9. If it was not a lie either we are now in reverse and by continuing to reason in this way are likely to arrive back at the beginning of the question of the blinding of Stesichoros or we are not.
10. If we are now in reverse and by continuing to reason in this way are likely to arrive back at the beginning of the question of the blinding of Stesichoros either we will go along without incident or we will meet Stesichoros on our way back.
11. If we meet Stesichoros on our way back either we will keep quiet or we will look him in the eye and ask him what he thinks of Helen.
12. If we look Stesichoros in the eye and ask him what he thinks of Helen either he will tell the truth or he will lie.
13. If Stesichoros lies either we will know at once that he is lying or we will be fooled because now that we are in reverse the whole landscape looks inside out.
14. If we are fooled because now that we are in reverse the whole landscape looks inside out either we will find that we do not have a single penny on us or we will call Helen up and tell her the good news.
15. If we call Helen up either she will sit with her glass of vermouth and let it ring or she will answer.
16. If she answers either we will (as they say) leave well enough alone or we will put Stesichoros on.
17. If we put Stesichoros on either he will contend that he now sees more clearly than ever before the truth about her whoring or he will admit he is a liar.
18. If Stesichoros admits he is a liar either we will melt into the crowd or we will stay to see how Helen reacts.
19. If we stay to see how Helen reacts either we will find ourselves pleasantly surprised by her dialectical abilities or we will be taken downtown by the police for questioning.
20. If we are taken downtown by the police for questioning either we will be expected (as eyewitnesses) to clear up once and for all the question whether Stesichoros was a blind man or not.
21. If Stesichoros was a blind man either we will lie or if not not.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF RED
A ROMANCE
The reticent volcano keeps
His never slumbering plan—
Confided are his projects pink
To no precarious man.
If nature will not tell the tale
Jehovah told to her
Can human nature not survive
Without a listener?
Admonished by her buckled lips
Let every babbler be
The only secret people keep
Is Immortality.
EMILY DICKINSON,
NO. 1748
I. JUSTICE
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Geryon learned about justice from his brother quite early.
————
They used to go to school together. Geryon’s brother was bigger and older,
he walked in front
sometimes broke into a run or dropped on one knee to pick up a stone.
Stones make my brother happy,
thought Geryon and he studied stones as he trotted along behind.
So many different kinds of stones,
the sober and the uncanny, lying side by side in the red dirt.
To stop and imagine the life of each one!
Now they were sailing through the air from a happy human arm,
what a fate. Geryon hurried on.
Arrived at the schoolyard. He was focusing hard on his feet and his steps.
Children poured around him
and the intolerable red assault of grass and the smell of grass everywhere
was pulling him towards it
like a strong sea. He could feel his eyes leaning out of his skull
on their little connectors.
He had to make it to the door. He had to not lose track of his brother.
These two things.
School was a long brick building on a north–south axis. South: Main Door
through which all boys and girls must enter.
North: Kindergarten, its large round windows gazing onto the backwoods
and surrounded by a hedge of highbush cranberry.
Between Main Door and Kindergarten ran a corridor. To Geryon it was
a hundred thousand miles
of thunder tunnels and indoor neon sky slammed open by giants.
Hand in hand on the first day of school
Geryon crossed this alien terrain with his mother. Then his brother
performed the task day after day.
But as September moved into October an unrest was growing in Geryon’s brother.
Geryon had always been stupid
but nowadays the look in his eyes made a person feel strange.
Just take me once more I’ll get it this time,
Geryon would say. The eyes terrible holes. Stupid, said Geryon’s brother
and left him.
Geryon had no doubt stupid was correct. But when justice is done
the world drops away.
He stood on his small red shadow and thought what to do next.
Main Door rose before him. Perhaps—
peering hard Geryon made his way through the fires in his mind to where
the map should be.
In place of a map of the school corridor lay a deep glowing blank.
Geryon’s anger was total.
The blank caught fire and burned to baseline. Geryon ran.
After that Geryon went to school alone.
He did not approach Main Door at all. Justice is pure. He would make his way
around the long brick sidewall,
past the windows of Seventh Grade, Fourth Grade, Second Grade and Boys’
to the north end of the school
and position himself in the bushes outside Kindergarten. There he would stand
motionless
until someone inside noticed and came out to show him the way.
He did not gesticulate.
He did not knock on the glass. He waited. Small, red, and upright he waited,
gripping his new bookbag tight
in one hand and touching a lucky penny inside his coat pocket with the other,
while the first snows of winter
floated down on his eyelashes and covered the branches around him and silenced
all trace of the world.
II. EACH
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Like honey is the sleep of the just.
————
When Geryon was little he loved to sleep but even more he loved to wake up.
He would run outside in his pajamas.
Hard morning winds were blowing life bolts against the sky each one blue enough
to begin a world of its own.
The word each blew towards him and came apart on the wind. Geryon had always
had this trouble: a word like each,
when he stared at it, would disassemble itself into separate letters and go.
A space for its meaning remained there but blank.
The letters themselves could be found hung on branches or furniture in the area.
What does each mean?
Geryon had asked his mother. She never lied to him. Once she said the meaning
it would stay.
She answered, Each means like you and your brother each have your own room.
He clothed himself in this strong word each.
He spelled it at school on the blackboard (perfectly) with a piece of red silk chalk.
He thought softly
of other words he could keep with him like beach and screach. Then they moved
Geryon into his brother’s room.
It happened by accident. Geryon’s grandmother came to visit and fell off the bus.
The doctors put her together again
with a big silver pin. Then she and her pin had to lie still in Geryon’s room
for many months. So began Geryon’s nightlife.
Before this time Geryon
had not lived nights just days and their red intervals.
What’s that smell in your room? asked Geryon.
Geryon and his brother were lying in the dark in their bunk beds Geryon on top.
When Geryon moved his arms or legs
the bedsprings made an enjoyable PING SHUNK SHUNK PING enclosing him from below
like a thick clean bandage.
There’s no smell in my room, said Geryon’s brother. Maybe it’s your socks,
or the frog did you
bring the frog in? said Geryon. What smells in here is you Geryon.
Geryon paused.
He had a respect for facts maybe this was one. Then he heard