The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children (24 page)

XIV.

“
Twenty-five limousines side to side is what, about two-hundred foot?” said Merle. “When you did twenty-one last year you didn't have much room to spare as I recall, so I don’t see . . .”

“
We just need to change the dynamics of the jump,” said Payne. “Make the ramps more effective. . . . Hell, I can figure it out.”

*

He prayed frequently, planned. Pictured a flour-white Jesus before him, rallying him across the twenty-five limos with the magical power of Christianity. The image would become distorted: Jesus appearing with a turned up, lop-sided nose . . . his hair black, curly . . . lips grinning sarcastically.

Peter made mental offerings to the deity in order to placate him. He had managed to arrive at a satisfactory agreement with God before a jump, laying his children, wife and faith at the altar of monotheism. His courage was largely based on a belief in the divine presence; in divine protection.

He kneeled in prayer, hands clasped, head bowed. It was a Tuesday afternoon, the church was nearly empty. A woman several pews behind him fanned herself with a pamphlet. He felt sticky, uncomfortable down to his loins. He poured forth his heart to Jesus Christ, an awful plaster statue, a ludicrous piece of trash. Vehement, like an idol-worshipping savage he prayed, coppery taste in mouth, anus contracted, lips pressed tense.

He got up and remembered how it was.
His station wagon was there
, he thought,
and I can’t say I knew because I don’t know what I knew, just felt something and did not even bother to knock and opened up and went in. You felt something, he told himself. You felt something and had been feeling it for a long time and it was like you always knew what kind of a seed he was and you could smell it all rotten like puke.

There was that smell and the mellow buzzing of flies in the heat of the trailer and a sense of decay and sadness, even when you go through a dead man’s clothes years later, not rotten but subtle odour and were told and crashed in the belly of water.

XV.

“
Pete’s not here right now. I don’t know when he'll be back. You’re welcome to wait for him if you want though. . . . It’s just me and Sarah here. Blaine is off spending the night at a friend’s house,” said Virginia.

“
That sounds fine,” said Merle sitting down.

Sarah lay on the rug watching television.

Virginia had been inwardly lamenting the fact that she was cut off from the casino for the night. She had $300 in her pocketbook that her husband knew nothing about . . . To see this money multiply, thicken substantially . . . That's pleasure . . . For each dollar to give birth to ten . . . Sarah was the only obstacle . . . Yet Merle . . . She could leave her . . .

“
Say Merle,” said Virginia. “You wouldn’t by any chance be willing to babysit Sarah here for an hour or so while I take a run to the store, would you? There’s beer in the fridge and food and you could drink beer and watch TV and watch her until I get back.”

Sarah looked up sleepily, forehead wrinkled, dissatisfied.

“
No, I don’t mind,” replied Merle. “I’m sitting here anyhow. . . . You go ahead. She’ll be here when you get back.”

Hearing the door slam his heart ticked. He went to the refrigerator and opened a can of beer. Sarah was falling asleep. He sat back down and watched as her eyelids sunk.

“
She’s asleep,” he said aloud. “I better take her to bed.”

He picked her little body up in his arms. Her mouth dropped open, the chapped mouth of a child, like a wound on her face. . . . Laying her down on the mattress. . . . An innocent room, wallpaper spotted with balloons of basic colours, red, yellow, blue.

He watched her breath. . . . Face puffing, perspiring, his nostrils quivering. . . . It was only later that he would think,
I’m such a coward, such a God damned coward
believing
when that tree grew tall and man lazy could no longer climb it only fit for the axe then there is the grandeur of being hated and self-hated some dish left out to rot if only I too could fly through the air a condor.

Yet whatever was dirty, volatile about his nature . . .

She lay innoxious, emblematic (to him) of his own social inadequacy, venery, that moment of crime, an explosion of filth, that irreversibly severs all cords of virtue, exposes man as a spineless amphibian living off the carcasses of ladybugs and butterflies, melting their delicate wings between tongue and teeth.

Peter came home and Merle was sitting on the couch drinking a beer and Virginia was not there, but Sarah was in her room already, and the man who rode the motorcycle said angry words about his wife.

XVI.

Peter Payne spent the day in his trailer in quiet contemplation. At noon he walked around the jump site, inspected the ramp, looked out over the parking lot where they would be. When a reporter asked him if he was prepared to go through with it he replied, “Well I’ve got certain contracatory obligations so, like it or not, I’ve got to just go ahead and do it.” Early in the evening he ate a light meal, alone, but the Salisbury steak was without flavour and he did not have faith in it.

When the time came he put on his leather outfit, took up his helmet and went out to his bike. Merle informed him that it was in condition.

*

The incalculable eyes of night laughed, rockets shot up spraying mallow, lilac, mauve . . . popping, crackling. . . . An odour of sulphur tinged the air. The human animals once again gathered around to see, as wolves might gather around the glow of a dying fire.

“
Hell,” said Merle. “This’ll be a hell of a jump.” There was tension, naked, breathed, yes, them. Their white faces formed a wall of worm-like countenance, the many arms and legs postured, gestured accordingly, as some strange satanic beast, teeth shining through the slash of lips, red tongues moist, flickering.

Once again Peter Payne rides out. A wheelie. Cheers.

He gathers strength by riding back and forth before the people, one wheel jacked up in the air, his white uniform dramatically patriotic, warrior-like. He accepts the gurgle of praise. He has a love of his fans, the American people, an attachment to them, he would verily throw his body at their mercy.

Eyes viewing the universe through the visor of his helmet, an armour of leather covering his skin—no inch of epidermis showed out of this shell. These acts performed on the dust of the earth assumed Gargantuan proportion, truly epic, immortal, as a star at dawn, larvae. The disembodied voice of the announcer rang out describing in clean masculine tones the madness of the event.

Once again Payne goes through the motions of testing the jump, riding up on the ramp, viewing the cars before him. He gives the thumbs-up.

“
So that’s it?” Merle asks running up.

“
It’s as it as it’s going to be,” says Peter Payne.

Amidst the hush of the fans his bike screams toward the ramp, angling up it. He shoots into the air, over limousines, yet falling short of the opposite ramp, the other shore so to speak, his front tire hits the front hood of the next to last car, slipping, the man’s body hurled violently against the pavement, hands still clinging to the bike as it comes after him, bouncing against his back and twisting away.

XVII.

What was his view of reality?

It was not mundane in the absolute sense of the word. He superimposed the mythopoeic vision of God on the corporeal world, lending his life that essence of naiveté necessary to soar above the common strains. His thought patterns stemmed from a definite ego, not altogether catholic, which subordinated certain glories as fixed property for him alone. The honour of the male Homo sapiens naturally tinged his environment; the habits inherited from the ape naturally lent his outlook the perfume of brutality. He saw the world through the fog of the Western Anglo, subliminal frequencies transmitting silhouettes of cowboys, victorious soldiers, tattered flags, hitchhikers on lone prairies, longhorns—all overlapping, American in label.

How did he, Mr. Payne, think?

His initial reaction to situations produced images, calling on his storehouse of previous impressions, prejudices, inherent tendencies. These coagulated into calculations, emotions, shocks that impelled his person forward, to perform tasks, jump cars, pray to Christ, penetrate his wife. His thoughts co-ordinated themselves according to his geographic location. The United States appeared against the panorama of the universe as immense, far outsizing suns, solar systems, how much more so opposing countries. The Witness watched within, relatively indifferent, clean, apart from the vile places Peter’s hands went, performing his mortal functions of defecation and procreation. The laughter, the agony of his life, were lines penned in the air, fruits bit into bursting like bubbles. His thoughts were countless, sordid, grand, sleazy, ambitious, pitiful. He thought often.

Did he love his family?

He loved his son and daughter by ties of kinship, as one loves one’s country. He loved his wife conjugally, originally with attachment and sexual passion, as a source of gratification, later only in the sense of the actual physical action (almost as a commandment).

Was he afraid?

No.

XVIII.

I heard her crying in the middle of the night, but I didn’t say anything because I had heard Dad tell Merle that no one could understand women and Merle said that only pink sissies could, his voice blurpy like a toad's and his hair all strung on his scalp like a doll’s. She's just a little girl, but I bet she will be a funny woman. So she didn’t come because they kept saying that she was traumatized but I went into the elevator and pressed six and did not wait to hear. They told me at the desk what room he was in and then the nurse saw I didn’t know and took me past the machines and in there. There was just the white cast like a mummy, like something from the movies but I saw his eyes and knew he was in there because they were looking at me. They were bright and true-blue and he looked at me. He couldn’t move because of all those casts. He wasn’t dead because he was looking at me, because he talked to me, or made sounds that I understood when I listened close. He said he bet that I didn’t want to ride a bike any more. I told him I did. They say wages are bad. I am Blaine so I don’t want to work for wages. He’s old and he won't do anything any more. That’s probably that punishment. I should not care. I’m Blaine so I should not care. I’m a brick.

Endnotes

1) DRAMATIS PERSONÆ:

Polycrates,
Tyrant of Samos

Pantagnotus,
his Brother

Syloson,
his Brother, a Luxuriant

Anacreon,
Poet

Eriphyle,
Polycrates’ Daughter

Theodorus,
A
rtist, Architect, Inventor

Telecles,
Sculptor, Brother of Theodorus

Echoiax,
Cook

Pison,
a Flatterer

Maeandrius,
Secretary

Ibycus,
Poet

Democedes,
Physician

Heracles,
Buffoon

Bathyllus,
a Youth

Polydor,
Athlete, Marshal

Periphoretus Artemon,
Engineer

Eupalinus,
Hydraulic Engineer

Geneleos,
a Sculptor

Telesarchus,
a Citizen

Ariston,
a Spartan King

Anaxandridas,
a Spartan King

Oroetes,
Satrap of Sardis

Tellias,
Soothsayer

2) He won the wreath of wild celery at the Nemean games.

3) Rhoecus, son of Phileus, was a brilliant man, a great sculptor who worked in stone, clay, wood and bronze. In his youth he had dedicated a vase to Aphrodite at Naucratis and the goddess had since favoured him, letting him see with divine eyes the nature of both gods and men. He carved a figure of Night out of marble for the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, a figure of great power which, when seen, would make the viewer shiver and weep. . . . He had two sons, Theodorus and Telecles who, in their early manhood, he sent abroad to study art and architecture. Upon returning home Telecles immediately began accepting commissions for statuary, while Theodorus, still restless for knowledge, left the island once more. . . . Telecles carved a maiden out of marble for the temple of Aphrodite, a maiden more beautiful than any woman of flesh and blood. One young man, Xylocastro by name, fell in love with this piece of stone and on a certain night enclosed himself in the temple with her and fell to his passion as well as conditions would permit. Upon consummation, he left behind a Phocaean stater as the price of contact. The next day the act was detected and many in the community called for charging the man with impiety, but the priestess of Aphrodite said that such a recourse was uncalled for, as Xylocastro had paid for his pleasure. . . . Theodorus visited Sparta, where he designed the Scias, the great music hall with its ingenious acoustical parasol-shaped roof.