from Children of Argos, Act Two

When Orestes got your last letter

he stood rooted to the ground, mouth open, eyes wide,

fingers trembling, then hands, then arms.

I asked him what was wrong.

He didn’t answer me

but crumpled the letter into his pocket

and raced out of the palace.

I knew my friend well enough

to know there was something terribly wrong.

I’d never seen him like this.

I ran after him, fearing for him.

Too late.  I heard an engine roar, tires scream.

He’d already gotten to the garage

and taken my father’s Maserati.

Beautiful car, but its brakes were shot

and I knew Orestes was heading for trouble.

He was in no condition to drive.

I took off after him in the Mercedes,

slamming it into fourth, into fifth,

but I couldn’t catch him.

I could feel his rage

burning up the road before me

as we wound up into the rocky hills

on the narrow two-lane.

He was taking those turns too fast,

barely controlling the Maserati

but driving it on with his wild energy

as if it were a chariot horse

whipped mercilessly in the race

and left for dead at its end.

I blinked my lights at him,

slow down! pull over! stop!

you shouldn’t be on the road, Orestes!

But my lights were invisible in the noon glare.

Then we came to the bend

where the road comes out above the sea.

For miles it swerves above the jagged rocks

and crashing waves with no guard rail.

Would he slow down? No, he would not.

He disappeared around that bend

and when I passed it I screeched to a halt

suddenly face to face with sheep!

A flock of hundreds, choking the road,

gray with dust and filling the air

with baaahs and with the smell of their shit,

a yapping sheepdog circling them

and biting at their legs to keep them in line,

a young shepherd far on up the road with his staff

and listening obliviously to his Walkman.

I realized that Orestes had been going

far too fast to stop, and there I saw

the black tracks, parallel, swerving,

still smoking and smelling acridly of rubber,

ending at the edge of the asphalt

where the shoulder tumbled abruptly to the sea.

I looked over that frightening precipice

to where the Maserati lay, below,

twisted, crushed and burning on the merciless rocks.

I scrambled down as best I could, knowing, as I did,

that no one could survive such a crash.

But as I got closer I saw something moving.

Something that had been a man.  No, still was.

Man enough to stagger from the car,

away from the smoke and the flames.

He collapsed on the rock, his skin burnt black and red.

When I reached him,

he had just the strength to say farewell.

Oh, yes, Electra, and to make one last request.