I Am Noman

[plaguedrat]

He's always preferred to own his books, but his refusal to seek out work and forge any real ties to the city have forced him to budget, to compromise. It's what takes him to the public library today. Signing up for a library card is different, he tries to convince himself. It's not as if it requires money, nor does he have to maintain it. It's different.

It's netted him a thick stack of books that he's negotiating into a bag while he sits on the steps. The acetate-bound copy of The Odyssey rests on his knees, the one he plans to read first.

Perhaps he's like Odysseus, trapped for years on an island and prolonging his foolish journey.

Comments

[silenttrainbaby]

When Grey explores now, he looks slightly different. He's fashioned a sling around his shoulder in which the cat perches, seemingly - for the moment at least - to lie swaddled against Grey's chest as he walks, still exploring the city. So, there's a little head popped out, one eye looking around, and both Grey and the cat seem to see Rat at the same time. Grey changes his trajectory to go sit next to his friend. He waves his bandaged hand in greeting.

[plaguedrat]

Caught in the first few pages, Rat doesn't notice right away. When he does look up, he smiles, forgetting to put on a grumpy expression.

"Inseparable, aren't you?"

[silenttrainbaby]

He hadn't thought of it that way, but Grey supposes. He brushes his knuckles between the cat's ears and gives his own small smile, then, uninvited, he turns Rat's book to see the cover.

He knows that book, he realizes, or he knows about it, anyway. Gilliam had spoken of it.

What? The word on his arm. What is the book about? A journey, he remembers. Involving the sea.

[plaguedrat]

"Odysseus, at the end of the Trojan War, attempts to journey home to his wife," Rat explains. "Except his pisses off the god of the sea, Poseidon, and gets cursed to a ten year journey. An odyssey."

[silenttrainbaby]

Ten years on the water. Water like at the beach, the waves? Grey is quite sure he wouldn't like that.

If Rat has already read this, why is he reading it again? Why?

[plaguedrat]

Because he loves the words, the poetry and the myth. Someday, he'll learn enough Greek to read it all.

"I was about to start the part with the Cyclopes again."

[silenttrainbaby]

To have something - to love something enough to revisit it - the idea seems shiny and out of reach.

Grey nods toward the book: read, then. He and the cat will listen.

[plaguedrat]

"They're giants with only one eye, right in the middle," he explains, drawing one between his eyes. "Like your cat there." He means it as a tease, grinning sidelong before he opens up the correct chapter.

"Thence we sailed on, grieved at heart, and we came to the land of the Cyclopes, an overweening and lawless folk, who, trusting in the immortal gods, plant nothing with their hands nor plough; but all these things spring up for them without sowing or ploughing, wheat, and barley, and vines, which bear the rich clusters of wine, and the rain of Zeus gives them increase..."

[silenttrainbaby]

Cyclops. Grey smiled a little, settling himself around the cat as he listened. He kept his eyes on Rat's face and for the first time since he was a small child, he tried to imagine what he was hearing.

[plaguedrat]

Rat continues, his voice strong and melodic, shading back to his time in the West District as an actress. He knows how to bring life into words.

"Cyclops, thou askest me of my glorious name, and I will tell it thee; and do thou give me a stranger's gift, even as thou didst promise. Noman is my name, Noman do they call me—my mother and my father, and all my comrades as well.’ “So I spoke, and he straightway answered me with pitiless heart: ‘Noman will I eat last among his comrades, and the others before him; this shall be thy gift.'"

The savage Polyphemus he reads in low, dark tones while Odysseus he reads bright and proud.

[silenttrainbaby]

He's a very good reader. It's soothing. Grey, too, can feel the purring of the cat against his chest. Life and death, great and small.

[plaguedrat]

He continues with the story of Odysseus' guile and trickery, grinning as he reads, "“‘Then from out the cave the mighty Polyphemus answered them: ‘My friends, it is Noman that is slaying me by guile and not by force.’"

[silenttrainbaby]

All the things that Grey had been taught were more guile than force. He's strong, sure, but he's more fast, more wily. He nods, approving.

[plaguedrat]

Rat reads, leaned back against the cement stairs, continuing along with Odysseus' best act of cunning.

"If, then, no man does violence to thee in thy loneliness, sickness which comes from great Zeus thou mayest in no wise escape. Nay, do thou pray to our father, the lord Poseidon."

[silenttrainbaby]

Somewhere in there, Grey pulls that long-lasting bag of chocolate candies from his pocket. He takes one, letting it melt on his tongue as he holds it out for Rat.

[plaguedrat]

Caught up in reading, Rat almost doesn't notice, narrating Odysseus' daring escape. He takes pause and notices the chocolate, grabbing a few from Grey's palm.

"So they spoke, but they could not persuade my great-hearted spirit; and I answered him again with angry heart: “‘Cyclops, if any one of mortal men shall ask thee about the shameful blinding of thine eye, say that Odysseus, the sacker of cities, blinded it, even the son of Laertes, whose home is in Ithaca.’"

[silenttrainbaby]

Grey scritches the cat's ears. Oddyseus blinded him, brave like a great warrior. The idea makes him smile.

[plaguedrat]

Rat nods finds himself reaching out to rub the cat behind the ears too, forgetting to feign indifference to the creature.

"Thence we sailed on, grieved at heart, glad to have escaped death, though we had lost our dear comrades," Rat reads, concluding the chapter.

[silenttrainbaby]

Though we had lost our dear comrades ....

Grey lets his eyes close as faces flash in his mind's eye. Edgar, Tanya ... Gilliam.

All dear, all gone.

[plaguedrat]

Rat pauses, watching the shadow that passes over Grey's face. He raises an eyebrow in question, but lets Grey decide if he wants to explain or if he'd rather Rat continued to read.

[silenttrainbaby]

The name on his chest, over his heart, is covered by his bandage. But Grey touches it regardless. His eyes are sad when he opens them.

[plaguedrat]

On the edge of the bandage, he can see the tops of the script and he raises an eyebrow again. Whose name is that? What did that person mean to him? A friend or a lover? An enemy?

[silenttrainbaby]

How to describe it? Rat can see Grey scramble for a moment, mentally, to try to explain it.

He taps Rat's hand, curling a finger to get to his palm.

There, he spells, G-I-L-L-I-A-M.

Then he circles his finger in the air. Gilliam was everything.

[plaguedrat]

"Gilliam?" Rat repeats, trying to match a face to that name. "Who is he?"

[silenttrainbaby]

He was on the train. Grey points to that word on his arm. He died. That word is in script on Grey's arm. He taught Grey to fight. Another word. He taught Grey what love was.

Love isn't on his body. He taps over his heart again.