FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 6, Number 4 July-August, 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. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e- mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part of the message itself, rather than as an attachment. Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from the editor or by downloading from the website http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Fiction_Online The FICTION-ONLINE home page, including the latest issue, courtesy of the Writer's Center, Bethesda, Maryland, may be accessed at the following URL: http://www.writer.org/folmag/topfollm.htm 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 reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage performances or filmings or video recording, or for any other use not explicitly licensed, are reserved. William Ramsay, Editor ================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Note Contributors Hellenic Songs, verses E. James Scott "Even Steven," a short story Margi Grady "The Break," an excerpt (chapter 15) from the novel "Ay, Chucho!" William Ramsay "What Do I Do?," part 6 of the play "Julie" 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.. His play, "Season in Hell," recently had sixteen performances at the SCENA Theatre in Washington. MARGI GRADY lives and writes in Northern Virginia. She is the coordinator of the Northwest Fiction Group. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He is also a writer and playwright and his play, "Revenge," recently received readings by the Actor's Theatre of Washington. E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and has taught at gourmet cooking schools in Chicago and Mexico City. His latest researches have been on pre-classical Greek civilization. ================================================================== HELLENIC SONGS by E. James Scott Thanks to Zeus Give thanks, give thanks, Give thanks to the Lord God Zeus Victory is ours Ilium is no more. Paris' pride is punished Our men are crowned with laurels. Zeus, Zeus! Hear our song of gratitude. Bad Girl Helen Helen Helen! The scarlet flames of the towers of Ilium Flicker on the white foam of the seas, Galled to madness by Poseidon's whip. You gaze seasick over the taffrail of the ship; Menelaus snores below, dreaming of the fountains of the gardens of Sparta. Why why why why? Helen Helen Helen! Why not? My life is my life And I am clever, slim, and beautiful. =================================================== EVEN STEVEN by Margi Grady I saw Steven the other day on Dupont Circle. He was sitting on one of the park benches with one foot up on the seat and his chin resting on his knee, tying a knot in a piece of twine he was using as a shoelace. His face was so grimy the whites of his eyes looked like whole milk. When I said hello, he looked blank like he didn't know me. At the time, I thought maybe he didn't. After all, I'm a grown man now and the last and only time he saw me I was just a kid. But given the events of the last few days, I know now he recognized me. *** The first time I saw Steven was in Mount Jackson, Virginia--my hometown, like it or not. I was 13 and Carlene was 12. Things were bad for us at the time. The mother had taken a trip to visit a friend in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. She said she'd be gone for a couple days, then she called to say a couple weeks, then called with an update: permanent relocation. She told the father Carlene could visit in the summers. Notice I say Carlene. She told the father to tell me I needed to stay with him. Said I needed a male role model. The father turned into one of the walking wounded. First, he wouldn't talk to me, like somehow I was to blame. Naturally, I stopped talking to him. After a few weeks, he started harassing. He'd shout. I wouldn't answer. He'd scream. Etc. I remember one night, Carlene came in my room and lay down beside me on the bed with her arm curled on the pillow above my head. She whispered how I shouldn't aggravate the father. She was starting to get tits by then and I remember thinking how close they were to my mouth. Inches. Even less. Then the father sent Carlene over to stay with the aunt and uncle. He said it would be best for her. If you ask me, it was punishment for me. With Carlene gone, it was just the father and me. He would come home, make a sandwich, take it to his room, close the door and not come out all night. Do you know what it's like for your one remaining parent not to speak to you or feed you or eat with you or acknowledge you? That's how things were when I saw Steven. *** Mount Jackson is just off Interstate 81 between Washington, D.C., and Roanoke, so lots of strangers come and go. I always took note of them, on the lookout for I don't know what. When I saw this guy downtown older, maybe late twenties--with stringy blond hair to his waist and a fake suede jacket with cowboy fringe down the arms, he really caught my eye. I followed him. I'd played follow-the-stranger before, but not much had come of it unless you count that one fat bitch who scurried into the police station to report me, but she was just a tourist worried about her pocket book. My stranger walked out toward the cemetery. I followed. He didn't look back at me, but I knew he knew I was there. As he neared the cemetery gates, he slowed down. I had to shuffle to keep my distance. He stopped, squatted, leaned against one of the stone pillars, and rested his arms on his knees. He kept acting as if I wasn't there. I could either walk closer or turn tail like a chicken. I chose to walk. He didn't so much as look at me. As I came up to him, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses, the kind with mirror lenses. He made a big deal of putting them on--holding them out, shaking them open, lifting them to the light to check for streaks. The sunglasses still had a plastic tag dangling from the bridge and a little foil label on one of the lenses. Obviously, he'd shoplifted them, probably from Fritcher's Drug Store. He'd shoplifted them and he was flaunting it. I was a little scared, but I was also excited. Here was someone worth my time. As I passed, he spoke. "You following me, kid?" I stopped. "How would you like it if someone was followin' you?" He put on the sunglasses, tag and all. I shrugged. "Gives you the creeps, in case you don't know it. You're in a strange place and some little shit follows you down the road. You don't know nothin' about him." His voice was soft, like he was muttering to himself. I could see my reflection ballooned out of shape in the sunglasses. "So why don't you fuck off?" he said. I walked on up the road. He got up and followed me. I could hear him behind me, keeping pace. He was doing to me what I'd just done to him. "Gives you the creeps," he said just loud enough for me to hear. I kept going. He kept going. I confess, I got more and more scared. By the time I turned down the street to my house, I was feeling all twisted up--scared of this guy and dreading going home where the father was sure to be. But then Billy Fritcher came along and offered me a ride. Usually I would refuse--pillar of the community or not, Fritcher always smelled slightly shitty. He kept glancing in his rear view. "Who's the cowboy?" he asked. I said I didn't know. Afterwards, I wished I'd said, "I don't know, but those shades he's wearing came direct from your stinking store, cash free." Billy said to be careful around strangers. We pulled up in front of my house. I planned to wait till Billy drove away, then bolt--go over to the aunt and uncle's to see if Carlene was home or go up into the woods. But Billy did what he thought was the right thing, given there was a some stranger lurking in the neighborhood. He watched till I went in the house. There was no escaping. In the kitchen, I made myself a bowl of cereal, and wolfed it. I thought hard about what had happened. That guy had made a point of scaring me, but only after I'd scared him first. He was just keeping things on an even keel. Even Steven, I thought. I decided that's what I would call him. Even Steven. We were a lot alike, Steven and I. I pictured us on the road. We wouldn't talk, we wouldn't be any kind of friends, but he'd watch my back and I'd watch his. The father came in the kitchen. I got up and put the bowl in the sink. Pitched it, actually. It broke. "You did that deliberately, didn't you?" he said. He'd started doing that, asking those kinds of questions that if you say yes you're guilty of something and if you say no you're still guilty. He grabbed my arm. I stood perfectly still and focused on a Pennsylvania-shaped stain on the linoleum. He clutched a hank of my hair and pulled so I would look at him. Even with his face three inches from mine, I looked away. "Will you please just listen to me?" He was at the screaming stage. It was like it always was only worse. Something burst into flames inside of me. I yanked my arm away and bolted out the kitchen door. I ran back toward Steven. The father came after me. I went off the road and into the woods. * * * Next day, I skipped school and went downtown looking for Steven. Out in front of Fritcher's, the bus was pulling away from the curb and he was on it, resting his head against the window. I just stood there sucking in exhaust. That evening, two police officers--Horsey Chester and some guy named Albie came to the house and sat me down in the living room and broke it to me gently that they'd found the father in the woods with his skull smashed by a good-sized rock. While they were telling me this, I got a picture in my head of Carlene coming home and the two of us eating cereal in the kitchen alone every day for the rest of our lives. They questioned me. Did I know if the father had any quarrels with anyone? Had we heard from the mother lately? Did I know why the father might be out in the woods? I said no, no, and no. Then I told them how this stranger had followed me. I told them how Billy Fritcher had picked me up. I told them Billy would know about it. To put them off Steven's trail, I left out that I'd seen him leaving on the bus. A few people had seen Steven around Mount Jackson, but no one had talked to him or knew him or knew why he was in town. Just another stranger, there then gone. The investigation wound down for lack of information. They sent me to live with the aunt and uncle. Though Carlene and I were always being pressed half to death under their godfearing thumbs, at least we were together again. That didn't last. Before long, they had me put in juvenile detention. I'd come out, I'd go back, till I turned 18 and lit out for the nation's capital. * * * I won out in the end, though, or so I thought. I primed Carlene to get out of that hell hole. I kept giving her the bright lights, big city picture. It wasn't till she was done with school that she finally decided to come. The aunt and uncle didn't like it, but what could they do? She slept on my couch and in no time at all got a job at one of those slick Adams-Morgan restaurant-bars. Briefly, everything seemed perfect, just like I'd always planned it. But almost right away she met this guy McDunn in the Safeway on 18th Street. A couple weeks later I came home from work and there was a note. Need my own life, shit like that. She'd moved in with McDunn. He said he worked for the government. He was average looking, chubby faced, corduroys and flannel shirts and a little scruffy. I couldn't figure out what she saw in him. After Carlene moved in with him, I was over there one day and he was in his living-dining room at the table eating a hot dog. Carlene walked by his chair and he reached out and pinched her ass. In front of me. The two of them giggled, like it was no big deal, him feeling her up right in front of me. The other day when I stopped by, he was gone for once. At first Carlene didn't want me to come in. She said McDunn wouldn't like someone coming in his apartment when he wasn't home. She said that to me, her brother. She had one of those little chain things across the door. As a joke, I told her if she didn't let me in, I'd have to bust her head open. I gave the door a little push. She let me in, but right away, she said she wanted to run down to the Safeway to get us some beer. While she was gone, I tore through McDunn's dresser drawers looking for sex stuff. I found nothing. The bastard wasn't careless. Carlene took a long time. When she came back, McDunn was with her and she didn't even have any beer. I just left. I don't know if he noticed something amiss or not, but after that afternoon, he hung on Carlene like a trained monkey. I called her after I went home and he answered. I hung up. I went over there after work and he opened the door a crack, peered out over the chain and said Carlene was out. Later, I went by the restaurant and he was there, hunkered at the end of the bar. * * * The police found McDunn early yesterday morning in an alley in Adams Morgan with his skull crushed. They told me this in preparation for grilling me with a bunch of stupid questions. They said not to leave town, just like in a movie. I told them I wasn't going anywhere, also like in a movie. They didn't get the joke. I thought of telling them about Steven, but then I thought, no. We stick together, Steven and I. I called Carlene after they left to tell her I was on my way. She said no, don't come over, but I knew she didn't mean it. I hung around her place for a couple days till finally she came outside one morning. She was looking bad. I helped her back inside. I told her to get her things together, I'd take her home. She said she was home. I told her I meant back to my place. She said no. I said come on, and went into the bedroom to get some of her things. I tried to be cheerful and firm, but she started screaming at me to get out, let her alone, stuff like that. She can be such a little girl. I tried to calm her. I suggested that we stop on the way home and get us a movie at the Blockbuster and just forget about it all. She pointed out that the boyfriend had just been murdered. It went on like that. She said things she always would have regretted, I'm sure. Finally, I left. She needed to calm down. But she hasn't. I keep calling. I keep going over there. She doesn't even answer the door. I'm afraid I'm going to have to give up on Carlene. All these years, all this care, and still she eludes me. I think I saw Steven again on the street. He ducked into the drug store, but I didn't go after him. Frankly, I don't expect him to disappear on me. He didn't just miraculously show up. I know that now. He's been here all the time. =================================================== . THE BREAK by William Ramsay (Note: the is chapter 15 of the novel "Ay, Chucho!") It took me twenty four hours of talking and being talked to -- and shouted at -- plus a lot of sitting and waiting in cells and offices, before I convinced Pineda that I hadn't had anything to do with the escape. Of course I knew who had arranged it -- but I didn't have to tell Pineda that. After he had gotten tired of browbeating me, the fat man looked sad instead of self- satisfied. I guess my case must not have been the kind that good careers are built on. His jowls seemed to sag more than usual. A full beard from the barbudo days, instead of the present rodent mustache, would have been a help to his face. I was sent back to my cell, but shortly, he called me back to his office and said that there was a technical matter that Comrade Baez wanted to consult with me about. Would I go please directly to the Havana Libre? I closed my eyes, allowing the blood to seep back into my brain. Thank God for the phones. As long as the new system worked -- but didn't work perfectly -- I was going to be Mr. Indispensable and get the benefit of the doubt as far as counterrevolutionary activities were concerned. Pineda looked sour as he bid me good-bye -- You're nothing but trouble, his face said. The thought of being "trouble" made me feel a little like Errol Flynn, fighting against impossible odds, weighing into Basil Rathbone's evil minions in the castle of Nottingham. Or Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade -- or whichever character he played that said that trouble was his middle name. At the Hilton, Eddy had already had an idea for solving Baez' problem with the transmitter. Together we installed a bypass circuit to take out some interference that had popped up on one of our frequencies from a new short-wave radio in the Chinese embassy. After we finished, I tuned into both police channels just to see whether there was any traffic about the prison break, but there was nothing. I idly moved the dial to the G-2 frequency, but there was only choppy noise -- they had their scrambler in operation. Eddy was watching me. "It would be fun to give those spooks a blast of salsa music. That would give the bastards something to 'communicate' about." Eddy was right -- we had 350 watts radiated power and we could jam the hell out of G-2 or the police or anyone else we chose. "I don't think 'the highest levels' would be too happy with us then." Eddy looked toward the partition: Baez was sitting on the other side at his bench. "Fuck the highest levels," Eddy whispered. "Don't we wish," I said. He grasped my thigh close to my body. "Cut it out, for God's sake, Eddy" I said, still whispering. I was getting jumpy about Eddy's version of male togetherness. "Sorry. But really..." "'But really' nothing, find your own friends." "You're the one I want as a friend." "Ohmigod," I said, and picked up my coat and left. Back at my hotel, I found Amelia waiting for me. I was amazed. I had assumed she would have been on the run from the police, but the architect of the "easier way" looked cool and self-confident as she sipped at a daiquiri at a corner table in in the open-air bar by the pool. I didn't know which question to ask first. Where was my father now? How had she done it? She sat back in her chair, looking swollen up like a small dove in her gray frilly blouse, bringing her head back so that her lovely cheeks rippled, her mouth in a shy smile touched with irony. "I'm so tired, Chucho." She pressed my hand, which was lying on the table. "Don't worry." She glanced at the empty tables around us. "Don't worry, he's safe -- for now." She reassured me -- my father hadn't been hurt. She took a mirror out of her purse and examined the locks of hair around her ears. "It wasn't all that difficult. Your friend Marcus helped." Marcus! Him. Jesus. I asked what he had done. "Oh, I can't tell you all about it now, but he supplied the two women we needed." "Two women?" "I'll tell you the whole story later." She pointed to her empty glass. "I need another one of these." I chh-chh'ed for a waiter. "Marcus should have let me handle it," I said. "I would have gotten both of them out eventually -- out of jail and out of Cuba. Now mamacita's in jail and papacito's out -- somewhere in the heart of Fidel's little police state." "Don't be negative." "Do you call that negative? We're practically worse off than before. And I'm under suspicion now more than ever." "Negativity, negativity. We just need one thing -- a place for Mr. Revueltos to stay for a week or so until we can get him out of the country." "Why can't he stay wherever he is now? And when can I see him?" "Stay in the laundry room of the Habana Libre? He has to go to the bathroom in a pail and hide whenever they change shifts or someone on the regular staff comes in." I thought about a hideout for papacito. Not my room: I was watched too closely. Finally I thought of it. "I have an idea." "We only need one place, just for him. Pillo wanted to stick with us, but I wouldn't stand for that. Too dangerous, all our eggs in one basket." "Good idea, I suppose." "You wouldn't think so from talking to Pillo. For a shrimpy little guy he's sure a hardhead! He acted as if he were afraid to be alone or something. But I insisted." "So where is he?" "Don't know exactly. He's supposed to hide out with his own friends and to keep in touch with us through one of Marcus' men." Suddenly Marcus loomed as the big guardian angel -- I experienced a sudden desire to have somebody like him to fall back on. Momentarily I hung onto the warm glow of being taken care of -- then I remembered the real Marcus as I knew him, and realized that "guardian devil" or "ministering clown" might be a better description of him. "Where do you suggest keeping your dad?" said Amelia, taking out the mirror again and touching up her lipstick. I had been thinking. "He can stay with a friend of mine. Never mind where. It will be more secure that way." She said that she would want to check up on him later, that she should have to talk with him about getting "her client" out of jail. I told her that that could be arranged. "But," I said, "how are things with 'your client'?" She made a face, dismissing Havana, Cuba, and Fidel in one twist of the mouth. "They don't dare hold Elena long, this isn't China, after all. It should be obvious that she's an innocent -- and besides that, she's an American citizen. If they do turn out to be sticky, maybe we can accomplish more from Miami than here -- especially with the video tape still in our possession. We'll have to see." I wasn't convinced by this reasoning, but I had enough to worry about for the moment. Amelia's "success" seemed to have produced what looked to me like nothing but an awful mess. Amelia didn't think it was safe for me to try to see my father until after the shift had changed at the Hilton and they'd stashed him somewhere safe. While we waited, she told me the story of the escape. She spoke about it as if she had been describing one of her lawsuits, handled according to the book, and she left out some of the details, which I had to fill in from my father's version later. *** The security at Havana's La Cabana prison is very good in one sense: once a problem, say, a riot or a strike or an attempt at escape, has been identified, the commandant and his guards are quick to respond, well-armed, good shots, and ruthless. But if the problem isn't so obvious, then it's a different story. I don't like to say this because I personally get tired of the things that people say about us Latins: but it may be that it is part of our "temperament" not to pay too much attention to some kinds of details. In La Cabana, that lackadaisical quality means that if it's not obvious that an escape is an escape, the prison hierarchy has been known to drop the ball. A few years ago a certain Dumont-Perez, an embezzler from the Bank of Cuba, made his escape through a laundry chute, leaving a dummy in the bed in the cell. Only eighteen months ago, Captain Herberto Mendoza, a renegade fidelista, managed to escape while carrying boxes to the main guardhouse, where he simply struck out the line with his name on it on the duty register. Amelia had taken her inspiration from those two cases. Here's the picture. It is nearly nine o'clock, toward the end of the regular visiting hours -- and time for the conjugal visits. Outside the tall wooden side door of the prison, a crowd of women are gathered. Some are in old dresses or jeans, one wears a pink frilly dress with a wide-brimmed hat, as if for a garden party. Two middle-aged women stand together, one slim, the other bulgy, with a large round belly. They both wear full head scarves, one red, the other royal blue. The door opens. The body search is careless -- these are "ladies," after all. Two guards form the women into a straggly platoon and lead them into the cell blocks. The sound of tapping and clanking -- prisoners clink spoons against the bars of their cells. The platoon dissolves into a swarm of individual women as it approaches the cells. A number of the cells have gray blankets strung up behind the bars. The guards vainly try to herd the women, as here and there they break for the cells. In front of the cell of the prisoner Revueltos, the slim woman in the red scarf stands patiently waiting. Catercornered from her, a guard unlocks the door for the woman in the blue scarf. A yell arises from one cell: Dolores! A guard angrily jams a long steel rod between the bars of the cell and a cry of pain is heard. More yells directed at spouses or friends. My father's cell door is opened and his "spouse" enters. The conjugal visits begin as the noise in the cell blocks calms down. Almost immediately there are noises from behind the blankets, but the guards are used to it. Only one of the new ones, a youngster, giggles when he hears a particularly loud groan or a sharp, stifled scream. As far as I know, there may even have been animal noises from behind the blanket in the prisoner Revueltos' cell -- my father is after all a human being, no matter how much he may try to disguise it. The visits end at eleven -- or ten or fifteen minutes after, because the guards are human beings too. The women are let out of the cells, lined up, red scarf still next to blue scarf, faces in the shadow of weak overhead bulbs, I suppose. The "spouses" are counted and then led out toward the great wooden door again. Then one guard, excited by the visit, tries to slip his hand up the skirt of the woman in the royal blue scarf. She punches him in the belly. Gasping, he pulls his rifle, but an older guard pushes up the muzzle of the gun and tells the woman to get along. Out the door they all go. My father said he was trembling so hard that he kept tripping on the cobblestones in the courtyard and Pillo had to hold him erect by the elbow. Amelia tells me that the two women found in the cells in the morning might have to serve at most a year or two in prison -- but during their stay in jail they will be able to look forward to their release and being set up with their own flower shop off Calle Ocho in Miami. Amelia got Mr. Gomez' solemn word on that one. *** "Chucho, we really haven't got time for this now!" Amelia was kneeling with her legs on either side of me and I was getting ready to lift her up over and onto my erect penis. Talking about the conjugal visits had inspired me. "Sure, sure, there is," I said. She winced as I lifted her onto it. "But your father..." "But you told me Paco has to get hold of his friend's van before it's safe to take him away." I grunted -- contact! "The laundry --- ooohhh--- will be closed. Oohhhh." "Paco -- can -- pick..." I grunted. "Locks." And I myself picked and picked and picked some more. Amelia gasped, stretched her leg muscles, groaned. She collapsed on me just as I was hurrying to finish. I redoubled my speed. "Easy, easy!" she said. "Stop for a minute, I'm finished." "I can't, I can't!" "When a lady says 'stop,' you should stop," she said. "Oh, God, I'm dying." "Jesse!" She pulled up and away but simultaneously lowered her hand to gently caress my crotch. "You've got to learn to not be so frantic," she said, pumping with her hand. "You've just got to learn to do things the easy way." *** My father said afterwards that all he knew was that he lay down in the laundry cart, as instructed, and covered himself over with towels. The lights were out, and only a faint luminescence from the city lights came through the thin cloth of the side of the cart. Then he waited for a long time -- he realized afterward that he lapsed into the familiar zombie pattern of prison life, as if the laundry cart had become a stretch in solitary confinement. Finally he heard a door open, and a familiar voice: "Don Federico, don Federico." "Here, here," he said in a whisper. "Don Federico, where are you?" shouted Paco. My father pictured himself surrounded by people attracted by Paco's voice. "Be quiet, young man, whoever you are, I'm in here," he whispered. "My respects, don Federico," said Paco, leaning down close to the cart. "Just a minute and we'll have you out of here." "Oh, God," said my father, used to the caution and quiet of prison life, and feeling that by this time they must be surrounded by police. "Are you all right, don Federico?" The door opened, and a very short woman in a chambermaid's uniform came in. "What's all this here, who are you?" she said to Paco. My father carefully pulled the towels down closer onto his head. "It's all right," said Paco. "I said 'Who are you?'" "Inspection," said Paco. "What inspection?" she said, and she came over and lifted some of the towels off. My father gazed into a pair of dark brown eyes. "What's this?" she said, as if she were talking about a traffic accident. "He's inspecting the laundry cart," said Paco. "Oh," she said. "What is he finding there?" My father now got a glimpse of Paco for the first time. He was wearing a white coat that looked as if it had been stolen from an impoverished physician. "What are you finding, Perez?" said Paco. "Nothing," said my father. "Nothing yet." Paco put his arm around the fat little woman and said, "Nothing. You get it? You see, he isn't finding any clean towels. Counterrevolutionary elements have been stashing clean towels in with the dirty to confuse the laundry comrades and create confusion and useless labor." "Really?" she said, her eyes widening. "Help us get this out to the street to the inspection van," said Paco. "All right. But why is the inspector wearing women's clothes? "A test of revolutionary alertness," said my father. My father told me that at this point he felt as if he were going to pee in his pants. "Let's go," he said. "Yes, Comrade Perez." said Paco. The little woman helped push the cart to the door and held the door open as Paco pushed it out. She whispered to Paco as Paco wheeled the cart over to the van, "Is the test part of the VD campaign?" "Yes, that's it. Help me, comrade." "You're a big man," she said to Paco, as he opened the back door of the van and helped my father inside. Then he pushed the cart away. "Are you finished inspecting?" she said. Paco flipped up the front of her skirt and peeped under. "Let me inspect under here." The little lady's mouth fell open, then she giggled, put her hand over her mouth, frowned, and gave Paco a light slap across the face. "Funny man. I know your type." "Ay," he said. "That hurts." He closed the rear of the van and got in. He turned to her. "Thanks, Comrade." She reached up and patted his cheek, softly this time, standing on tiptoes and reaching her arm out as far as she could. "Come back and inspect again. Anytime, handsome." "Duty calls," said Paco. "Let's go!" said my father. "What did he say?" said the woman. "He's cold in there -- want to come with us and help warm him up?" She looked thoughtful. Then she whispered. "Leave him off -- and then you come back here. Ask for Julia." Paco waved and shot the van into gear. With a clash of metal, it took off. My father, in a skirt and scarf, was now really at large in Havana. *** How to explain it to Valeska? -- that was my problem. I had the advantage that there had been no publicity at all on the break. But still I had to explain why a friend of Felipe Elizalde would need a place to stay, and I needed to think up a cover story as to who this friend was. I thought I knew how to handle Valeska. "Who is this guy?" she said, as I talked to her, my father waiting in the hall outside her apartment. "Oh, I said, it's real interesting. You see, it all started before the Revolution. It was in Bayamo..." As I spun my tale, Valeska began to look nervous, still more nervous, and then positively antsy. Things before the Revolution -- she was born in 1969 -- she thought of as being in the Stone Age. "And then there was a group of resistance fighters against Batista, even in 1954..." "Wait, she said, "just tell me straight, who is this guy?" I pursued my story. "Some old guy?" she said. ".. but then there was this conflict between Fidel and the University group..." She shook her head. "Stupid to fool with the Comandante." "But he wasn't the Comandante then, you see..." She sighed, her face stiff with boredom. "Your old pal, whoever he is, can sleep on the sofa. Pedro and Mama are at my brother's, anyway. But Your pal better not be in the bathroom when I get up." Valeska was proud of having her own bathroom (even often without water). She went into the bedroom and shut the door. I heard a clothes hanger zing. Paco brought my father in. He looked unshaven, his skirt was askew, the tail of his pink blouse was out, sweat stained the flowered head scarf. But his eyes glowed -- I supposed with the light of freedom. I thought of the years in jail, an experience I couldn't even begin to imagine. As I gave him an abrazo, the heroism of my father suddenly struck me -- now I saw strength there, not just insane single-mindedness. "Chucho..." he began. I reminded him I was "Felipe." "That madman, arresting your mother." "I know, I know,' I said. Valeska came in, applying a light violet lipstick, twitching the edge of her skirt. "Whose mother?" "Dr. Revueltos' mother," I said. I introduced them. She stared at him. "Excuse me." "Yes," said my father, taking off his head scarf. She turned to me. "Flip, has he escaped from Piedras Huecas?" Piedras Huecas camp was where homosexuals and transvestites were "reeducated" to become productive members of a socialist society. "No," he said. "Yes," I said. "We can admit it to Valeska, Doctor." "You're both doctors -- quite a family." "What?" said my father. She turned to him. "I'm sorry, I never thought those G-2 creeps would lean so hard on harmless guys like you." She shook her head. "You look like you could use a bath, old boy. " "Look here, young lady..." said my father. "You'll have to wait for the hot water. You have to fill the heater from the cistern, but we've got propane." The pride in her bottled gas in fuel- deficient Havana was evident. "Valeska..." I started to say. "And I suppose he doesn't have a ration book, either. Never mind, we can make do." My father rubbed the stubble on his face. "As long as there's water, and a razor. And some men's clothes." He smiled. "Thank you, young... Comrade." Valeska giggled. "'Comrade'!" My father looked at me. "Valeska isn't much on politics," I said. "I'm behind Fidel," said Valeska in a dreamy voice. "Sure," said Paco, pulling out a chair for her. She waved a hand. "I can't stay, I have to go to work." "Do you work in a ministry?" said my father. Her face froze for an instant. Then it lightened. "Sometimes I'm a contractor for the ministries." She smiled, her wide-cheekboned face beaming with pleasure, presumably at the thought of some of her encounters with higher- level bureaucrats. "Sometimes." "Valeska's a singer," I said. "A superb singer," said Paco. "I've got to go to work," said Valeska. Help me carry my costumes to the bus stop, will you, Paco?" She smiled, her large lips pulled tightly, almost prim. "I'll give you a lift in the van." He almost knocked her down as he ushered her to the door. "Remember the bathroom in the morning," she said as the door closed behind them. The two of us were finally alone. I told my father to get some rest. His eyes were drooping. "That man Castro is the biggest traitor to social dignity that I have ever known," he said. I started to agree with him, but before I had finished speaking, he was asleep, slumped in the hard chair, the thinning hair on top of his head ruffled, matted with grease. Now "all" we had to do was to get my father out of Cuba. And of course my mother and Jose Pillo too. ================================================== WHAT DO I DO? by Otho Eskin (Part 5 of "Julie," a play based on "Miss Julie" by August Strindberg, a new version by Otho Eskin) CHARACTERS: MISS JULIE White, early thirties, the only daughter of a "patrician" family in the deep south RANSOM African-American, late twenties. The family chauffeur. CORA African-American, early twenties. The family cook. PLACE: The kitchen of a large, once-elegant home somewhere in the Deep South. One door leads to the kitchen garden. Another door leads to Cora's bedroom. TIME: Sometime during the 1930's. It is Saturday night Midsummer's Night (June 23). At original rise, the sky, seen through the doors, is still light. As the play progresses the sky will darken, then lighten again with morning. AT RISE: The kitchen, immediately afterward (JULIE picks up her bird cage.) RANSOM What in God's name you got there? JULIE It's my parakeet. I can't leave it here. RANSOM I be God damned! You can't take that damn thing! JULIE It's the only thing I have... RANSOM Put that cage down! You not takin' it! JULIE It's the only thing that loves me. Don't be cruel. Let me take it with me. RANSOM You can't take it. That's final. An' don' talk so loud. Cora'll hear you. JULIE I can't just leave it here. With no one to care for it. I'd rather it was dead. RANSOM Give me the damn thing. JULIE Please don't hurt it. RANSOM Give it to me! (JULIE takes the bird tenderly from the cage.) JULIE Dear little Serena, must you die and leave me? RANSOM For Chris' sake! It's yore future yore life what's at stake. Give me the damn thing! (RANSOM snatches the bird and flings in on the table. HE picks up a butcher knife. He smashes the knife into the board.) RANSOM You should a' learned to kill chickens when you was little. Then you wouldn' be 'fraid of blood. JULIE Why don't you kill me too! RANSOM Be quiet! JULIE How can you butcher an innocent creature!? There's blood between us now. I hate you! I loathe you! I curse the hour I first saw you! I curse the hour I was born! RANSOM If you done cursin', let's go. (JULIE moves toward the chopping block as if drawn against her will.) JULIE No. Not yet. I must see. You think I'm weak. You think I can't stand the sight of blood. How I'd like to see your blood on that table. I'd like to see all men swimming in a sea of blood. I'd drink your blood from your skull. Bathe my feet in your blood. I'd eat your heart. You think I'm weak. You think I love you. You think I yearn for your seed and that I want to carry your child under my heart and nourish it with my blood. You think I want to bear your child and take your name. I don't even know what your last name is. Just Ransom. I don't suppose people like you have last names. I'd be Mrs. Black. Mrs. Nigger. You're a dog wearing my collar. You're just a nigger field hand. And I share you with my cook! I'm my own servant's rival. You think I'm a coward and will run away. No! I'll stay. Soon my father will come back. He'll go to his study and find someone's broken into his desk and stolen his money. He'll call for sheriff. I'll tell them everything. That'll be the end of everything. How sweat! The end of everything. To make an end of it all. Peace then. And quietness. (RANSOM applauds) RANSOM That's wonderful, Miss Julie! That a great speech. Now shut up! Cora's comin'. (CORA enters, dressed for church. JULIE runs to her and flings herself into CORA's arms.) JULIE Help me, Cora! Protect me from this man! CORA What a to-do! (CORA sees the dead bird and blood.) What a filthy mess. What gone on 'roun' here? Why you screamin' and carryin' on, Miss Julie? JULIE You're a woman. We've been friends all our lives. I've got to warn you about that man. RANSOM I think I'd better go. (RANSOM goes into the garden.) JULIE You must listen to me! CORA I don' like any of this, Miss. You gone somewhere? You got yore travellin' clothes on. An' Ransom...? Where he gone? JULIE Please listen, Cora. I'll tell you everything. CORA I don' wan' to know nothin' more, Miss Julie. JULIE You must listen. CORA 'Bout what? 'Bout you an' Ransom? I don' care 'bout what you done las' night. It's no never mind to me. But if you think you gonna git Ransom to run off with you, you got another think commin'. JULIE But you and Ransom -- you don't love each other -- not the way it is between Ransom and me. CORA Miss Julie, Ransom my sweet man. We gonna get married some day. He may be a damn fool sometimes. Sometimes he cain't help hisself. Sometimes he think he high an' mighty. Jus' don' pay him no mind when he git like that. But he be a hard down, true as blue man an' he be mine. I ain't jus another cornfield nigger, Miss Julie. I been a cook- woman all my life but someday this chile gonna have her own home an' her own garden. Ain't nothin' gonna stand in my way. I promise you, Miss Julie, some day the sun's gonna shine in my back door too. JULIE I can't stay here. Not after what's happened. And Ransom can't stay either CORA Ransom not goin' nowhere wit' you. I done care what you two did. JULIE I have a wonderful idea. Come with us. We're going to Chicago. Ransom's going to have his own jazz club. I have a little money to help get us started. You could help out. Maybe wait on tables. Wouldn't that be wonderful! Please say yes. Everything will be just fine. You'll see. Just like it was. You'd get to travel. See Chicago. We could ride the Greyhound. It'll be fun. You'll see. (RANSOM appears at the door listening.) JULIE (Continued) There are lots of stores in Chicago where you could buy pretty dresses. And ribbons for your hair. You don't have to wait on tables if you don't want. You could stand at the front and show people which tables to sit at. I could wait on tables. It'll be a wonderful life. CORA Miss Julie, you believe any of that stuff you sayin'? JULIE Do I believe it? CORA Yes. JULIE I don't know what to believe any more. CORA (To RANSOM) So you was gonna run off wit' her? RANSOM Run off? Without you? No way, baby! You heard what Miss Julie say. We all in this together. We gonna start a new life together. CORA We gonna work together? Live together? You think I'd work for that... that... RANSOM You watch yore tongue, girl, in front of yore superiors... CORA Superiors? RANSOM Yes! She the lady of the house. Yore mistress. Mine' what you say. CORA Well! I declare...! RANSOM It time you learned manners when you in the presence of yore betters. CORA She not my better... RANSOM You lost respect for her. You otta do the same for youself. CORA I got my self-respect. I know my place an' I don' sink below it. That better'n some.. RANSOM You lucky to catch me. Lot's a girls been after me. You weren't the only apple on the tree. CORA Lucky!? You think you such a great catch. Stealin' brandy from the judge's wine cellar. Who knows what else. You commin' to church with me this mornin'? I'd say you in deep need of some churchin'. RANSOM No church for me today. You go on alone. CORA I'll go to church. An' I'll pray for you, Ransom. The Good Lord suffered an' died for our sins. If we go to Him with a penitent heart he'll forgive us. Even you. JULIE You really believe that, Cora? CORA I surely do, Miss Julie. That the faith I learnt as a chil' an' it stand by me ever day of my life. JULIE If I only had your faith. CORA You cain't have it without God give you His special grace. Without that grace, you lost. JULIE Who receives this grace? CORA That a mighty secret, Miss Julie. God no respecter of persons. 'Member what it say in the Good Book: with Him the last shall be first. JULIE Then he must love the last too. CORA It easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. That the way it be, Miss Julie. I'm leavin' now. I gotta go. The sisters an' the elders they waitin' on me. (The telephone rings. RANSOM picks up the receiver.) RANSOM Hello...Yes, sah....Yes, sah.... I be leavin' right away, sah...Yes, sah. (RANSOM hangs up the phone.) RANSOM (To JULIE) That yore daddy. Want me to pick him up at the railroad station right away. CORA You come join me at church directly you come back, Ransom. Y'hear? RANSOM Yes, Cora. (CORA leaves) JULIE You're not going to Chicago, are you? (RANSOM shakes his head) JULIE (Continued) You're never going to Chicago. RANSOM No. JULIE What about all your talk about playing your trumpet in a club. RANSOM Just talk. JULIE What about having your own club? RANSOM That was last night. It was dark. There was likker in my blood. An' you in my blood. But it daylight now an' I can see things better. JULIE You're not even going to try and climb that tree you dreamed about? RANSOM I tried that life once. Didn' work out. I had to come home. This is where I belong, Miss Julie. I bin in service too long. Sorry, Miss Julie, but I can't go with you. JULIE What am I supposed to do now? RANSOM I can't say, Miss. JULIE If you were in my place, what would you do? RANSOM I don' know what I'd do if I was a white lady who'd fucked the family's nigger driver an' stole her daddy's money. Hard to say what I'd do. You can't stay here, that for sure. An' it don' appear you can go away by yoreself. An' I'm not goin' with you. For sure. ======================================================================= ========================================================================