The Autobiography of Red Read online

  without interrupting her sentence—this idea that your lungs will explode

  if you can’t reach the surface—

  lungs don’t explode they collapse without oxygen I have it from Virginia Woolf

  who once spoke to me at a party not of course

  about drowning of which she had no idea yet—have I told you this story before?

  I remember the sky behind her was purple she

  came towards me saying Why are you alone in this huge blank garden

  like a piece of electricity? Electricity?

  Maybe she said cakes and tea true we were drinking gin it was long past

  teatime but she was a highly original woman

  I was praying God let it have been cakes and tea I’ll tell her my anecdote

  of Buenos Aires those Argentines

  so crazy for tea every day at five the little cups but she drifted away the little

  translucent cups like bones you know

  in Buenos Aires I had a small dog but I see by your face I am wandering.

  Geryon jumped. No ma’am, he yelled

  as the deck chair gouged him. Gift from Freud but that is another story.

  Yes ma’am?

  He drowned not Freud the dog and Freud made a joke it was not a funny joke

  having to do with incomplete transference I cannot

  recall the German wording the German weather however I remember exactly.

  What was the weather ma’am?

  Cold and moonlit. You met with Freud at night? Only in summer.

  The phone rang and Herakles

  fell off the table then ran to answer it. July moonshadows stood motionless

  on the grass. Geryon watched

  a presence soaking out of them. What was I saying? Oh yes Freud reality

  is a web Freud used to say—

  Ma’am? Yes. Can I ask you something? Certainly. I want to know about Lava Man.

  Ah.

  I want to know what he was like. He was badly burned. But he didn’t die?

  Not in the jail.

  And then what? And then he joined with Barnum you know the Barnum Circus

  he toured United States made a lot

  of money I saw the show in Mexico City when I was twelve. Was it a good show?

  Pretty good Freud would have called it

  unconscious metaphysics but at twelve I was not cynical I had a good time.

  So what did he do? He gave out

  souvenir pumice and showed where the incandescence had brushed him

  I am a drop of gold he would say

  I am molten matter returned from the core of earth to tell you interior things—

  Look! he would prick his thumb

  and press out ocher-colored drops that sizzled when they hit the plate—

  Volcano blood! Claimed

  the temperature of his body was a continuous 130 degrees and let people

  touch his skin for 75 cents

  at the back of the tent. So you touched him? She paused. Let’s say—

  Herakles bounded in.

  It’s your mom. She’s finished yelling at me now she wants to talk to you.

  XIX. FROM THE ARCHAIC TO THE FAST SELF

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  Reality is a sound, you have to tune in to it not just keep yelling.

  ————

  He woke fast from a loud wild dream that vanished at once and lay listening

  to the splendid subtle ravines of Hades

  where hardworking dawn monkeys were wheedling and baiting one another

  up and down the mahogany trees.

  The cries took little nicks out of him. This was when Geryon liked to plan

  his autobiography, in that blurred state

  between awake and asleep when too many intake valves are open in the soul.

  Like the terrestrial crust of the earth

  which is proportionately ten times thinner than an eggshell, the skin of the soul

  is a miracle of mutual pressures.

  Millions of kilograms of force pounding up from earth’s core on the inside to meet

  the cold air of the world and stop,

  as we do, just in time. The autobiography,

  which Geryon worked on from the age of five to the age of forty-four,

  had recently taken the form

  of a photographic essay. Now that I am a man in transition, thought Geryon

  using a phrase he’d learned from—

  door hit the wall as Herakles kicked it open and entered carrying a tray

  with two cups and three bananas.

  Room service, said Herakles looking around for a place to set the tray down.

  Geryon had moved all the furniture

  up against the walls of the room. Oh good, said Geryon. Coffee.

  No it’s tea, said Herakles.

  My grandmother is in Argentina again today. He handed Geryon a banana.

  She was just telling me about the electricians.

  You know you have to pass an examination to get into the electricians’ union

  in Buenos Aires but all the exam questions

  are about the constitution. What do you mean the human constitution?

  No the constitution of Argentina

  except the last one. The last constitution? No the last question on the exam—

  guess what it is you’ll never guess. Guess.

  No.

  Come on. No I hate guessing. Just one guess come on Geryon just one.

  What time of day did Krakatoa erupt?

  Great question but no. He paused. Give up? Geryon looked at him.

  What is the Holy Ghost?

  That’s it? That’s it. What is the Holy Ghost—a truly electrical question!

  as my grandmother put it.

  Herakles was sitting on the floor beside the bed. He drained his teacup

  and regarded Geryon.

  So what time of day did Krakatoa erupt? Four a.m., Geryon said pulling the quilt

  high up under his chin.

  The noise awakened sleepers in Australia three thousand kilometers away.

  No kidding how do you know that?

  Geryon had found the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911 edition) in the basement

  and read the Volcano article.

  Should he admit this? Yes. Encyclopedia. Herakles peeled a banana.

  He seemed to be thinking.

  So your mom was pretty angry last night. Geryon said Yes. Herakles ate

  half his banana. He ate the other half.

  So what do you think? What do you mean what do I think? Herakles placed

  his banana peel on the tray

  and straightened the parts of it carefully. Think you should be getting back?

  Geryon was chewing

  a mouthful of banana and didn’t quite hear. This sentence is important for you,

  said a little lulled voice inside.

  What? I said there’s a bus every morning at nine or so. Geryon was trying

  to breathe but a red wall

  had sliced the air in half. And what about you? Oh I’ll be staying around here

  I guess my grandmother wants

  the house painted said she’d pay me I can probably get a couple guys

  from town to help.

  Geryon was thinking hard. Flames licked along the floorboards inside him.

  I am quite a good painter myself, he said.

  But the word good cracked in half. Herakles watched him. Geryon you know

  we’ll always be friends.

  Geryon’s heart and lungs were a black crust. He had a sudden strong desire

  to go to sleep. Herakles slid to his feet

  smooth as a monkey. Hurry up and get dressed Geryon we’re going to show you

  a volcano today I’ll be

  on the porch my grandmother wants to come too.

  In Geryon’s autobiography

  this page has a photograph of some red rabbit gig
gle tied with a white ribbon.

  He has titled it “Jealous of My Little Sensations.”

  XX. AA

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  Geryon fell asleep seven or eight times on the way to the volcano.

  ————

  The other two were talking about feminism then life in Hades then unstable bitumen

  or was that from Britannica? All

  the sentences mixed around in Geryon’s drifting drowsing head men

  had to be taught

  to hate women for foot massage pumice and ballast on railroad sure

  they know how eruption

  takes place his little elementary courtesies darting out like a tongue but

  how can I talk

  to people who don’t know the European experience—now

  jolted awake Geryon

  glanced out. The world had gone black and bulbous. Shiny ropes of old lava

  rose and fell in every direction

  around the car which had come to a halt. Most volcanic rock is basalt.

  If it is dark and blocky that means

  very little silica in the composition (so the Encyclopaedia Britannica).

  Very little silica in the composition,

  said Geryon as he climbed out. Then the rock silenced him.

  It pitched away on all sides

  utterly blank except for one crazed blackish unit of intraplate light

  bouncing from rock to rock

  as if looking for lost kin. Geryon put his foot out to take a step.

  The lava emitted

  a glassy squeak and he jumped. Careful, said Herakles’ grandmother.

  Herakles had lifted her out of the back seat,

  now she stood leaning on his arm. The lava dome here is more than ninety percent

  glass—rhyolite obsidian they call it. I find

  it very beautiful. Has a kind of pulse as you look at it. She began to move

  forward with a tinkling sound

  over the black billows. They say the reason for all these blocks and rubble on top

  is strains produced when the glass

  chills so rapidly. She made a little sound. Reminds me of my marriage. She

  stumbled then and Geryon

  caught her other arm, it was like a handful of autumn. He felt huge and wrong.

  When is it polite to let go someone’s arm

  after you grab it?

  Just for an instant balancing on the vitreous surface he went to sleep and awoke

  still gripping her arm, Herakles was saying

  … in crossword puzzles. It’s the word for blocky lava in Hawaiian.

  How do you spell it?

  Just like it sounds—aa. Geryon dozed off, awoke again, they were in the car

  already driving away

  from the terrible rocks. Up front Herakles and his grandmother had begun

  “Joy to the World” in harmony.

  XXI. MEMORY BURN

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  Herakles and Geryon had gone to the video store.

  ————

  Full moon sends rapid clouds dashing past a cold sky. When they came back

  they were arguing.

  It’s not the photograph that disturbs you it’s you don’t understand what photography is.

  Photography is disturbing, said Geryon.

  Photography is a way of playing with perceptual relationships.

  Well exactly.

  But you don’t need a camera to tell you that. What about stars?

  Are you going to tell me

  none of the stars are really there? Well some are there but some burned out

  ten thousand years ago.

  I don’t believe that.

  How can you not believe it, it’s a known fact. But I see them. You see memories.

  Have we had this conversation before?

  Geryon followed Herakles to the back porch. They sat on opposite ends of the sofa.

  Do you know how far away some of those stars are?

  Just don’t believe it. Let’s see someone touch a star and not get burned. He’ll

  hold up his finger, Just a memory burn! he’ll say

  then I’ll believe it. Okay never mind stars what about sound, you’ve watched

  a man chop wood in a forest.

  No I do not watch men in forests.

  I give up. That would be very cold. What? That would be very cold, repeated

  the grandmother from the porch swing.

  Watching men in forests? A memory burn. Ah. She’s right. Yes she is she

  had lung burn once

  and that was cold and don’t call me she when I’m right here.

  Sorry.

  You got lung burn in Hades? No it was in the Pyrenees I burned my lungs I had

  gone to St. Croix to photograph skiers

  that would be the winter Olympics 1936 Grushenk was competing do you know

  Grushenk? Well never mind he was very fast

  I sold a photograph of him in his extraordinary scarlet ski pants

  to Life magazine for a thousand dollars.

  That was a handsome sum in 1936. Don’t be patronizing it’s still a handsome sum—

  for a photograph. Herakles’ father

  (she waved her hand towards the sofa but Herakles had gone back in the house)

  gave me less than half that for “Red Patience”—

  you took a look at “Red Patience” didn’t you? I wish he hadn’t hung it in the kitchen

  much too dark in there

  people think it’s a black-and-white photograph of course nobody knows

  how to look at a photograph nowadays.

  No I saw the lava, is it lava? Of course yes you mean at the top of the cone.

  No I mean at the bottom

  of the picture on the trunk of one of the pine trees little red drops like blood.

  Ah yes very good the little red drops

  my signature. It is a disturbing photograph. Yes. But why?

  “Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.”

  Who said that? Yeats.

  Where did Yeats see a volcano? I believe he was talking about politics. No

  I don’t think that’s what I mean.

  Do you mean the silence. But all photographs are silent. Don’t be facile you

  might as well say all mothers

  are women. Well aren’t they? Of course but that tells you nothing. Question is

  how they use it—given

  the limits of the form— Does your mother live on the island? I don’t want

  to talk about my mother.

  Ah well. Silence then. Herakles came out the door from the kitchen.

  Climbed over the back of the sofa

  and subsided into it lengthwise. Your grandmother has been teaching me

  the value of silence, said Geryon.

  I bet, said Herakles. He turned to her. It’s late Gram don’t you want to go to bed?

  Can’t sleep angel, she said.

  Is your leg paining? I can rub your ankles. Come I’ll take you up.