Dhalgren

3

"Why'd she kick us out?"

"She didn't kick us out. She had things to do. She'll be down to see us. Don't worry."

"I ain't worrying." Denny balanced along the curb edge. "Shit, I could have stayed up there for the rest of my life and been happy. You on one end and her on the other."

"How'd you manage to eat?"

"Present company excepted—" Denny rugged at his vest—"I'd just send out for it. You sure she wasn't mad at us?"

"Yeah."

"Okay… you really think she's gonna come down and visit the nest?"

"If she doesn't, we'll go up and see her. She'll come."

"She's a nice person!" Denny emphasized each stress with a beat of his chin. "And I really like that song. Diffraction, huh?"

Kid nodded.

"I hope she comes down. I mean I know she likes you, 'cause you wrote a book and everything, and you known her a long time. But I'm just a fuck-up. She ain't got no reason to like me."

"She does anyway."

Denny frowned. "Sure acts like it, don't she?"

The street light above them pulsed… at half strength; then died. The sky sheeted over with one more film of darkness. The only other light to come on was two blocks away; it pulsed, pulsed, pulsed again.

Someone moved into it and shouted, "Hey! Hey, Kid! Denny!" Others trooped into the wavering circle.

"What the hell are they doing here?"

Denny shrugged.

In the middle of the next block, Dollar, lugging the brass lion on its broken base, pushed between Copperhead and Jack the Ripper. "Hey, we gotta move, you know? We're movin' again!" Dollar was grinning.

Copperhead was not. "The fuckin' house burnt up on us! How you like that? The fuckin' house burnt up!" A knapsack, one green with his fatigues, swung about his shins. He hefted the strap to the other hand.

"Jesus," Denny said. "All my shit…?"

"What happened?"

"Nothin'," Copperhead shrugged. "You know… it just, well…."

"The whole damn block," Siam said. "About an hour ago. Shit, it was something!"

Kid felt his heart thump once (like it always did when he found out somebody he knew had died) and in the hollow remains, he thought: That isn't so much a reaction as it is a fear of what the reaction might be. The house burnt down? The… house burnt down? But that seems so easy. The house…

He asked: "Was Nightmare there?"

"Fuck," Copperhead said. "Fuck. He and the Lady was off somewhere. Thirteen was gone somewhere too. Fuck."

Glass chuckled. "I could smell Thirteen's stash burning right up. Sure wished I knew where he kept it, and I would have got it out for him. But when it was burning—" he swung a pillowcase down from his shoulder into his arms—"you sure could smell it. You know I been in seven God-damn fires. Seven times I had my house burn out from under me. Lost my mother in a God-damn fire."

"In Bellona?" Siam asked.

Glass looked at Siam, realization in his face that he had been misunderstood. "No…" He hugged up the pillowcase. "I ain't been in no fire in Bellona, except this one."

"Where are we going to move?"

Denny said, "You want to go back to Lanya's and see if she'll put us—"

"Not on your fucking life," Kid said.

"I mean," Denny questioned, "you said she wasn't mad at us none."

"You got some place for us to move?" Copperhead asked.

"Nope," Kid said. "Come on. We'll find one."

"Now we don't want no place that's gonna burn up again before we get in it," Copperhead said. "Do we?"

Scorpions mumbled outside the circle of the lamp. Some carried mattresses, some cartons, some shovels and tools.

"Come on down this street," and the cavalcade practically filled the alley. Trees had been planted and ringed with ornamental fences. But each trunk was charred to a black fork with twisted tines. "That wooden house must have gone up like a matchbook."

"Naw," Copperhead told him. "Nobody got hurt. Nobody didn't really lose nothing they didn't want to lose. We all got out in tune."

"I got the lion!"

Kid turned on Dollar's pocked and stubbled grin.

"Man, I wouldn't've left my lion behind for nothing. It's the only fuckin' thing I own. You got that for me, Kid, remember? You got that for me and I wouldn't leave behind nothing like that for anything in the world, you know?"

"Denny…?"

Behind Dollar, she pushed her way forward. Her arms were full, her hair was tangled, and one heavy cheek was smudged.

"Denny, I got your stuff out!"

Her eyes, sweeping among them, caught Kid's and swept away.

"Denny? I think I got it all…"

"Oh, wow!" Denny said. "Oh, hey, you did? Wow, that's great!"

"Here: I got your shirts." She caught up with them. "And—" she glanced up blankly at Kid; the heavy breasts in her blue sweatshirt pressed out against bags and packages. Her small, full fingers had left the brown paper sweaty so that it bellied between them—"and the posters down from your wall. And the picture books. I didn't bring the blankets… I didn't bring the blankets because I thought it wouldn't be too hard to get some more blankets—"

"You got my radio?"

"Of course I got your radio. I think I got everything — there wasn't very much — except the blankets."

"I don't care about the God-damn blankets," Denny said. "You okay? I mean the house was burning down, and you were back up in there getting my stuff?" He took a paper bag from her—

"Oh, watch out…!"

— pulled Brass Orchids from his back pocket and dropped it inside.

"What's that?"

"Nothin'. What you so curious about? Oh, hey! You got my game in there."

"Un-huh. Denny?"

"Why don't you let me carry the rest of those?"

"That's all right. Denny?"

"What?"

"I don't think me and my friend—"

She glanced back.

Kid did too.

The blond girl in the pea jacket was just behind them.

"— are going to stay with you guys any more. I just wanted to bring you your stuff."

"Hey," Denny said. "Why not?"

"I don't know." She adjusted the other bags. "We just want to go somewhere else. We don't want to be members. And we know some nice people who have a house where we thought we could stay. It's just girls there."

"Just girls?" Denny said. "You ain't gonna have no fun there."

"Boys can visit and stuff like that. Boys just don't live there. I just don't think I want to live with you guys any more. I mean after the fire—" once more she glanced at Kid—"and everything. You know."

"Jesus," Denny said. "Jesus Christ. Well, I mean, I guess so, if you don't want to any more."

"You can come visit me, too. If you want."

"Shit," Denny said. "God damn."

"I just think it would be better. I mean if I live someplace else. It's a very nice place. They're very nice girls."

Denny was looking into the bag.

She said: "I'm pretty sure I got everything. What are you looking for? If it's not in there, it's probably in here."

"I'm not looking for anything."

"Oh."

The mask of Kid's face tingled. Suddenly he turned to Copperhead. "You ever been in any of these houses?"

"No."

"Let's try that one."

"Sure."

Kid turned to the others. "Hey! Hold up there, will you?" He walked up the unpainted steps. Halfway, he glanced back:

She shifted paper bags in her arms, biting at her lip while trying to get them comfortable. Denny looked at her, then at Kid, then back at her. The others shuffled and talked.

In his hand, the knob's squared and toothy shaft slid out another inch—

Kid pushed the door in.

The loose ceiling fixture—

He ran his eyes over the hall, waiting for sounds of occupancy.

The crayoning on the dirty wall—

He had the oddest feeling. "Anybody home?"

"Well, if they are," Copperhead said, "they can damn well get ready to move the fuck out. 'Cause we come to pay a long visit, right?" Others laughed. Copperhead called up: "Does it look okay?"

"Yeah. It looks pretty…"

"Should we come on up?"

"Yeah, come on."

At the end of the hall the bathroom door was open. Footsteps behind him passed around him; and somebody carrying the chained mannequin pushed by.

The house came alive with scorpions.

With a feeling of suspended confusion, he wandered through the front room into the kitchen.

Copperhead was looking in the cabinets above the sink. "Whole lot of canned stuff. That's pretty good. Too bad they left all their garbage though." A bag had broken under the table. The table was piled with garbage. The sink and the counter were heaped with dishes.

Kid decided he didn't like it here.

Outside the screen door, the sky heaved and twisted like a chained thing.

He turned abruptly into the living room.

The blond girl in the pea jacket sat on the couch, fists between her knees, watching two scorpions lay out a mattress on the floor. She looked at Kid, hunched her shoulders, and looked back at the scorpions. She seemed very tired.

"Hey,man," Dollar said behind his shoulder, "this is a really fine place." Clutching his lion, he shouldered open a door across the hall. Several guys were inside, straightening out mattresses and sleeping bags. Dollar pushed his way among them to set the lion in the window. He turned, silhouetted before the torn window shade. The brass beast peered by his hip from the sill. "Hey, man. You shouldn't have brought that old burned-up mattress with us. It's gonna smell up the whole fuckin' place." On the ticking was a charred halo around a crater two feet across of ashes and burned cotton.

"It's the only one I had," the scorpion (another white guy named California) said, and yanked it across the floor. He dropped the corner to overlap another.

Newspaper and magazine pictures had been at one time pasted over the wall; then some of them ripped off.

A black scorpion Kid didn't know stood up and grinned. "This sure beats the place were we staying, hey, Kid?" Squinting, he looked around. "Yeah, this is pretty nice."

I prefer, Kid thought, the red eyes, God damn it!

Across the hall, the door to the service porch was open. He started in, and stopped, one hand on the jamb. There was neither glass nor screening in the windows. Siam sat on a crate. "Hey…" He pulled the newspaper into his lap, and looked at Kid with growing confusion. "I was… was reading the paper." Siam offered a smile, thought better, and took it back. "Just reading the paper." He stood; the paper fell on the floor. The boards had once been painted maroon. "Is there something you want me to do…? I was gonna help out with the moving, but my hand…" He gestured with his bandaged arm. At the place where the bandage wrapped his hand, the flesh was scaling. "I guess I can help set up some stuff," Siam said, looking at his grimy fingers. "If you want…?"

"Naw," Kid said. "Naw, that's all right."

The verdigrised spigot on the wall splashed on the muddy drain.

Something clanked and ground behind him.

Kid turned.

The Ripper and Devastation wheeled the Harley up the hall:

"I don't see why you wanted to bring this piece of junk along. You can't get no gas for it, and you say the motor's all shot any way."

"Well, it's a good bike, if I could get it fixed."

"You want to put it in the bathroom like last time?"

"Shit, these cocksuckers get drunk and don't aim at all. And you know one of 'em's gonna piss on it just to see it rust."

"Aw, come on, motherfucker—"

"No, man! Hey, Denny, can I put it in there?"

"I guess so." Denny stood by a doorway, both arms full of paperbags.

Kid walked up to him, took his shoulder. "She go?"

Lips pursed, Denny nodded, looking from one bag to the other.

Inside, someone leaned the shovels against the wall beside an ironing board.

They backed up the Harley to wheel it in.

"Hey, is this gonna be your room, Kid?".

Kid said, "Probably."

"It ain't gonna take up too much space. Later I can maybe find some place else for it, you know?"

"If it's in the Kid's room, nobody's gonna bother it."

"That's okay."

Kid squeezed Denny's shoulder. They stepped inside.

"Hey," Denny said. "It's got a loft!"

Kid's spine chilled. He stood very still. "Denny?"

"What?"

"Did the place where we came from have a loft?"

Denny looked puzzled. "Sure it did. But it wasn't as nice as this one."

"It wasn't?"

"This one's a lot bigger," Denny said. "And it's got a mattress on it."

"What was the place like we were living before?"

"Huh?"

"Describe it to me. I can't remember it. I can't… remember anything about it."

"What do you mean?"

"What color were the walls painted?"

"White weren't they?"

Frowning, Kid nodded. The walls about them were green.

"You really don't remember where we lived before?"

Kid shook his head.

"We had," Denny began, prompting, "a bunch of spades across the street from us? It was down about eight or nine streets from here. And over a little."

"How did it compare to here?"

"What… do you mean?" Denny asked again.

"How is this place different?"

"Shit," Denny said. "This place is about twice as big! Don't you remember how cracked the walls and everything were? This place is in pretty good condition." After a moment, Denny asked: "Is this gonna be your place?"

"I guess so," Kid said.

"Can I put some of my shit up there? These cocksuckers will walk off with anything you just leave around."

"Sure. Go ahead."

Denny flung up one of the bags, then the other. "I sure wish this one had a ladder. You're supposed to really climb up and down this thing?" The supporting beam had triangular notches cut into the side. Denny climbed up two, and looked back. "Hey, it ain't that hard… you really don't remember where we were before?"

"I guess… no."

"Wow," Denny said and pulled himself up onto the mattress. "You lived there an awful fucking long time." He looked at Kid again, frowned, responding to something Kid could feel moving in his face but could not identify. "…maybe not that long," Denny recanted, dubiously. He disappeared.

More people moved in the hall behind him.

"Hey, Kid," somebody said, but was gone when he looked.

He went to the post and climbed up after Denny. In the corner, he sat back and watched the boy thumbtack Koth the Dark Angel next to the day-glo Scorpio. Now Denny emptied the other bags between his knees. "I guess," he said after a moment, "she really got it all. That was pretty nice of her, huh?"

Kid nodded.

Denny crawled over the mattress, hesitated, then put his head in Kid's lap. Kid rubbed Denny's neck, looked down, surprised. Denny took two deep breaths.

He's gonna cry? Kid wondered.

"You all right?" Denny asked in a perfectly controlled voice.

"Yeah," Kid said. "What about you?"

"I'm fine," Denny said, listlessly. After a while, he said, "I'm gonna go down and check things out, huh?"

"Okay."

He sat alone, listening to the sounds of the house. Once he picked up Denny's radio and turned it on. There was not even static. No battery?

He turned the glass dice, watching reflected ghosts of his face. He turned up a mirror on his chain; comparison of the two images told him nothing. But he looked back and forth.

Someone banged on the boards beneath him.

"Hey, you up there? Kid?"

He opened his eyes; the dice rolled from his lap as he crawled to loft's edge.

Black eyes, broken tooth, hair with a braid undone: Between huge shoulders, the smooth and the scarred, Nightmare grinned. "Hey, you got yourself a real nice nest set up for you here, huh?"

"How you doin', man!" Kid swung his legs over, dropped to the floor. His body tingled, heels, chin, knuckles and knees.

Nightmare took a stiff step back, another to the side, and bobbed his head. "Yeah, you really got yourself set up. Really nice." He looked into the hall, nodded at someone who hailed him. "Stealin" all my folk away from me?" He glanced back, brows high and forehead furrowed. "You're welcome to the scroungy motherfuckers! The niggers are okay. But the white ones, man. Shit…!"

Dollar said, "Hey, Nightmare—"

Shoulders raised; head lowered, Nightmare spat on the floor.

Dollar swallowed, and disappeared at a gesture of Nightmare's fist.

Nightmare turned, annoyance and concern weighting the ends of his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth. "Fuckin' psycho! You gotta treat these bastards like horse turds, man! Like fuckin' monkey puke! They all like you now. But you're gonna have to show 'em soon." He turned his boot on the gobbet. "And watch out for the ladies, they are particularly bad."

"Nightmare," Kid said, "most of the time, I can't even tell which ones the ladies are!"

"Got a point there." Nightmare nodded. "Altogether, how many you got here?"

"Don't know."

"I never did neither." In the hall, Nightmare squinted at the ceiling; "Yeah, this is going to be interesting."

Kid followed him.

"Somebody told me you fool around with boys, huh?" Nightmare nodded again, considering. "I was in reform school four years. Yeah, I know about that shit." He leaned out on the service porch (where two blacks manhandled a chipped washing machine), and pulled back, still nodding. "So you got Copperhead, Glass, and Spitt all here in the nest with you. That's pretty cool, I guess. I wouldn't have the balls for that I tell you that now."

"Which one is Spitt?"

Nightmare's face swung back, ruptured with disbelief. "Which one is Spitt?" Disbelief erupted into mockery. "You wanna know which one is Spitt?" Mockery erupted into laughter. "Hey, Spitt! Come here." He turned in the hall.

"Yeah?" The white youth came from the room. A matted belly, massing toward the pubic, disappeared under a turquoise and silver buckle. A scar careened across the tight, bald pectorals, and turned down toward his navel. He wore no vest. His only chain was his projector. Wrists and forearms were furry, his biceps veined and bald. His cheeks wore the few hairs of someone who could never have a beard. "What you want?"

"The Kid here thought he'd like a formal introduction. Kid, this is Spitt. Spitt, this is the Kid."

"Huh?" Spitt said. "Eh… Hi." He wiped a wet hand on his black jeans and held it out.

"Hi," Kid said, but didn't shake.

Spitt put down his hand and looked uncomfortable. "I was in the kitchen, trying to wash up some of the God-damn dishes. They ain't gonna stay clean very long, but I thought for the first day, maybe. Did you want something?"

"You go on back," Kid said. "Nightmare's a clown, you know? Yeah, and throw out some of that garbage, huh?"

"I was gonna." Spitt's eyes flicked, questioning, between them. He looked down, moved his feet a couple of times, grunted, then went into the other room.

"Now you mean to tell me you don't know who put the split in Spitt's tit?" Nightmare demanded; with his finger, he flicked the orchid hanging at Kid's neck. It ticked and chattered in the chains.

After silent seconds Nightmare, aping frustration, shook his head and assumed a theatrical whisper. "He's the guy you cut, man, when him and Glass and Copperhead first beat the shit out of you up at Calkins'! You mean you didn't know that?" Nightmare's expelled "Ha!" of laughter made at least two of the scorpions in the front hall turn around. They turned back. One, a black Woman, was hammering a nail into the wall, using a piece of plank to hit with. "They been tellin' me you're a little punchy sometimes, too. Like you're not always there, you know? Well, I tell 'em just to watch out for you, huh? The Kid knows what he's doing better than any of you motherfuckers, I tell 'em."

"Glad you think so," Kid said. "You going to stay here?"

"Me?" Nightmare buried a thumb in the links looping his chest. "Am I gonna stay here, with these scroungy motherfuckers?" The thumb wagged. The links rattled. "Shit!"

"What about you and Dragon Lady?"

"We're around, you know. Dragon Lady used to have this all-suede gang, man, over on the edge of Jackson. You know where Cumberland Park is?"

Kid nodded.

"Man, they were some mean motherfuckers. I mean, man…" Nightmare looked in the living room again, stepped inside.

Kid followed.

On the table in the corner were stacked a dozen copies of Brass Orchids.

"You got to watch out, down there," Nightmare said. "I mean it's getting pretty hungry, down there. Since the water main broke, it's just been sort of terrible. Two guys I know already got killed, down there. Yesterday. And somebody else two days before that."

"I heard most of the people moved."

"And the one's that are left, man, are pretty God-damn strange, you better believe it. Dragon Lady got her nest down there. She's pretty cool, you know?"

"And you're really going to leave all this for me?"

"I don't want it." Nightmare frowned at the table.

"Why?"

"You asked me that already."

"And I may God-damn well ask you ten times more, too! Until I find out."

"I told you I was just curious—"

"Me! Why me!" The three scorpions who came through the room now and didn't look were making a noticeable effort. "Come on, Nightmare. Talk to me."

"Well; you come." Nightmare turned around and leaned his butt on the table edge. "You go. You got a certain style." He shook back his hair. "You're crazy. People say you don't even know who you are. That's okay by me. I don't want nobody asking about Larry H. Jonas before he come here, either — Then, every once in a while, you do something really crazy-ass brave." Nightmare gripped the edges of the table. "Now I ain't brave. I think anybody who is, is stupid. I'm just not so spaced out today I can't remember what I did yesterday — which is more than I can say for you. I think that's the only reason I ended up the boss." He shrugged. "Now you got it. You don't want it, you just take off all them chains, ball 'em up in a little ball, throw 'em in Holland Lake and go on do something else. Somebody else'll pick it up — Copperhead, Raven, Lady of Spain… maybe some nigger you don't even know their name yet." Nightmare's face twisted. "But I don't see you doing that, you know?" He pawed something from his back pocket, brought it up between them. "And this shit—" A copy of Brass Orchids, folded. "You know I been actually trying to read this? I don't understand shit like this, man! But every day for a fuckin' week you got a fuckin' page or half-page in the fuckin' newspaper. Like it was a fuckin' movie, or something." Nightmare turned, and with his book knocked the stack. Copies spread the table. Three fell on the floor. "You don't ever talk about it; least I never heard you." Nightmare turned the folded book. "It ain't got no name on it. I mean I don't even know if it was really you wrote the stuff. I mean that's what some people are saying. But I'm gonna look at it anyway, see? Amd I'm looking. Then I find that part about me!"

Kid frowned.

Nightmare conducted the next sentence with the folded book. "Yeah, you know; don't tell me you didn't put nothing about me in there." He opened the cover, brushed over the pages.

Kid stepped around to see.

"Here!" Nightmare thumped the page with bunched fingers, leaving four prints. "That ain't me you talkin' about?" The whole page was grey with finger marks, the corners limp.

Kid took the book. The next page was clean. So was the page before. "Yeah…" Kid said. "I guess I had you in mind when I was writing that."

"You did?" The question's falling inflection rang with mistrust.

Kid nodded, closed the book and thought how inaccurate a truth he was perpetrating.

"Oh." Nightmare pulled the book from him. The pages parted automatically at the questioned passage. "Well, reading a fuckin' book and finding somebody talkin' about you is some pretty weird shit, you know? I mean I haven't made up my mind whether I like it… course, you didn't say anything bad about me." Once more he nodded, pursed his lips, parted them in a silent shape: "You don't say anything good, either." Again he stared at Kid. "That is pretty weird. I just wish I understood shit like this better, you know?" Suddenly, a grin opened around Nightmare's broken tooth. "That really is me, huh? And you weren't puttin' me down or nothing? I told Dragon Lady that was me, and she tried to tell me I was full of shit. You just wait till I tell her." He folded the book, tapped Kid's arm with it, and stabbed at his back pocket a couple of times, till it went in. "You are a very strange person. And you do some very strange things." Nightmare stood up and walked out of the room.

Kid saw Spitt and Glass, who had been standing just inside the kitchen door, going toward the table.

Nightmare mumbled very loudly:

"Too much."

"You want to come to a party?" Kid called after Nightmare in the hall.

"Here?"

"At Roger Calkins'."

Nightmare's head went to the side. "What am I gonna do at a party up there?"

"It's my party. Calkins is giving it for me at his place. Bring Dragon Lady along."

"Just your friends? In his place?"

"His friends, too."

"Oh," Nightmare said. "She ain't gonna come without her sidelights."

"Adam and Baby?"

"Yeah."

"That's all right. All of you come on up. It's in three Sundays, by the paper date. Soon as it gets dark."

"Calkins' friends, them people you read about in the paper?"

"Probably."

"That astronaut guy gonna be there?"

"I guess so."

"Motherfucker," Nightmare said. "You know, Baby don't put no clothes on. I mean he's funny and he just refuses, flat out, you know? And Dragon Lady ain't gonna come if he don't."

"He can come. If he wants to come buck naked, that's all right with me."

"Yeah?"

"You guys come any way you want. Bring your lights. That's all they probably care about."

"I don't got nothing to dress up in," Nightmare said. "This ain't a party you have to dress up for?"

"I'm coming like this."

"You know I'm gonna tell Baby you said to come on up to that party buck naked." Nightmare frowned. "He probably gonna do it, too. Cause he's a real funny motherfucker. I mean he walks around in the street like that, all the God-damn time." The frown broke before laughter. "I gotta see that. Yeah, I gotta go see that shit."

"Three Sundays," Kid said. *

"Maybe we all come over here first?" Nightmare offered.

"Okay. I'll see you then, if I don't before."

From the nail hung the framed photograph with the broken coverglass. Father, Mother, the two brothers and the sister gazed reprovingly in their dated dress. With black marker, on the glass, someone had drawn, across the boy's and the woman's mouth, outsized moustaches.

"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.