Dhalgren (95 page)

Blocks later that image, still working in Kid's mind, finally loosened a chuckle which rolled around in his mouth.

Lanya and Denny were looking at him, she with a smile anticipating explanation, he merely without comprehension. Kid pulled her tighter. Denny's fringe brushed his arm, then crushed against him as he lowered his own arm down her back. Her far hip, moving under Kid's fingers, did not change its rhythm.

"This is all very colorful." Madame Brown strained back on the leash. "But it's quite a walk. Muriel, heel!"

"Roger's friends are pretty colorful too," Lanya said. "He'll rise to the occasion."

Vines climbed the wall. Willow boughs hung over it, sawtooth shadows growing and shrinking as the red, orange, and green lights passed.

"We're just about there, ain't we?" Nightmare called from the middle of the street. Insects and arthropods floated around him, laughing gigantically.

"Yeah!" Kid called. "The gate's up there."

Denny was lingering in his shirt pocket. "Now what am I supposed to do with this thing?"

"Once we get inside," Lanya explained, "just turn me on. Every once in a while, give a look and if what you see is
too
dull, fiddle with those knobs till something interesting happens. Tak says its range is fifty yards, so don't get too far away. Otherwise I go out."

Suddenly Kid pulled away to shoulder through the bright, boisterous crowd. On a whim's stutter, he thumbed his shield's pip: it clicked.

From the inside, he remembered, your shield is invisible. But people had cleared around him. (I don't know what I am.) He looked down at the cracked pavement. (But whatever it is, it's blue.) The halo moved with him across the concrete.

Three beside him turned off their lights, growing shadows before them from the lights behind.

It's like a game (there were the stone newels), not knowing who, or what, you are. He wondered how long before he would finally get someone aside and ask. And flipped his pip to kill the temptation.

Stepping ahead of the crowd, he grabbed the bars. The others massed loudly around. He wondered, as he stared in at the pines, lit clumsily and shiftingly by his bright entourage, what to call out.

"Hello!" A young—Filipino? (probably)—in a green turtleneck and sports jacket stepped up. "You're the Kid? I thought so. I'm Barry Lansang. I'm on the gate tonight. Just a second, I'll let you all in."

"Hey, we're here!"

"How we gonna get in?"

"Shut up! He's lettin' us in now."

"This here's where we going?"

Lansang stepped aside. The gate went
Clang,
and the noise level around Kid cut by two-thirds.

Lansang swung back the bars.

Kid stepped forward, aware that the others had not.

"Go on up," Lansang smiled. "They're all expecting you. Is this your whole party?"

"Yeah. I think so."

"If you expect anybody else to come by later, just leave their names with me and I'll make a note."

"Naw. This is it."

Lansang smiled again. "Well, if stragglers come along later and we do have an identification problem, I can always go up and find you. Come on in," this last over Kid's shoulder, accompanied by a gesture.

Kid looked back."

The gateway crowded with silent, familiar faces.

"Come on," Kid said.

Then they came.

Dragon Lady was among the first. "This is something, huh?"

"Yeah." Kid said. "And this is just the trees."

"Follow the driveway up," Lansang instructed. He was, Kid saw, enjoying himself.

Lanya joined Kid; her gown blushed pink. As they walked together, robins-egg droplets grew into puddles which swelled to oceans.

"Am I doing this right?" Denny reached under his vest into his shirt pocket with a black and glittering arm.

Lanya looked down at herself. "I think the other knob—the one on the front—is for color intensity. Leave it like this for now. We don't want to shoot it ail on the entrance."

Floodlights between the huge pines lit the gravel and, after the night journey, made them squint.

"Here we are," Madame Brown said, looking off between two trees where one light was not working. "All safe and sound."

Muriel walked close to her.

"Where's everybody likely to be?" Kid asked Lanya, whose dress dribbled a metallic green across her left breast.

"Out on the terrace gardens. Where we were that afternoon with Mr Newboy."

Kid did not remember the driveway as this long. "How come they have all this electricity?"

"When it's
all
working, they can get this whole grounds practically bright as day," Lanya said.

They passed the last trees:

The house was bright as day against the night.

"Newboy said something about lanterns…"

"It doesnt all work inside," Lanya said. "There was one whole wing where there wasn't a socket functioning." (Some dozens of men and women along the stone terrace turned to look.) "But whenever Roger lights the whole place up like this, I get the feeling I'm watching some really banal
Son et lumiere."

The scorpions quieted as they saw the other guests.

Suit, shirt, and tie of different blues, one pushed from among them. Short blond hair, a serious expression, he was followed by two women—the older also in blue, hair rinsed the same shade as his shirt. The younger, in a floor-length brocade, looked unhappy.

Calkins, Kid thought starting forward. But anticipation had betrayed him: It was Captain Kamp.

"Kid—!" called out affably enough—"you got here. And these are your friends… I… um. Well, we've had a little…" Initial affability spent, Kamp looked confused. "Now, Roger hasn't gotten back yet. He told us he might be late, and to tell you how sorry he was… He asked me and Thelma—" he nodded at the woman in brocade—"and Ernestine—" and at the woman in blue—"to say hello for him when you got here…
um,
since I'd met you—" his eyes kept moving to the people behind Kid—"to introduce you around and things. Now, Ernestine, this is the Kid. And this is Thelma…"

Ernestine, who seemed much less nervous than Kamp, said, "I'm Ernestine Throckmorton. How wonderful to have all you young people here. Hi, love," which was a special nod to Lanya, who grinned back. "Now I think the only thing to do is plunge in and go over how everything is laid out. Why don't you all come with us and we'll show you where to get something to eat and drink? Come on, now." She turned and motioned them up the steps onto the terrace.

As the other guests stepped back, staring, she went for the two nearest and brightest scorpions. "And what are your names?"

"Nightmare," Nightmare said rather like a question.

"And your friend?"

"Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. This here is Dragon Lady."

"Very pleased to meet you both. You know, I've heard your names before; well, read them actually, in the paper. Really, I'm quite terrified."

Kid glanced over.

Ernestine, who did not look terrified one bit, strolled by the staring (some smiled) guests, Nightmare on one arm, Dragon Lady on the other.

"Bill!" she cried out. (Bill was smiling.) "Come here, dear."

Bill, a tall, handsome man, perhaps thirty-eight, in a black turtleneck, a can of beer in one hand (the only guest there already, without a jacket), fell in beside them. "Bill, this is Nightmare and Dragon Lady. You mentioned them in that article you did for Roger a little while ago. Now, have you ever met them?"

"I'm afraid I haven't."

"Well, here they are."

"Hello," and "Hello," Nightmare and Dragon Lady said, just out of sync.

"I'm glad to meet you, but I'm not sure that you're glad to meet me after some of the things I said."

"You wrote an article?" Nightmare asked. "In the paper?"

"I didn't read no article," Dragon Lady said.

"Probably all just as well, considering some of what I put down—here, we're all heading for the beer wagon down at the end—" Bill gestured with his can. "I'm really surprised to meet you here with the Kid. I was under the impression that the various gangs—nests—kept at each other's throats."

"Naw," Nightmare said. "Naw, it ain't like that…"

While Nightmare explained how it was, Kid looked over again. Bill had replaced Ernestine, who had drifted back to other scorpions: "I'm Ernestine Throckmorton. And you're…?"

Lanya smiled and whispered: "This is going to be work." Concern underlay the smile.

"Huh?"

"Since Roger's not here. To get people mixing. I mean if he's got one, that's his single overwhelming talent. Ernestine's competent. I've seen her work before—"

"I guess you know her."

"I recognize about five people here, I think. Thank God. Roger usually keeps a pretty inspired group. Ernestine can even be brilliant. Roger, however, has genius. And I'm afraid I was sort of counting on it this evening. Don't be mad if I abandon you for a little while. You can take care of yourself. Why don't you start by introducing me to the Captain?"

"Oh," Kid said. "Sure. I know him. Glass and I walked him up here one night."

"Glass…" she considered, and her consideration made him pause till she nodded:

"Captain Kamp?" he had to say three times before the Captain turned. "This is my friend, Lanya Colson."

"Since everyone's talking to people they've read about in the papers," Lanya said, "I guess I can tell you that I've read about you."

"Um…"
The Captain smiled uncertainly.

"I spent some time here with Roger a little while ago," Lanya said, which to Kid sounded pretty phony.

But the Captain's "Oh?" was filled with relief.

She seemed to know what she was doing.

"Where has Roger gone? It's not like him to arrange something like this and then not be here."

"Now I'm sure he'll be back," the Captain said. "I'm just sure. He had it all arranged with the lady in the kitchen—"

"Mrs Alt?"

"—yes. And she's really laid out a nice spread. I don't know where he went off to. I was sort of hoping he'd be back in time. Partying isn't really my strong point. And I didn't realize all of you people were going to come. Of course, Roger did say bring twenty or thirty friends, didn't he? But. Now. Well…"

The long terrace ended at a patio.

Two tables were set up on the stone flags.

Flame blued the copper bottoms of a half-dozen chafing dishes.

There were paper plates. There were plastic forks. The napkins were linen.

Most of the guests, before on the terrace, had. now drifted with them to the patio.

"You just help yourselves to anything you'd like to eat." Ernestine's arms rose like a conductor's. "That's the bar over there. Either of these gentlemen—" one young black bartender, one elderly white one, both in double-breasted blue—"will get you a drink. Those two kegs over there are beer. If you want it in the can, the cooler, here—" she thumbed at it; two people laughed—"is chock-full." In more modulated tones to whoever happened to be beside her: "Would you like something to eat?"

"Sure." Revelation said.

"Yes, ma'am," from Spider.

No full meal had been cooked in the nest that day.

"Captain Kamp," Lanya was saying, "this is Glass. Glass, this is Captain Kamp."

"Oh, yes. We've met, now."

"You have?" Lanya's surprise sounded perfectly delighted and perfectly sincere. (If I wrote her words down, Kid thought, what she's saying would vanish into something meaningless as the literal record of the sounds June or George makes.) "Then I can leave the two of you alone and get something to eat," and turned away.

("Now," Kamp said. "Well. What have you been doing since I saw you last?")

(Glass said: "Nothing. You been doing anything?")

(Kamp said: "No, not really.")

Lanya shouldered through Tarzan-and-the apes. "Hey, come on with me, I want you to meet someone. No, really, come on," and emerged with Jack the Ripper and Raven, herding before them the diminutive black Angel. "Dr Wellman,
you're
from Chicago! I'd like you to meet Angel, the Ripper, and Raven." She stayed a little longer with them. Kid listened to the conversation start, halt, and finally settle into even exchanges (between Angel and Dr Wellman at any rate) about community centers in Chicago, which Angel seemed to think were "all right, man. Yeah I really liked that," while Dr Wellman held out, affably, that "they weren't very well organized. At least not the ones we did our reports on."

"Hey, Kid."

Kid turned.

Paul Fenster doffed a paper plate at him.

"Oh, hi…!" Kid grinned, astonished how happy he was to see someone he knew.

"Get yourself something to eat, why don't you?" Fenster said and stepped away between two others, while Kid held the words he'd been about to say clumsily in his mouth.

He wished that Tak had come. And that Fenster had not.

Lanya passed close enough to smile at him. And he was close enough to hear her coax Madame Brown: "Work, work, work!" in a whisper.

Wrapping herself in her leash, Madame Brown turned and said: "Siam, this is a terribly good friend of mine, Everett Forest. Siam was my patient, Everett."

Everett was the man Kid usually saw at Teddy's in purple angora. He now wore a navy blazer and grey knitted pants.

Somewhere across the patio, Lanya was holding paper plates in both hands, about to give them away. Turquoise billowed about her silver hem, trying and failing to rise like a lazy lava lamp. He started to go take a plate, but suddenly thought of Denny, looked around for him—

"I asked Roger if I could be on—"

Kid turned.

"—on your welcoming committee—" (unhappy Thelma of the floor-length brocade)—"because I didn't think I could possibly get to speak to you otherwise. I wanted to tell you how much pleasure
Brass Orchids
gave me. Only now I—find that it's—" her dark eyes, still unhappy, fell and rose—"just very difficult to do."

"Um…
thank you," Kid offered.

"It's hard to compliment a poet. If you say his work seems skillful, he turns around and explains that all he's interested in is vigor and spontaneity. If you say the work has life and immediacy, it turns out he was basically concerned with overcoming some technical problem." She sighed. "I really enjoyed them. And outside a few polite phrases, there just isn't the vocabulary to describe that sort of enjoyment in a way that sounds real." She paused. "And your poems are one of the realest things that's happened to me in a long time."