Beyond Homer. Benjamin W. Farley
had been a youthful, unruffled Vietnamese, dressed in Viet Cong garb. He delivered an impassioned speech in French on behalf of the “libération de mon pay,” or the liberation of his country. He was followed by a young hippie in blue jeans who wore a white Russian tunic and whose long blond hair flopped in his face the entire time he waved his arms and ranted knowingly about American imperialism, injustice, and jingoism. He concluded by quoting lines from Whitman’s Leaves of Grass:
Welcome are all earth’s lands, each for its kind.
It was the rhetoric and theme of the last speaker, however, that captivated my own imagination. The pudgy, red-bearded man (probably in his mid-forties), with a receding line of rusty gray hair, took to the podium as if by habit, and, taking off his watch, laid it against the folder-rest of the stand. After a brief pause, he adjusted his glasses. He was accompanied by a lithe, light-skinned black girl, with long black hair and hazel irises, set in the whites of large soft eyes. She had glanced back at me, just before her partner had struggled on stage, and smiled. I returned her engaging overture with ample recognition and interest of my own.
“I am Carl Sullivan,” the big man introduced himself, “a Harvard graduate and Alabamian, whose field is, unfortunately, everything,” he stated with a gruff voice. “I am currently here on sabbatical, from an ivy league school near Chattanooga, whose name I need not divulge. I teach a variety of humanities courses,” he boasted, with a toothy air, “but the classics are my definitive love, my quintessential joy. If I seem overbearing or a little imperious, forgive me. Let me retell a famous story, and you draw your own conclusions. And yes, it does have to do with our purpose here.” He cleared his throat.
“Phaeton was the son of Apollo and Clymene, a lovely nymph. One day a fellow schoolmate laughed at Phaeton’s reference to his divine parentage, so the lad begged his mother to provide some proof of his celestial birth. She implored him to journey to India, where the sun rises in the East, and to entreat the Sun to own him as his son. The youth listened with delight and hastened toward the eastern horizon. Upon arriving, he made the ascent to Phoebus’s palace, where it glittered behind lofty columns of gold and precious stones.” Then, for the next twelve minutes or so, Sullivan retold the entire story of how Phaeton managed to coax his father into allowing him to drive the sun-god’s chariot across the sky. Only the task was too daunting for the boy. Thereupon, seeing that Phaeton had lost control of the steeds and that the whole of Mesopotamia, Arabia, and Africa were turning black to a crisp—along with its people, Sullivan said: “Thus did Zeus take notice, call the gods to council, even grieving Phoebus, and, seizing a spear-sharp thunderbolt, hurled it at the youth. A bright flash filled the heavens and spread across the seas. Down fell Phaeton in a fiery plume, as his ashes drifted softly in the shifting winds and hot breeze. Phoebus leapt into the falling chariot and, fumbling for the reins, brought the glowing vessel back to night and evening’s soft decline, against a golden sunset in the silent west.”
Sullivan shifted his weight from one foot to the other behind the podium. The audience appeared stunned. A titter of light laughter crept across the room. I found myself smiling, too. I had read the story myself, but couldn’t remember when or where. Suddenly, it dawned on me that I had read it in Sullivan’s own book, that this was the man whose work on the classics I had admired for the past ten years, alongside Nietzsche’s and Dickinson’s.
“Merde!” said the hippie. “I thought you said your remarks would be relevant.”
“Ah, but they are!” interjected the Frenchman, as he turned and frowned sardonically at the young man.
I was about to lift my wrist to order a second beer, when I noted another couple arriving, this time on foot, down the slight hill from the theatre. I rose to my feet. It was Sullivan and his young wife, or paramour.
“Bonsoir,” she smiled, recognizing me. “Vous-étiez à la petite conférence, nes’ pas?”
“Yes,” I replied, in English. “I enjoyed the story. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Mine, too,” groaned the sweating Sullivan.
“Still, you retold it with fascinating effect.”
“Except on the hippie. Plus, I borrowed generous snatches from Bulfinch; and I was reciting it from my own book: From the Minoans to Homer: The Immortal Gods and Mortal Man.”
“I’m familiar with it. I have it back home, in my own library.”
“May I ask your name?”
“Clayton Rogers Clarke, from Virginia. I’m on sabbatical, too. Perhaps you’ve heard of my college—The Shenandoah University.”
“Ah, yes! One of those ‘Harvards of the South.’” he smiled painfully. He extended his clammy hand.
An embarrassed smile slipped across the black girl’s mouth. “He’s not always this pleasant,” she grimaced. “We know a number of faculty members from your school. One’s directing my graduate program, along with Grumpy, here.”
“I need to sit down,” said Sullivan. “May we join you?”
“Please, do!” I noted that the girl’s fingers sparkled with several rings, but none on her wedding-ring finger. She caught me staring at her hands and smiled.
The professor plopped into the nearest, wire-back chair, opposite mine, while I assisted the girl, whom I seated to my right.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Sullivan glared. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve plenty of time. Qu’ est que, le temps? Anyway?”
“Don’t get philosophical,” he frowned. “What do you teach?”
“Philosophy and religion courses. I was a minister once, but returned for a Ph.D. in philosophy.”
“Why’d you get out?”
“That’s a long story, too.”
“Well, we’ve got at least an hour,” he looked at this watch. “What about you, Sugar?” he put his hand on the black girl’s right thigh.
“Oh, Lord, you still treat me like a slave, don’t you?”
“No. Maybe your great-grandparents were. But you’re not. Besides, Professor Clarke doesn’t know about our Alabama laws. Or do you?” he looked squarely at me.
“About what?”
“Incest.”
“No. Your secret’s safe.”
They both smiled, as she put her hand over his. “It is a long story,” she emphasized.
“Mademoiselle et Monsieur! What is your wish?” asked the waiter.
“Jack Daniels! You do carry it, don’t you?”
“Of course, Monsieur! Et vous, Mademoiselle?”
“White wine! Something from Bordeaux. Sweet, but not too dry.”
“Bon! But the wines from le-Midi; they are so truly superior.”
“She said, ‘Bordeaux!’” repeated Sullivan.
The garcon appeared offended, but held his head aloft, as if to signal that he was above such boorish reproach.
Just then Monsieur Gibert came out of the bistro and approached our table.
“Please, won’t you join me and the Madame inside,” he gestured with a gracious arc of his hand. “I was—shall I say—mesmerized by your speech. It would be an honor.” His English was close to impeccable. “I’m Jacques-Maria Gibert, with Le Miroir Français, one of its feature writers.”
Sullivan looked slightly shocked, if not annoyed. “Please, Monsieur, why don’t you and the Madame join us. I’m tremendously tired. I apologize, but I am.”
“And stubborn,” added the black girl.
“Eh, ma petite, may I ask your name,