The Autobiography of Red (5 page)

Eventually Geryon learned to write.

 

His mother’s friend Maria gave him a beautiful notebook from Japan

 

with a fluorescent cover.

 

On the cover Geryon wrote
Autobiography.
Inside he set down the facts.

 

               
Total Facts Known About Geryon.

               
Geryon was a monster everything about him was red. Geryon lived

               
on an island in the Atlantic called the Red Place. Geryon’s mother

               
was a river that runs to the sea the Red Joy River Geryon’s father

               
was gold. Some say Geryon had six hands six feet some say wings.

               
Geryon was red so were his strange red cattle. Herakles came one

               
day killed Geryon got the cattle.

He followed Facts with Questions and Answers.

 

               
QUESTIONS
Why did Herakles kill Geryon?

               
1. Just violent.

               
2. Had to it was one of His Labors (10th).

               
3. Got the idea that Geryon was Death otherwise he could live forever.

               
FINALLY

               
Geryon had a little red dog Herakles killed that too.

Where does he get his ideas,
said the teacher. It was Parent-Teacher Day at school.

 

They were sitting side by side in tiny desks.

 

Geryon watched his mother pick a fragment of tobacco off her tongue before she said,

 

Does he ever write anything with a happy ending?

 

Geryon paused.

 

Then he reached up and carefully disengaged the composition paper

 

from the teacher’s hand.

 

Proceeding to the back of the classroom he sat at his usual desk and took out a pencil.

 

               
New Ending.

               
All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand

               in hand.

Somehow Geryon made it to adolescence.

 

Then he met Herakles and the kingdoms of his life all shifted down a few notches.

 

They were two superior eels

 

at the bottom of the tank and they recognized each other like italics.

 

Geryon was going into the Bus Depot

 

one Friday night about three a.m. to get change to call home. Herakles stepped off

 

the bus from New Mexico and Geryon

 

came fast around the corner of the platform and there it was one of those moments

 

that is the opposite of blindness.

 

The world poured back and forth between their eyes once or twice. Other people

 

wishing to disembark the bus from New Mexico

 

were jamming up behind Herakles who had stopped on the bottom step

 

with his suitcase in one hand

 

trying to tuck in his shirt with the other.
Do you have change for a dollar?

 

Geryon heard Geryon say.

 

No.
Herakles stared straight at Geryon.
But I’ll give you a quarter for free.

 

Why would you do that?

 

I believe in being gracious.
Some hours later they were down

 

at the railroad tracks

 

standing close together by the switch lights. The huge night moved overhead

 

scattering drops of itself.

 

You’re cold,
said Herakles suddenly,
your hands are cold. Here.

 

He put Geryon’s hands inside his shirt.

 

So who is this new kid you spend all your time with now?

 

Geryon’s mother turned to knock her cigarette ash on the sink then faced Geryon again.

 

He was seated at the kitchen table

 

with his camera in front of his face adjusting the focus. He did not answer.

 

He had recently relinquished speech.

 

His mother continued.
I hear he doesn’t go to school, is he older?

 

Geryon was focusing the camera on her throat.

 

Nobody sees him around, is it true he lives in the trailer park—that where you

 

go at night?

 

Geryon moved the focal ring from 3 to 3.5 meters.

 

Maybe I’ll just keep talking

 

and if I say anything intelligent you can take a picture of it.
She inhaled.

 

I don’t trust people who

 

move around only at night.
Exhaled.
Yet I trust you. I lie in bed at night thinking,

 

Why didn’t I

 

teach the kid something useful. Well—she took a last pull on the cigarette—

 

you probably know

 

more about sex than I do
—and turned to stub it in the sink as he clicked the shutter.

 

A half laugh escaped her.

 

Geryon began to focus again, on her mouth. She leaned against the sink in silence

 

for some moments

 

gazing down the sight line into his lens.
Funny when you were a baby

 

you were an insomniac

 

do you remember that? I’d go into your room at night and there you were

 

in your crib lying on your back

 

with your eyes wide open. Staring into the dark. You never cried just stared.

 

You’d lie that way for hours

 

but if I took you in the TV room you were asleep in five minutes
—Geryon’s

 

camera swiveled left

 

as his brother came into the kitchen.
Going downtown want to come? Bring

 

some money
—

 

The words dropped behind him as he went banging out the screen door.

 

Geryon rose slowly,

 

closing the shutter release and pushing the camera into the pocket of his jacket.

 

Got your lens cap?
she said as he moved past her.

 

Up against another human being one’s own procedures take on definition.

 

Geryon was amazed at himself. He saw Herakles just about every day now.

 

The instant of nature

 

forming between them drained every drop from the walls of his life

 

leaving behind just ghosts

 

rustling like an old map. He had nothing to say to anyone. He felt loose and shiny.

 

He burned in the presence of his mother.

 

I hardly know you anymore,
she said leaning against the doorway of his room.

 

It had rained suddenly at suppertime,

 

now sunset was startling drops at the window. Stale peace of old bedtimes

 

filled the room. Love does not

 

make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon as he and his mother eyed each other

 

from opposite shores of the light.

 

He was filling his pockets with money, keys, film. She tapped a cigarette

 

on the back of her hand.

 

I put some clean T-shirts in your top drawer this afternoon,
she said.

 

Her voice drew a circle

 

around all the years he had spent in this room. Geryon glanced down.

 

This one is clean,
he said,

 

it’s supposed to look this way.
The T-shirt was ripped here and there.

 

GOD LOVES LOLA
in red letters.

 

Glad she can’t see the back, he thought as he shrugged on his jacket and stuck

 

the camera in the pocket.

 

What time will you be home?
she said.
Not too late,
he answered.

 

A pure bold longing to be gone filled him.

 

So Geryon what do you like about this guy this Herakles can you tell me?

 

Can I tell you, thought Geryon.

 

Thousand things he could not tell flowed over his mind.
Herakles knows a lot

 

about art. We have good discussions.

 

She was looking not at him but past him as she stored the unlit cigarette

 

in her front shirt pocket.

 

“How does distance look?” is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless

 

within to the edge

 

of what can be loved. It depends on light.
Light that for you?
he said pulling

 

a book of matches

 

out of his jeans as he came towards her.
No thanks dear.
She was turning away.

 

I really should quit.

 

Is it a question?

 

I better be getting home.

 

Okay.

 

They continued to sit. They were parked way out on the highway.

 

Cold night smell

 

coming in the windows. New moon floating white as a rib at the edge of the sky.

 

I guess I’m someone who will never be satisfied,

 

said Herakles. Geryon felt all nerves in him move to the surface of his body.

 

What do you mean
satisfied?

 

Just—satisfied. I don’t know.
From far down the freeway came a sound

 

of fishhooks scraping the bottom of the world.

 

You know. Satisfied.
Geryon was thinking hard. Fires twisted through him.

 

He picked his way carefully

 

toward the sex question. Why is it a question? He understood

 

that people need

 

acts of attention from one another, does it really matter which acts?

 

He was fourteen.

 

Sex is a way of getting to know someone,

 

Herakles had said. He was sixteen. Hot unsorted parts of the question

 

were licking up from every crack in Geryon,

 

he beat at them as a nervous laugh escaped him. Herakles looked.

 

Suddenly quiet.

 

It’s okay,
said Herakles. His voice washed

 

Geryon open.

 

Tell me,
said Geryon and he intended to ask him, Do people who like sex

 

have a question about it too?

 

but the words came out wrong—
Is it true you think about sex every day?

 

Herakles’ body stiffened.

 

That isn’t a question it’s an accusation.
Something black and heavy dropped

 

between them like a smell of velvet.

 

Herakles switched on the ignition and they jumped forward onto the back of the night.

 

Not touching

 

but joined in astonishment as two cuts lie parallel in the same flesh.