The Autobiography of Red (3 page)

The reticent volcano keeps

 

His never slumbering plan
—

 

Confided are his projects pink

 

To no precarious man.

 

If nature will not tell the tale

 

Jehovah told to her

 

Can human nature not survive

 

Without a listener?

 

Admonished by her buckled lips

 

Let every babbler be

 

The only secret people keep

 

Is Immortality.

 

Geryon learned about justice from his brother quite early.

 

They used to go to school together. Geryon’s brother was bigger and older,

 

he walked in front

 

sometimes broke into a run or dropped on one knee to pick up a stone.

 

Stones make my brother happy,

 

thought Geryon and he studied stones as he trotted along behind.

 

So many different kinds of stones,

 

the sober and the uncanny, lying side by side in the red dirt.

 

To stop and imagine the life of each one!

 

Now they were sailing through the air from a happy human arm,

 

what a fate. Geryon hurried on.

 

Arrived at the schoolyard. He was focusing hard on his feet and his steps.

 

Children poured around him

 

and the intolerable red assault of grass and the smell of grass everywhere

 

was pulling him towards it

 

like a strong sea. He could feel his eyes leaning out of his skull

 

on their little connectors.

 

He had to make it to the door. He had to not lose track of his brother.

 

These two things.

 

School was a long brick building on a north–south axis. South: Main Door

 

through which all boys and girls must enter.

 

North: Kindergarten, its large round windows gazing onto the backwoods

 

and surrounded by a hedge of highbush cranberry.

 

Between Main Door and Kindergarten ran a corridor. To Geryon it was

 

a hundred thousand miles

 

of thunder tunnels and indoor neon sky slammed open by giants.

 

Hand in hand on the first day of school

 

Geryon crossed this alien terrain with his mother. Then his brother

 

performed the task day after day.

 

But as September moved into October an unrest was growing in Geryon’s brother.

 

Geryon had always been stupid

 

but nowadays the look in his eyes made a person feel strange.

 

Just take me once more I’ll get it this time,

 

Geryon would say. The eyes terrible holes.
Stupid,
said Geryon’s brother

 

and left him.

 

Geryon had no doubt
stupid
was correct. But when justice is done

 

the world drops away.

 

He stood on his small red shadow and thought what to do next.

 

Main Door rose before him. Perhaps—

 

peering hard Geryon made his way through the fires in his mind to where

 

the map should be.

 

In place of a map of the school corridor lay a deep glowing blank.

 

Geryon’s anger was total.

 

The blank caught fire and burned to baseline. Geryon ran.

 

After that Geryon went to school alone.

 

He did not approach Main Door at all. Justice is pure. He would make his way

 

around the long brick sidewall,

 

past the windows of Seventh Grade, Fourth Grade, Second Grade and Boys’

 

to the north end of the school

 

and position himself in the bushes outside Kindergarten. There he would stand

 

motionless

 

until someone inside noticed and came out to show him the way.

 

He did not gesticulate.

 

He did not knock on the glass. He waited. Small, red, and upright he waited,

 

gripping his new bookbag tight

 

in one hand and touching a lucky penny inside his coat pocket with the other,

 

while the first snows of winter

 

floated down on his eyelashes and covered the branches around him and silenced

 

all trace of the world.

 

Like honey is the sleep of the just.

 

When Geryon was little he loved to sleep but even more he loved to wake up.

 

He would run outside in his pajamas.

 

Hard morning winds were blowing life bolts against the sky each one blue enough

 

to begin a world of its own.

 

The word
each
blew towards him and came apart on the wind. Geryon had always

 

had this trouble: a word like
each,

 

when he stared at it, would disassemble itself into separate letters and go.

 

A space for its meaning remained there but blank.

 

The letters themselves could be found hung on branches or furniture in the area.

 

What does
each
mean?

 

Geryon had asked his mother. She never lied to him. Once she said the meaning

 

it would stay.

 

She answered, Each
means like you and your brother each have your own room.

 

He clothed himself in this strong word
each.

 

He spelled it at school on the blackboard (perfectly) with a piece of red silk chalk.

 

He thought softly

 

of other words he could keep with him like
beach
and
screach.
Then they moved

 

Geryon into his brother’s room.

 

It happened by accident. Geryon’s grandmother came to visit and fell off the bus.

 

The doctors put her together again

 

with a big silver pin. Then she and her pin had to lie still in Geryon’s room

 

for many months. So began Geryon’s nightlife.

 

Before this time Geryon had not lived nights just days and their red intervals.

 

What’s that smell in your room?
asked Geryon.

 

Geryon and his brother were lying in the dark in their bunk beds Geryon on top.

 

When Geryon moved his arms or legs

 

the bedsprings made an enjoyable
PING SHUNK SHUNK PING
enclosing him from below

 

like a thick clean bandage.

 

There’s no smell in my room,
said Geryon’s brother.
Maybe it’s your socks,

 

or the frog did you

 

bring the frog in?
said Geryon.
What smells in here is you Geryon.

 

Geryon paused.

 

He had a respect for facts maybe this was one. Then he heard

 

a different sound from below.

 

SHUNK SHUNK PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING

 

PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING PING.

 

His brother was pulling on his stick as he did most nights before sleep.

 

Why do you pull on your stick?

 

Geryon asked.
None of your business let’s see yours,
said his brother.

 

No.

 

Bet you don’t have one.
Geryon checked.
Yes I do.

 

You’re so ugly I bet it fell off.

 

Geryon remained silent. He knew the difference between facts and brother hatred.

 

Show me yours

 

and I’ll give you something good,
said Geryon’s brother.

 

No.

 

Give you one of my cat’s-eyes.

 

No you won’t.

 

I will.

 

Don’t believe you.

 

Promise.

 

Now Geryon very much wanted a cat’s-eye. He never could win a cat’s-eye when he

 

knelt on cold knees

 

on the basement floor to shoot marbles with his brother and his brother’s friends.

 

A cat’s-eye

 

is outranked only by a steelie. And so they developed an economy of sex

 

for cat’s-eyes.

 

Pulling the stick makes my brother happy, thought Geryon.
Don’t tell Mom,

 

said his brother.

 

Voyaging into the rotten ruby of the night became a contest of freedom

 

and bad logic.

 

Come on Geryon.

 

No.

 

You owe me.

 

No.

 

I hate you. I don’t care. I’ll tell Mom. Tell Mom what?

 

How nobody likes you at school.

 

Geryon paused. Facts are bigger in the dark. Sometimes then he would descend

 

to the other bunk

 

and let his brother do what he liked or else hang in between with his face pressed

 

into the edge of his own mattress,

 

cold toes balancing on the bed below. After it was over his brother’s voice

 

got very kind.

 

You’re nice Geryon I’ll take you swimming tomorrow okay?

 

Geryon would climb back up to his bunk,

 

recover his pajama bottoms and lie on his back. He lay very straight

 

in the fantastic temperatures

 

of the red pulse as it sank away and he thought about the difference

 

between outside and inside.

 

Inside is mine, he thought. The next day Geryon and his brother

 

went to the beach.

 

They swam and practiced belching and ate jam-and-sand sandwiches on a blanket.

 

Geryon’s brother found an American dollar bill

 

and gave it to Geryon. Geryon found a piece of an old war helmet and hid it.

 

That was also the day

 

he began his autobiography. In this work Geryon set down all inside things

 

particularly his own heroism

 

and early death much to the despair of the community. He coolly omitted

 

all outside things.