Book of Secrets

by Chris Roberson

  My grandfather only mentioned my summer away once, a short while after my return. I'd just shown up a few days before school was to begin that semester, looking no worse for wear, and went back up to my room. Maria, for her part, couldn't stop fawning over me and scolding me mercilessly, by turns, while Patrick was a little jealous of my little adventure, which he'd been afraid to come along on, and more than a little worried about how the old man might react. At the dinner table that night, my grandfather hadn't said a word about it, just demanded I pass him the green beans and that was that. I was home.

  It was a week into the school year when, on my way up to my bedroom after school, the old man called me into his study. He was sitting behind his big desk, the piles of papers and books that only grew larger and taller with every passing year almost hiding him from view, while I stood waiting, my backpack in hand, shuffling my feet. I was scowling, I'm sure, offended at this interruption in my daily routine.

  "There are roads," the old man finally said, his hands folded on the desktop in front of him, "paths a man must choose to walk down. The road we walk is what defines who we are, how we see the world, and how the world sees us. Every man should be free to choose his own path, free to choose the person he will be. That is, unfortunately, not always the way of things. There are forces in this world which conspire to restrict our choices, or unduly influence us one way or other. These forces are the very face of evil. In my experience, all that is good and true is a natural extension of individual liberty, and anything impinging on that liberty is an aspect of evil. There comes a time for some of us when the struggle against these forces, the attempt to eliminate these figurative 'road blocks,' not for ourselves alone but for others, becomes the highest calling. To insure the liberty of others – their freedom of choice – becomes the path that we walk, and defines who we will be."

  I must have pulled some face, or else rolled my eyes at the length of his oration, because the old man shot out of his chair, slamming his bony hands against the desktop.

  "Understand," he barked, "that everything I have done is for your own good. I chose the path I walk long before you were born, long before your mother was born, and I will walk it until the day I die, though slower now and with less strength. It is anathema to my very existence to force a way of life on you or your brother, to choose for you the life you will lead. I have only presented you with options and equipped you with the skills I think you will need, so that when the time comes you will be able to choose wisely, with open eyes and an open mind. For me that choice came early in life, and for others it comes much later. For you…"

  He paused, rubbing his spotted hands over his wide forehead, sighing.

  "I don't know what you will someday face," the old man continued, "but I know that most likely I will not be there with you. The choice you will make, the choice your brother will make, those belong to you. Your choices, in the end, are the only things that are truly yours. When you decide, try to remember the things I have taught you. Maybe then I will still be with you, at least in part."

  He stopped and stood staring at me, his expression surprisingly tender. When he hadn't spoken for a while, I shifted uncomfortably, slinging my backpack over my shoulder.

  "Am I dismissed?" I snarled. I sounded nastier than I'd intended, and regretted it almost immediately. I tensed, expecting reprisal.

  "Yes," the old man said wearily, slumping back into his chair. He waved a hand towards the open door. "Go on, get out." He propped an elbow on the armrest of the chair, his face shielded behind his hand.

  I left, quickly, and stomped up to my room. It would be the last time the old man spoke more than a few sentences to me in a row, though he tried that one last time.

  It was the night of graduation, years later, and I was ready to go. I'd written back and forth to Tan, since that summer, planning out when I would come back and what I would do once I got there. Tan had been giving me little exercises to do, summer study before the first day of school, a list of books and articles as long as my arm to study up on. I'd passed my senior finals, perhaps not with flying colors but passed nonetheless, and I was done with high school. The things I felt I couldn't live without I'd packed in one suitcase and two small backpacks; everything else I just considered dead weight. I had a bus ticket in my pocket for a six o'clock Greyhound for New Orleans. By the next day, I'd be back at Tan's, on my way to a life of cat burglary.

  I made one more pass around my room, making sure I hadn't forgotten anything, slung the backpacks one over each shoulder, and hefted up the suitcase. Turning out the lights one last time, I was out in the hall and down the stairs, ready to roll.

  Patrick was at the kitchen table with Maria, eating a quick bite before heading over to the high school for the ceremony. One look at me and they both knew what I had planned, though I hadn't breathed a word of it yet.

  Patrick was spit and polish in his crisp new white shirt and silk tie, his hair trimmed and styled. We maybe hadn't been as close the previous few years as we'd been as kids, but we still got along fine, and I couldn't help but think I'd miss seeing him around every now and again. From the pained look on his face that he was trying hard to hide, I got the impression he felt the same way too.

  Maria, for her part, wouldn't make eye contact with me, but chased peas around her china plate with a spoon and muttered to herself under her breath. I think she'd been expecting something like this every day since I got back that summer, years before, and now that the moment had arrived she'd lost faith in all of her rehearsed responses.

  We made with some painfully small talk, each of us taking for granted that this would be the last time we'd see each other for some time to come, but none of us brave enough to say anything of substance. Patrick made some offhand remark about a party planned for the post-graduation festivities and Maria scolded him a bit, reminding him that he wasn't to stay out too late, not to drink and drive, and all of the expected remonstrations due an eighteen year-old boy on graduation night. Patrick didn't bother giving me too many details about the plans, and Maria didn't waste a breath trying to scold me. I was leaving the house, and leaving along with it the right to take part in those sorts of discussions.

  Finally, I said something along the lines of "Well, gotta go," and made the circuit of the table, if a bit reluctantly. Kissing Maria on the cheek, her fingers digging into the flesh of my arms as though she might still keep me from leaving if she could somehow keep me immobile. Shaking hands with Patrick, awkwardly, thinking that it was the adult thing to do, but uncomfortable and not knowing when to stop, feeling that there were things I should have been saying but wasn't.

  I was all set to go, and then grandfather appeared in the doorway. He had a package under one arm, about a foot square, wrapped in black paper with a silver ribbon, and a long thin box wrapped in the same style in his other hand.

  "Where…?" the old man began awkwardly, looking me over, taking in my luggage and then the expressions on the faces of Maria and Patrick. "I had thought…" He broke off and straightened up, composing himself. "I have hired a car, as I thought we would take in a meal on the town after the ceremony this evening."

  "I have some stuff to do," Patrick answered weakly, "but I can put it off a little while."

  "Good," my grandfather answered, not taking his eyes off me. "These are for you," he indicated the packages with a nod of his head, "but I had hoped to present them to you on our return from dinner." He paused, a pregnant silence hanging in the air as he waited for me to answer, and finally added in a voice that sounded almost wounded, "I've had them wrapped."

  I was having trouble meeting the old man's gaze, but he wouldn't stop looking, and wouldn't stop waiting for me to answer. Finally, I couldn't take it any longer.

  "I don't need your stupid shit!" I shouted. "I don't need it, and I don't need you! I've had to put up with it all this time, and now I'm leaving, and there's not a fucking thing you can do about it."

  Patrick blanched; Maria's mouth
hung open; but my grandfather just kept looking at me, his face set.

  "I always hoped…" he said softly. "That is… I–"

  "I don't care!" I spat back, my voice shrieking. "I'm leaving."

  I hitched up my suitcase and stomped past the old man towards the door. Without a second glance, my face burning and my eyes watering, I shoved the door open and was out on the street. I was eighteen, and so far as I was concerned I was never coming home again.

  It would be years later before I realized how petulant and small I'd been that night, how little like the adult I'd thought that I was, but I'd learned by then there are some doors that once opened can never be closed, and some bridges you can only cross once. I'd made my choice, and I had to live with it.

  I must have walked for the better part of the day through the streets of El Paso, thinking things over, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. As the light began to dim and my last cigarette burned down to the filter, I figured I'd had enough of walking for one day and decided to head back to the motel to try to get some sleep. I'd start early the next day, rent another car, and make the drive to San Antonio in time to get my plans in motion.

  My stomach rumbled loudly all the way back to the motel, not having gotten much attention since the burger joint in Sizemore the day before. At the convenience store, along with a few packs of smokes and the requisite Pepsi, I bought a handful of what the owners were optimistically calling "burritos," odd little fried lumps of something brown that dripped orange grease through their wax wrappers and rustled with an unsettling sloshing noise when dumped into a large paper bag. I fished out enough bills to cover the damage and continued on to the motel.

  I should have picked up a roll of antacid along with the burritos, I decided, after the second one had disappeared down my craw, but by that point it was too late. The first two were sitting like bricks in my gut, but I was still hungry, so I sent numbers three and four down to join them, swigging as much of the Pepsi as I could with every bit to mask the taste, and being quick to light up a cigarette when it was all said and done to try to clear the air.

  Managing to get both boots off this time around, I sat on the edge of the bed, just staring at the powered-off television set, trying not to think. On impulse, I called down to the front desk to see if I had any messages, but as near as I could make out from the mumbled squash of syllables they spit back I didn't have any waiting. I was about to hang up when it occurred to me that the desk clerk at a flea bag like this might not be the most reliable avenue of information in the world, and if Cachelle had tried to get a hold of me they might just as well have hung up on her as taken a message. I clicked off the line and then punched in my home number, thinking there might be voice mail waiting on my answering machine there.

  There was a message alright, but not from Cachelle. It was from Michelle Orlin in Austin, out of breath and frantic with excitement, going on and on about something or other. She left her cell phone number on the message and insisted I call her as soon as I got it, day or night, whatever the hour.

  I was tempted to wait, to call sometime after all of this craziness had a chance to go away. I had already had about all the news I could stand, all of it bad, and didn't want to run the risk of getting that last proverbial straw. My camel's back, humped and pained, could never have taken it.

  Michelle had seemed so enthusiastic, so damned happy, that I just couldn't bring myself to wait. With any luck, she'd have some kind of good news, anything to lighten the load.

  "Hello, this is Michelle." Through the light static, she sounded sort of drunk.

  "Hello, This-is-Michelle, this is Spencer." I was wishing I was drunk, too, now that I had the chance to think of it.

  "Spence! Ohmigod, I'm so glad you called!" She was running at 45 rpm here, all of her words run together, a long speedy string of syllables; I was still at 33-and-a-third, but I did my best to keep up.

  "What's going on, Michelle? I'm kind of in the middle of some shit right now–"

  "I was right," she cut in, as though she hadn't heard me. "I was right about it, I can't fucking believe it, this is the biggest thing that's happened to me in my entire fucking life!"

  "What is…?" I started, and then get an idea. "Is this about that paper?" I asked. "The one you're looking at for me?"

  "Of course," came the answer, "what else would I be talking about? It's all real, Spence, it's all fucking real! It's the whole play, well, more or less – the whole goddamned thing."

  "It checked out?" I asked. "It's that guy, that… um…?"

  "Aeschylus," she answered, scolding. "Yes, it's got all kinds of other stuff, too, but it looks to be the full text of Aeschylus's Prometheus Unbound right in the middle of it all, if you can believe it."

  I rubbed my chin. This was nowhere near as exciting news to me as it seemed to be to her.

  "Sure," I said offhanded, "I can believe damn near anything at this point."

  "Oh, me too, Spence, me too!" Michelle gushed. "But I've been doing some checking about a weird reference in the play, something about the 'stainhanded followers of Prometheus.' It sounded familiar, so I copied out some stuff that might tie into it. I've got a whole package of shit for you, man. I finished the translation this morning and I couldn't think straight about anything else, so I've been running around like a crazy person all day putting this stuff together."

  She paused for a breath, and I took one of my own on credit.

  "Are you at home?" she continued. "I'll run it by right now. I can't wait for you to see it."

  "No, I'm still out of town," I answered. "Or out of town again. In El Paso, actually."

  "Erh," she snarled. "I'm sorry." She felt as favorably about El Paso as I did. "Well, is there a fax number there? I really want you to see this stuff; you're not going to believe it."

  "Hang on," I told her, "I'll check."

  I dropped her on hold and picked up another line to call down to the desk. It took a while to get across to the desk clerk what I was after, but after some coaxing I came up with a fax number.

  "Got it, Michelle," I said, clicking back on the line. I gave her the digits and told her to go ahead and send everything on. I wasn't sure how much I was going to get out of it, but there was always a chance it might give me some idea what the book was about, and maybe even why these jokers wanted it so badly.

  I finished things up with Michelle, promising to call her as soon as I'd had a chance to look the thing over, and then made my way downstairs to the front desk. There was some trouble with the fax machine, I was told on my arrival, which seemed to be cleared up quickly enough when I produced a twenty and asked if it might be of assistance. The pages came through, a whole ream of them, and shuffling them into some kind of order I climbed the stairs back up to my room.

  The burritos gone, the Pepsi following close behind and the cigarettes and ash tray my only friends, I propped my feet up on the bed, spread the fax pages out on top of the sheets, and started to read.

  Prometheus Unbound

  by Aeschylus

  What follows is a fragmentary, abridged version of Aeschylus's lost play, Prometheus Unbound. It has been compiled from extant fragments, notably the Arabic manuscript (Codex 1785a-9) discovered by Michelle Orlin, then of the University of Texas-Austin. Though the Orlin Fragment is still under some dispute, the bulk of popular opinion holds it to be genuine, and is presented here as under the verifiable (if not verified) authorship of Aeschylus.

  Characters

  HERACLES

  PROMETHEUS

  CHIRON the Centaur

  CHORUS of the Followers of Prometheus

  PHOSPHORUS, a son of Eos

  HESPERUS, a son of Eos

  A rocky mountain-top, within sight of the sea. PROMETHEUS is manacled to a rock, his head bowed.

  PROMETHEUS

  Here am I, and here have I been. Long suffering the cruel torments of the merciless lord of the gods.

  Chained here countless years with shackles of iron
to this cold spire of unforgiving stone.

  Of all that live on the earth, and under the seas, and in the skies, only I, Wise-Before-theFact, know when my torments shall cease.

  When the man born of that cruel lord will come to free me, and his bitter victim to take on my sorrows.

  Long suffering, for my love of man, for being too good a friend to the creatures of the day. Punished here for my sin, for saving the race of man from sure destruction.