The Autobiography of Red Read Online Free Page B

meters.
     
    Maybe I’ll just keep talking
     
    and if I say anything intelligent you can take a picture of it.
She inhaled.
     
    I don’t trust people who
     
    move around only at night.
Exhaled.
Yet I trust you. I lie in bed at night thinking,
     
    Why didn’t I
     
    teach the kid something useful. Well—she took a last pull on the cigarette—
     
    you probably know
     
    more about sex than I do
—and turned to stub it in the sink as he clicked the shutter.
     
    A half laugh escaped her.
     
    Geryon began to focus again, on her mouth. She leaned against the sink in silence
     
    for some moments
     
    gazing down the sight line into his lens.
Funny when you were a baby
     
    you were an insomniac
     
    do you remember that? I’d go into your room at night and there you were
     
    in your crib lying on your back
     
    with your eyes wide open. Staring into the dark. You never cried just stared.
     
    You’d lie that way for hours
     
    but if I took you in the TV room you were asleep in five minutes
—Geryon’s
     
    camera swiveled left
     
    as his brother came into the kitchen.
Going downtown want to come? Bring
     
    some money
—
     
    The words dropped behind him as he went banging out the screen door.
     
    Geryon rose slowly,
     
    closing the shutter release and pushing the camera into the pocket of his jacket.
     
    Got your lens cap?
she said as he moved past her.
     
     

IX. SPACE AND TIME
     
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    Up against another human being one’s own procedures take on definition.
     
     
    ————
     
    Geryon was amazed at himself. He saw Herakles just about every day now.
     
    The instant of nature
     
    forming between them drained every drop from the walls of his life
     
    leaving behind just ghosts
     
    rustling like an old map. He had nothing to say to anyone. He felt loose and shiny.
     
    He burned in the presence of his mother.
     
    I hardly know you anymore,
she said leaning against the doorway of his room.
     
    It had rained suddenly at suppertime,
     
    now sunset was startling drops at the window. Stale peace of old bedtimes
     
    filled the room. Love does not
     
    make me gentle or kind, thought Geryon as he and his mother eyed each other
     
    from opposite shores of the light.
     
    He was filling his pockets with money, keys, film. She tapped a cigarette
     
    on the back of her hand.
     
    I put some clean T-shirts in your top drawer this afternoon,
she said.
     
    Her voice drew a circle
     
    around all the years he had spent in this room. Geryon glanced down.
     
    This one is clean,
he said,
     
    it’s supposed to look this way.
The T-shirt was ripped here and there.
     
    GOD LOVES LOLA in red letters.
     
    Glad she can’t see the back, he thought as he shrugged on his jacket and stuck
     
    the camera in the pocket.
     
    What time will you be home?
she said.
Not too late,
he answered.
     
    A pure bold longing to be gone filled him.
     
    So Geryon what do you like about this guy this Herakles can you tell me?
     
    Can I tell you, thought Geryon.
     
    Thousand things he could not tell flowed over his mind.
Herakles knows a lot
     
    about art. We have good discussions.
     
    She was looking not at him but past him as she stored the unlit cigarette
     
    in her front shirt pocket.
     
    “How does distance look?” is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless
     
    within to the edge
     
    of what can be loved. It depends on light.
Light that for you?
he said pulling
     
    a book of matches
     
    out of his jeans as he came towards her.
No thanks dear.
She was turning away.
     
    I really should quit.
     
     

X. SEX QUESTION
     
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    Is it a question?
     
     
    ————
     
    I better be getting home.
     
    Okay.
     
    They continued to sit. They were parked way out on the highway.
     
    Cold night smell
     
    coming in the windows. New moon floating white as a rib at the edge of the sky.
     
    I guess I’m someone who will never be