Autobiography Of Red

Geryon's wings begin to bother him. He tames them by lashing his wings to a "wooden plank" (53) between his shoulders and covers that with a jacket. That evening, still in Hades, Herakles asks Geryon why he seems moody. Geryon denies it, saying he's "just fine" (53) and smiling "hard with half of his face" (53). Herakles tells Geryon that tomorrow they'll drive over to the volcano so he can take some photographs. Geryon has his jacket over his head. Herakles asks him why and Geryon says that sometimes he needs a "little privacy" (53). The two watch each other in silence. 

Herakles pleads with Geryon to give him oral sex, which Geryon does. It makes Geryon feel "clear and powerful" (54), rather than like a "wounded angel" (54). Afterwards, they kiss for a while then groom each other like gorillas. They head to the Bus Depot to eat and start practicing "their song" (54), “Joy to the World.” The waitress approaches their table while Herakles is grooming Geryon's head in his lap. She asks if they're "newlyweds" (54).

Geryon and Herakles go out to graffiti some walls around Hades. Geryon paints "an early red-winged LOVESLAVE" (55) on a priest's house, while Herakles defaces a stranger's graffiti that reads "CAPITALISM SUCKS" (55). They drive to a tunnel by the freeway and, seeing no good places to paint, Geryon climbs up onto the overpass. He stands in the wind and lets it "peel him clean" (55). Back in the tunnel, Herakles has painted "his seven personal precepts" (55) on the wall over "a fading stenciled LEAVE THE WALLS ALONE" (55). Herakles asks if Geryon wants to do another painting, but "something cheerful" (55). He tells Geryon that all of his designs are "about captivity" (55), which depresses Herakles. Geryon says nothing and remembers a time a dog ate the ice cream from his cone as a child. They get in the car and try to sing “Joy to the World” again, but they're too tired. 

When Geryon and Herakles get back to Herakles' family's house, Geryon runs upstairs to use the phone to call his mother. In Herakles' mother's room, Geryon encounters an "unappeasable debris of woman liquors" (57), including magazines, a stack of phone books, and a bowl of pearls. Disgusted by his reflection in the mirror, he leaves the room without making the phone call. Outside, Geryon's grandmother sits on the porch swing, talking, and Herakles lies on his back on the picnic table. Herakles' grandmother rambles about past conversations with Virginia Woolf, the dog that Freud gave her, and drinking tea in Buenos Aires. Geryon asks her about Lava Man. Herakles' grandmother says that Lava Man didn't die in the jail, but he was badly burned. He joined the "Barnum Circus" (59) as a sideshow act, which Herakles' grandmother saw when she was twelve. Herakles interrupts their conversation to tell Geryon that his mom is on the phone.

Geryon wakes from "a loud wild dream" (60) and lies listening to "the splendid subtle ravines of Hades" (60), where monkeys make little cries as they climb the mahogany trees. Geryon thinks about his autobiography which has recently taken the form "of a photographic essay" (60).

Herakles kicks the bedroom door open, carrying a tray bearing two cups of tea and three bananas. He hands Geryon a banana and starts talking about what his grandmother just told him about electricians in Argentina. They have to pass exam questions about the constitution of Argentina and the nature of the Holy Ghost. Geryon isn't interested in this conversation, though, and turns it towards talk about the eruption of Krakatoa. He found an Encyclopedia Britannica from 1911 in Herakles' grandmother's basement and learned about the eruption.

Herakles eats his banana and asks Geryon if his mother was angry last night. He asks Geryon if he thinks he should be getting back home. He tells Geryon there's a bus that leaves Hades every morning at nine. Geryon asks what Herakles will do if he leaves. Herakles says he'll help his grandmother paint the house with "a couple guys from town" (62). Geryon thinks hard and says he's "quite a good painter" (62), too. Herakles reassures him that they'll "always be friends" (62). This upsets Geryon, making him feel like he wants to fall asleep, but he says nothing. Herakles tells him to get dressed so they can go see the volcano with his grandmother. Geryon makes an entry in his autobiography for this day titled "Jealous of My Little Sensations" (62) that features "some red rabbit giggle tied with a white ribbon" (62). 

Geryon drifts in and out of sleep on their way to the volcano. Herakles and his grandmother talk about "feminism then life in Hades then unstable bitumen" (63). Geryon mishears and mixes up sentences from their conversation. He awakens with a jolt to see the world outside "gone black and bulbous" (63) with "shiny ropes of old lava" (63) all around. He comments on the "blocky" (63) rock around them, with knowledge he got from the encyclopedia, but steps out of the car to find that most of the lava dome there is "more than ninety percent glass" (64). Herakles' grandmother teeters around outside and Geryon catches her arm, which feels like "a handful of autumn" (64). He briefly falls asleep and awakens as he holds her arm. When he wakes up, Geryon hears Herakles talking about "aa" (64), the Hawaiian word for "blocky lava" (64). Back in the car, Geryon dozes and awakens to Herakles and his grandmother singing “Joy to the World.”

On their way home from the video store, Geryon and Herakles get into an argument about Herakles' grandmother's photograph of the volcano. Herakles tells Geryon that it's not the photo that upsets him, it's that Geryon doesn't "understand what photography is" (65). Geryon shifts the conversation to stars, visible, though some have "burned out ten thousand years ago" (65). Herakles says that when one looks at the stars, they see "memories" (65) and if they were to reach up and touch the star, they would get a "memory burn" (65).

Returning to the house, Herakles' grandmother joins the conversation. Herakles says that once his grandmother got "lung burn" (66). She explains that it happened during the Winter Olympics in the Pyrenees, where she went to "photograph skiers" (66). She laments that Herakles' father hung “Red Patience” in the kitchen, where it's "much too dark" (66) and makes people think it's a black-and-white photograph. Geryon tells her he noticed the lava in the photograph, "little red drops like blood" (66) at the bottom of the photograph. The grandmother explains that it's not lava, but her signature. She then asks Geryon about his mother, but he says he doesn't want to talk about her. They sit in silence. Herakles comes outside to join them and carries his grandmother up to bed.

Geryon arrives at home after a seven-hour bus trip from Hades, during which he cries most of the way. He finds his mother sitting in silence at the kitchen table, smoking. "Nice T-shirt" (68), she says, and he starts to tell her that Herakles gave it to him but then gets overwhelmed by "a cloud of agony" (68). Geryon takes hold of the empty fruit bowl on the table and begins spinning it. He asks his mother if it's always been there and why it's "never had fruit in it" (68). He asks how they even know it's a fruit bowl, and how she thinks it feels "growing up in a house full of empty fruit bowls?" (68). This makes them both laugh and eases the tension. 

Geryon wakes up to a rainstorm. He watches it come in through his window, "hit his feet and puddle on the floor" (70). Downstairs, the house is silent and still. Geryon looks around for the dog then realizes his family hasn't "had a dog for years" (70). He goes to the kitchen with thoughts of Herakles and an impending apocalypse flooding his brain. He begins to cry as he makes coffee, then slowly gathers himself. Geryon grabs his camera and goes outside. He photographs a "fly floating in a pail of water" (71) on a fifteen-minute exposure. 

Geryon gets a job "shelving government documents" (72) at a local library. He works in a basement "cold as a sea of stone" (72) and seems to enjoy it. When Geryon's mother asks him what the librarians are like, Geryon can't remember whether they are men or women. He pulls out "a number of careful photographs" (72) he's taken of the librarians, but the photos only show their shoes and socks. His mother says that they mostly look like men's shoes, except for one photograph that shows "a single naked foot propped" (72) on a file cabinet. Geryon tells her that it's the "assistant head librarian's sister" (73) who works at Dunkin' Donuts. Geryon's mother asks if she's a "nice girl" (73) and Geryon gives a noncommittal answer.

The phone rings and it's Herakles. Herakles has a casual tone, but Geryon feels fire "closing off his lungs" (73). He tells Geryon that he's been painting in Hades with "Hart" (73), which Geryon misunderstands as "Heart" (73). Herakles says Hart is a boxer and might train him to be a "corner man" (73), like Muhammad Ali's corner man, Mr. Kopps. Herakles says he called Geryon to tell him a dream he had last night: there was a "drowned bird" (74) in a pail of water on his porch, and Geryon took it out by one wing and flung it into the air. The "big yellow bird" (74) came alive and flew away. Herakles tells Geryon that it's a "freedom dream" (74). Herakles says he has to go and they hang up.

Geryon goes to the beach and comes home "well past midnight" (75). He undresses in the mirror and examines his body, then he begins to cry and goes to bed. He wakes up at three in the morning in a state of panic, thinking about Herakles far off in Hades "laughing drinking getting into a car" (75).

At twenty-two, Geryon has left the island and lives by himself on the mainland. It's a Saturday morning and Geryon's mother has called for their weekly chat. Geryon is packing his things for a trip to South America. He tells his mother that he doesn't need shots for the trip and assuages her fears about his travel, telling her he'll call as soon as he gets to the hotel.

On the plane to Argentina, Geryon remembers seeing a dog having a rabies attack. When the owner approached it with a gun, Geryon walked away, but now he wishes he had "stayed to see it go free" (78). He begins to feel hungry. To distract himself, he reads an entry about harpoons in his Fodor's Guide to Argentina. Geryon then eats his dinner and watches the "live red line" (79) marking the plane's progress over the globe. He can't get comfortable in the small seats and gets hungry again. He falls asleep leaning against the window's cold glass. 

Geryon sits at Café Mitwelt in Buenos Aires, writing postcards to his friends and family. He formats each postcard in the same way: begins with a line from German philosopher, Martin Heidegger, then "there are many Germans in Buenos Aires" (82), then "they are all" (82) and finishes the sentence tailored to each recipient. For his sportscaster brother, the Germans in Buenos Aires are all "soccer players" (82), for his philosophy professor, they are all "psychoanalysts" (83), and for his mother, they are all "cigarette girls" (85).

Geryon becomes paranoid that the waiters in the café know he doesn't speak Spanish. His panic leads him to remember when, in the seventh grade, he wondered whether he was "mad" (84). That year, he did a science project on "the noise that colors make" (84). He interviews people about this and none of them claim to hear "the cries of roses being burned alive in the noonday sun" (84). Geryon's science teacher tells him he should interview "roses not people" (84). On the last page of his science project, Geryon includes a photograph of his mother's rosebush in which "four of the roses were on fire" (84). He leaves the café.

Geryon's spent the night walking around the city, waiting for the dawn. As the sun rises, he goes back to Café Mitwelt and tries to finish his postcard to his mother. A man with a "yellowbeard" (85) sits down beside Geryon in the crowded café. The man asks Geryon if he's American and whether he's in Buenos Aires for the conference on the philosophy of skepticism and Geryon says no. The man says he's there from Irvine to speak on "emotionlessness" or "ataraxia" (86). Geryon is familiar with the concept because of his studies in philosophy. The man tells Geryon that he wants to study "the erotics of doubt" (86) as a way to understand "the proper search for truth" (86). He asks Geryon if he'd like to come to the conference to hear his talk. Geryon asks if he can bring his camera.

Geryon and the man ride in the cramped backseat of a cab to the university. The man asks Geryon if he speaks Spanish and Geryon says no. He asks the man the same and the man says he does; he spent a year in Spain studying "the sociology of ancient law codes" (88). He tells Geryon that his favorite law code, Hammurabi's, is "clean" (89) and "rhythmical" (89).

They arrive at the University of Buenos Aires, a "white concrete warehouse covered with graffiti" (89). The man tells Geryon that it's an abandoned cigarette factory. Geryon finds it colder inside than the winter air outside. The man tells Geryon that the university can't afford to pay for heat. They end up in a bare room called "Faculty Lounge" (89) where a piece of paper on the wall lists names of "professors detained or disappeared" (89). Geryon tries not to look at any name for too long and remembers going to see a pair of "newly captured" (90) beluga whales in the fourth grade. He thinks about the whales floating in their small, dark tanks, "as alive as he was" (90).

As the sun sets, they head into the "bare brick-walled classroom" (90) where the man will present his lecture. Geryon takes his place among the jumble of desks, though he barely fits in the seat. All the students in the room smoke and butts "lay thick" (90) on the floor. The room's disorder distracts Geryon from the man's lecture. When he comes to, the man is discussing skepticism. Geryon finds himself unable to keep track of what "the yellowbeard" (92) says. The sun sets and Geryon wonders if the day will ever end.

Geryon develops a group of photographs in his hotel bathtub. The photographs show people in a classroom sitting at desks that are too small for them. Yesterday, after the yellowbeard's lecture, Geryon joined him and the other philosophers in a bar called Guerra Civil. Geryon sits next to a man named Lazer, with whom he strikes up a conversation. They talk about Lazer's daughter and Lazer offers Geryon olives which sting his mouth "alive like sudden sunset" (94). Geryon is very hungry and eats a lot of olives. Lazer says when he's with his young daughter, he begins to "notice moments of death" (94). For example, when they sit together in the morning, watching the birds go by, Lazer feels as though he's "standing on a hill" (95), while his daughter begins to climb it "like a little gold animal in the morning sun" (95). Geryon agrees that people are "creatures moving on a hill" (95) at "different distances" (95). Lazer tells Geryon that he has to leave. The two touch hands and Lazer leaves.

Geryon lets the conversation flow around him "warm as a bath" (96). The philosophers talk about how the governor of Puerto Rico recently allowed citizens from the "state asylum" (96) to participate in the democratic process. They wrote in candidates like "Eisenhower, Mozart, and St. John of the Cross" (96). The yellowbeard says that in Spain, Francisco Franco used people from "the local madhouses" (96) to make his rallies seem more well-attended. The newspapers reported that "subnormals" (96) supported Franco. Geryon enjoys the conversation and his "cheekbones hurt from smiling" (96). The yellowbeard says that "twelve percent of babies in the world are born with tails" (97), but doctors cut them off before the parents ever see them. Geryon wonders how many babies are born with wings.

Geryon feels "ravenous" (96). Someone orders a plate of sandwiches and Geryon eats three. When he gets back to the hotel room, Geryon takes a self-portrait in which he lays on the bed naked, "in fetal position" (97), with his wings spread on the bed "like a black lace map of South America" (97). He calls the picture "No Tail!" (97).