The History of Writing (VIII.) (b)

The captain judged Sisyphus to be close enough to his own height & weight, and he was a mildly superstitious man who routinely packed an extra change of clothes for returning to shore (*the superstition being that if some omniscient character inhabiting the fates could determine what one looked like at a particularly important juncture -- in this case, a return from sea -- they could stalk you and exert some horrifying mischief to disturb your otherwise calm, practical effort) and the captain studied the two separate wardrobes side by side in neat piles on the captain's expertly-folded blanket & sheets, bed. One pile contained a gray shirt. The other pile contained a slightly different gray shirt. "I can't remember the difference," the captain said. 

Sisyphus looked at the shirts too. He recalled an intriguing rumor (but then aren't all rumors intriguing to the curious?) that many of his ancestors could not identify or describe certain colors if they hadn't been told by someone who had. He tried to remember the color, but it evaded him beneath a melange of water-choked amyloid and time-exhausted synapses. He looked closer at the checker-patterns on the shirts. The buttons. The pockets. 

He and the captain studied the shirts for some minutes. 

"Well, I'll be dead before I figure it out," said the captain... 

"Odd way to die." The word-choice briefly jarred him. "Oh," he added a moment later. "You mean that figuratively." 

"I... Did I ask what your name was yet?" 

He thought. He said, "No." He said, "I'm not sure it's in usage any longer." 

"I've heard they come and go with certain times." 

"Mine is a long time ago." Crestfallen, "Sisyphus." 

The captain nodded, then looked at the man again, askance. "Saoirse-what?" 

"Sisyphus," he repeated. 

The captain twisted his brow as if to dislodge the unlikelihood of this. "Is that... What is that, Egyptian or something?" 

"Something," he said to himself. Then, "Not Egyptian, that I recall. Let's see... We were Greece before the Romans came, then Greco-Roman. Death found my heart more aptly than I could extract it, and when Persephone released me from the dorms of Nothingness I saw Spanish nomads and pirates bearing crucifixes while shouting mantras towards an un-loving god and slaughtering natives wheresoever they found them... Yes: Egypt. I've read it, not seen it." 

The captain, with solemn perplexity, exhaled. "Alright, Sisyphus. We got a problem on our hands." 

Sisyphus nodded in agreement. 

"Let's say you are who you say you are. That's not gonna make it easy. See, where we're going, it used t' be any schmuck with two legs and a good attitude was welcome with wide, open arms. But now..." The thought clapped onto his innerear. "Now they got this Act. Ya know, not like a play-act. Like an act of... I don't even know. An Act of Vengeance er some shit fer Chris' sakes. At any rate, what it says is: only very few people can get into the Club of America anymore." He thought Sisyphus was listening, even though the captain didn't want to interfere with his elaboration by returning what he assumed was the face of an attentive audience. "The more things change, Sisyphus... Well, you ain't exactly Dutch or the type of English they'd prefer. But they won't confuse you with a Jew or a Mexican either. I think that gives us a chance." 

"I like those odds." He'd no idea, not the most-flickering clue where the words came from. 

Modest grin, only moderately closer to affection than hate. "Don't say that too loud around here." Hooking his thumb towards everything external of that room, "These men enjoy a hand of cards if you have a dollar to call your own." 

The small flurry of language delighted him. Cards reminded him of die. Die were sometimes referred to as "the bones of random chance." "Then gambling has not been deemed illegal," he said. 

"Huhhuh. Oh...they try to. Heaven knows they fuckin try to. But tell any man -- any man I've ever met -- how to spend his money and...I don't know...you might as well go try to get back Washington's wooden teeth." 

Gambling; Washington; teeth: The name meant nothing to Sisyphus but their grouping suggested a context, and he assumed this Washington must've been someone who wasn't in the habit of avoiding a fistfight if it was in service of protecting his wealth and confidence of intelligence. Based on that, Sisyphus liked his style. 

"Probably also gonna ask what your last name is." 

He'd never had one. It'd been Sisyphus of Greece at his absolute youngest, but the title had been renounced after everything he'd known of the place became extinct. "Go ask Persephone?" he said. 

The name was familiar to Captain Richardson. His burden of mystery was reduced. "Isn't she the one who has to return t' Hell because she ate the fruit of the Devil or something?" 

"They were pomegranate seeds. The queer apple's was another's. Nor was Eve worshipped as a goddess."  

"The one who poisoned us all," said the captain.

"Not I," said Sisyphus. 

They listened to the sound of the ship in the water. 

The captain began formulating a simple plan. Through his younger brother (Eric) Richardson, he had a sister-in-law who was a clerk for the Department of Motor Vehicles. There (of course) wasn't a line/que for Forged Documents for anyone so uncouth to search out its official window; but to any soul daring & hungry enough to be an American in those days, if one wanted a true place in the world, one could forge it. They'd give him a name. They'd give him an identity. He'd be some half-sibling of the captain's. Rescued from a war no idiot in any Department would dig far enough to find & secure a legitimate registry of the dead of. And Sisyphus would be a refugee. He'd stay in someone's apartment. They'd get him a job on a boat or one of the docks or sewing buttons on shirts if all else failed. Indeed, the captain grew fonder of the ancient figure more & more with every earthly & bizarre obstacle he'd set in their path by virtue of his ineffable presence. The captain picked one of the shirts. He gave Sisyphus the other shirt. He told him to help himself to whatever soap & razor were in the quarter's bathroom. When Sisyphus went to the affair of domesticating himself, the captain sat down on the bed, beginning to think. 

****