Autobiography Of Red

Back in his hotel room, Geryon sits on his bed, thinking about his life. He begins to read a book called Philosophic Problems, and, specifically, a section on perception. At six p.m., Geryon concludes that he's not the "one who is crazy here" (105). He puts on his coat and goes out. On the street, Geryon passes young men, shops, restaurants, and a "beggar woman" (106). He stops at a newspaper stand and finds a magazine called Balling from Behind. Geryon marvels that there's a "whole magazine devoted to this" (106)but doesn't buy it out of embarrassment. He goes into a bookshop and looks through the section of books in English. Geryon picks up a bilingual edition of Walt Whitman's poetry and turns to a passage that reads "you alone know what it is to be evil" (106). Geryon puts "evil Walt Whitman" (106) down and picks up a self-help book called Oblivion the Price of Sanity?. He turns to a section about depression and begins to read, but hears a soft sound, "like kissing" (107). Outside, he sees a worker on a ladder in front of the bookstore, making kissing noises to a "dark-colored bird" (107) swooping at him. Each time the man makes the noise, the bird flies up, then dives back down "with a little swagger and a cry" (107). Geryon reflects that "kissing makes them happy" (107) and turns to leave. He bumps into a man beside him and the "stale black taste of leather" (107) gets in his nose and mouth. Geryon apologizes then realizes that the man is Herakles, whom he hasn't seen for years. 

Herakles and Geryon agree that running into each other was "a shocker" (108), while they talk over coffee at Café Mitwelt later that day. Geryon wonders about Ancash, the young man sitting beside Herakles. Herakles explains that he and Ancash have been traveling around South America recording the sounds of volcanoes. Ancash says that the volcanoes "do have a language" (108). Geryon asks if their recordings are for a "nature film" (108). Herakles says they're for a documentary on Emily Dickinson, based on her poem "On My Volcano Grows the Grass" (108). This interest in poetry surprises Geryon.

Ancash takes out a tape recorder and gives it to Geryon, along with headphones. He tells Geryon it's the sound of "Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines" (108). Geryon hears "a hoarse animal spraying pain" (108) from its throat, followed by "irregular bumping sounds like tractor tires rolling downhill" (108). Herakles asks if Geryon hears the rain. Herakles explains that the eruption happened during monsoon season, so the ash mixed with the rain, making "a black wall of hot mud […] twenty meters high" (109).

Next, Geryon hears gunshots. Herakles says they had to "send the army in" (109) to get people to leave their homes. Ancash interrupts him to fast-forward the tape. Geryon hears the animal growl again, followed by "thuds like melons hitting the ground" (109). Ancash says these thuds are the sounds of birds dropping from the sky, having had their wings burn off in the air. At the word 'wings,' Geryon and Herakles catch each other's eyes. Ancash fast-forwards the tape again to a recording of a tsunami in Japan. He tells Geryon that the movement of continental plates underwater can cause aftershocks that "can go on for years" (109). Geryon says he knows, feeling Herakles' gaze on him "like a gold tongue" (110).

Geryon takes off the headphones and says he has to go. It takes an effort to "pull himself away from Herakles' eyes" (110). Herakles tells Geryon to call for them at the City Hotel.

Geryon sits in his hotel room at seven a.m., staring at a "blank TV screen" (111). It's been two days since he had coffee with Herakles and Ancash, and Geryon hasn't called them. He's stashed the telephone at the bottom of his sock drawer. Geryon tries not to think about Herakles and Ancash in their hotel room, nor how Herakles liked to have sex in the morning, "like a sleepy bear taking the lid off a jar of honey" (111). Geryon takes a cold shower then gets a phone call from Herakles, who invites him to Café Mitwelt.

Geryon arrives at the café to find Ancash sitting alone; Herakles has gone to get the newspaper. Geryon sits down with Ancash and asks what his name means. Ancash explains that it's Quechua, "the oldest indigenous" (112) language in Peru. He tells Geryon that he's from Huaraz, a mountain town north of Lima. Herakles returns, "ruffling Geryon's hair" (112) as he sits down. Geryon asks whether Ancash's mother still lives in Huaraz, but Ancash says she's back in Lima because "terrorists were blowing up cars and TV stations" (112) in Huaraz last winter. Now Ancash's mother works for a "gringo anthropologist from the States" (112) as a cook. She lives on their roof.

Herakles interrupts the conversation to say that he knows some Quechua. He knows the words, but not the music to a song in Quechua. Herakles begins to sing, then asks Geryon if he wants to know what the words mean. He begins to explain but Ancash cuts him off. He says he needs to get to the post office before noon. Geryon asks Ancash whether he's cold without a coat. Ancash says no, then yes, and Geryon wishes he could "wrap his coat around this feather man" (114) but Geryon can't do so without exposing his wings.

Geryon tells Ancash that he heard his name in the middle of the Quechua song Herakles sang and asks him again what it means. Ancash says it's "hard to translate" (114) and is "something like—" (114) but Herakles interrupts him. He stands in front of Harrods' department store, waving his arms. Herakles goes into the store and Geryon and Ancash follow him. Inside, life is "at a pause" (114). There are no customers and the salesgirls float around like "survivors of a wreck" (114). Amidst the stillness and low light, clocks and watches in a "brightly lit" (115) case tick "furiously" (115). Geryon sees Herakles moving upstairs and tells Ancash to follow because Herakles always knows where to "find the bathrooms" (115).

They follow Herakles upstairs to find a nearly-deserted second floor. Aside from a "pyramid of jellied tongue and rubber boots" (115) stands a "circus carousel" (115). Looking at the various carousel animals, Herakles asks if they want to try "stealing the tiger" (115) because it seems like it's loose. Neither Ancash nor Geryon answer. Geryon kneels beside the zebra, studying it for a photograph he will take later, called "Time Lapse" (115). Ancash remarks that the animals were probably made in Germany. Geryon asks Ancash if he can take his picture later, then notices Herakles' reflection in the zebra's glass eye.

Herakles tells Ancash he wants to give the tiger to Ancash's mother as a birthday gift. Herakles begins cutting the tiger's reins and hoists it from the floor. Ancash asks how Herakles expects to get the tiger out of Harrods, let alone onto the airplane to Peru. Herakles says the tiger can go on as baggage, wrapped up in a gun bag. Ancash watches Herakles and Geryon watches Ancash, feeling left out by their trip to Peru. The lights in Harrods go out and Ancash says to Geryon in a low voice that Herakles always "knows where to find the fusebox" (117). Alarms begin sounding and the three men hoist the tiger onto Herakles' shoulders as they head downstairs. 

On the plane to Peru, Geryon sits between Ancash and Herakles. The men have an Aeroperu blanket over their laps. Geryon tries to read as Herakles and Ancash doze. Geryon hadn't realized how "pornographic" (118) the novel he'd bought at the Buenos Aires airport was until this moment. In the book, a woman named Gladys caresses her thigh under her nightgown. Geryon hates the woman's name and shoves the book into the seat pocket in front of him. He tries to cross his legs but doesn't have room. He decides to pretend to sleep so he can lean on Herakles' shoulder. Smelling Herakles' leather jacket, Geryon feels "a wave of longing as strong as a color" (118) move through his body. He feels Herakles' hand move to his thigh and he leans his head back "like a poppy in a breeze" (119). Herakles kisses Geryon and begins to unzip his pants. Geryon lets him. Later, two women with toothbrushes stumble down the aisle. Geryon regards them as "fine passengers" (119) and feels tenderness towards his fellow passengers when he sees that some of them have woken up with "little red flush marks on their cheeks" (119) from sleeping with their faces pressed to the seats.

At Ancash's mother's home, on her employer's roof, Geryon awakens to a "soiled white Saturday morning" (120). He watches a man on the roof next door lifting the lid of a "big rusted water tank" (120) then lowering it. Ancash greets Geryon, but their eyes fail to meet. Ancash, Geryon, and Herakles had slept the night before on the roof in sleeping bags they borrowed from the Americans. They'd slept beside the water tank, in the guest area. Ancash's room is next to that, bordered by a clothes line, a dresser, and a library over which Ancash made "a ceiling of palm fronds" (121). Ancash's mother keeps a small greenhouse of marijuana plants next to Ancash's room, which she sells to supplement her income. Ancash asks Geryon if he was cold last night and Geryon says he wasn't, but in truth, "he had never been so cold in his life" (121).

Geryon and Ancash stand at the roof's edge, looking out at the streets and the ocean beyond. The streets seem empty, but noises rise up to the roof: dogs, hammering, music, traffic. Geryon sees two men working, a boy sweeping, people eating breakfast, policemen with carbines, and a soccer team on the beach moving with "the rounded languor of a dream" (122). Geryon remarks that Lima seems different from Buenos Aires. Ancash asks what he means and Geryon says no one in Lima is in a hurry. He says to Ancash that everyone seems to be waiting for something. Ancash asks what they're waiting for and Geryon isn't sure.

Suddenly, the two hear a loud hiss. The electrical cord that runs across the roof has "exploded in light sparks" (122). Herakles appears at the roof's edge, holding a chunk of papaya. He tells Geryon it tastes like "eating the sun" (122). As he eats the fruit, juice runs down Herakles' bare face and chest, into the top of his jeans. Herakles asks Geryon if he's seen the parrots. The Americans have fifty birds, including a huge gold parrot that they have to get rid of because it "kills everything smaller than itself" (123). Herakles claims that last week the gold parrot killed the cat. Ancash says it's just "conjecture" (123), but Herakles insists. He asks Ancash who else could have killed the cat. "Guerrillas maybe" (123), Ancash offers. He explains that last winter, guerrillas killed all the cats in Huaraz in one weekend to protest the president of Peru's TV appearance in which he held a cat on his lap. The electrical cord starts to spark again, and Herakles asks if Ancash wants him to fix it. He and Ancash go downstairs to look for duct tape. Geryon stays on the roof, wondering why he's in Lima.

Geryon walks along the seawall, watching groups of people and individuals "waiting" (125). He walks back to the house, hearing the parrots, then goes up to the roof and thinks about how to photograph the sky. Geryon leaves the house again, walking along the seawall until he comes to a "ragged park" (125) where two llamas are tethered to a statue of a "gigantic bronze head" (125). Geryon sits in the head's mouth, bored. He tells the llamas that he'll "never amount to much" (125) and offers them half a banana, which they refuse.

Night begins to fall as Geryon returns to the house. He watches the red parrots dive around the front window "like a conscious waterfall" (126) and thinks that would be a good name for a photograph. Hours later, on his cot on the roof, Geryon considers going to sleep but is too cold to move. Ancash arrives with blankets and heaps them on the floor by Geryon. He tells Geryon he's going to show him how to keep warm and asks him if he needs to "take a piss" (126) because once Geryon's wrapped up, he'll have to stay that way until morning. Ancash tells Geryon to take off his overcoat just as Herakles joins them. He asks if they're having "a party" (126) without him. Ancash says he's showing Geryon how to stay warm for the night. Herakles says he could "show him some ways to stay warm" (126), too, and Ancash tells him to "let things be" (126). Herakles shrugs and turns away, saying he's going to "smoke dope" (127) with Ancash's mother.

Ancash holds out the wool blanket to Geryon and asks him again to take off his coat. Geryon asks Ancash to leave the blankets so he can do it himself but Ancash refuses. After some back and forth, Ancash pulls off Geryon's coat, thrusts the coat into Geryon's hands, then begins wrapping him in it. When Ancash sees Geryon's back, he stops and goes silent. He gives "a low whistle" (127) at Geryon's wings sticking out through "two slits cut in the back of Geryon's t-shirt" (128). Ancash touches the base of Geryon's wings and whispers the word "Yazcamac" (128), then tells Geryon that they need to sit down and talk.

He tells Geryon about a village in the mountains above Huaraz called Jucu, where people worship the nearby volcano as a god. Ancash says the people even threw other people into the volcano because they were looking for people who could see the inside of the volcano and come back "as red people with wings" (129). After this endeavor, Ancash says, all the survivors' "weaknesses" (129) and "mortality" (129) burn away. Geryon begins scratching himself furiously. Ancash pulls the blanket off of Geryon and tells him it probably has "parrot ticks" (129) from the birds inside. Herakles comes "bounding up the ladder" (129) and sits beside Geryon on the cot. Herakles announces that they're going to Huaraz for the weekend. Ancash's mother wants to show them the town and the Americans gave her the day off. Herakles grabs Geryon and pins him on the cot. Geryon tells him to "fuck off" (129). Herakles jumps up, says he has to call the car rental place, and goes back down the ladder.

Ancash warns Geryon that he'll have to be careful in Huaraz. People are still looking for "eyewitnesses" (130), so if Geryon notices someone "checking" (130) his shadow, come and get Ancash. Geryon agrees. Ancash says if Geryon's cold tonight, he can come sleep with him. "Just sleep," (130) Ancash clarifies, then leaves the roof. Geryon gets into his sleeping bag and sleeps "until dawn without moving" (130). 

In the car on their way to Huaraz, Geryon sits in the back seat with Ancash while Herakles and Ancash's mother sit up front. Geryon recalls his dream from the night before in which a forest of "huge blackish-brown thorn trees" (131) tore at "strangely lovely" (131) young dinosaurs, leaving their skin behind in strips. Geryon thinks he would call that photograph "Human Valentines" (131). Herakles orders a tamale from a street vendor at a stoplight, and shouts at the children swarming the car to move.

They make their way through the "filthy white sludge of Lima suburbs" (131) where Geryon watches children in "spotless" (132) school uniforms emerge from their cardboard homes. They drive on in "a dense fist of fog" (132) before starting their ascent to Huaraz. Everyone in the car stays silent. Geryon remembers always wondering what Herakles was thinking when they were together. Sometimes, Geryon would say, "Penny for your thoughts" (132) to Herakles, but he would always respond with something "odd" (132) like a bumper sticker. Herakles never asked Geryon what he was thinking. Geryon also remembers that Herakles once told him he had a fantasy of having sex in a car "by a man who tied his hands to the door" (133). Geryon wonders if that's what Herakles is thinking about now.

Rounding a corner, the car emerges from darkness into a "bowl of gold where the last moments of sunset were exploding" (133). Then they pass back into darkness. Finally, they pass a group of women huddled on the ground smoking a cigarette in "the glare of the moon" (133) and Geryon announces they're in Huaraz.

The group stays in Huaraz's Hotel Turístico. In the hotel dining room, in the morning, Geryon remarks that they seem to be the only guests. Ancash says there aren't any tourists, foreigners, or even Peruvians north of Lima now. He says they won't come out of fear. Herakles comments that the coffee tastes weird and Ancash's mother says, in Quechua,that it has cow's blood in it, which is supposed to "strengthen your heart" (134). Herakles puts on his jacket and asks who wants to go exploring.

Huaraz's main street rises "in sharp relations of light towards the fist of snow" (134) in the northern mountains. All along the street, vendors sell things. All of the men, women, and children wear fedoras. Geryon speaks little and takes photographs.

Geryon's photograph shows four people sitting around a table with hands in front of them" (136). In the center, a pipe glows. Setting up the photograph seems to take "a very long while" (136) and Geryon realizes he's never "been so stoned in his life" (136). He feels naked. He feels like he wants to be in love with someone. He feels something swoop towards him and ducks. One of the others asks, "what was that?" (136) and turns towards Geryon "centuries later" (136).

Geryon rests his camera on the car's rear window. Sitting in the car for too long has given Geryon hemorrhoids, and which each jolt up the mountain road, a "hot apple icepicks all the way up his anus to his spine" (137). Herakles and Ancash, in the front seat, are discussing Yeats. Ancash's accented English renders Yeats as 'Jeats' and Herakles is trying to get him to pronounce the y-sound. From the backseat, Ancash's mother announces that "English is a bitch" (137). Ancash hits the brakes as "four soldiers appear from nowhere" (137) and surround the car. Geryon focuses his camera on their guns, but Ancash's mother sweeps it out of sight, between Geryon's legs. The photograph captures Geryon's pant leg. 

The police take Ancash and Herakles into "a little adobe house" (138) while Geryon waits in the car with Ancash's mother. He takes a photograph of two burros "grazing on spiky grass in a stubble field" (138). He wonders what it is about burros. Ancash's mother says, "a few fast harsh Spanish words" (138) and Geryon feels emboldened by her "stating her mind boldly today" (138). He asks her what it is about burros. She says, in English, that she guesses they're "waiting to inherit the earth" (138). She gives a "rough laugh" (138) that Geryon thinks about all day.

The four soldiers invite the group for a lunch of guinea pig. Geryon photographs the dead guinea pig on the plate in front of him, its left eye "looking straight up at Geryon" (139). The others eat "with gusto" (139) but Geryon looks around the room. Shadows come in through a hole cut in the roof, the iron stove crackles, a few "survivor guinea pigs" (139) run around, and a TV propped on "three Inca Kola crates" (139) plays Jeopardy!. One of the soldiers tells Herakles that the volcano, Icchantikas, is active. The soldier says that the town of Jucu is built into the volcano's slope and that villagers bake bread in holes in the slope's wall, where one can "look through and see the fire" (139). Herakles doesn't believe the soldier. Ancash's mother says it's true; it's called "Lava bread" (139). Geryon asks what Icchantikas means. Ancash's mother says something to Ancash in Quechua, but a soldier interrupts Ancash as he turns to tell Geryon. The soldiers say they must be leaving.

Herakles and Geryon have just had sex in the hotel room. Herakles sleeps, but Geryon lies beside him, crying. Geryon had been thinking about times before when they'd had sex. He tells Herakles he is thinking about "how apart people are in time together and apart at the same time" (141). Herakles wipes Geryon's tears with one hand then gets out of bed to go to the bathroom. Afterwards, Herakles stands at the window for a while before coming back to bed. He comments that it's "just another Saturday morning me laughing you crying" (141), "just like the old days" (141). Geryon takes a photograph of Herakles' back, "long and bluish" (141) in the predawn light. 

Geryon gets dressed and leaves the hotel. He ends up in the hotel garden, where he finds Ancash sitting on a bench "motionless with knees under his chin and arms folded on his knees" (142). Geryon says good morning, but Ancash doesn't respond. Geryon tries to make conversation, but Ancash still says nothing. Finally, their eyes meet and the two rise. Ancash hits Geryon in the face twice, and Geryon tries to land a punch but can't. They stop fighting and Ancash wipes Geryon's bleeding nose with his shirt. They sit back on the bench together. After a moment, Ancash asks if Geryon loves Herakles. Geryon thinks about it and says he does in his "dreams of the old days" (143). Ancash asks what about now. Geryon says that "it's not there now" (144). After another moment of silence, Ancash asks Geryon what it's like "fucking him now" (144). Geryon says it's "degrading" (144) and Ancash recoils then apologizes for asking. Ancash tells Geryon the one thing he wants from him is to see his wings. At that moment, Herakles comes bounding toward them, yelling "Buen' dia!" (144). Geryon fumbles for his camera in his coat pocket and snaps a photo of Herakles' face. In the photo, Herakles has "the face of an old man" (144). 

Geryon wakes Ancash at four-thirty in the morning to ask him how long the batteries in his tape recorder last. Ancash says about three hours and asks Geryon what he's up to. Geryon says he wants to give Ancash "something to remember me by" (145). Geryon decides to fly over Icchantikas and record it for Ancash. He hasn't "flown for years" (145), but he makes his way over the volcano and "peers down at the earth heart" (145) of the volcano. The photograph Geryon does not take is called "The Only Secret People Keep" (145). 

At Icchantikas, the group watches a man prepare bread dough to shove into "a square hole filled with flames cut into the back wall" (146). Herakles, Ancash, and Geryon have been "quarreling all day" (146), but now stroll the "dark streets" of Jucu. Looking at the "volcano in a wall" (146), Geryon reflects that "we are amazing beings" (146). 

The anonymous interviewer asks Stesichoros about blindness and Stesichoros responds that first he will "tell about seeing" (147). He says that up until 1907, he saw and enjoyed seeing. He saw "everything everyone saw" (148) because he saw it first. He says he was "in charge of seeing for the world" (148). Stesichoros says that the only downside was if he blinked, the "world went blind" (148). He stopped blinking from 1907 until the "start of the war" (148). The interviewer asks Stesichoros to speak about description in form versus content. Stesichoros says there is no difference. The interviewer asks about the "little hero Geryon" (149) and Stesichoros says it's red that he likes and that there is a link between "geology and character" (149), though he's not sure what it is. The interviewer brings up Helen and Stesichoros says that there "is no Helen" (149). The interviewer says they believe their time is up. Stesichoros says he's glad they didn't ask about "the little red dog" (149), and the interviewer says, "next time" (149).