Autobiography Of Red

As a little boy, Geryon loves to sleep. He also loves to wake up and "run outside in his pajamas" (26). One morning, he begins to ponder the word 'each.' He asks his mother what the word means, and she tells Geryon that it means "like you and your brother each have your own room" (26). This arrangement doesn't last long, though. When Geryon's grandmother comes to visit and suffers an injury, she has to convalesce in Geryon's room and Geryon moves into his brother's room. Geryon sleeps on the top bunk and enjoys the "ping shunk shunk ping" (27) sound of the mattress springs settling around him when he moves. Geryon asks his brother what the smell in his room is, but Geryon's brother denies any culpability and blames the smell on Geryon.

Later in the night, Geryon hears his brother masturbating, or "pulling on his stick" (27) on the bunk below, "as he did most nights before sleep" (27). When Geryon asks his brother why he's doing this, his brother tells him it's none of his business and asks to see Geryon's penis. Geryon resists, but his brother promises him a cat's-eye marble. Geryon agrees, thinking about how he'd never been able to win a cat's-eye and how "pulling the stick" (28) makes his brother happy. Geryon's brother tells Geryon that he owes him and if he doesn't do what he says, he'll tell their mom that no one at school likes Geryon. Geryon goes down to his brother's bunk and "let his brother do what he liked" (28). Afterwards, Geryon's brother says he'll take him swimming the next day.

Geryon and his brother go swimming the next day and eat "jam-and-sand sandwiches" (29). Geryon's brother finds an "American dollar bill" (29) and gives it to Geryon, while Geryon finds "a piece of old war helmet" (29) and hides it. Geryon decides that he will start working on his "autobiography" (29), in which he records his "inside things" (29) and "coolly" leaves out "outside things" (29). 

Geryon's mother goes out for the evening, leaving Geryon and his brother in a babysitter's care. Geryon dreads his mother leaving but admires how good she looks before she leaves. Geryon's brother asks if he wants to wrestle then puts an "empty tin fruit bowl" (30) over Geryon's head. Geryon wants to know what time it is, and Geryon's brother teases him about not being able to tell time. He starts to choke Geryon, telling him that he could break his neck with "one surprise twist" (31). The babysitter arrives and Geryon's brother retreats. She tells Geryon it's a quarter to eight; his mother will be home around eleven.

The babysitter asks Geryon what he'd like her to read to him, to help him fall asleep. He tells her to read "the loon book" (32), an instruction manual for "calling loons" (32). It's not something Geryon's mother usually reads. Geryon plans this to keep the babysitter's "wrong voice" (32) away from "words that belonged to his mother" (32). While the babysitter reads to Geryon on his bed, Geryon's brother comes to join them. He has a thick rubber band that he snaps on Geryon's leg until the babysitter stops him. Geryon's brother asks the babysitter what her favorite weapon is, and he says that his is the catapult. The babysitter says her is the garrote, a kind noose used for stealth murders. Geryon says his favorite is a cage. His brother tells him a cage isn't a weapon because it doesn't do anything. Just then, Geryon hears him mother come home and inside him "something burst into flames" (33). Geryon runs for her.

Geryon's brother and father go to hockey practice every second Tuesday during winter. Geryon cherishes those nights, when he and his mother turn on all the lights in the house and have dinner together on "supper trays" (34) in the living room. They eat canned peaches with buttered toast. Geryon's mother talks on the phone to a friend while smoking and Geryon works on his "autobiography" (35) by "gluing a cigarette to a tomato" (34). He rips up a ten-dollar bill to use as hair and his mother tells him it's a "beautiful sculpture" (35) but asks him to use a one-dollar bill instead next time.

Geryon stands with his face pressed against the screen door, inhaling its "dusty almost medieval smell" (36), and watching the "dark pink air" (36) outside. His mother, standing at the ironing board and lighting her cigarette, tells him for the third time that it’s time to go to school. She tells him it would be hard for him if he were weak, but he's not weak. She "neatens his little red wings" (36) and pushes him out the door.

Geryon learns to write and in the "beautiful" (37) notebook his mother's friend gives him from Japan, Geryon writes "Autobiography" (37). He writes down "Total Facts Known About Geryon" (37), which include: he is a red monster, he lives on an island called the Red Place in the Atlantic, his mother is a river, his father is gold, and some say he has "six hands six feet some say wings" (37). He also writes that one day Herakles comes and kills Geryon's "strange red cattle" (37). Geryon then writes the question, "Why did Herakles kill Geryon?" (37). He poses four answers: "Just violent" (37), "had to" (37) because it was Herakles' tenth labor, and finally, that Herakles "got the idea that Geryon was Death otherwise he could live forever" (37). Finally, Geryon notes that Geryon had a "little red dog" (37) that Herakles also killed.

At Parent-Teacher Day at Geryon's school, his teacher asks his mother where Geryon gets his ideas. Geryon's mother asks the teacher if Geryon ever writes anything with a happy ending. Geryon replies by taking his paper "carefully" (38) from the teacher's hand and adding a new ending: "All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand in hand" (38). 

At age fourteen, Geryon meets Herakles and his life shifts "down a few notches" (39). They meet at the local Bus Depot where Geryon has come to get change for a pay phone and Herakles is disembarking the bus from New Mexico. Immediately struck by each other, Herakles stops just at the bus's bottom step and Geryon approaches Herakles, asking if he has change for a dollar. Herakles says he'll give Geryon a quarter for free because he believes in "being gracious" (39). They spend the next few hours together, hanging out by the railroad tracks under the "switch lights” (39). Noticing that they're cold, Herakles takes Geryon's hands and puts them inside his own shirt. 

Geryon sits at the kitchen table at home across from his mother, aiming his camera at her. His mother asks him about Herakles, whether it's true he's older and lives in a trailer park. She asks Geryon if that's where he goes at night. Geryon's "recently relinquished speech" (40) so he meets her questions with silence. Geryon's mother says she doesn't trust "people who move around only at night" (40), but she trusts him. She tells him she wonders why she didn't teach him anything useful, but comments that Geryon probably knows more about sex than she does. Geryon adjust the focus on his camera lens. His mother says that Geryon was "an insomniac" (40) as a babyand used to lay on his back "staring into the dark" (41). Geryon would only fall asleep if she took him into the TV room.

Geryon's brother comes into the kitchen and asks Geryon if he wants to come downtown with him. He tells Geryon to bring money. Geryon slowly goes to join him, taking his camera with him. 

Geryon sees Herakles every day and notices that it makes him feel empty and full of "ghosts rustling like an old map" (42). He notices that love doesn’t make him "gentle or kind" (42). As Geryon's getting ready to leave the house, Geryon's mother tells him she left some clean T-shirts in his drawer for him. He tells her the one he's wearing is clean, and that it's supposed to look the way that it does. She asks Geryon when he'll be home and he says that he won’t be too late.

Geryon's mother asks him what he likes "about this guy Herakles" (43). A "thousand things he could not tell" (43) flow over Geryon's mind, but he says that Herakles knows "a lot about art" (43) and they have "good discussions" (43). 

Geryon and Herakles are sitting in Herakles' car, "parked way out on the highway" (44). Herakles tells Geryon he's someone who will "never be satisfied" (44). This question arouses Geryon and he asks Herakles what he means. Herakles doesn't quite clarify, so Geryon broaches the subject of sex. Geryon doesn't understand why "it really matters which acts" (44) of attention people give to and receive from each other. Herakles says sex is "a way of getting to know someone" (44). Geryon wants to ask if people who like sex "have a question about it" (45) like he does, but instead he asks Herakles if he thinks about sex every day. Herakles stiffens and says, "that isn't a question it's an accusation" (45), then switches on the ignition and speeds "onto the back of the night" (45).

The night before Geryon and Herakles leave for Hades, Herakles' hometown, they paint the high school with the words "Spirit rules secretly alone the body achieves nothing" (46). Herakles asks Geryon if he's ever seen a volcano and Geryon feels "his soul move in his side" (46). Geryon leaves "a note full of lies" (46) on the fridge for his mother and he and Herakles head west on the island. It's a "cold green summer night" (46) and Herakles tells Geryon that the active volcano in Hades last blew in 1923. Herakles' grandmother survived its aftermath and even took a photograph of it happening, where "three p.m. looks like midnight" (46). Geryon asks if anyone survived and Herakles says yes, one man did. He was locked in a jail cell and it's his grandmother's "favorite story" (47). "Lava Man," (47) Geryon replies. Herakles says Geryon's going to love his family.

In his bed at Herakles' family's house in Hades, Geryon lies "hot and motionless" (48), pondering what it would be like to be "a woman listening in the dark" (48). As he imagines a woman listening to the "black mantle of silence" (48) and a rapist coming up the stairs "as slow as lava" (48), Geryon falls asleep.

Geryon awakens to a "houseful of tumbling humans and their language" (49). Disoriented, he makes his way "thickly downstairs" (49), to the back porch, where he spots Herakles "stretched on the grass making sleepy talk" (49). Herakles says his world is "very slow right now" (49). Sitting on a picnic table nearby, Herakles' grandmother discusses death. She talks about watching her brother, who was conscious but mute during his last days, die. Geryon sees a "big red butterfly" (49) riding by on the back of a "little black one" (49). Geryon comments that it's nice, the little black one is helping the big red one. Herakles opens his eyes, sees the butterflies, and replies, "He's fucking him" (49). Herakles' grandmother chastises him. Herakles says that his "heart aches" (50) when he's bad, then asks Geryon if he can show him the volcano.