Autobiography Of Red

Geryon doesn't know why he finds Herakles' grandmother's photograph of the volcano's aftermath so "disturbing" (51). She titled the photograph “Red Patience.” It's a fifteen-minute exposure shot that shows the volcano's cone and "incandescent bombs" (51) of lava and ash that rained down on Hades. Geryon keeps looking at the photograph, not because he likes it, but because he doesn't "understand how such photographs are made" (51). Geryon asks Herakles' grandmother what would happen if someone took a fifteen-minute exposure of the Lava Man Herakles had told him about. Herakles' grandmother replies that Geryon is "confusing subject and object" (52).

Geryon's wings begin to bother him. He tames them by lashing his wings to a "wooden plank" (53) between his shoulders and covers that with a jacket. That evening, still in Hades, Herakles asks Geryon why he seems moody. Geryon denies it, saying he's "just fine" (53) and smiling "hard with half of his face" (53). Herakles tells Geryon that tomorrow they'll drive over to the volcano so he can take some photographs. Geryon has his jacket over his head. Herakles asks him why and Geryon says that sometimes he needs a "little privacy" (53).