The Autobiography of Red (9 page)

Water! Out from between two crouching masses of the world the word leapt.

 

It was raining on his face. He forgot for a moment that he was a brokenheart

 

then he remembered. Sick lurch

 

downward to Geryon trapped in his own bad apple. Each morning a shock

 

to return to the cut soul.

 

Pulling himself onto the edge of the bed he stared at the dull amplitude of rain.

 

Buckets of water sloshed from sky

 

to roof to eave to windowsill. He watched it hit his feet and puddle on the floor.

 

He could hear bits of human voice

 

streaming down the drainpipe—
I believe in being gracious
—

 

He slammed the window shut.

 

Below in the living room everything was motionless. Drapes closed, chairs asleep.

 

Huge wads of silence stuffed the air.

 

He was staring around for the dog then realized they hadn’t had a dog for years. Clock

 

in the kitchen said quarter to six.

 

He stood looking at it, willing himself not to blink until the big hand bumped over

 

to the next minute. Years passed

 

as his eyes ran water and a thousand ideas jumped his brain—
If the world

 

ends now I am free
and

 

If the world ends now no one will see my autobiography
—finally it bumped.

 

He had a flash of Herakles’ sleeping house

 

and put that away. Got out the coffee can, turned on the tap and started to cry.

 

Outside the natural world was enjoying

 

a moment of total strength. Wind rushed over the ground like a sea and battered up

 

into the corners of the buildings,

 

garbage cans went dashing down the alley after their souls.

 

Giant ribs of rain shifted

 

open on a flash of light and cracked together again, making the kitchen clock

 

bump crazily. Somewhere a door slammed.

 

Leaves tore past the window. Weak as a fly Geryon crouched against the sink

 

with his fist in his mouth

 

and his wings trailing over the drainboard. Rain lashing the kitchen window

 

sent another phrase

 

of Herakles’ chasing across his mind.
A photograph is just a bunch of light

 

hitting a plate.
Geryon wiped his face

 

with his wings and went out to the living room to look for the camera.

 

When he stepped onto the back porch

 

rain was funnelling down off the roof in a morning as dark as night.

 

He had the camera wrapped

 

in a sweatshirt. The photograph is titled “If He Sleep He Shall Do Well.”

 

It shows a fly floating in a pail of water—

 

drowned but with a strange agitation of light around the wings. Geryon used

 

a fifteen-minute exposure.

 

When he first opened the shutter the fly seemed to be still alive.

 

Geryon’s life entered a numb time, caught between the tongue and the taste.

 

He got a job in the local library shelving government documents. It was

 

agreeable to work in a basement

 

humming with fluorescent tubes and cold as a sea of stone. The documents

 

had a forlorn austerity,

 

tall and hushed in their ranges as veterans of a forgotten war. Whenever

 

a librarian came clumping

 

down the metal stairs with a pink slip for one of the documents,

 

Geryon would vanish into the stacks.

 

A little button at the end of each range activated the fluorescent track above it.

 

A yellowing 5 × 7 index card

 

Scotch-taped below each button said
EXTINGUISH LIGHT WHEN NOT IN USE
.

 

Geryon went flickering

 

through the ranges like a bit of mercury flipping the switches on and off.

 

The librarians thought him

 

a talented boy with a shadow side. One evening at supper when his mother

 

asked him

 

what they were like, Geryon could not remember if the librarians were men

 

or women. He had taken a number

 

of careful photographs but these showed only the shoes and socks of each person.

 

They look like mostly men’s shoes to me,

 

said his mother bending over the prints which he had spread on the kitchen table.

 

Except—who’s that?
she pointed.

 

It was a photograph taken from floor level of a single naked foot propped on

 

the open drawer of a metal file cabinet.

 

On the floor beneath lay a dirty red Converse sneaker on its side.

 

That’s the assistant head librarian’s sister.

 

He pulled forward a photo of white acrylic socks and dark loafers

 

crossed at the ankle: assistant head librarian.

 

She comes in at five sometimes to get a ride home with him.
Geryon’s mother

 

looked closer.
What does she do?

 

Works at Dunkin’ Donuts I think. Nice girl? No. Yes. I don’t know.

 

Geryon glared. His mother reached out

 

a hand to touch his head but he ducked sideways and began gathering up

 

the photographs. The phone rang.

 

Can you get that?
she said turning to the sink. Geryon went into the living room

 

and stood looking down at the phone

 

as it rang a third time and a fourth.
Hello? Geryon? Hi it’s me. You sound

 

funny were you asleep?

 

Herakles’ voice went bouncing through Geryon on hot gold springs.

 

Oh. No. No I wasn’t.

 

So how are things? What are you up to? Oh
— Geryon sat down hard on the rug.

 

fire was closing off his lungs—

 

not much. You? Oh the usual you know this and that did some good painting

 

last night with Hart. Heart?

 

I guess you didn’t meet Hart when you were here he came over from

 

the mainland last Saturday

 

or was it Friday no Saturday Hart is a boxer says he might train me to be

 

his corner man. Really.

 

A good corner man can make the difference Hart says.

 

Does he.

 

Muhammad Ali had a corner man named Mr. Kopps they used to hunch down

 

there on the rope and write poems

 

together in between rounds. Poems. But that’s not why I called Geryon

 

the reason I called is to tell you

 

about my dream I had a dream of you last night. Did you. Yes you were this

 

old Indian guy standing on the back porch

 

and there was a pail of water there on the step with a drowned bird in it
—

 

big yellow bird really huge you know

 

floating with its wings out and you leaned over and said,
Come on now

 

get out of there—
and you took it

 

by one wing and just flung it right up into the air whoosh it came alive

 

and then it was gone.

 

Yellow?
said Geryon and he was thinking Yellow! Yellow! Even in dreams

 

he doesn’t know me at all! Yellow!

 

What’d you say Geryon?

 

Nothing.

 

It’s a freedom dream Geryon.

 

Yes.

 

Freedom is what I want for you Geryon we’re true friends you know that’s why

 

I want you to be free.

 

Don’t want to be free want to be with you. Beaten but alert Geryon organized all

 

his inside force to suppress this remark.

 

Guess I better get off the line now Geryon my grandmother gets mad

 

if I run up her bill but it’s real nice

 

to hear your voice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

Geryon? All right if I use the phone now? I have to call Maria.
His mother

 

standing in the doorway.

 

Oh yes sure.
Geryon replaced the receiver.
Sorry. You okay? Yes.
He tilted

 

to his feet.
Going out.

 

Where?
she said as he angled past her in the doorway.

 

Beach.

 

Won’t you need a jacket
— The screen door slammed. It was

 

well past midnight

 

when Geryon got back. The house was dark. He climbed to his room.

 

After undressing he stood

 

at the mirror and observed himself emptily. Freedom! The chubby knees

 

the funny red smell the saddening ways.

 

He sank onto the bed and lay full length. Tears ran back into his ears awhile

 

then no more tears.

 

He had touched bottom. Feeling bruised but pure he switched off the light.

 

Fell instantly asleep.

 

Anger slammed the red fool awake at three a.m. he kept trying to breathe each time

 

he lifted his head it pounded him

 

again like a piece of weed against a hard black beach. Geryon sat up suddenly.

 

The sheet was drenched.

 

He switched on the light. He was staring at the sweep hand of the electric clock

 

on the dresser. Its little dry hum

 

ran over his nerves like a comb. He forced his eyes away. The bedroom doorway

 

gaped at him black as a keyhole.

 

His brain was jerking forward like a bad slide projector. He saw the doorway

 

the house the night the world and

 

on the other side of the world somewhere Herakles laughing drinking getting

 

into a car and Geryon’s

 

whole body formed one arch of a cry—upcast to that custom, the human custom

 

of wrong love.