XI. HADES

Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.

 

SPIRIT RULES SECRETLY ALONE THE BODY ACHIEVES NOTHING

 

is something you know

 

instinctively at fourteen and can still remember even with hell in your head

 

at sixteen. They painted this truth

 

on the long wall of the high school the night before departing for Hades.

 

Herakles’ hometown of Hades

 

lay at the other end of the island about four hours by car, a town

 

of moderate size and little importance

 

except for one thing. Have you ever seen a volcano? said Herakles.

 

Staring at him Geryon felt his soul

 

move in his side. Then Geryon wrote a note full of lies for his mother

 

and stuck it on the fridge.

 

They climbed into Herakles’ car and set off westward. Cold green summer night.

 

Active?

 

The volcano? Yes the last time she blew was 1923. Threw 180 cubic kilometers

 

of rock into the air

 

covered the countryside with fire overturned sixteen ships in the bay.

 

My grandmother says

 

the temperature of the air rose to seven hundred degrees centigrade downtown.

 

Caskets

 

of whiskey and rum burst into flame on the main street.

 

She saw it erupt?

 

Watched from the roof. Took a photograph of it, three p.m. looks like midnight.

 

What happened to the town?

 

Cooked. There was a survivor—prisoner in the local jail.

 

Wonder what happened to him.

 

You’ll have to ask my grandmother about that. It’s her favorite story—

 

Lava Man.

 

Lava Man? Herakles grinned at Geryon as they shot onto the freeway.

 

You’re going to love my family.