BYZANTIUM

Mrs. O’Brien was a fat woman with red hair and a red face and two sides to her that Henry saw the minute his father drove off in the Maserati Quattroporte he’d won in a bet. She was all smiles when other people were around but when they were alone she turned into a witch. Mr. O’Brien worked at night somewhere. Henry never knew exactly where, but it must have been a salt mine or a steel factory because Mr. O’Brien was the tiredest, dirtiest man Henry had ever seen. Henry was always glad when he turned up. When Mrs. O’Brien yelled, Mr. O’Brien would tell her to shut up.

Before he was left at the O’Briens’, Henry lived in Philadelphia with Sy’s sister. Before that he lived with his father in Caesar’s Palace. The Palace was always busy. People said you could hear the noise from the slot machines as far away as Smyrna, which was all the way in Delaware. But even if that wasn’t true and you could only hear them as far as Cologne—which was halfway to Philadelphia—that was loud. Caesar’s Palace was big and people came from all over to play. Henry’s father was chief of security. It was sort of like being quaestor of the Sacred Palace and captain of the Blues rolled into one. The Byzantine historian Procopius wrote a lot about the Blues—not the music but one of the teams that ran in the chariot races in the Hippodrome. In the olden days most of the people in Byzantium were Blues, but there were many Greens too. Procopius said Byzantium was the city where the east toucheth the west. That made it special. When Henry read the old historian’s books he decided he wanted to live there—not just in Byzantium but in a place where things touchethed like that—east and west, waves and shore, light and dark, past and present. To be in between two touching things meant you were on the spot where they came together. It meant they came together in you, and after all Henry had seen and read and been through, he couldn’t think of anything better than that.

Being chief of security was like living where things come together too—like where a rock toucheth a hard place. That’s what Henry’s father said all the time after Theodora became general manager of the Palace. Theodora was also the name of the Emperor Justinian’s wife, and being general manager of Caesar’s Palace was sort of like being an empress. Henry’s father was six feet tall and weighed one hundred ninety-one pounds, so for him being between a rock and a hard place was not very comfortable. There were nights when he came off work so tired that he fell asleep right on the sofa holding a bottle of beer in his hand. Even if Henry took off his shoes and socks and tickled his feet he wouldn’t wake up. The only thing that could wake him up was his beeper. When that went off he always said, “Jesus Christ,” because it meant there was trouble. There was always some kind of trouble going on. Henry liked to go and watch whenever he could. You had to be a grown-up to go most places in the Palace, but that didn’t stop Henry. He knew how to sneak into the Bacchus Room and the Gladiator Lounge and had even been backstage at the Forum. His father said he didn’t know what was harder, keeping his job or keeping up with Henry.

Then one day his father took him out on the beach. It was the beginning of the summer, and the city was getting crowded. It was the first time Henry had ever been on the beach with his father—or even seen him wearing swimming trunks. He always dressed in suits because that’s how chiefs of security have to dress. It was hot. They walked and walked, past Balley’s Wild West and Trump Plaza and the Tropicana and the Taj, past the pier with the Ferris wheel at the end, past everything and everybody until they were alone and there was no one else. Finally his father said, “It’s time to get you out of here, kid. Time to go to school.” He picked Henry up and put him on his shoulders and they walked for a little while longer. “First you’re going to spend the summer with Sy’s sister. She lives in Philly.” Then he put Henry down. “You’re gonna love her, kid.” He took his gold chain off and put it around Henry’s neck, then picked Henry up again and put him back on his shoulders. “That’s so you have something to remember me by,” he said, and they headed back to the Palace. “I don’t want you to worry, kid. No tears. Everything’s gonna be fine.” Then he had to put Henry down because his beeper went off.

The summer went by fast and slow at the same time, and even though they didn’t fall in love, Henry liked Sy’s sister a whole lot. She was older than Sy and lived in a row house that had stained-glass windows that were left over from her hippie days. In the morning when you came downstairs the living room was filled with colored light. It looked sort of like the pictures in the book about the Hagia Sophia, and in the fall, when his father brought him to the O’Briens’, Henry brought that book with him to remind him of Sy’s sister and her house. Of all the things he did that summer, getting books out of the Philadelphia Public Library had been the funnest. It wasn’t stealing, either. It was called borrowing.

He was sent to Catholic school. His father said it would be good for him. He never said why. Henry figured that it was all very complicated and probably had to do with appearances. He had learned all about appearances that summer. Henry was a gnostic. He said so on the playground and in religion class and Sister Theresa told the principal, Sister Agnes Mary, who took him over to the rectory. “We’ll just see what Father has to say about these silly stories of yours, young man,” she said. “Idle minds are the devil’s workshop.” Henry could tell she was angry because she was pretending not to be.

Father Crowley had lots of silver hair and dark eyes that made him look tired. Sometimes he wore a black suit and sometimes he wore a black cassock but he never wore a hat. The priest said he wanted to hear all of Henry’s story, so on Saturday he came to the O’Briens’ house in his black Chevrolet Malibu that said CLERGY on the license plate and talked with Mrs. O’Brien. She became a jolly fat lady as soon as the priest walked into the house. She put her arm on Henry’s shoulder and squeezed him against her thigh and talked a lot and forgot to breathe. Henry could tell when Mrs. O’Brien forgot to breathe because her face got red and she made a wiggling motion and said, “Lord, oh Lord!” all the time. Father Crowley and she agreed that the best thing would be for Henry to spend the day at the rectory, where they could have a quiet talk. Mrs. O’Brien said, “Don’t you worry about the time, Father. I’ll keep his dinner warm.”

On the way to the rectory Father Crowley pulled into a shopping center that had a Baskin Robbins. “I love ice cream,” he said. “Care to join me for a dip?” He laughed.

Henry went inside with the priest and asked for Rocky Road because that was what he felt like. When they returned to the car Father Crowley didn’t drive but sat behind the wheel licking his ice cream cone and frowning. Henry licked his too and watched out his window as cars turned in and out of the parking lot.

Then the priest turned to him. “So, Henry,” he said. “Where did you hear about gnosticism?”

Henry said Philadelphia.

The priest’s cone dripped and he wiped the ice cream from his lap. Henry began to tell him about veneranda vetustatis auctoritas, which means the venerable authority of antiquity, and the gnostic secrets he’d learned in The Coptic Gnostic Library and about Procopius and The Secret History and about the Hagia Sophia and the Blues and the Greens and his friends Helena—whose mother was the Whore of Jersey City—and Sy.

Henry missed Helena. He missed Sy and the Palace too. He wanted to go back but his father told him it was impossible because he didn’t know who his friends and who his enemies were anymore. He said real friends were the people you did things with that you didn’t want anyone else to know about. Real friends were very rare and only came along once or maybe twice in a whole lifetime and you always knew where you stood with them. The only problem was that the same was true for enemies. You always knew where you stood with them too, and things could get real dangerous when you didn’t know and weren’t sure. Theodora was one of those people who was hard to figure out. She was a powerful bitch.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Father Crowley said. “You watch your language, young man.” He dripped more ice cream into his lap and said, “Oh gosh,” and got a napkin out of the glove box.

Anyway, Henry’s father was never sure where he stood with her. He said that one day when everything settled down they would move to an island somewhere far away and buy a houseboat where Henry and he would live together. Henry made him promise and he said, “Kid, if things go according to plan we’ll be able to do anything. You name it.”

“When did he tell you all these things, Henry?” Father Crowley asked.

Henry said he didn’t remember.

“Was it in Atlantic City?”

Henry nodded.

When they got to the rectory, Father Crowley took Henry to a big, sunny room with a couch and some tables and chairs. It looked like a card room without the card table and there was a whole wall with books. It reminded him of the library near Sy’s sister’s store in Philadelphia except there was a fireplace with a crucifix over it. Father Crowley wanted Henry to tell him more.

The Whore of Jersey City lived next door to Henry and his father at the Palace. They called her the Whore of Jersey City because once she was in a movie called The Whore of Jersey City. Helena was her daughter. Jersey City worried about her hair too much. She made Ruben come up to her apartment at least once a week and sometimes even more than that. Ruben was a hairdresser from Bethlehem and he did everyone’s hair if they were famous because somehow he was famous too. Jersey City had been in more than ten movies and that’s why she was famous. Helena went to a college up in the mountains. Not the Carpathians or the Caucasus or the Alps, but mountains like them somewhere in New Hampshire. Jersey City was very proud of her. When she came home after the first semester, she hardly ever left the apartment and her mother told Henry’s father that she had become a real snoot and was always arguing and they were driving each other crazy.

Helena used to take Henry out to the beach. She was eighteen and had light brown hair and blue eyes that gave her a faraway look. She was pretty and whenever people told her so she got mad. It happened all the time on the beach. One day she brought a book with her called Huckleberry Finn that starts like this: You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.

The priest sat up in his chair. “That’s very good, Henry. Did you memorize that all by yourself?”

Henry nodded.

“Well, now, I have a suggestion. Instead of talking about gnosticism and things you’re too young to understand, how about telling the story of Huckleberry Finn? The sisters might not mind that.”

Henry said yes, they would mind, because when Sister Helene heard him on the playground she was all smiles at first but when he got to the part where it went, After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers and I was in a sweat to find out all about him but by-and-by she let out out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time so then I didn’t care no more about him because I don’t take no stock in dead people—when that happened she made him stop.

“I see,” said the priest and touched the tips of his folded hands to his lips like he was going to say prayers.

Reading was easy. Helena showed Henry how to do it right out there under the umbrella on the beach. Pretty soon he could do it without moving his lips. Helena said he was smart because he learned without her even having to teach him. They got to be real good friends and pretty soon Henry read to her when they were on the beach and even when they weren’t on the beach they did stuff together. Like one day when they dumped a glass of milk out a window right on a man Helena hated because he was hanging around her mother. They ran down the back stairs and all the way to Sy’s place. That was how Henry learned about plague sowing.

Father Crowley shook his head. “You’re going too fast, Henry. Slow down.”

Henry talked about Chryssomallo, who used to be a dancer and a lion tamer and who wrestled with other women gladiators in the Forum but quit and became a bodybuilder, a fortune-teller, and a healer. People went to her to ask for help all the time. She was a friend of the Whore of Jersey City from the old days and Helena said they were in some movies together. You could go to her and for twenty-five dollars she would stand in front of you for ten minutes and flex her muscles. People went to her for healing. Next to Theodora, Henry figured she was one of the busiest women in Byzantium.

“Byzantium?”

Henry nodded and explained that it was the capital of the eastern empire and that there were Trojans in the Palace because of AIDS. Not people from Troy—rubbers.

Father Crowley looked like he was going to get mad but he didn’t. Henry explained that there were machines in all the bathrooms. Trojans made good plague sowers and Henry dropped them off the roof of the Palace for fun. He pretended that each Trojan was filled with plague germs and when it hit the ground, whoever got splashed would get the plague.

There was another way of plague sowing that was even more fun. Helena taught him. You took a Trojan and put some half-and-half coffee creamer into it. Then when nobody was looking you left it someplace—like in a corridor or on a chair in the lobby. Henry did a lot of plague sowing around the Palace until Theodora made the Palace guards do extra shifts walking the corridors and checking the chairs in the lobby and the staircases. That was just before the Nike riots happened and they had to go to Sy’s sister’s house in Philadelphia.

“Nike riots?”

Henry explained that he meant the Greek goddess of victory, not the running shoes. Procopius said that Cappadocian John was responsible and the riots started after a Blue and a Green were hung for treason and the rope broke. A miracle of God had saved the two men but the emperor refused to pardon them and so the factions burned and looted and killed. Byzantium was nearly destroyed.

“That’s all very interesting, Henry,” the priest cut in. “Let’s see. Why don’t you tell me about Theodora?”

Henry didn’t want to talk about Theodora. He was scared of her. His father told him to stay out of her way and not to do anything that made her mad or unhappy. “She could put us out on the street in a minute,” he told Henry. There were other things he said too, but they mostly had to do with his job as chief of security or his work with Sy, which had to do with siphoning or skimming, Henry wasn’t sure which. All Henry knew for sure was that his father hated Theodora. One time he heard him talking to Sy: “She’s squeezing me to death. Doesn’t come out and say it. Just drops hints here and there. And those fucking looks! I’m tired of it. Tired of fucking tiptoeing. She wants me to think I owe her big time.” Sy said, “You do.” Henry’s father got mad and started yelling, “I don’t owe nobody nothin’! Understand? I do what I want. Nobody owns me, mister! No smart-ass MBA bitch. Nobody!”

Theodora swam every morning in the Palace’s Olympic swimming pool. Sometimes Henry would hide and watch. She was tall and thin and her hair was short and very dark and her skin was very white. She would come out of the women’s shower room and hang her towel on the back of a chair. She always wore a purple bathing suit that had a black stripe up the side that made her legs look very long. She put on a small purple cap and tucked her hair up into it as she walked to the edge of the pool. She always bent down once or twice to touch her toes. Then she would dive in. She swam very slowly—on her stomach, on her back, on her side, and underwater. Her arms would come out of the water lazily and slide back in and she kicked her feet without splashing. She moved through the water quickly and quietly and left a little bubbly wake behind her. When she reached the end of the pool she flipped, rolled, and resurfaced. She would blow a fine spray of mist into the air, then disappear again into the deep. Procopius said that when Justinian was emperor, a whale lived in the straits of the Bosphorus. People called it Porphyrius because it looked like it was made of the same purple stone as the great column in the Forum of Constantine. The whale lived in the waters around the city for a long, long time and sailors said they saw her as far away as the Black Sea. Theodora was a very good swimmer, and she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

“I’m waiting,” the priest said. “What can you tell me about Theodora?”

Henry said Theodora was the wife of the Emperor Justinian. Procopius called Justinian and Theodora demons in human form.

“Okay,” Father Crowley said. “What about Sy? Who is Sy?”

Sy’s real name was Simon. He was a Jew from Babylon, the one on Long Island, not the capital of Babylonia. Everybody called him Sy. He came to the Palace one summer, found a job, and never left. That happened to lots of people. Sy lived in a noisy alley not far from the Forum of Constantine. He dealt blackjack and baccarat at the Palace and worked for Henry’s father on the side because everybody said he was a genius and had a head for numbers. He wore granny glasses and read books and said things like, “I didn’t choose this life, so I might as well make the worst of it.” He was one of the nicest people Henry knew.

Henry’s father made fun of Sy all the time. He called him a scrawny little nerd, which meant that he liked him and thought he was smart. Sy didn’t just have a head for numbers; he was great with cards too and could do lots of different tricks. When they first met, Sy said he was putting together a floor show and looking for a manager, but Henry’s father said, “Forget managers; you and me are gonna make a killing some day, and it won’t be doing magic shows.” Henry’s father became good friends with Sy. So did the Whore of Jersey City, but nobody knew they were in trouble—or that Sy and Helena’s mother were in love—until they all ran away together.

“Wait a minute,” Father Crowley said. “Who ran away?”

Henry said we all did. Running away is what brought us together.

“I don’t understand,” the priest said and squinched up his face. Then he waved his hand. “But never mind. Go on.”

Sy took Henry to the Hippodrome to watch the races all the time. He also taught him to read and write Greek and Latin and Hebrew and Aramaic and Coptic. Henry studied until late every night because he wanted to be an intellectual. Sy said intellectuals had to read and go to school for a long time. He said there weren’t many of them around anymore and it was hard to become one because you had to spend years doing nothing and the cost of living had gotten out of hand. One time Sy took Henry to church. Not the Hagia Sophia but a church just like it in Pleasantville. He told Henry that going to church was sort of like finding a center in the universe. He knelt down and pulled Henry down next to him and took off his granny glasses and put his hands over his eyes and stayed that way for a long time. Henry got up and walked around the empty church and played with the candles until Sy was finished. “I don’t want you telling anybody where we were,” Sy said on the way back to the Palace.

Henry asked why.

“Because I don’t want anybody to know, that’s why.”

Henry asked why not.

“Because I just don’t. It’s nobody’s business.”

Henry asked why not.

“Because I said so.”

Henry asked why again.

“Let’s just say I’m a catholic Jew.”

Henry asked what that meant.

“It means I’m the opposite of a skeptic.” He patted Henry on the knee and drove a little longer. “It means I believe in everything. And that means I can’t belong to any one group.”

Henry asked why not.

“Because that’s the way it is.”

Henry asked why it was that way.

“Because, by definition, all groups are exclusive. If you buy into one, it means you have to rule certain things out. I’d hate to rule something out and then find out later that I was wrong. Wouldn’t you?”

Father Crowley leaned forward. His face was so close that Henry could smell his breath. It smelled bad—like the floor of the ice cream store. “Sy said all this to you?”

Henry nodded and the priest shook his head.

When they got back to the Palace, Sy took Henry to a place on the boardwalk to play pinball. “You have to keep the things you take seriously to yourself, Henry. That’s the most important thing.” They were playing a pinball game called Ace in the Hole. “It’s important to keep a low profile. Even if you are certain about everything you know and are dying to shout it from the rooftops—you can’t. Not unless you are willing to pay the price.”

Henry asked what the price was.

“Well, for starters, most people will think you’re an idiot. But even if you can get past that, the price is too steep. There’s no way anyone can pay it and stay alive. Jesus Christ had to die on the cross in order to pay up! He was a catholic Jew too, and said he was the son of God.”

Father Crowley sat on the sofa and pinched his eyes with his fingers while Henry talked and took books from the shelf and put them back. He looked at Henry for a long time. “Has anyone besides this Sy ever talked to you about God?”

Henry said God was only a name.

“You watch what you’re saying, young man. Blasphemy is a very serious sin. I don’t want any more of that talk. Do you understand?”

Henry asked to be taken back to the O’Briens’.

“We’ll leave when I’m good and ready,” the priest said.

Henry sat down. His sneakers had come untied.

“Tell me more about this Nike business,” the priest said.

During the Nike riots Byzantium was almost completely destroyed by the Blues and the Greens. Nike means victory in Greek but that day when they went out on the beach, Henry’s father didn’t seem victorious. He was worried. Henry knew when his father was worried because he talked on the telephone a lot—not on his cell phone or the one in the suite or even one of the pay phones in the lobby. When Henry’s father was worried he left the Palace to make his phone calls. Sometimes he went next door to Balley’s Wild West and sometimes he walked way down the boardwalk and used one of the outside telephones. You couldn’t be too careful. The emperor’s agents and Theodora’s spies were everywhere. Henry’s father didn’t want to take any chances. That’s why he sent Henry and Helena and the Whore of Jersey City out of the city with Sy.

“We’ll go back one day and it’ll be like nothing happened,” Sy said as they drove away in the car.

“You better be right,” Helena’s mother said. She twisted the rearview mirror so she could look into it and put on some lipstick.

“Things’ll fall into place,” Sy said.

“They goddamn well better,” Helena’s mother grumbled.

“Anyway, no point worrying about it now,” Sy said. “What’s done is done.”

They went to Sy’s sister’s house in Philadelphia—not the Greek city but the one on the Delaware River. Henry’s father came to Philadelphia the next day. He was driving the Maserati Quattroporte. It was the first time Henry ever saw the car. It was all black and had soft leather seats. Henry asked where he got it. “I won it,” his father said. They went out for pizza, but Henry wasn’t hungry.

“How come you aren’t eating?” his father asked.

Henry said he didn’t like anchovies.

“You don’t like anchovies? Pizza without anchovies is like a dog without legs, kid.” His father picked them off and piled them on his plate.

Henry wanted to know how long he would have to stay in Philadelphia.

His father called the waiter and asked for fresh-squeezed orange juice. “You want anything else to drink, Henry?”

Henry said no.

When the waiter came back his father looked into the glass. “What the hell is this? I asked for fresh-squeezed orange juice.” The waiter took it back. “I’ve found a good school for you, kid. And a nice family to put you up too. Their name is O’Brien.”

Henry said he didn’t want to go to school or live with anyone called O’Brien.

“I don’t want any arguments, kid. I know what’s best.” He took another slice of pizza. “Besides, it’s not just my idea.”

Henry wanted to know whose idea it was.

His father took another bite and wiped his mouth before answering. The pizza restaurant was filling up with families and was getting noisy. “Some social workers’ve been getting on my case. That’s the long and short of it. If we don’t do it my way, they’ll take you and do it their way.”

Henry asked what social workers were.

“It’s a long story, kid. Don’t worry. It’ll all make sense to you someday.”

Henry asked what day.

“The day you stop picking all the anchovies off your pizza,” his father said and folded another slice in his hand and bit down and made a grunting noise.

Henry asked his father if he was growing a beard.

His father chewed and rubbed his cheek. “Thought I’d try out a new look. What do you think?”

Henry said it made him look different.

His father smiled and winked. “Thought maybe it would go with the car. Know what I mean? Hey, what about that chain I gave you?”

Henry showed him the chain. He wore it under his shirt.

“Don’t lose it,” his father said and took another bite of pizza.

After the restaurant they went for a drive. His father told Henry all about Maseratis and how it wasn’t just any old car but a car with a great history behind it. “Ever since I was a kid I loved Maseratis. The year I was born was the year Fangio won the Argentine Grand Prix and the World Championship in a 250F. He was one of the greatest race car drivers ever. When I was your age I wanted to be just like Fangio.”

It was bedtime when they got back to Sy’s sister’s house. Henry’s father tucked him in and went downstairs. Henry snuck out of bed and tried to listen at the top of the stairs while the grown-ups talked, but they went into the kitchen and he couldn’t hear. He went back to bed and dreamed he was Fangio driving the Maserati 250F that won the World Championship and the Argentine Grand Prix. In the morning when he woke up his father and Sy and Helena’s mother were gone.

“Where’d they go?” Helena asked.

“All they said is they have some business,” Sy’s sister said.

Henry asked where his father was.

“Don’t worry, honey,” Sy’s sister said. “You’re staying here with me. They’ll be back soon.” Then she handed him a box. “He told me to give you this.”

Henry opened the box. He didn’t want a Gameboy. He didn’t want any presents. He wanted to know where his father was.

Helena ran upstairs and locked herself into the bedroom.

Sy’s sister took Henry into the kitchen. It was a mess from the night before. “Mind keeping me company while I straighten up a little?”

Henry asked where his father went.

Sy’s sister bent down and put her hands on Henry’s shoulders. “Don’t worry, Henry. He’ll be back soon. You and Helena are going to stay with me for a little while. We’ll have fun together. I promise.”

It was getting to be afternoon and Henry could hear people coming and going from the rectory. Father Crowley asked if he wanted to go outside in the yard for some fresh air but Henry shook his head and just kept talking. He told Father Crowley about Sy’s sister’s clothes store called Mitzi. Helena got to work there. Henry wasn’t old enough to do anything useful so he went down the street to the library and read books. One book he especially liked was by Procopius called Anecdota, or The Secret History. That was how Henry learned all about Byzantium and the Emperor Justinian and his wife, Theodora. He also found some gnostic books that had been found in a cave in Egypt. They were very, very old. The books said how the whole universe was created and explained about how all the bad things came into it. Everything in the universe was all a big mistake. Henry read the books over and over every day until he knew them all by heart. When he was tired he slept in the back of the store.

Sometimes after closing the store they went to the health club. Sy’s sister and Helena worked out in the gym and swam laps. Henry horsed around mostly and got yelled at once by an old man for slamming locker doors in the men’s changing room. One time on the way home Sy’s sister said, “I’d kill to have a body like yours, girl.”

“Sometimes I think it’s more of a pain in the ass than it’s worth,” Helena said.

He asked Helena if her body always ached. Helena laughed. “It’s not having a good body, it’s keeping it. That’s what I meant.”

This was how Henry learned about the corruption of the flesh.

“What did I just say about the language, Henry?” Father Crowley had his eyes closed to listen but now he opened them and gave Henry a stern look. He shook his head slowly back and forth and wagged his finger. Then he closed his eyes again so Henry could get on with the story.

After dinner when it was still too light to go to bed Sy’s sister would bring the phone outside on the back steps and smoke cigarettes and call people. She said “innnnner-estingly enough” all the time. Henry played in the back yard that wasn’t really a yard since it was mostly cement and used to be a driveway. There was a high fence and the gate was broken and the only thing holding it up was a rusty old chain. The key to the padlock was lost so you couldn’t open the gate anymore. Sy’s sister said it was more private that way. She told Henry he wasn’t allowed in the alley but one time when she was out he climbed over the fence.

Sy’s sister had a boyfriend. His name was Henry too and whenever he came over he said, “Hiya Henry, how’s it hangin’?” Big Henry was really, really big. He was more than six feet four inches tall and wore size thirteen shoes. He lived in Chestnut Hill but kept his underwear and shoes and socks at Sy’s sister’s house because he liked to spend the night. He liked baseball too and was born in 1958, the year Mickey Mantle hit his five hundredth home run off Stu Miller to beat the Orioles six to five. Once he took Henry to the Hippodrome to see a Phillies game and bought him a pennant. Big Henry had season tickets, which meant he sat in the same seat at every game and was friends with everyone. He had four hot dogs, two bags of popcorn, and seven beers. “Great game, Henry. Right?”

Henry said he guessed so.

“You want to know why it was good?”

Henry said yes.

“Because Scott Rolen homered twice for the fifth time in his career, going three for three with three runs scored, and to top it all off we gave the Diamondbacks their eleventh loss in twelve games. That’s why.”

When they came home Sy’s sister got mad. She said Big Henry was drunk. He went away mad and didn’t come back for a long time. Sy’s sister went around sad the next day and barely talked to anyone.

That happened right when Helena fell in love with Mohammed Ali—not the prophet or the boxer but one of the al-Samman clan in Egypt. He came into the store one day and when he left Helena said he was gorgeous. Mohammed Ali came in almost every day and bought something each time. Then one day he asked Helena to come to dinner with him and after that Helena started spending all her time with him.

Mohammed Ali was a businessman. He drove a Mercedes 450 SEL and traveled all over on business. Henry asked if he was a silk merchant but he only laughed. Henry told him it was good he wasn’t a silk merchant because the secret of silk had already been brought back from China by two Nestorian monks. They gave it to Belisarius’s wife. They even brought some worms with them and some mulberry bushes for the worms to eat. Belisarius made his wife pass the secret on to the emperor and empress and Procopius said Justinian and Theodora built a monastery for the monks in return. Then they took over the silk business.

Sy’s sister said Mohammed Ali looked like Omar Sharif, but Helena said he was even more handsome than Omar Sharif. He smoked black cigarettes with golden tips that came from somewhere in the Caucasus. Sy’s sister let him smoke in the store even though it wasn’t allowed and when he offered her one she took it and lit up even though she never smoked except when she talked on the phone on the back steps. Mohammed Ali gave Helena lots of presents. He gave Henry a present too. It was a pure white Arabian stallion. But Henry had to give it back because he didn’t have anyplace to keep it.

Helena started staying out all night with Mohammed Ali and one morning they came back and told Sy’s sister they wanted to talk to her. They told Henry to go outside. Henry listened under the window and discovered that Mohammed Ali wanted Helena to come live with him.

“You’re barely eighteen!” Sy’s sister said.

“That’s old enough,” Helena said.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

“Why do you say that?” Mohammed Ali asked. “You don’t think I can take care of her?”

Sy’s sister didn’t say anything.

“She will have everything she wants,” Mohammed Ali said.

“At least wait until your mother gets back,” Sy’s sister said.

Mohammed Ali got mad. “Why do you insult me like this? I will not ask that woman for anything!”

“She’s still her mother,” Sy’s sister said.

“She is no mother,” Mohammed Ali shouted. “I tell you what she is.”

“You don’t have to raise your voice,” Sy’s sister said.

“Excuse me,” Mohammed Ali said. “I apologize.”

“It doesn’t matter what she says. It’s up to me to decide,” Helena said.

“Don’t worry,” Mohammed Ali said. “I will take the full responsibility.”

Then they all went into the kitchen to talk and Henry couldn’t hear anymore.

After Mohammed Ali left, Sy’s sister and Helena talked in the living room. “You need to think this over,” Sy’s sister said.

“Well, I’m in love with him. That’s all that matters.”

“I’m happy for you,” Sy’s sister said. “But I still think it’s a good idea to think about it for a while. What about school?”

Helena got mad. “What about it?”

“You return in the fall, don’t you?”

“Are you kidding? So she can brag that she’s putting her kid through college?”

“Come on, don’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s the truth! And I’m sick of hearing it. Besides, who needs school? He’s taking me to Egypt.”

“Egypt?”

“He has a place in Cairo and a place here. We’ll go back and forth.”

“It sounds exciting, Helena. Really it does. When I was your age I would have felt the same way you do.”

“So why are you talking like I’m about to ruin my life?”

“Because I’m not your age anymore, and I’ve seen things like this before.”

“Don’t say that! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you understand? I love him, and he cares about me.”

“I think you should wait. Give it a little more time.”

Helena ran upstairs crying.

The next day Helena and Henry were in the back room of Sy’s sister’s store. Helena was putting labels on dresses and Henry was practicing writing Coptic on the empty boxes with a red marker. He asked her what happened to Sy and her mother.

“They ran away.”

Henry asked why.

“Because they’re crooks, that’s why!”

Henry used to think people ran away because they were sad but in The Coptic Gnostic Library he read that you didn’t run away, you fell away.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Henry explained that you fell from the light into darkness, from knowing into not knowing. When you ran away it was impossible to tell which way you were going. If you were going into darkness or light. It meant you could never know if things were going to get better or worse.

“Where do you get all this crap, Henry?” she asked.

Henry told her about The Coptic Gnostic Library. Then he asked Helena if her mother and Sy ran away to get away from them and be in a better place.

“I hope they went to hell,” Helena said.

Henry knew all about hell. One afternoon he was playing behind the store when he saw a chariot run over a dog. The chariot driver didn’t stop but whipped his horses up and drove off. Henry went to look at the dog. It was just like all the other dogs that lived in the streets and alleys of Philadelphia. They were skinny and ate garbage and mostly were scared of people. The one that was hit was still only a puppy and the wheel had crushed its back leg. It was crying and shaking and trying to get up and Henry didn’t know what to do.

An old man came over. “Kill it!”

Henry got scared.

“Put it out of its misery!” the old man said.

Henry looked at the dog again. It was howling and squealing. He still didn’t know what to do. The old man spat on the ground. He didn’t have any teeth and his spit was almost as red as the dog’s blood. “How would you like to go through hell like that? Lay there all mangled up? What would you want?”

Henry said he’d want to get better.

“You can’t get better,” the old man said. “You can only get worse.” He spat on the ground again. “Kill the goddamn thing.”

So Henry picked up a big rock and dropped it right on the puppy’s head.

This was how Henry learned that the world originated through a transgression.

“All right. That’s enough.” Father Crowley slapped his hands on his knees. “You’ve worn me out, son,” he said. They got up to go back to the O’Briens’. When they were in the car Father Crowley said, “We need to have another talk. I have lots of questions—especially about Philadelphia and Sy’s sister.” He also told Henry to stop telling stories in school because it was disruptive. “I don’t want to hear any more reports, okay? No more talk about gnosticism or any of those books you read in Philadelphia. Got that?”

Henry asked why.

“Because you’re not old enough to understand them. You’re way too far ahead of yourself, young man. You should put that remarkable brain to proper use. Forget the nonsense you’ve been reading and pay better attention in school.”

Henry asked the priest why nobody believed in gnostic books.

The priest frowned and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Then his eyebrows went up and down and when he talked he stared straight ahead at the road and didn’t look at Henry. “Because they are not the words of Jesus. They were written by men who wanted to create their own religion using whatever words and ideas they felt like. They invented everything by mixing up whatever came into their heads with whatever pagan ideas they liked, and the only reason their books lasted is because some of them had been hidden in caves. They are not the true gospels. Period.” He put his hand on Henry’s knee and smiled. “Henry, you’re a remarkable boy. I’ve never met anyone like you. But you’d better watch out that your gifts don’t get you in trouble. God loves those who love the truth.”

Henry wondered what difference it made to God or Father Crowley or anyone what books he read and what books existed. He wondered if any of the books of the Bible had ever been found in caves.

When they arrived back at the O’Briens’, Mrs. O’Brien was standing at the front door. She came out to the car. She had curlers in her hair and walked like a big red duck. “Come in. Come in.”

“I’d love to, Mrs. O’Brien, but I can’t today. We had a good time together, didn’t we, Henry?”

Henry nodded.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to come again next Saturday. Would that be okay with you?”

Mrs. O’Brien leaned into the driver’s window. “He’s not in trouble, is he, Father?”

“No. Not at all. He’s a remarkable little boy. It’s just—well, I can’t describe it. His head is filled with ideas he’s too young to understand.”

“Don’t I know it,” Mrs. O’Brien said and waved goodbye.

When they were inside she yelled at Henry for being a troublemaker and whacked him on the back of the head and said she was going to call his father.

On Monday Henry had to go to the principal’s office again. “Have you been behaving yourself, young man?” Sister Agnes Mary asked him.

Henry didn’t say anything. He was scared of Sister Agnes Mary.

“I spoke with Mrs. O’Brien this morning,” she said. “She tells me that you are still telling lies and stories.”

Henry said Mrs. O’Brien was a liar.

Sister Agnes Mary grabbed him by the wrists. “If you ever speak like that again, you will be punished, young man. Do you understand me?” She gritted her teeth and Henry saw the spit fly from her lips. It reminded him of the old man in the alley. When she let go his wrists were red and sore. Henry cried and wished his father would come and take him back to the Palace. Gnostics didn’t belong in Catholic school. In the Gospel of Phillip it said that they who inherited dead things are dead themselves. Words are dead things because they are all true. It was the same with stories. They were all true and that was why he liked to tell them. If everything is true one thing is no more true than another and all words will dissolve into their origins.

Henry decided to run away. He told Sister Agnes Mary he had to go to the bathroom. There was a window there and he opened the window and climbed out. When he was outside he ran to the bus stop. He had enough lunch money to buy a ticket and he got on the first bus that came. When he got on he sat in the last seat and tried to make himself as small as he could so nobody would see him. He remembered what he had read about running away. It was scary. He was alone on the open road. There were bad people on the highways—Tartars, Bulgarians, Goths, Huns, Cappadocians. People from all the corners of the empire. He didn’t know where to go or what to do when he got there.

After a while he got off the bus and looked around. He was on a wide road—probably in Phrygia someplace. There was a 7–11 and a McDonald’s. Their signs stood high up on narrow metal columns. Henry was glad to see them because they were familiar and there was comfort in signs that were firmly established. He hid in a dumpster behind 7–11 where it was neither dark nor light but only dim and where he hoped the archons would not get him. Archons are bad angels and there are lots of them. Athoth has a sheep’s face, Eloaiou has a donkey’s face, Astaphaios has a hyena’s face, Yao has a serpent’s face with seven heads, Sabaoth has a dragon’s face, Adonin has a monkey’s face, and Sabbede has a shining fire face. Henry got scared. Maybe he would have to wait for a long time before anybody found him. He would be like those scrolls that were in caves for so long nobody knew what they were when they were found. When they were put there they were one thing and when they were discovered they were the same thing but the world was something else, like if you put a piece of meat in the oven and then burned down the house and then opened the oven and the meat was still raw.

There were magazines in the dumpster. They had pictures of naked men and women doing stuff to each other. Henry guessed it was fucking but even though people said fuck all the time, he wasn’t sure it was like the pictures. He remembered one day when he was out on the beach with Helena and she talked to him about her mother. “She’s an exhibitionist,” Helena said. “All she wants is to be looked at all the time.” She explained how her mother used to be in movies. “It’s so embarrassing! If anyone at school ever found out about my mother, I’d have to leave.”

Henry asked why.

“Because she used to be a porn star.”

Henry asked what a porn star was.

“You know, pornography?”

Henry asked if it was like spirograph.

Helena laughed. “Right. It’s just like spirograph.”

They stopped talking for a little while. Then Helena asked, “Do you even know what a spirograph is?”

Henry said it was an instrument for recording breathing movements.

“Where’d you hear that?”

Henry said he read it in a book.

Helena dug her feet into the sand. “Well, it’s a toy too. I used to have one.”

Henry was digging a hole, scooping it out and piling the sand around the edge to make a fort. Helena watched and then after a while she said, “She isn’t really a whore—even though everybody calls her that.”

Henry kept digging and when the hole was big enough he told Helena to come into it with him. They worked together making the walls higher and higher. “Has anyone ever talked to you about sex?” Helena asked.

Henry didn’t know what to say so he didn’t say anything.

Helena was quiet for a while, then she said, “You can’t imagine what it’s like to have these dumb men hanging around my mother all the time.”

Henry said he guessed not.

“Just because they saw her fucking in a movie, they somehow think they’re going to fuck her too. They’re always surprised when it doesn’t happen.”

Henry said he guessed so and piled more sand onto a collapsing wall. He asked Helena if her mother had ever shot anyone.

“Are you listening to anything I’ve said?” Helena asked.

Henry said yeah.

“If I think about it too much it drives me crazy.”

Henry asked what drove her crazy.

Helena dug her foot into the wet sand and kicked a blob of it onto the wall Henry was working to build up. “I shouldn’t be talking to you like this. You’re too young.”

Henry piled the sand faster and faster as a wave sent a big lip of foaming water into one side of the fort, making the outside walls smooth. Helena kicked more wet sand onto the wall Henry was working on. “I’ve never seen any of the movies my mother was in,” she said. “When I was twelve she told me about everything. She said she wasn’t sorry for anything she’d done, and I shouldn’t think that what she’d done was bad. She said she wanted me to know everything since one day I’d find out anyway. She offered to let me see one of the movies if I wanted, but she said she’d prefer it if I chose not to. You want to know how I see it all now?”

Henry said okay.

“I have this friend at school named Martha. Her dad was in the Vietnam War. Martha told me that as long as she could never imagine what he’d seen and done, it was okay. It’s normal not to imagine your parents doing certain things.”

Henry asked Helena if sex was fucking.

Helena got a surprised look. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you like this.” She didn’t say anything for a while and began smoothing out one of the sand walls and patting it with her hand. Then her face got all red. “Forget what I said, Henry.” They smoothed out the walls and patted them and some other kids came over and stood outside the fort and watched them. “It’s time to go home,” Helena said. “I’m getting sunburned.”

Henry got out of the dumpster. The pictures made him wish he hadn’t seen them. They showed people with strange looks on their faces rubbing their hairy parts together. It reminded him of animals and was kind of sad.

It was dark and someone yelled, “Hey!” Henry ran around to the front of 7–11 and went inside. He took out all his money and counted it. It was more than five dollars. The first thing was to call Sy’s sister but when he tried to remember her name all he could remember was the name of the store and the joke she made about it: If you wanna be ritzy, you gotta shop Mitzi. There was a pay phone outside the 7–11. He went back outside and got a plastic milk crate and stood up on it so he could reach the phone. Then he called the operator and said he wanted to call Mitzi in Philadelphia collect but nobody answered at the shop and Henry hung up.

One thing was sure. He wasn’t in Byzantium anymore. Where he was now you needed a car and to have a car you needed to have a license. In the good old days Henry rode around in chariots and if he was lost there were plenty of saints and angels around to talk to and they’d always offer to get him back home if he needed it. Saints were good to have around because they could see through walls and around corners and they always knew about all the killing and lying and cheating that was going on everywhere they went. Angels were the same but they could fly and see through people too. Not just through their clothes but into their thoughts. Also, angels usually dressed well and carried weapons. Saints went around barefoot and sometimes even naked and were usually filthy and broke because they always gave away everything they had. Nobody liked to talk to them. Angels and saints both knew about the visible and the invisible and the different things that couldn’t be talked about and also that God was a fuckup but that was why you had to love Him. He had made a big mess of things. It was up to them to try to help out. That’s what they were there for. To help straighten things out. Saints didn’t mind being poor and filthy and angels didn’t mind flying around fixing things all the time. Being an angel would have been okay. But Henry didn’t have any weapons or know how to fix stuff. So he decided to become a saint.

He tried to call Sy’s sister again but there was no answer. There was nothing he could do except not cry and wait. He didn’t want anybody to see him. Saints had to be careful. When you were a saint people wanted stuff from you and if you didn’t give them what they wanted they’d try to kill you. Lots of saints got killed by people who didn’t get what they wanted out of them.

Henry climbed back into the dumpster. It got cold and Henry got even more hungry. Even though it was only the end of September and there were still leaves on the trees it felt like winter. Henry began to shiver. He wondered what Mrs. O’Brien was thinking right now. She was probably glad he was gone but mad because he’d left all his stuff at her house. He could hear her going, “Lord, oh Lord,” and fanning the air with her hand. He could hear Mr. O’Brien telling her to shut up in his sleepy voice. Henry started to cry. He was about to go and give himself up when a cat jumped onto his lap and began purring and rubbing up against him. At first the cat scared him but then he remembered that saints could talk to animals. When you know that everything is in code you begin to understand the world.

In the morning Henry went around to the front of the store and called Sy’s sister. This time she was there. “Henry! What a surprise! How are you?”

He told her he was at 7–11 and asked if she would come pick him up.

“Henry? Are you all right? Where are you?”

Henry said he waited all night until she came to the store because he didn’t want to go to Catholic school or live with the O’Briens anymore. He wanted to live with her because he liked it in Philadelphia.

“Oh my god, Henry. You ran away?”

Henry said yes.

“Where are you? Do you know where you are? Go inside and ask somebody to come to the phone, Henry. Go find a grown-up for me to talk to.”

Henry went inside and asked the man behind the counter with big tattoos on his arms to come outside. At first the man didn’t say anything but then he went outside and talked to Sy’s sister. When he was finished he gave the phone back to Henry. “Henry, you stay there, okay? Stay with the man I just talked to until somebody comes to get you. Do you understand? Henry? Are you all right? Oh my god. This is terrible. Henry? Are you there?”

Henry promised to stay put. He put the phone down and followed the man with the tattoos back inside. The man gave him a doughnut and some milk. “Someone will be here to get you real soon, kid,” he said. “Don’t run away on me, okay?”

Sy’s sister never came. Henry was taken back to the O’Briens’ house by two members of the imperial guards who put him in the back seat of their car and talked on the radio. One of the guards turned around. “What’s your name, son?”

Henry was scared and didn’t say anything.

“Don’t worry, son. Everything’s going to be all right. We’re taking you back to your momma and daddy.”

Henry shook his head and said no they weren’t, they were taking him to the O’Briens’.

The guard raised his eyebrows.

Henry said I hid myself from them because of their wickedness, and they did not recognize me.

The guard looked at Henry for a minute and then he turned around and talked to the other guard, who was driving. After a little while he picked up the radio and talked into it but Henry couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore and he fell asleep and didn’t hear what was said.

He woke up a little while later, just as they were pulling up in front of the O’Briens’ house. Mr. and Mrs. O’Brien and Father Crowley were all waiting on the doorstep. Mrs. O’Brien waddled down the walk and grabbed Henry and hugged him and said, “Lord, oh Lord,” about fifty times, and, “Thank God you’re safe.”

Mr. O’Brien just said, “You shouldn’t have done it, boy. You had us all pretty scared.” He shook his tired head back and forth. They talked to the imperial guards for a few minutes. After that everybody went into the house and Mrs. O’Brien called Henry’s father.

Henry didn’t want to talk because everybody was watching him. “I’ll come to see you as soon as I can, kid. Promise me you’ll try to be good.”

Henry asked if he was going to be punished.

“Don’t worry. Nobody’s going to punish you. Just try and be good. I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

Mrs. O’Brien and the imperial guard who had asked him his name and then the priest got on the phone and talked to Henry’s father. Mr. O’Brien took Henry into the kitchen and made him a liverwurst sandwich.

The next Saturday Father Crowley came to get Henry again and this time he talked to Mrs. O’Brien for a while. They all went upstairs and the priest looked at every book Henry had in his room. “These books don’t belong to you, Henry,” he said. “They belong to the Philadelphia Public Library. They have to be returned.” He said he was going to Philadelphia next week and he would return them but Henry would have to pay the fine.

Then they went to the rectory. There was no stopping for ice cream. They went straight into the same room as last time. The priest put Henry’s books down on a table and sorted them into two piles. “Okay, Henry, what do you want to talk about?”

Henry said nothing.

“How about we talk some more about gnosticism?” The priest sat down on a chair in front of the fireplace and pinched the bridge of his nose. “First, let’s get something straight. I don’t want to hear any smart-aleck talk.”

Henry said I’m not a smart aleck, Father, I am a saint.