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Fiction-Online Volume 6 Number 6
FICTION-ONLINE
An Internet Literary Magazine
Volume 6, Number 6
November-December, 1999
EDITOR'S NOTE:
FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing
electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis.
The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of
novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the
magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of
Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent
Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits
and publishes material from the public.
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of
material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed
to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal
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explicitly licensed, are reserved.
William Ramsay, Editor
=================================================
CONTENTS
Editor's Note
Contributors
"Fugitives," a poem
Wendy Hammersmith
"Etude," a short story
Yitzhak Herrera
"Sierra de Cristal," an excerpt (chapter 17) from the novel
"Ay, Chucho!"
William Ramsay
"Suites," part 1 of the play, "Shell Game"
Otho Eskin
===================================================
CONTRIBUTORS
OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international
affairs, has published short stories and has had numerous plays read
and produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet"
has been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in
Washington. He is currently at work on a mystery novel set in high
circles in Washington.
WENDY HAMMERSMITH, originally from the Isle of Wight, now
lives on Martha's Vineyard. In addition to writing poetry, she teaches
high-school French and German.
YITZHAK HERRERA, formerly a lieutenant in the Israeli Army, now
is a writer and export-import consultant in New York.
WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World
energy problems. He is also a writer and playwright and his play,
"Through the Wormhole," was read this fall as part of the Woolly
Mammoth Theatre's Foreplay Series.
=================================================================
FUGITIVES
By Wendy Hamnmersmith
(After L. Rellstab)
Damned
Fleeing from the scumbag city
Hating mother, despising father
Deserting the friends who deserted him
Forgetting the whole son-of-a-bitch country
Damned
He is damned.
Lonely
Shedding hot tears
Longing for him to return
Hating herself for her weakness
Watching the cars pass below the apartment window
Caressing no one except herself
Lonely
She is lonely.
Indifferent
Sending clouds with no beauty and no rain
Lighting with a haloed moon the travel poster on the apartment wall
Blowing harsh wind on the coatless exile
Rolling waves into shore for squealing little boys
Growing veins to feed neoplasms
Indifferent
It is indifferent.
===================================================
ETUDE
by Yitzhak Herrera
Alfred hadn't been looking forward to this at all. The doctor
had told them there would be an awkward recovery period of the best
part of a week. All kinds of dressings to change and Sarah wouldn't be
able to show herself in public for ten days or so. Worst of all, success
was not guaranteed.
He fidgeted, in the overly overstuffed chair in the waiting room
and wished he hadn't given up smoking three months ago. Why give up
smoking when you're sixty-four years old? A woman in her seventies
sat just opposite him on a long blue couch. Her face was lined with
spidery networks of wrinkles. That's exactly what Sarah had been
fearing as she faced the big six-oh coming up in November. You had to
sympathize. He felt his own face. When he brushed it with his
fingertips, it felt smooth, but he knew that in the mirror he would see
the lines, narrowly running down his cheeks, his chin -- and one from his
nose partially hidden one under his white mustache. Men had to settle
for getting old. Well.
After they had called him into the recovery room, he took her
long, graceful fingers in his hand and asked her how she was.
"Pretty awful, right now."
"I'm sorry," he said, looking down at the lively blue eyes
peeking out of her gauze- and tape-covered face.
"Maybe I should be sorry, not to have gone to Dr. Hanford in
San Francisco instead so that I could have recovered in her halfway
house there -- that would have spared you all this."
"I didn't ask to be spared." Alfred warmed to the thought of his
caring for Sarah, his wife. Twenty-three years.
She pressed his hand. "Never mind, it's in a good cause. I'll be
more like the girl you married."
Alfred wondered about the "boy" of forty-one she had married,
in what was a second try for them both.
"Don't look so forlorn. After all, men can get them too."
"So I've heard." The idea was bizarre.
The recovery process was a mess, but it was a mess Alfred could
handle. He was used to fielding artists' problems in his role as Vice-
President of a Music Production Company. His clients would require
anything from the firm, help with a flat tire, getting into a detox ward,
Alfred found that taking care of his wife was like mothering an
especially important client.
Just over a week later, it seemed as if it had all been worth it.
Sarah's face had emerged from the bandages, the wrinkles greatly
reduced, the skin around the eyes smoothed out, the cheeks pinker from
the laser treatment. Most of all, Alfred had been impressed by seeing
his wife staring in the mirror, smiling a soft cat smile, her shoulders
raised, lifting her chin to examine her neck -- proud, proud.
"Is it still a face you want to love, Al?" she said.
Alfred could only smile. "More than ever, darling."
That night, after watching an eighteenth-century sea saga on
public television, they went to bed and made love. Alfred felt his body
quivering with stage fright. Sarah, her new face frowning, lips gasping,
was able to achieve her orgasm, but Alfred, panting, his heart throbbing,
felt his penis weaken and die. Sarah kissed him and told him he was
tired, everything was all right.
As she went to sleep on her back, her elegant hawk-nosed
profile glowing in the moonlight, he gazed curiously at the strange
smooth face.
Then the next morning, as he watched her reading the paper
over breakfast, and she smiled with her brand new smile he thought
how delightful! That night he brought her home a bouquet of ageratums
and carnations. It was as almost like starting a new love affair. This
proud new woman with the faraway look in her eye was the woman he
loved. The woman who loved him.
Last night didn't matter there would be other nights.
The trouble started with Chopin. Chopin's real name was
Frederic Coutant, but everybody called him by the name of the
composer. He was Sarah's boss, the VP in charge of trade books at
Mopress, one of the big conglomerate media firms. Chopin was fifty,
had long curly hair, was single after several reportedly disastrous
marriages, and had the reputation of being what Alfred and his
grammar-school friends back in Queens used to call a C-man -- C for
cunt. Chopin and Sarah had always been on friendly terms, but Alfred
had gotten the idea from Sarah that Chopin was only interested in
women a decade or more younger than he.
It was a Tuesday, a month or so after the operation, that Alfred
put in his daily telephone call to Sarah at about one thirty in the
afternoon. Usually his wife ate a sandwich at her desk or caught a fast
meal in the company cafeteria, so he expected to find her in. But all he
got was her voice mail, and he left a message telling her she needn't call
back. Probably she had gone out to lunch with someone -- it didn't
matter. In fact when he saw her that night, Alfred forgot to ask her
about where she had been. Then Thursday he made another call, this
time at two fifteen. No Sarah. He tried again at 2:45 -- no luck. It was
funny -- she could have been at a meeting, but most meetings at
Mopress were in the morning, not the afternoon. Then he got involved
with trying to straighten out the schedule of Slimy Fruit, one of his
firm's high-profile rock stars, and didn't get time to call back again.
That night he made Sarah her usual Manhattan, with a Scotch
for himself. She smiled at him and asked him what kind of day he'd had.
"Oh, so-so, sometimes I get tired of musicians."
'I think it's that you're not very musical yourself, so you lack
sympathy."
"How was your day?"
"Fine."
Did you have lunch with someone? I called and only got your
voice mail."
Sarah said she had gotten his message. Yes, she had had lunch
with Chopin.
"What's new with him?"
She shrugged. The two of them had chitchatted about people --
and Chopin had brought up the subject to the new slot opening up in
audiobooks.
"Oh." Sarah had long been angling for a Vice-Presidency, and
she had told him that the audiobooks division job would be a plum for
her. Alfred admired her for being ambitious. She should be, with her
intelligence and Ph. D. in comparative literature from Yale. He looked
out from their apartment window on the lights in the tall-towered office
building across East 63rd Street. Lights of people still working. Soon
he'd retire then what?
"I was thinking about retirement."
Sarah looked up, frowning. "Oh, you're too young for that."
Alfred shrugged. He didn't have to retire next year, it was true.
"Well, it has to happen sometime."
"Yes, but New York is more fun -- as long as you're still
working."
Alfred pictured the rocky coves a t La Jolla, the cold shower
from the breaking waves. "Maybe it would be fun to live some place
else."
Sarah smiled. "Oh, Alfred, let's enjoy New York while we're
young -- that is, relatively young."
"I suppose." But he thought suddenly she's much younger
than I.
How must it feel to look younger -- a lot younger -- than you
really are?
The next Monday, he got her voice mail. Feeling like a jerk, he
called back Mopress and asked for Mr. Frederic Coutant. Voice mail
again.
That night, trying to go to sleep, he told himself to get a grip on
himself. The next few days, he didn't call. Twice, Sarah called him
instead.
But the following Friday, he made the call and got her voice mail
once again. This time he switched to her assistant and found out that
Sarah would be at a meeting out of the building all afternoon.
That night she said that she had gone that afternoon with Chopin
to a one of the other presses, to see how their audiobooks departments
were organized.
"Oh, that sounds promising, I guess."
"I'm certainly encouraged," she said, looking out over the city
lights. "Um, Alfred?"
"Yes?"
"Chopin invited us to a party tomorrow night. It's for one of
our authors. Should be fun, lots of younger people."
It turned out that the author was Christabel McGee, who wrote
books about pigs that spoke and engaged in PG-rated romances. At the
party, Alfred found himself stuck in a corner behind a wing chair talking
to the author, who was in her late forties, had a blonde crewcut striped
with pink, and a hefty bosom that she had bared almost down to the
nipples.
"Don't you think Chopin is a charmer?" Her wide mouth
looked hungry.
"He's lovely," said Alfred. Sarah was in a group around Chopin,
over by the picture window. Chopin had one arm around her shoulders
as he gestured animatedly.
Alfred extricated himself from the tip of the wing chair. "I need
another drink."
"Ooh. Get me one too."
Maybe what he did next was a result of the hangover he had the
next day. Perhaps the retained image of Christabel McGee, virtual
nipples and all, also had something to do with it. Anyway, he found on
wakening the next morning that he had decided. By the end of the next
afternoon, he had arranged the whole thing.
"You're going to San Francisco?" The light was just failing
over the tower opposite. Sarah looked pained.
"Yes. An emergency piece of babysitting for Rooty Toot
Floot."
"Those childish morons -- I'll bet they can't even read music.
How long will you be gone?"
"Maybe a week, ten days."
"That long?"
Alfred refilled her drink. "Sorry. I'll be moving around, so I
can't give you a number, but I'll call in."
The operation was more of an ordeal than he had expected. He
hated hospitals anyway. As he left the recovery room, he found himself
expecting Sarah to be there. But there was only Dr. Hanford, svelte in
her greens, reassuring him that the procedure seemed to have been a
success.
The nurses at the halfway house were anal types they changed
his dressings as if he were King Tut getting ready for burial. Outside,
fog wisped and billowed over the base of Nob Hill. Life seemed very
long. He rationed himself to one call a day to Sarah.
"Is everything all right?" Sarah's voice was shrill, troubled.
"Absolutely."
"Well, that's good."
"Having fun?'
"The usual."
Chopin, he thought. Chopin.
Some days he had to leave a message on the voice mail.
Chopin.
He looked at his face in the dim light of the lavatory on the 727.
The erasure of the wrinkles was great but the smoothing of the skin
around the eyes was even better. As he made his way back to his seat,
he felt a shiver at the sight of the head of the blonde Sylvia who had
the seat next to him.
He smiled at her as he sat down. "Can I buy you another
drink?"
She grinned back. "Sure, why not?"
After the drinks came, she thanked him and then turned back to
her copy of Vogue.
After a long moment, he turned to her. "Let's have lunch
sometime."
She looked up from her magazine. "Absolutely."
"I suppose financial consultants keep pretty busy."
"Come on! Not that busy. Especially if they get a chance to
hear the real scoop on Rooty Toot Floot."
The apartment was dark when he got home. There was note
from Sarah: "Home late love, love, love. F."
"F"! When had she started with one letter? Did Chopin sign his
notes "C? or "Ch"! Eff her!
He made himself a drink. He looked at his watch. Only 7:03.
Then he took out his little red notebook and looked up the number.
Sylvia was delighted to hear from him. He took her to the Club
Francais for dinner. Back at her apartment, it was plain sailing. Sylvia
woke him up at 7:45 AM with a dry, soft kiss. They had breakfast
together. When it was time for her to leave for work, he had decided it
was best to spend the morning at the health club and maybe the
afternoon at a museum then he'd go home in the late afternoon and
would tell Sarah that he had stayed an extra day in San Francisco.
"My God, what happened to you?" she said that night, looking
at his face, startled, alarmed.
"How do you like it -- the new me?"
She took a deep breath. "Alfred, why would you do that
without talking it over with me?
"I thought it should be a surprise."
"Well, I'm surprised all right." She sat down heavily on the
sofa. "I need a drink."
Alfred went to the bar and made her one. "You don't like it."
She hesitated. "No, it looks good. Weren't you supposed to
be back last night?"
"Delayed."
"You could have left a message."
He told her he had tried, but there was something wrong with
the machine. He described the San Francisco procedure and the halfway
house.
"I can't get used to it."
"I got used to yours fine."
"I know."
She sighed and hoped that dinner home was all right. They went
to bed early. Alfred moved close to her, but she pulled away.
"I'm awfully tired."
So am I, he thought, tired of the whole thing.
The next day was a long one. He had to endure the bold or
furtive stares of people who didn't know him well enough to ask him
about the facelift. And to his friends, he had to explain that he was "Just
trying to keep up with my wife." After lunch, he picked up the phone
to call Sarah's office -- then he put it down again.
That night life in the apartment seemed back to normal except
in bed. They made love again, this time he came but it was different.
He found himself thinking about Sylvia who or what Sarah was
thinking about, he could only guess -- and he didn't want to.
The ritual of daily calls started, as if by themselves Sometimes
she was in -- sometimes not. The following Wednesday, he didn't call
he spent the afternoon having lunch at Sylvia's apartment -- and bed
afterwards.
Sarah made vice-president. Chopin was throwing her a party.
As they dressed, she looked at him. "That tie is awfully square why
don't you buy yourself one of those Ferragamo's, like Chopin wears?"
"Fuck Chopin and his ties." He heard the ugly rasp in his voice.
"You don't have to blow my head off. I thought you liked
Chopin."
"What gave you that idea?"
"Oh, please, Alfred, don't spoil my evening." Tears formed in
her eyes. He hugged her carefully. "Please, Al."
"Of course," he said.
But when he saw her standing at the party, grinning foolishly at
Chopin, who had his arms around two blondes but was staring
lasciviously at Sarah, he felt something inside breaking. He went over
to Sarah and told her he was going home.
"Are you sick, darling? The party's just started."
"Sorry about that. But you're right, I am feeling awful."
She kissed him. "Go right to bed -- take care of yourself."
He called up Sylvia from his cell phone. She wasn't in he tried
her on her "cell."
"Well, I am having dinner at I Preggi right now. Can I call you
later at home?"
They met in the bar of the Westmont-Crillon down the street
from his apartment.
"It's all the facelift business, it's ruined everything."
Sylvia shook her head, swishing her long dark blonde hair.
"Well, I didn't know you before, Alfy, so I can't say."
"It's spooky, it really is."
"Poor guy, you need someone to hold your hand."
He spent the night at her place again. He wasn't feeling very
potent, but Sylvia seemed to know ways to fix that. He left for work
directly from her place in the morning, experiencing the different kind of
rush hour commute from the West Side.
Sarah called after lunch.
"Are you all right? I was frantic when you didn't come home."
"I was fine. How's Chopin?"
"Chopin." A long pause. He could hear her breathing. "I think
we'd better talk tonight."
He agreed and then slammed down the phone.
They faced each other over the dinner table. The fish hand
stirfry had been cleared away and she was drinking tea. Alfred was
spooning the froth up from his cappuccino.
"Alfred. I'd like to be able to convince you that there's nothing
between me and Chopin."
"I used to be able to read your face, Sarah. But not now."
"It's the same face fewer wrinkles, smoother skin, no bags
under the eyes but otherwise it's the same."
He sipped at his coffee. "Is the heart the same?"
"The truth is, I can't absolutely convince you because, well,
there has been a little something."
"A little, you say."
"Just a little -- nothing, really." She bit her lip. "But if you
insist -- intimate."
"I see."
"Al, I came out of the bandages feeling that I'd gained ten years,
and suddenly I looked into your face and saw that the ten years were a
lie. And I didn't want to face up to the lie. I wanted to keep on feeling
really younger."
"And so Chopin."
"And so Chopin or somebody, it didn't matter. And then when
you sprang your own operation on me, it felt like a double lie, and that I
had committed a crime against you besides. I've been overwhelmed by
guilt."
"I'm all right -- you don't have to pity me."
"I can't read your face either. But I know you didn't come
home at all last night."
"I guess we both have some decisions to make about the ten
missing or found years."
She picked up her teacup but didn't drink. "It's not just about
the facelifts, is it?"
"I don't think so. It's not about the ten found years. It must be
about those others -- the twenty-three."
"Were those years lost, Alfred?"
He knocked over his cappuccino cup. The dregs of the pale
brown liquid made a small pool on the table. Sarah looked at the pool
but didn't move. Neither did Alfred.
"It never occurred to me to ask before."
"But now you have to, I suppose."
Alfred smiled. "It sounds like we both have to." He stood up.
"Are you going out tonight?" she said.
"Yes."
"I won't wait up."
"No."
"As a matter of fact, you'd better not come home not for a
while, anyway."
Alfred wiped up the pool of coffee with his napkin. He turned
and threw the wadded napkin toward the couch, hard. It only made it
halfway and flopped limply onto the oriental. He pulled on his coat and
walked to the door, head down, not seeing at anything, imagining but
not looking at Sarah's new face. He opened the door and walked out.
The heavy metal door slammed automatically shut behind him. The
clang of the door seemed to vibrate through his skull. It was gloomy in
the sparsely lit hallway as he stepped slowly toward the other end. A
few doors down, a window gazed out into the light-speckled darkness
of the night. He saw a pale smooth face faintly mirrored in the window.
He averted his eyes and strode on down toward the elevator.
===================================================
SIERRA DE CRISTAL
by William Ramsay
(Note: the is chapter 17 of the novel "Ay, Chucho!")
I finished shaving. I picked up the cloudy pan of tepid water and
threw it into a little gully that ran down to the edge of the cliff that
dropped several hundred feet down into a forest of pine. It was three
days since I had left Havana, the rattles in Pierre's old Ford pursuing us
along the Malecon, under the tunnel and past El Morro. At Alamar, the
gigantic housing project east of the city, we left Jerry off somewhere
inside the maze of five- story concrete buildings. Then we headed south
along the expressway to Santa Clara and onto the N1 to Ciego de
Avila. A fitful morning sleep there, napping, elbows and knees pressing
into hard blocks of wood in a shed behind a general store with two
grimy gas pumps -- one broken -- in front. I peeked out through the
cardboard that covered the broken window -- window glass is another
scarce item in my native land -- and envied the calm of the three men
who sat in shirtsleeves, playing dominoes at a restaurant across the
way. Then off again in the afternoon, and by that evening through
Holguin and taking a turn off the highway onto a narrow, potholed
blacktop southwest toward the mountains looming ahead in the
moonlight. We stopped at a "friend"'s bohio along the Mayari-Moa
road and drank orange soda and waited. Pierre had to wake me up
when the jeep arrived to take us up the dirt roads and trails into the
camp near the crest of the Sierra de Cristal -- the Crystal Range.
As I looked to the north, beyond the pines of the foothills, the bay
of Nipe shone like a fleck of mica in the midst of a green and beige sea
of sugar fields and the great brown pustule of the open-pit nickel mines
near Moa. Just out of sight over a small ridge to the west lay Angel
Castro's ranch, near Biran, where Fidel had spent his childhood. It was
hard to believe that Pierre and his "Anarcho-Syndicalist Front" fighters
had been able to hole up in the midst of Socialist Cuba, even among the
bare precipices, brush-choked canyons, and dense forests of the Sierra.
But of course in first weeks after December 2, 1956, only Fidel Castro
believed that fifteen men would be able to survive in those same sierras,
hunted down by Batista's troops and constantly betrayed by local spies.
I said as much to Pierre as he came out of the cabin, his tall bulgy frame
bent, carrying Kropotkin as if the animal too were made of crystal.
"Yes, Chucho, and there were anti-Castro rebels right here in the
'60's, as well as ours with 'Comandante Augusto' in the Sierra
Escambray. He was a man. Your friend Pillo was with us then."
Pierre sighed. "And some of our comrades were active just west of
here not so long ago -- 'Granma' just doesn't take the trouble to write
them up."
The air at 1000 meters was cool, and I pulled an old sweater
around my shoulders. "So now there's another rebellion going --
yours."
Pierre shook his head, a blond strand of hair waggled free. "No,
no. No rebellion. We aren't interested right now in fighting Castro --
we are merely establishing an alternative to him -- setting up an
anarchist presence."
"By robbing banks."
Pierre smiled. Kropotkin lurched in his arms, jumped down, and
stretched like a tired businessman on a massage table. "An anarchist
tradition, the idea plagiarized later by that pseudo-communist
opportunist Stalin. The communists pretend that they invented the
phrase 'expropriating the expropriators' -- but it was great men like
Nechaev, Bakunin, and even, I suspect, the highly respectable
Kropotkin himself who had the real vision of beginning the
redistribution of wealth by peaceful anarchist means."
"Peaceful?"
"We haven't killed one person in the last two months."
"And before that?"
Pierre shrugged. "There are incidents -- accidents. Felipe --
Chucho -- I hear your ignorant bourgeois background speaking. You
should make use of your time here now to learn a few things about
political realities."
"We'll probably all get shot before I get a chance
to learn much about anything."
The sun was now touching the pines on the ridge opposite.
"Negative, thinking, Comrade. Now that I've heard your whole
story..."
"Oh?" I said.
"Your friend Paco Santos confided in Valeska. Valeska has been
my eyes and ears in Havana, I'm going to miss her, now that she's
deserted us for the pleasures of San Salvador." He squatted down and
patted Kropotkin. He shook his head. "El Salvador -- I miss the
amenities in the capitalist world, Felipito, old boy, but my heart belongs
in Cuba."
"Where the bank accounts are."
His face became grave and he told me that if I thought that finding
caches of gold or dollars in Cuba was an easy task nowadays, I was out
of my mind. He operated in Cuba because it was home. "And," he
said, staring out toward the now hazy blue of the distant bay, "the
economic situation has degenerated so much lately here that it isn't hard
to grease a few palms -- we have inside help on all our bank and credit
union jobs. There's nothing as crooked as a greedy socialist ideologue,
I find."
He lowered his head, brushing his chin on Kropotkin's back, then
raised his head: "Besides, I have a very nice conduit to the Cayman
Islands here." He smiled. "You know, I don't trust Cuban banks."
Within a few days, I started to feel a little more secure about our
sojourn in the Sierra de Cristal, with its long quiet days and sharp still
nights, only the occasional airliner or a military jet rumbling far above
us. We had to move once, however, because of approaching Army
patrols. Our new camp was set up in tents, down in a ravine on the
northern side of the range. Pierre remained calm. I remember telling
myself mornings, when I awoke to the bird songs and the scent of the
smoke from the small open fire, that at the very least I was alive. I
tried to put out of my mind the thought that I was almost as much of a
prisoner here as my parents were in Havana -- stuck in a wilderness in
the middle of an island with the Cuban G-2 and the C.I.A. and the
Association all looking for me.
One night, I was finishing up, with outdoorsman gusto, a meal of
beans, together with rice splashed with a dollop of strong-smelling goat
stew. Pierre walked up and stood over me. I looked up. He thunked
me with one of his giant knees, motioning for me to come along. We
went down to a large rock at the edge of the campsite, where in the
daytime when it was clear you could see a blue slice of the Atlantic to
the east. Tonight, only one light was visible in the misty, moonless
dark, a bright twinkle up toward Moa.
"I've been thinking about your problem," he said.
I asked him which of my many problems he was talking about.
"The main problem, of course. Getting your mother and father
out."
"Yes?"
"I've got an idea."
I waved to him to go on.
He smiled as if I were a bank teller and he were holding a
Kalashnikov on me. "Everybody has a soft spot for something, you
know."
"Yes, yes."
"Even Fidel Castro."
"Yes, yes."
"He's only human, you know."
I felt like strangling Pierre -- for a man of action, he was a hell
of a windbag sometimes. I told him to get to the point.
"What's your hurry?" He waved at the faint shadows of the pines
and the lines of rocky outcrops. "Felipe, Chucho, this is heaven
compared to La Cabana -- or the paredon."
"I'm in ecstasy," I said.
Pierre snorted and started in talking about natural man and the joys
of a simple existence, good old William Morris again and his ideas
about the simple life, artsy-craftsy bullshit. He cuffed me playfully on
the head -- I pulled away and pushed my hair back into place. "You're
still nervous, Chucho, anxious, a child of the city. Look! All this
beauty of Creation lies here at your feet." The moon was just rising, a
misty glow over Punta Guarico.
"Is that what you anarchists believe in, 'Creation'?"
"The human spirit, Felipe, that's what we have faith in, the human
spirit."
"And money."
He made a face. "Money is power, power to be shared. Like your
father's money."
"My father's money." In the darkness of the night, moonlight was
beginning to dawn.
He waved his hand in the direction of Nipe, as if consigning all
problems to the world below the heights of the Sierra Cristal. "We can
talk about that later. First let's discuss the abduction."
"You can't 'abduct' my father, we've tried that. You may
remember, it didn't work out too well."
Not your father, I meant that Fidel..."
"Fidel? You are crazy. The man with a hundred homes and a
thousand bodyguards. They say even his bodyguards have
bodyguards." I gritted my teeth, this man wasn't just wild, he was
insane.
"Not Fidel himself."
"Not Fidel?"
"Not Fidel. Do you see that road that runs from Mayari south
down the river valley, and that cluster of huts just before the road
disappears into the hills?"
"I see the road." It was just a black streak against the moonlit
grayness of the fields. I thought I could make out some shapes that
might have been huts.
"That's Bajo Cedro. Do you know who lives there?"
"Fidel's mother?"
Pierre looked startled. I didn't know why I'd said that. "No, not
her, idiot, she's been dead for years. But maybe almost as good. His
old nanny."
"His nanny!"
"Yes, the old nanny, the ama for the Castro family lives down there
in Bajo Cedro. All alone, no guards, seventy-eight years old. Delia.
Black, supposed to keep herself busy with santeria. Fidel has chickens,
hams, blouses, necklaces sent to her. She won't leave her bohio, so he
doesn't see her very often -- but they say old Delia is the only person in
the world Fidel Castro has ever really loved."
"I don't know," I said. "Who's 'they'?"
"One of my men, from Mayari. He's seen the official car from
Havana pull up to her hut."
"Does he know her?"
"He hears things."
"I don't know," I said. I had learned, I thought, not to trust
Pierre's enthusiasms. I didn't like kidnapping -- and especially an old
woman, maybe a frail or even sick old woman. But Pierre talked me
around: they would treat the old lady carefully, nothing to worry about.
He and his men could easily carry it off. Like Fidel's rebel group in the
Sierra Maestra in the '50's, Pierre's "army" consisted of only a handful,
nine men. But we wouldn't need even that many for the job. The
kidnapping was the only hope we had, he told me, and there was little
risk. Even if for some reason something did go wrong, all we were
doing was a "little kidnapping" of an old lady out in the country. And
nothing could go wrong. She would be unresisting, probably even
cooperative if we acted as gently as possible. The government would
likely never find her hidden away with our little band in the wilds of the
Sierra Cristal. They hadn't found Pierre's men yet, after three months
of Pierre's "expropriating the expropriators" all over Cuba. And the old
lady would surely be ransomed: my father and mother were an
embarrassment to Fidel anyway by now, he'd surely be ready to use
them to save the old woman who had nursed him as a boy.
But I still didn't like the idea of abducting a little old lady. A
little old lady with powerful friends.
Later, I lay in my tent, the kerosene lamp turned low, trying to
read myself to sleep with John Le Carre's latest. I could see the glow
of the Coleman lantern through the canvas of Pierre's tent, and the
sound of typing. My tentmate, another Felipe, lay sleeping, half-waking
and snorting or clearing his throat from time to time. I finally put down
the book and went outside. The moon was well into the third quarter,
shining on the Cauto River that wound down on this side of Bajo
Cedro. I heard the crunch of a heavy zipper, and Pierre emerged, his
giant hand holding a manila folder. "Ah, Felipe. Come sit over here."
He went inside and fetched the Coleman, and put it next to the mats by
the campfire site. As we sat down, he handed me a paper. It read:
Dear Comandante,
We have Delia safe, she will not be harmed if you agree to our
terms. The anarchist struggle does not countenance needlessly
attacking the innocent. Our fight is with the forces of totalitarianism,
whether from the left or the right. As our great theorist Kropotkin said
more than one hundred years ago...
There was more in that vein, then the text went on to say that there
must be a prompt exchange for Pillo and the Revueltoses, conditions to
be arranged, safe conducts out of Cuba, and an "expense allowance" of
$100,000 in convertible currency.
"'Expenses'?" I said.
Pierre smiled, a faint darkening of his cheek in the dim light might
or might not have been a blush. "Well, of course."
But I talked him down on that one -- one hundred thousand was
too small to help us much, it made us look like petty crooks, and asking
for a lot of money might imperil the whole scheme. I suggested
twenty-five as a realistic amount for our escape requirements -- we
settled on fifty.
"'Petty crooks'," he said.
"Well. Not so petty, partner."
He handed me another paper and a blue card. "Sign at the x's," he
said.
I peered at them, turning them toward the lantern. The heading
read: Bank of Cheshire and Grand Cayman. The paper was an
application to open an account, and the blue card was a signature card.
Pierre had already signed, and from what he had typed into the blanks,
it was evident that the account was to be in both our names.
"For receiving the proceeds," he said. "I like offshore accounts.
Discreet."
"What proceeds?"
"Surely we're going to be partners in this, Chucho, I mean, when
your father opens the box in New York, you won't want not to share it
with me -- that is, with my movement?"
"Oh." I hadn't been thinking about money, but I could see that
Pierre would want to be rewarded for his efforts. Pierre had picked up
a half-burned stick and was looking at it closely.
"I don't know," I said.
"What don't you know? You certainly know that you need our
help. Don't be greedy, Felipe."
He was right about the help. "O.K.," I said, "I suppose we can
work something out."
He handed me another paper. "It's already worked out. The
money is to go into this account, and just so that we can be easy about
our financial relationship, there's this."
It was a note for $250,000, payable to Pierre from me -- payable
on demand. That's all I needed, I thought, another debt. Although why
worry about that, a thousand meters up in the mountains in the middle
of Cuba?
"Naturally, the note's only payable in practice when we get the
money." He dug around with the stick in the warm ashes of the fire.
"I'm sure you'll find the amount reasonable."
"It's a lot."
"What you'll have left is a lot more than what you've got now."
I had to admit to myself that he had a point. And I couldn't very
well do anything without him and his men and vehicles. I signed the
note.
Signing this bizarrely pedestrian document by Coleman lantern on
a mat smelling of water-logged campfire ashes, in the midst of a gang
of terrorists, with me myself on the run from the authorities, seemed --
perversely -- to lend an official seal to our plans, as if my signature
were ensuring that the whole crazy scheme was really going to come
true.
(To be continued)
==================================================================
SUITES
by Otho Eskin
(This is the first part of the comedy "Shell Game")
CHARACTERS
HIRSCHEL A 70-year old bellhop.
HENRY YURT A professional thief and con man who likes to dress as
a woman. As a man, Henry is thoroughly masculine. As a woman
(Heidi)YURT is feminine and attractive and obsessed with
clothes, shopping and make-up.
HORATIO TREADWELL. A swinish US Senator.
CORLISS SHAW. Treadwell's submissive and abused special assistant.
Corliss is a closet gay.
ZENOBIA BIRDSONG A beautiful, very sweet, blond, somewhat
dim, chorus girl - in her early twenties. Her appearance and her
wardrobe strangely resembles Heidi's.
BOOM-BOOM McKOOL Head of a large crime syndicate.
CYBIL Senator Treadwell's wife.
PLACE
Two adjoining suites at Shangri La-West, a very exclusive, very
expensive resort.
TIME
ACT I - The present
ACT II - One nanosecond after the end of Act I
ACT I
AT RISE: The living rooms of two adjoining, identical (mirror image)
suites (The Honeymoon Suite and the Empress Suite) at Shangri La -
West. Stage left and right are front doors leading to the outside
corridor. Upstage are French doors leading to a balcony. This balcony is
constructed so that one can enter each suite from it. There is a common
wall with a door between the two suites. There are two additional doors
in each suite: one leading to a bedroom, the other to a bathroom.
YURT (as HEIDI, dressed as a woman with blond wig,) enters the
Empress Suite followed by HIRSCHEL. YURT carries a large
cosmetics case. HIRSCHEL is dressed in a traditional bellhop uniform.
HIRSCHEL
This could get me fired.
YURT
It's just a bellhop job, Herschel.
(YURT moves around the room, nervously checking behind
doors.)
HIRSCHEL
I may be just a bellhop to you but it's an important career move for me.
YURT
I thought you wanted to become a Methodist bishop.
HIRSCHEL
That was last year. I've grown.
YURT
Herschel, it's time you settled down.
HIRSCHEL
I'm going through a mid-life crisis.
(YURT pulls the curtains on the front windows carefully aside and
peeks out.)
YURT
You're seventy years old. You can't be going through a mid-life crisis.
HIRSCHEL
The word I hear is there are people after you..
YURT
I just need a place to stay for a little while. This place is perfect.
They'll never think to look for me here at Shangri La. A resort filled
with aging Republicans and recovering alcoholic TV hosts. Please. Pretty
please.
HIRSCHEL
You can't stay here. I've already promised the rooms to someone else.
(YURT glances nervously around the suite.)
YURT
I thought you said this suite was empty.
HIRSCHEL
There's a friend...
YURT
Who is this ...this person?
HIRSCHEL
She's a young girl... Zenobia Birdsong. I've known her since she was
little. She's an orphan, with no family, no one to look after her. She's
here to audition for a gig in the Moon Pool Room. Until last week she
was in the chorus at the Ding-a-Ling Club in Las Vegas.
YURT
Just give me a couple of hours to make some phone calls. I've got
friends all over the country who are eager eager to help me. People
who owe me big time. There's no problem.
(YURT goes into the bedroom.)
YURT
(Rapturously - Off Stage)
Oooooh! Just my size. Neeto!
HIRSCHEL
Don't touch those things! They belong to Zenobia. I told her she could
keep her things here 'till she finds out whether she gets the job.
YURT
Taffeta! I love taffeta.
HIRSCHEL
Put those back!
(YURT returns to the living room)
HIRSCHEL
You're in trouble again. I know it.
YURT
(Innocently)
Trouble? Trouble? My goodness, what could you possibly
mean trouble?
HIRSCHEL
I can't help remembering Tahoe.
YURT
I was young and foolish, Hirsch.
HIRSCHEL
And then there was Atlantic City...
YURT
I don't want to talk about that. Please. Just a few hours. I'll be gone
tomorrow morning. I promise I'll be good.
HIRSCHEL
That's what you said in Miami...
YURT
This time it's true. I've finally scored.
HIRSCHEL
That's what you always say.
YURT
I can pull it off, I know it. From now on I'm on easy street. I can buy
all the shoes I want. .
HIRSCHEL
OK. Just a few hours. But this is the last time.
YURT
You're a darling! I just love you to pieces.
HIRSCHEL
Don't you dare kiss me! I've told you a hundred times don't ever kiss
me!
(YURT tries the door leading to the Honeymoon Suite and
finds it locked.)
YURT
What's in there?
HIRSCHEL
That's the Honeymoon Suite. Been reserved by some bigwig. Arriving
any minute now. (HIRSCHEL goes to the front door.) I've got a really
bad feeling about this. I know I'm going to regret it. I just know it.
YURT
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
(YURT blows HIRSCHEL and kiss. HIRSCHEL exits. YURT
puts the cosmetics case on the floor, kicks off her shoes and
removes her wig, revealing YURT is a man. YURT takes a pistol
from a purse and begins a search of the suite, looking into closets,
checking behind furniture. While this is going on, the door to the
Honeymoon Suite opens and HIRSCHEL, staggering under the
weight of several pieces of heavy luggage enters, followed by
CORLISS SHAW, also carrying luggage, and SENATOR
HORATIO TREADWELL. TREADWELL examines the suite
critically.)
TREADWELL
This the best you have?
HIRSCHEL
(Gasping for breath)
The Honeymoon Suite is the finest in the resort. I'm sure you'll be very
pleased.
(In the Empress Suite, YURT steps into the bathroom.
Immediately the front door of the Empress Suite opens and
ZENOBIA BIRDSONG enters. She has blond hair cut in
the same manner as YURT's wig; she wears glasses and
carries a cosmetics case identical to YURT's. ZENOBIA
puts the case on the floor and goes into the bedroom.
YURT emerges from the bathroom and steps onto the
balcony. In the Honeymoon Suite, HIRSCHEL staggers
with his load of luggage into the bedroom.)
CORLISS
Senator, I appeal to you once again, don't do this thing...
TREADWELL
Don't you ever presume to tell me what to do. Is that clear? If you
were as smart as me you wouldn't be in your job.
CORLISS
Yes, sir.
(HIRSCHEL returns.)
CORLISS
(Pointing to the door to the adjacent suite)
What's that?
HIRSCHEL
That's the door to the Empress Suite.
TREADWELL
Who's there now?
HIRSCHEL
There's... there's no one registered at the moment, Mr. Shaw.
(ZENOBIA rushes out of the bedroom, having put on a
white, sequined sweater.)
TREADWELL
(Pointing to Corliss)
That's Shaw over there. (To CORLISS) Check the windows.
CORLISS
Yes, sir.
(ZENOBIA takes off her glasses, puts them in her purse,
then snatches up the wrong cosmetics case and leaves the
Empress Suite. The instant ZENOBIA walks out, YURT
returns from the balcony and goes to the phone. At the
same time CORLISS goes to the windows of the
Honeymoon Suite and looks out.)
CORLISS
It's OK. We're nine stories high. No one can see in.
TREADWELL
(To HIRSCHEL)
You have movie channels?
(YURT dials the phone.)
HIRSCHEL
Of course, sir. Thirteen channels. We also have stereo. CD's. Fax...
YURT
(As HEIDI)
I would like to speak to Beaverman...
TREADWELL
You have adult films?
YURT
What do you mean, "who is this"? It's Heidi.
HIRSCHEL
Yes, Mr... eh ..eh.
TREADWELL
Never mind my name.
YURT
Please! I really must speak to him....
TREADWELL
How many adult channels?
YURT
It's something of an emergency. Do be a sweetie and tell him I'm on the
phone.
HIRSCHEL
Six, sir. I'm told there's a fine collection...
YURT
(Hurt)
What do you mean he doesn't want to talk to me? ...
TREADWELL
There's a girl here at Shangri La West. Just arrived. That right, Shaw?
CORLISS
Correct, sir. Probably yesterday.
(YURT slams the phone down. Thinks. Dials again.)
TREADWELL
Her name's Zenobia. Zenobia Something.
CORLISS
Birdsong.
TREADWELL
She's a very old, very personal friend. You know her?
YURT
(Speaking as HENRY- in a male voice)
Boots!! It's me... Henry Yurt. How the hell are you, ol' buddy?
HIRSCHEL
Well, sir. Maybe I do.
TREADWELL
Where is she?
YURT
No, I'm not in town...
HIRSCHEL
Last time I saw her she was in the Moon Pool Room waiting for the
auditions to begin.
YURT
What do you mean, "thank God"?
TREADWELL
Tell her she should be ready for a real good time. Her friend Horatio...
CORLISS
(Anxious)
Sir!
TREADWELL
(To HIRSCHEL)
Never mind. Shaw will take care of the details.
YURT
I can't believe you said that....You shittin' me, Boots? You shittin'
me?... Remember all those great times we used to have?... All right so
there was one time. But it was fuckin' great! Tijuana? ...The booze.
The girls. ... How could I have known she was a cop?...Boots? ...Boots?
... Hello! ...Hello!
TREADWELL
(To HIRSCHEL)
Now beat it!
(YURT hangs up. Re-dials. CORLISS goes with
HIRSCHEL to the front door. HE peels off several bills
from a roll of bills and gives HIRSCHEL a tip)
HIRSCHEL
(To CORLISS)
Isn't that.. ? Isn't that the famous Senator Treadwell?
CORLISS
I'd be very much obliged if you'd keep his presence at Shangri La-West
confidential.
HIRSCHEL
I saw his profile on Current Affair just last week...
CORLISS
If anybody asks, just say I've taken the suite. Don't mention there is
anybody else here.
YURT
(Into the phone - in a female voice, as HEIDI)
Frankie, darling! ...
CORLISS
I want you to do me a favor.
HIRSCHEL
Sir?
YURT
Of course it's me you silly old thing. ....
CORLISS
(Pointing to the common door.)
I need the key to that door.
YURT
(Very agitated - dropping the female voice)
What is it?... What have you been hearing?...
HIRSCHEL
I can't do that...
YURT
(Resuming his female voice.)
What do you mean, "Is there someone else on the line"?.... Of course
not.
CORLISS
There are times when the Senator must be able to come and go by a
back door. You know how it is in politics.
HIRSCHEL
I could get in trouble
CORLISS
You said there's nobody there. What harm would it do?
(CORLISS peels off a few more bills and presses them into
HERSCHEL's hand. HIRSCHEL removes a key from a ring
and gives it to CORLISS. CORLISS shows HIRSCHEL
out of the suite, closing the door behind him.)
YURT
Contract? What kind of contract?
TREADWELL
Corliss, get down to that bar. Find the girl. Bring her here.
YURT
Grupnik? He said that about me? A snowball's chance where...?
CORLISS
Sir, if I may be permitted...
YURT
Both the Newark and Philly organizations?
TREADWELL
You think they have a waterbed?
CORLISS
This whole thing is a really bad idea, sir. The press is looking for you all
over the place.
TREADWELL
Screw the press! And screw you. When I want your opinion I'll ask for
it.
CORLISS
I must remind you, the ethics hearings are coming up on the 15th of the
month.
YURT
Do be an angel, just forget I called. In case anybody asks, you never
heard of me. ... I don't see why you have to say it would be a pleasure.
(YURT hangs up. YURT rummages in the purse for an
address book; flips through the pages.)
TREADWELL
Don't sweat the hearings, Shaw. My boys aren't going to turn on me
after all these years.
(YURT dials)
CORLISS
There are twenty-two angry women on the witness list. It won't be a
pretty sight.
YURT
(Male voice)
Merrik... It's Henry Yurt here. ...Long time, no see..... Talk to me,
Buddy.
TREADWELL
Who's going to pay attention to a bunch of hysterical women?
YURT
What do you mean "who is this"?.... Say it ain't so, Merrik! ....
TREADWELL
Know what's wrong with you, Shaw?
YURT
Unfortunately? What's this "unfortunately" shit? Remember I put
together that can't-fail deal with the North Korean transistors for you...
TREADWELL
Know what's wrong with you? You worry too much.
CORLISS
That's what you pay me for, Senator to worry for you.
TREADWELL
Just do your job.
CORLISS
There may come a time when I can't save you. Last time you
remember, the girl scout troop in Pasadena it was a very close thing.
Why do you chase after women like this? After all, you have your wife,
Mrs. Treadwell....
TREADWELL
Pah leese.!
CORLISS
Why do you do it, Senator? You risk everything scandal, disgrace,
your marriage, your political career for what? For a two minute roll in
the hay?
YURT
So it didn't work out. We live in a fuckin' imperfect world.
TREADWELL
I've got to have that girl what's her name? Zenobia.
CORLISS
I thought when you saw her in Las Vegas last weekend she called you a
loathsome, scum-sucking toad.
TREADWELL
She was playing hard to get. You know how women are.
YURT
Are you fuckin' kidding me? You fuckin' kidding me? We were
business partners almost. We were almost like fuckin' brothers in
arms. Know what I mean?
TREADWELL
But then, again, I guess you wouldn't know how women are. I mean...
people like you.
YURT
... You don't want me to call again? ... (Female voice) Ever? But...!
Hello? Hello?
CORLISS
I beg your pardon!
TREADWELL
You know, fairies.. Queers. People like you. Don't understand women.
Not like real men.
CORLISS
Sir, I must tell you I don't like the word fairy, queer...
(YURT dials a number)
TREADWELL
I'll be sure to let you know when I give a fuck what you don't like.
Know what's wrong with those women? They're not getting enough
nookie. If they got screwed regularly they wouldn't be going around
whining just because somebody wants to have a good time.
YURT
(Male voice)
Big Al? Henry Yurt here.... Wait! Don't hang up!
CORLISS
And there's the matter of Mrs. Treadwell...
TREADWELL
No problemo. I told Cybil I'm attending a trade conference.
YURT
I got this great deal and I'm coming to you first. 'Cause you and I go
way back and I wanted to give you first crack at...
CORLISS
She says if she catches you with another woman again she'll shoot you
dead on sight.
TREADWELL
I'll have her doctor increase her Prozac dosage..
YURT
I can't fuckin' believe you said that, Al. Can't fuckin' believe my ears.
After all we've meant to one another. We spent four months in the same
cell at San Quentin... That makes us like family.
CORLISS
Sir, this time she means it. She's hired a detective agency.
TREADWELL
You take care of it, Shaw. Just like you've always done. Now get down
to the bar and find Miss Birdsong. Bring her here. Don't take no for an
answer.
YURT
What's the fuckin' world coming to I ask you when two old friends
can't even hold a decent conver...hello?... Al? Al?...
CORLISS
I think you'd better have the key to the door to the next suite. Just in
case.
TREADWELL
I know the drill.
(CORLISS gives TREADWELL the key to the common
door, then leaves the Honeymoon Suite. In the Empress
Suite there is the sound of voices at the door. YURT grabs
the wig and shoes, makes a dash for the cosmetics case but
the door opens and he hides behind the curtains of the
French doors leading to the balcony leaving the case on the
floor. Just as he disappears through the curtains,
HIRSCHEL, carrying luggage, enters the Empress Suite
followed by BOOM-BOOM McKOOL.)
(End of Part One)
===================================================
===================================================
