Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany Page A

traffic…
    From a building, a block away, astounding billows raised a lopsided tower.
    Finished, he leaned across the splattered stone.
    The alley was a torrent of grey in which he could see no bottom. Licking his coated teeth, he walked back to the shack, stepped sideways through the tar-papered door: "Hey, you can have your bed back; I'm gonna …"
    In the shadowed room, Tak's chest rose evenly in a subvocal growl.
    "I'm going to go now…" but spoke it more softly; he took a few steps toward the naked engineer, asleep in the chair.
    Tak's long toes spread the boards. Between his knuckles, a stumpy cock with its circumsized helmet was nearly hidden in hair above a long, heavy scrotum rivaling those on the posters. The single belly crease, just a his navel, smoothed with each breath.
    He looked for scab at the nipple; there was none.
    "Hey, I'm gonna go…" The desk drawer was slightly open; inside, in shadow, brass glinted.
    He leaned down to look at Tak's slack lips, the broad nostrils flaring each breath—
    And his teeth jarred together. He stepped back, wanted to go forward, stepped back again: his heel hit a coffee cup—cold coffee spread around his foot. He still didn't look away.
    In his lowered face, Tak's eyes were wide.
    Without white or pupil, the balls were completely crimson.
    Mouth still closed, he heard himself make a muffled roar.
    His left flank glittered with gooseflesh.
    He did look again, leaning forward violently, almost hitting Tak's knee.
    Loufer continued his quiet breathing, scarlet-eyed.
    He backed away, stepped on wet fur, tried to work his throat loose. Gooseflesh, at face, flank, and buttocks, crawled across him.
    He was in his pants when he got outside. He stopped to lean on the wall while he fumbled his sandal strap closed. As he sidestepped the skylight, he punched one arm down one woolen sleeve, pulled back the metal door and went into the dark well, working his other fist down the other.
    With darkness in his eyes, the red memory was worse than the discovery.
    On the third landing, he slipped, and fell, clutching the rail, the whole next flight. And still did not slow. He made it through the corridors at the bottom (warm concrete under his bare foot) on kinesthetic memory. He tore up the bannisterless stair, slapping at the wall, till he saw the door ahead, charged forward; he came out under the awning, running, and almost impaled himself on the dangling hooks.
    Averting his face, he swung his arm against them—two clashed, trundling away on their rails. At the same time, his bare foot went off the porch's concrete edge.
    For one bright instant, falling, he thought he was going to do a belly-whop on the pavement, three feet down. Somehow, he landed in a crouch, scraping one hand and both knees (the other hand waving out for balance) before he pushed up, to stagger from the curb.
    Gasping, he turned to look back up at the loading porch.
    From their tracks, under the awning, the four- and six-foot butcher hooks swung.
    Blocks away, a dog barked, barked, barked again.
    Still gasping, he turned, and started walking toward the corner, sometimes with his sandaled foot on the curb, mostly with both in the gutter.
    Nearly there, he stopped, raised his hand, stared at the steel blades that curved from the plain wrist band to cage his twitching fingers. He looked back at the loading porch, frowned; looked back at the orchid on his hand: he felt the frown, from inside; a twisting in his facial flesh he could not control.
    He remembered snatching up his pants. And his shirt. And his sandal. He remembered going down the dark stair. He remembered coming up and out on the porch, hitting at the hooks, and falling—
    But nowhere in the past moments did he recall reaching behind two asbestos-covered pipes, fitting his fingers through the harness, clamping the collar to his wrist—
    He reviewed: pants, shirt, sandal, the dark stair—down, across, up. Light from the door; the racketing hooks; his stinging