The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children

by Connell, Brendan

  I tried to keep his spirits up, he thought. You tried, he told himself. You tried but you did not give more of yourself than you thought was essential. You blew it man; hard. Validate all you like, but you blew it and can only pray to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and hope and pray for heaven.

  And then there was the field of white fingers, parade of turf, choking agitation, underground rivers of distilled flesh, rolling to outlet.

  XIII.

  Virginia begins to receive mail from the casinos regularly: pamphlets, propaganda. She masks her habit, fabricates stories about where the family money goes, tells bottomless lies, bribes her children in order to keep their mouths shut. She rotates between the TV and the refrigerator, grows fat, stupid, lazy, indentured to greenbacks.

  “Meatloaf! Are you joking?” Peter says at the dinner table. “This is the third night running. Not to mention the fact that you use so many breadcrumbs the stuff belongs in a bakery. Where is the prime rib? Are we paupers? Have I been chasing the American dream in order to eat mystery meat?”

  Virginia laughs it off. She can pass almost anything off as meat. She is clever that way. Still, the money she is managing to save by feeding her family scraps hardly makes up for that which is sucked down by the slot machines. She runs down to the casinos the moment Peter is out the door. She gambles away whatever she can get her hands on, never stopping to think how big the odds are against her.

  XIV.

  “Twenty-five limousines side to side is what, about two-hundred foot?” said Merle. “When you did twenty-one last year you didn't have much room to spare as I recall, so I don’t see . . .”

  “We just need to change the dynamics of the jump,” said Payne. “Make the ramps more effective. . . . Hell, I can figure it out.”

  *

  He prayed frequently, planned. Pictured a flour-white Jesus before him, rallying him across the twenty-five limos with the magical power of Christianity. The image would become distorted: Jesus appearing with a turned up, lop-sided nose . . . his hair black, curly . . . lips grinning sarcastically.

  Peter made mental offerings to the deity in order to placate him. He had managed to arrive at a satisfactory agreement with God before a jump, laying his children, wife and faith at the altar of monotheism. His courage was largely based on a belief in the divine presence; in divine protection.

  He kneeled in prayer, hands clasped, head bowed. It was a Tuesday afternoon, the church was nearly empty. A woman several pews behind him fanned herself with a pamphlet. He felt sticky, uncomfortable down to his loins. He poured forth his heart to Jesus Christ, an awful plaster statue, a ludicrous piece of trash. Vehement, like an idol-worshipping savage he prayed, coppery taste in mouth, anus contracted, lips pressed tense.

  He got up and remembered how it was. His station wagon was there, he thought, and I can’t say I knew because I don’t know what I knew, just felt something and did not even bother to knock and opened up and went in. You felt something, he told himself. You felt something and had been feeling it for a long time and it was like you always knew what kind of a seed he was and you could smell it all rotten like puke.

  There was that smell and the mellow buzzing of flies in the heat of the trailer and a sense of decay and sadness, even when you go through a dead man’s clothes years later, not rotten but subtle odour and were told and crashed in the belly of water.

  XV.

  “Pete’s not here right now. I don’t know when he'll be back. You’re welcome to wait for him if you want though. . . . It’s just me and Sarah here. Blaine is off spending the night at a friend’s house,” said Virginia.

  “That sounds fine,” said Merle sitting down.

  Sarah lay on the rug watching television.

  Virginia had been inwardly lamenting the fact that she was cut off from the casino for the night. She had $300 in her pocketbook that her husband knew nothing about . . . To see this money multiply, thicken substantially . . . That's pleasure . . . For each dollar to give birth to ten . . . Sarah was the only obstacle . . . Yet Merle . . . She could leave her . . .

  “Say Merle,” said Virginia. “You wouldn’t by any chance be willing to babysit Sarah here for an hour or so while I take a run to the store, would you? There’s beer in the fridge and food and you could drink beer and watch TV and watch her until I get back.”

  Sarah looked up sleepily, forehead wrinkled, dissatisfied.

  “No, I don’t mind,” replied Merle. “I’m sitting here anyhow. . . . You go ahead. She’ll be here when you get back.”

  Hearing the door slam his heart ticked. He went to the refrigerator and opened a can of beer. Sarah was falling asleep. He sat back down and watched as her eyelids sunk.

  “She’s asleep,” he said aloud. “I better take her to bed.”

  He picked her little body up in his arms. Her mouth dropped open, the chapped mouth of a child, like a wound on her face. . . . Laying her down on the mattress. . . . An innocent room, wallpaper spotted with balloons of basic colours, red, yellow, blue.

  He watched her breath. . . . Face puffing, perspiring, his nostrils quivering. . . . It was only later that he would think, I’m such a coward, such a God damned coward believing when that tree grew tall and man lazy could no longer climb it only fit for the axe then there is the grandeur of being hated and self-hated some dish left out to rot if only I too could fly through the air a condor.

  Yet whatever was dirty, volatile about his nature . . .

  She lay innoxious, emblematic (to him) of his own social inadequacy, venery, that moment of crime, an explosion of filth, that irreversibly severs all cords of virtue, exposes man as a spineless amphibian living off the carcasses of ladybugs and butterflies, melting their delicate wings between tongue and teeth.

  Peter came home and Merle was sitting on the couch drinking a beer and Virginia was not there, but Sarah was in her room already, and the man who rode the motorcycle said angry words about his wife.

  XVI.

  Peter Payne spent the day in his trailer in quiet contemplation. At noon he walked around the jump site, inspected the ramp, looked out over the parking lot where they would be. When a reporter asked him if he was prepared to go through with it he replied, “Well I’ve got certain contracatory obligations so, like it or not, I’ve got to just go ahead and do it.” Early in the evening he ate a light meal, alone, but the Salisbury steak was without flavour and he did not have faith in it.

  When the time came he put on his leather outfit, took up his helmet and went out to his bike. Merle informed him that it was in condition.

  *

  The incalculable eyes of night laughed, rockets shot up spraying mallow, lilac, mauve . . . popping, crackling. . . . An odour of sulphur tinged the air. The human animals once again gathered around to see, as wolves might gather around the glow of a dying fire.

  “Hell,” said Merle. “This’ll be a hell of a jump.” There was tension, naked, breathed, yes, them. Their white faces formed a wall of worm-like countenance, the many arms and legs postured, gestured accordingly, as some strange satanic beast, teeth shining through the slash of lips, red tongues moist, flickering.

  Once again Peter Payne rides out. A wheelie. Cheers.

  He gathers strength by riding back and forth before the people, one wheel jacked up in the air, his white uniform dramatically patriotic, warrior-like. He accepts the gurgle of praise. He has a love of his fans, the American people, an attachment to them, he would verily throw his body at their mercy.

  Eyes viewing the universe through the visor of his helmet, an armour of leather covering his skin—no inch of epidermis showed out of this shell. These acts performed on the dust of the earth assumed Gargantuan proportion, truly epic, immortal, as a star at dawn, larvae. The disembodied voice of the announcer rang out describing in clean masculine tones the madness of the event.

  Once again Payne goes through the motions of testing the jump, riding up on the ramp, viewing the cars before him. He gives the thumbs-up.
>
  “So that’s it?” Merle asks running up.

  “It’s as it as it’s going to be,” says Peter Payne.

  Amidst the hush of the fans his bike screams toward the ramp, angling up it. He shoots into the air, over limousines, yet falling short of the opposite ramp, the other shore so to speak, his front tire hits the front hood of the next to last car, slipping, the man’s body hurled violently against the pavement, hands still clinging to the bike as it comes after him, bouncing against his back and twisting away.

  XVII.

  What was his view of reality?

  It was not mundane in the absolute sense of the word. He superimposed the mythopoeic vision of God on the corporeal world, lending his life that essence of naiveté necessary to soar above the common strains. His thought patterns stemmed from a definite ego, not altogether catholic, which subordinated certain glories as fixed property for him alone. The honour of the male Homo sapiens naturally tinged his environment; the habits inherited from the ape naturally lent his outlook the perfume of brutality. He saw the world through the fog of the Western Anglo, subliminal frequencies transmitting silhouettes of cowboys, victorious soldiers, tattered flags, hitchhikers on lone prairies, longhorns—all overlapping, American in label.

  How did he, Mr. Payne, think?

  His initial reaction to situations produced images, calling on his storehouse of previous impressions, prejudices, inherent tendencies. These coagulated into calculations, emotions, shocks that impelled his person forward, to perform tasks, jump cars, pray to Christ, penetrate his wife. His thoughts co-ordinated themselves according to his geographic location. The United States appeared against the panorama of the universe as immense, far outsizing suns, solar systems, how much more so opposing countries. The Witness watched within, relatively indifferent, clean, apart from the vile places Peter’s hands went, performing his mortal functions of defecation and procreation. The laughter, the agony of his life, were lines penned in the air, fruits bit into bursting like bubbles. His thoughts were countless, sordid, grand, sleazy, ambitious, pitiful. He thought often.

  Did he love his family?

  He loved his son and daughter by ties of kinship, as one loves one’s country. He loved his wife conjugally, originally with attachment and sexual passion, as a source of gratification, later only in the sense of the actual physical action (almost as a commandment).

  Was he afraid?

  No.

  XVIII.

  I heard her crying in the middle of the night, but I didn’t say anything because I had heard Dad tell Merle that no one could understand women and Merle said that only pink sissies could, his voice blurpy like a toad's and his hair all strung on his scalp like a doll’s. She's just a little girl, but I bet she will be a funny woman. So she didn’t come because they kept saying that she was traumatized but I went into the elevator and pressed six and did not wait to hear. They told me at the desk what room he was in and then the nurse saw I didn’t know and took me past the machines and in there. There was just the white cast like a mummy, like something from the movies but I saw his eyes and knew he was in there because they were looking at me. They were bright and true-blue and he looked at me. He couldn’t move because of all those casts. He wasn’t dead because he was looking at me, because he talked to me, or made sounds that I understood when I listened close. He said he bet that I didn’t want to ride a bike any more. I told him I did. They say wages are bad. I am Blaine so I don’t want to work for wages. He’s old and he won't do anything any more. That’s probably that punishment. I should not care. I’m Blaine so I should not care. I’m a brick.

  Endnotes

  1) DRAMATIS PERSONÆ:

  Polycrates, Tyrant of Samos

  Pantagnotus, his Brother

  Syloson, his Brother, a Luxuriant

  Anacreon, Poet

  Eriphyle, Polycrates’ Daughter

  Theodorus, Artist, Architect, Inventor

  Telecles, Sculptor, Brother of Theodorus

  Echoiax, Cook

  Pison, a Flatterer

  Maeandrius, Secretary

  Ibycus, Poet

  Democedes, Physician

  Heracles, Buffoon

  Bathyllus, a Youth

  Polydor, Athlete, Marshal

  Periphoretus Artemon, Engineer

  Eupalinus, Hydraulic Engineer

  Geneleos, a Sculptor

  Telesarchus, a Citizen

  Ariston, a Spartan King

  Anaxandridas, a Spartan King

  Oroetes, Satrap of Sardis

  Tellias, Soothsayer

  2) He won the wreath of wild celery at the Nemean games.

  3) Rhoecus, son of Phileus, was a brilliant man, a great sculptor who worked in stone, clay, wood and bronze. In his youth he had dedicated a vase to Aphrodite at Naucratis and the goddess had since favoured him, letting him see with divine eyes the nature of both gods and men. He carved a figure of Night out of marble for the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, a figure of great power which, when seen, would make the viewer shiver and weep. . . . He had two sons, Theodorus and Telecles who, in their early manhood, he sent abroad to study art and architecture. Upon returning home Telecles immediately began accepting commissions for statuary, while Theodorus, still restless for knowledge, left the island once more. . . . Telecles carved a maiden out of marble for the temple of Aphrodite, a maiden more beautiful than any woman of flesh and blood. One young man, Xylocastro by name, fell in love with this piece of stone and on a certain night enclosed himself in the temple with her and fell to his passion as well as conditions would permit. Upon consummation, he left behind a Phocaean stater as the price of contact. The next day the act was detected and many in the community called for charging the man with impiety, but the priestess of Aphrodite said that such a recourse was uncalled for, as Xylocastro had paid for his pleasure. . . . Theodorus visited Sparta, where he designed the Scias, the great music hall with its ingenious acoustical parasol-shaped roof.

  4) Pison followed Syloson to foreign parts, to live amongst the luxurious Sybarites, and then later they were welcomed at the Persian court.

  5) . . . who in turn gave Polycrates a daughter, Eriphyle. . . . Xenocleia, who on the same day in this world saw her daughter for the first and last time, then passed into Hades.

  6) Polydor had the physique of a demi-god. In his boyhood he had trained under Tisander, ate nothing but feta straight from the basket and cutlets of raw veal, while never once venturing near woman or love-sick male. He boxed with trees and wrestled with bulls. He took the wreath of wild olive at the 63rd Olympics, won twice at the Pythian games and once at the Isthmus, where, to astound the people, he tied one end of a rope of white flax around the prow of a ship, a fully manned pentecoster, and, with the other end secured between his teeth, pulled the vessel along the entire length of the harbour.

  7) Artemon was a short and podgy individual, who kept the black curls of his hair trimmed and well-oiled. He was very luxurious in his life, slept on cushions stuffed with rabbit fur and lunched every day on snails and deboned pigeons. When he was younger he had served as a mercenary under the Persians and had witnessed first hand their tactics in siegefare, their battering rams, mantlets, mobile towers and great ladders on wheels. He had been caught stealing a piece of goose flesh from the general’s tent and was punished, scourged and put to the rack until permanently lamed in one leg. Then, after having had every hair plucked from his head and chin, he was run out of camp, chased away with stones, abuses and cruel laughter. He lingered in Magnesia, lived off old vegetables and petty connivings in Sardis, and then, with great difficulty, made his way back to his native Ephesus wearing a hempen turban on his head, wooden dice for earrings, and a worn out old ox-hide wrapped around his ribs, looking strangely exotic, pathetically wretched. And he was in truth somewhat out of his mind, for he would cringe if anyone made a sudden gesture, when he drank anything it would always be in sips of seven and crossing over a threshold he made certain to put his right
leg first. In Ephesus he kept company with bread women and common whores, beggars, false prophets and swindlers. Sometimes he acted as a procurer of custom for those women of relaxed virtue, at others the tout for moneylenders, or as a go-between in the love affairs of married women. . . . Then one day the city, wanting to re-build its walls, held a contest for the best design, offering a prize of three talents of silver for the winner. Architects and city planners came from Halicarnassus, Rhodes, Attica and Thrace. Chersiphron, who had built the temple of Artemis, and his son Metagenes, who had joined with his father in authoring a famous treatise on architectural engineering, sealed themselves in their shop and laboured in secret. Calliphon, the Samian painter, who had recently moved to Ephesus to work on a piece for the aforementioned temple, was now said to be drawing up a magnificent plan of fortification on the wall of his own studio, while Zarex, a carpenter, built a great model in pine before the public’s eye and let it be known that any man who stole his ideas he would personally sacrifice to Dionysus. But, in truth, every man in Ephesus, no matter how slow-witted, regarded himself as eligible for the prize. One could see fish mongers in the market drawing their designs on bits of slate and hear vendors of cheesecake discourse on ashlar masonry and axonometric projections as if they were accomplished draughtsmen. Artemon, in debt for a thousand small sums and as desperate as anyone, recalled his days under the Persians and all he had seen and heard regarding tactics. Having in fact an absurdly excellent memory he found his mind flooded with all sorts of details. He traded his turban and sandals for a scroll of cheap emporetic papyrus and set to work . . . . . . and when he was presented with the prize . . . . . . brilliant . . . . . . now wealthy, the fear of going hungry withdrawn. But this seemed to only augment his other fears, before which he was oftentimes almost panic-stricken . . . afraid of wasps, and the colour red . . . . . .