and he lifted her towards him like snow. Geryon saw her legs were asymmetrical,
one pointed up the other down and back.
Goodnight children, she called in her voice like old coals.
May God favor you with dreams.
XXII. FRUIT BOWL
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His mother was sitting at the kitchen table when Geryon opened the screen door.
————
He had taken the local bus from Hades. Seven-hour trip. He wept most of the way.
Wanted to go straight to his room
and shut the door but when he saw her he sat down. Hands in his jacket.
She smoked in silence a moment
then rested her chin against her hand. Eyes on his chest. Nice T-shirt, she said.
It was a red singlet with white letters
that read TENDER
LOIN. Herakles gave it—and here Geryon had meant
to slide past the name coolly
but such a cloud of agony poured up his soul he couldn’t remember
what he was saying.
He sat forward. She exhaled. She was watching his hands so he unclenched them
from the edge
of the table and began spinning the fruit bowl slowly. He spun it clockwise.
Counterclockwise. Clockwise.
Why is this fruit bowl always here? He stopped and held it by the rims.
It’s always here and it never
has any fruit in it. Been here all my life never had fruit in it yet. Doesn’t
that bother you? How do we even
know it’s a fruit bowl? She regarded him through smoke. How do you think it feels
growing up in a house full
of empty fruit bowls? His voice was high. His eyes met hers and they began
to laugh. They laughed
until tears ran down. Then they sat quiet. Drifted back
to opposite walls.
They spoke of a number of things, laundry, Geryon’s brother doing drugs,
the light in the bathroom.
At one point she took out a cigarette, looked at it, put it back. Geryon laid
his head on his arms on the table.
He was very sleepy. finally they rose and went their ways. The fruit bowl
stayed there. Yes empty.
XXIII. WATER
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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.
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.
XXIV. FREEDOM
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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.
XXV. TUNNEL
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Geryon was packing when the phone rang.
————
He knew who it was even though, now that he was twenty-two and lived
on the mainland, he spoke to her
usually on Saturday mornings. He climbed across his suitcase and reached
for the phone, knocking
the Fodor’s Guide to South America and six boxes of DX 100 color film into the sink.
Small room.
Hi Mom yes just about
. . . .
No I got a window seat
. . . .
Seventeen but there’s a three-hour difference between here and Buenos Aires
. . . .
No listen I phoned—
. . . .
I phoned the consulate today there are no shots required for Argentina
. . . .
Mom be reasonable Flying Down to Rio was made in 1933 and it’s set in Brazil
. . . .
Like when we went to Florida and Dad swelled up
. . . .
Yes okay
. . . .
Well you know what the gauchos say
. . . .
Something about riding boldly into nullity
. . . .
Not exactly it feels like a tunnel
. . . .
Okay I’ll call as soon as I get to the hotel—Mom? I have to go now the taxi’s
here listen don’t smoke too much
. . . .
Me too
. . . .
Bye
XXVI. AEROPLANE
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It is always winter up there.
————
As the aeroplane moved over the frozen white flatland of the clouds Geryon left
his life behind like a weak season.
Once he’d seen a dog having a rabies attack. Springing about like a mechanical toy
and falling over on its back
in jerky ways as if worked by wires. When the owner stepped up and put a gun
to the dog’s temple Geryon walked away.
Now leaning forward to peer out the little oblong window where icy cloudlight
drilled his eyes
he wished he had stayed to see it go free.
Geryon was hungry.
Opening his Fodor’s Guide he began to read “Things to Know About Argentina.”
“The strongest harpoons are made
from the bone inside the skull of a whale that beaches on Tierra del Fuego.
Inside the skull is a canalita
and along it two bones. Harpoons made from a jawbone are not so strong.”
A delicious odor of roasting seal