See Now Then by Jamaica Kincaid Read Free Book Online Page A

neither could the shy Myrmidons and so it all went in this way, a way that would please Heracles now, then, then or now, being one and the same burden or pleasure. At other times the shy Myrmidons were separated from each other, scattered here and there, on the floor of the room Heracles slept in all by himself; in the bin of the dirty clothes and then rescued from the wash cycle of the washing machine by Mrs. Sweet; on the stairs where Mr. Sweet was walking down just after he got out of bed on a beautiful morning, slipped, and broke his vertebra. The vertebra healed but Mr. Sweet himself did not. Heracles said, sorry dad, as he always did, and to say sorry was common to him, as if it were oxygen. Sagging into, sorry dad, and sagging into everything that was now, which would eventually become Then, to all that Heracles had strong feelings but the strong feelings would be dealt with then, not now, never now.
    But the many shy Myrmidons, the result of many trips to the McDonald’s restaurants to purchase many Happy Meals, were lined up and they did go into battle with some imaginary foes and they triumphed of course, again and again, they triumphed of course, and the imaginary battlefield was covered with blood, sheer blood, so much of it, covering everything; so Heracles thought, so he said to himself, so he imagined, also. The shy Myrmidons rule, is another thing he said, or imagined. And then he fell asleep. Wake up, wake up, his sister shouted at him, for he did have a sister and she had curly hair. Wake up, his sister shouted at him, a snake with nine heads is lying next to you in your crib. And the very young Heracles then turned over into somersault, and facing the nine-headed snake directly stuck out his tongue at all those heads; without making too much of an effort he tore off their heads and threw them over his shoulder, all nine of them, and they landed on the floor of Mrs. Sweet’s newly cleaned kitchen. Oh god, she said to herself, that kid is always up to something, what a mess he has made now. And she picked up the nine snake heads and put them in a bag, wiped up the floor clean, and she asked Mr. Sweet to please come and put out the garbage.
    But Mr. Sweet was in his studio above the garage, where he always liked to be, it was not a funeral parlor, it’s only that he was in mourning and conducting a funeral for his life, the one he had never led, and Mrs. Sweet’s calling him interrupted this mourning, she was always interrupting, his life or his death, she was always interrupting. The studio was dark, then, now, but not completely, everything could be seen clearly but as a shadow of itself. How Mr. Sweet liked that, everything a shadow of itself. But there was that voice of Mrs. Sweet, not the shadow of a voice, she was not capable of that, a whisper, conveying her deepest feelings with a glance, or just stopping her breathing outright, just stop, stop, stop, right now. Mr. Sweet, she would say at the top of her voice, her voice sounding louder than a town crier’s, louder than a warning of impending disaster, she was so loud, Mrs. Sweet was so loud. Mr. Sweet, can you please take the garbage out? Sl-aap. Sl-aap, came the sound of his feet that were snug in a pair of flannel slippers as he dragged them across the floor and his rage was so great that it almost brought the now-dead nine-headed snake back to life. In any case his rage was such that it caused his chest to rip open and his heart exploded into pieces but Mrs. Sweet, so used to mending socks, applied her skills to this task and soon had Mr. Sweet all back together, his heart in one piece inside his stitched-back-together chest.
    That little jerk almost killed me again, said Mr. Sweet to himself, and it’s not the last time, he said again to himself, and he was reminded of that time, not so long ago then, he was coming down the stairs and Heracles was going up the same stairs and they met in the middle and by accident collided and by accident