The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson Read Free Book Online Page B

Geryon used
     
    a fifteen-minute exposure.
     
    When he first opened the shutter the fly seemed to be still alive.
     
     

XXIV. FREEDOM
     
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    Geryon’s life entered a numb time, caught between the tongue and the taste.
     
     
    ————
     
    He got a job in the local library shelving government documents. It was
     
    agreeable to work in a basement
     
    humming with fluorescent tubes and cold as a sea of stone. The documents
     
    had a forlorn austerity,
     
    tall and hushed in their ranges as veterans of a forgotten war. Whenever
     
    a librarian came clumping
     
    down the metal stairs with a pink slip for one of the documents,
     
    Geryon would vanish into the stacks.
     
    A little button at the end of each range activated the fluorescent track above it.
     
    A yellowing 5 × 7 index card
     
    Scotch-taped below each button said EXTINGUISH LIGHT WHEN NOT IN USE .
     
    Geryon went flickering
     
    through the ranges like a bit of mercury flipping the switches on and off.
     
    The librarians thought him
     
    a talented boy with a shadow side. One evening at supper when his mother
     
    asked him
     
    what they were like, Geryon could not remember if the librarians were men
     
    or women. He had taken a number
     
    of careful photographs but these showed only the shoes and socks of each person.
     
    They look like mostly men’s shoes to me,
     
    said his mother bending over the prints which he had spread on the kitchen table.
     
    Except—who’s that?
she pointed.
     
    It was a photograph taken from floor level of a single naked foot propped on
     
    the open drawer of a metal file cabinet.
     
    On the floor beneath lay a dirty red Converse sneaker on its side.
     
    That’s the assistant head librarian’s sister.
     
    He pulled forward a photo of white acrylic socks and dark loafers
     
    crossed at the ankle: assistant head librarian.
     
    She comes in at five sometimes to get a ride home with him.
Geryon’s mother
     
    looked closer.
What does she do?
     
    Works at Dunkin’ Donuts I think. Nice girl? No. Yes. I don’t know.
     
    Geryon glared. His mother reached out
     
    a hand to touch his head but he ducked sideways and began gathering up
     
    the photographs. The phone rang.
     
    Can you get that?
she said turning to the sink. Geryon went into the living room
     
    and stood looking down at the phone
     
    as it rang a third time and a fourth.
Hello? Geryon? Hi it’s me. You sound
     
    funny were you asleep?
     
    Herakles’ voice went bouncing through Geryon on hot gold springs.
     
    Oh. No. No I wasn’t.
     
    So how are things? What are you up to? Oh
— Geryon sat down hard on the rug.
     
    fire was closing off his lungs—
     
    not much. You? Oh the usual you know this and that did some good painting
     
    last night with Hart. Heart?
     
    I guess you didn’t meet Hart when you were here he came over from
     
    the mainland last Saturday
     
    or was it Friday no Saturday Hart is a boxer says he might train me to be
     
    his corner man. Really.
     
    A good corner man can make the difference Hart says.
     
    Does he.
     
    Muhammad Ali had a corner man named Mr. Kopps they used to hunch down
     
    there on the rope and write poems
     
    together in between rounds. Poems. But that’s not why I called Geryon
     
    the reason I called is to tell you
     
    about my dream I had a dream of you last night. Did you. Yes you were this
     
    old Indian guy standing on the back porch
     
    and there was a pail of water there on the step with a drowned bird in it
—
     
    big yellow bird really huge you know
     
    floating with its wings out and you leaned over and said,
Come on now
     
    get out of there—
and you took it
     
    by one wing and just flung it right up into the air whoosh it came alive
     
    and then it was gone.
     
    Yellow?
said Geryon and he was thinking Yellow! Yellow! Even in dreams
     
    he doesn’t know me at all! Yellow!
     
    What’d you say