and on, died at the length of a long breath, and began again, this time shaking and breaking.

"You wanna go check it out?" Copperhead took another bite of ham. A line of grease glistened from the corner of his mouth into his beard.

"Naw," Kid said.

"You're the big hero, man," Copperhead said. "Don't you wanna go help a gentleman in distress?" Copperhead laughed.

"No, I…"

The man screamed again.

Momentarily Kid pictured the four of them foraging beyond the firelight, through darkened streets, the ululation filling the night about them.

"No, I don't wanna. I got Pepper fed. That's my heroics for the night." He sipped loudly and walked back among the scorpions around the fire. When the neighbors are shrieking… went through his mind but could not remember who'd said it.

"Here, Kid. You wanna use my fork?"

It was the blond scorpion who had tried to eject Pepper.

"Thanks." It was a long-handled, three-pronged laundry fork. Kid took a chunk of ham and squatted beside the fire. He squinted before flame. Trying to drink his soup, he spilled more over his hand. And even with the long fork, his knuckles were painfully hot. The blond scorpion, squatting beside Kid, watched the meat bubble and char. "Thanks for the fork," Kid said again after a few minutes and sipped from the cup once more.

The screaming had stopped.

Or there was too much noise to hear.

"Hey, Tak!"

"Kid?"

"What are you doing?"

"What are
you
doing? Can you get down from there? You better watch out…"

Kid let go of the beam and crabbed down the rubble, raising dust banks behind and an avalanche before.

"That was impressive," Tak said. "You're still going around with one shoe? You must have a sole on that foot like an oak board."

"Naw." Kid beat his foot again his black jeans, both legs grey to the knee. "Not really."

"You exploring in there?" Tak pushed up his cap to watch the smoke curl back through the girders. "How come you don't have the rest of the nest? I didn't think scorpions ever traveled alone."

"I come," Kid shrugged. "I go. I take them on runs. Where you going?"

"I'm on a mission of mercy for your girl friend."

"Lanya?"

"I volunteered to help her with her dress for your party."

Kid tried to hold back his laughter. It burst his lips' seal and lights shot either in his eyes or in the windows of the warehouse across from them.

"What's so funny?"

"She's got you turned into a seamstress?"

"She does not. Come on and I'll show you something interesting."

They walked the littered streets.

"You're going to come to the party, aren't you?"

"Not," Tak said, "on your fucking life."

"Huh?
oh, man, come on. Calkins wants me to bring my friends. I'm going to take the whole nest along. Don't you want to see what happens when all us freaks get turned loose in there?"

"Not terribly. But I suspect Calkins does—though I've never met the man."

"Aw, come
on,
Tak—"

"No. Somebody's got to be around to read about it in the next day's gossip column. That's
my
job. You just have a good time and drink a glass of brandy for me. Swipe a bottle if they've got any good stuff and bring it back. I'm down to
Gold Leaf.
Somebody got into my liquor connection and made off with just about everything worth drinking."

"We got a liquor store right around our corner. What do you drink? It's got everything. Anything you want. You just tell me, and I'll get it for you."

"Five Star Courvoisier." Tak laughed his whisky growl and hooked his cap down. "Come on." As they left the corner, he asked, "How long you been up?"

"A few hours."

"Oh," Tak said. "Because I got up very early, when it was still getting light. I came over here, and you could see flames…" He nodded down the side street where turbulent smoke blocked vision less than two blocks away.

"You could?"