"The Unseen Guest"

One of the first books I read as a member of our group, way back in 2000, was Mark Merlis' second novel, An Arrow's Flight.  It made such a profound impression on me that I've reread it several times over the years, most recently last week.

As we prepare to discuss Martin Duberman's Hold Tight Gently: Michael Callen, Essex Hemphill and the Battlefield of AIDS next week, I'd like to share the following passage from the final chapter of the Merlis.  (The names of the characters won't resonate unless you've read the book or are fluent in Greek mythology, but I'm confident you'll see the connection anyway.)

The future grew a little murky. Pyrrhus hadn't been tested. After his year in the city as—practically a public utility, and then whatever new adventures he'd found in the intervening years, he hadn't been tested. Maybe Leucon wouldn't have, either, not if he'd had Pyrrhus' career; maybe he wouldn't have wanted to know, either. Because there wasn't much chance, was there, that Pyrrhus was fine?
    Even I don't want to know. I suppose he probably wasn't. I mean, if it were possible to trace the course of things, the most direct chain would surely be: snake to Philoctetes, Philoctetes to Pyrrhus, Pyrrhus to Corythus, Corythus to the HUNDREDS OF US he glimpsed that night at Pterelas's, the great world that waited to embrace him when he got out of the navy and into civvies for good.
    That would be the simplest tree: Philoctetes the root, Pyrrhus the trunk, all the myriad branches traceable finally to Corythus, who stepped off the ship one day and, with his innocent, bucktoothed smile, brought the unseen guest to the great party that was still going on in the city.
    Perhaps this was all written down somewhere.  But all Destiny's scribblings, if compiled into one unimaginable volume, would not yield a message.  She has no point to make.  Corythus was innocent. Even the snake was innocent.  Philoctetes innocently misstepped, the snake innocently bit.