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 Geryon?
Nothing.
It’s a freedom dream Geryon.
Yes.
Freedom is what I want for you Geryon we’re true friends you know that’s why
I want you to be free.
Don’t want to be free want to be with you. Beaten but alert Geryon organized all
his inside force to suppress this remark.
Guess I better get off the line now Geryon my grandmother gets mad
if I run up her bill but it’s real nice
to hear your voice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Geryon? All right if I use the phone now? I have to call Maria. His mother
standing in the doorway.
Oh yes sure. Geryon replaced the receiver. Sorry. You okay? Yes. He tilted
to his feet. Going out.
Where? she said as he angled past her in the doorway.
Beach.
Won’t you need a jacket— The screen door slammed. It was
well past midnight
when Geryon got back. The house was dark. He climbed to his room.
After undressing he stood
at the mirror and observed himself emptily. Freedom! The chubby knees
the funny red smell the saddening ways.
He sank onto the bed and lay full length. Tears ran back into his ears awhile
then no more tears.
He had touched bottom. Feeling bruised but pure he switched off the light.
Fell instantly asleep.
Anger slammed the red fool awake at three a.m. he kept trying to breathe each time
he lifted his head it pounded him
again like a piece of weed against a hard black beach. Geryon sat up suddenly.
The sheet was drenched.
He switched on the light. He was staring at the sweep hand of the electric clock
on the dresser. Its little dry hum
ran over his nerves like a comb. He forced his eyes away. The bedroom doorway
gaped at him black as a keyhole.
His brain was jerking forward like a bad slide projector. He saw the doorway
the house the night the world and
on the other side of the world somewhere Herakles laughing drinking getting
into a car and Geryon’s
whole body formed one arch of a cry—upcast to that custom, the human custom
of wrong love.