Free The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson Page A

say to her,
     
    “Don’t climb so fast”?
The waiter passed behind Lazer. He was moving at a tilt.
     
    Black outside air tossed itself
     
    hard against the windows. Lazer looked down at his watch.
I must go,
he said
     
    and he was winding his yellow scarf
     
    about his neck as he rose. Oh don’t go, thought Geryon who felt himself starting
     
    to slide off the surface of the room
     
    like an olive off a plate. When the plate attained an angle of thirty degrees
     
    he would vanish into his own blankness.
     
    But then his glance caught Lazer’s.
I have enjoyed our conversation,
said Lazer.
     
    Yes,
said Geryon.
Thank you.
     
    They touched hands. Lazer bowed slightly and turned and went out. A gust of night
     
    pushed its way in the door
     
    and everyone inside wavered once like stalks in a field then resumed their talk.
     
    Geryon subsided into his overcoat
     
    letting the talk flow over him warm as a bath. He felt for the moment concrete
     
    and indivisible. The philosophers
     
    were joking about cigarettes and Spanish banks and Leibniz, then politics.
     
    One man recounted how
     
    the governor of Puerto Rico had recently proclaimed it an injustice to exclude
     
    citizens from the democratic process
     
    merely because they were insane. Apparatus for voting was transported
     
    to the state asylum. Indeed
     
    the insane proved to be serious and creative voters. Many improved the ballot
     
    by writing in candidates
     
    they trusted would help the country. Eisenhower, Mozart, and St. John of the Cross
     
    were popular suggestions. Now
     
    the yellowbeard spoke up with a story from Spain. Franco too had understood
     
    the uses of madness.
     
    He was in the habit of busing large groups of supporters to his rallies.
     
    On one occasion the local madhouses
     
    were emptied for this purpose. Next day the newspapers reported cheerfully:
     
    SUBNORMALS BEHIND YOU ALL THE WAY FRANCO !
     
    Geryon’s cheekbones hurt from smiling. He drained his water glass and chewed
     
    the bits of ice then reached
     
    across for Lazer’s glass. He was ravenous. Try not to think about food. No hope
     
    of dinner till probably ten p.m.
     
    Willed his attention back to the conversation which had wandered to tails.
     
    It is not widely known,
     
    the yellowbeard was saying,
that twelve percent of babies in the world are born
     
    with tails. Doctors suppress this news.
     
    They cut off the tail so it won’t scare the parents. I wonder what percentage
     
    are born with wings,
said Geryon
     
    into the collar of his overcoat. They went on to discuss the nature of boredom
     
    ending with a long joke about monks
     
    and soup that Geryon could not follow although it was explained to him twice.
     
    The punch line contained
     
    a Spanish phrase meaning
bad milk
which caused the philosophers to lean
     
    their heads on the table in helpless joy.
     
    Jokes make them happy, thought Geryon watching. Then a miracle occurred
     
    in the form of a plate of sandwiches.
     
    Geryon took three and buried his mouth in a delicious block of white bread
     
    filled with tomatoes and butter and salt.
     
    He thought about how delicious it was, how he liked slippery foods, how
     
    slipperiness can be of different kinds.
     
    I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.
     
    He would like to discuss this with someone.
     
    And for a moment the frailest leaves of life contained him in a widening happiness.
     
    When he got back to the hotel room
     
    he set up the camera on the windowsill and activated the timer, then positioned
     
    himself on the bed.
     
    It is a black-and-white photograph showing a naked young man in fetal position.
     
    He has entitled it “No Tail!”
     
    The fantastic fingerwork of his wings is outspread on the bed like a black lace
     
    map of South America.
     
     

XXXI. TANGO
     
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