The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (10 page)

What on earth’s gotten into you two?

Stop that nonsense right this instant!

Don’t you know we’re not here for you,

we’re here for our beloved Gertrudis.

So behave yourselves—say a novena

for that poor dear Avellaneda.

While you’re at it, make a sign of the cross,

and let’s get Father Gastaluz to give her a pep talk.

The poet Angel Gastaluz steps up onto the stage in
K
EY
W
EST
.
He is wearing his priest’s habit and around his neck there hangs a gigantic scapular that ends in a sterling-silver cross that keeps getting all tangled up between his legs. In one hand he is carrying a smoking incense-burner with which he seems to be exorcising the ocean and the huge crowd gathered in Key West, applauding him madly. Standing on the stage, the priest untangles himself from the long scapular, whose cross, still on its chain, is hanging down into the water.

A
NGEL
G
ASTALUZ
:

Liberare me O Deus: quoniam intraverunt aquae usque ad animam meae . . .

Suddenly a shark, apparently still loyal to Fifo, takes the huge silver cross in its mouth and, pulling on the scapular, drags the priest into the ocean.

A
NGEL
G
ASTALUZ
:
(in the ocean, being towed by the shark)

Save me, O my God!—for thy waters have penetrated to my very soul . . .

The poet disappears into the water. Immediately a spontaneous demonstration breaks out in Key West. The demonstrators are carrying big posters insulting Fifo and asking for clemency and freedom for Padre Angel Gastaluz. Now the gigantic movie screen descends, and on it an announcer is saying that the president of the United States is about to arrive at any moment in Key West, and that to support the demonstration and steal a little publicity from Fifo, he’ll be making love, in public, to his beloved rabbit. Tremendous air of expectancy. And now, on the screen, we see Air Force One landing. The door to the plane opens and the president begins to descend the steps, cradling a white rabbit in his arms. The screen goes dark. We see the poet Angel Gastaluz being towed along by the shark. The poet passes alongside Avellaneda’s dinghy, and he desperately makes a grab at it. Miraculously, he snares it, but that turns Avellaneda’s boat around and heads it toward Cuba at full speed. Avellaneda picks up an oar and starts beating at the priest’s hands. He falls back into the water.

A
VELLANEDA
:

Turn loose, turn loose, what are you doing?

You’re going to drag me back to Cuba!

Please, Angel, accept your fate—

make peace with your God, it’s not too late.

Besides, you know
this worldly mire
is filed with hate;

you’re going to a far better place.

Be brave—that shark is the ferry of Acheron;

it’ll take you to the Great Beyond.

Shark and priest disappear in the middle of the ocean, while the lights on the
M
ALECÓN
come up.

P
AULA
A
MANDA
,
AK
.
A
. L
UISA
F
ERNANDA
:
(to Fifo)

Quick, the Orígenes gang has launched a counterattack!

F
IFO
:

Stop them, you idiots! Push them back—

Grab a stake and drive it through their heart.

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

I’ve got a better idea. Call in the official bard—

the
sacred cow,
of course, I mean—

so he can recite his favorite paean

and
bore
them all to death!

F
IFO
:

Well, whatever you do, you’d better make it fast!

There’s no time to lose, I fear;

I know that when the President’s plane lands,

he’ll upstage us for sure.

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

Not to worry. This old goat

is guaranteed to sink their boat.

F
IFO
:

I don’t see any old goat—where’d he go?

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

Here he is. Odiseo Ruego!

We see the poet Odiseo Ruego, goateed, making his way along laboriously with the aid of a walking stick and then climbing up on the Malecón. While he recites his poem, on the movie screen we see the President making love to the rabbit.

O
DISEO
R
UEGO
:
(addressing his words to Avellaneda, who’s drawing farther and farther away)

I ask you, lady of exalted lute,

sailing like an owl in your pea-green boat,

what it is you’re expecting to do?

And will your peapod stay afloat?

Here you can blissfully contemplate

the poplar trees of Paula Avenue

through the iron bars of the grate .

in the prison cell that’s waiting for you.

As Odiseo is reciting his poem, we see behind him, on the screen, the president of the United States and his rabbit in a wild erotic wrestling match—an encounter that grows more and more frenzied. The president has removed all his
clothes; the rabbit has its entire head rammed up the president’s ass. The president gives a shriek of pleasure. The rabbit gnaws and burrows at the presidential rectum with its teeth and claws, as though trying to tunnel in. The president’s heavy breathing mixes with the rabbit’s squealing.

O
DISEO
R
UEGO
:

O lady of fruit and other pleasures,

reach out—here for you are untold treasures.

Save yourself, lady of the oars,

don’t sail into that land of whores!

On the screen we now see the rabbit even more furiously digging and burrowing between the presidential cheeks. Finally, with a little popping sound, the rabbit climbs all the way into the president’s anus. The president gives an ear-piercing shriek of pleasure, and begins to leap and hop about the screen with the rabbit up his ass. Finally, he takes off running, hopping form key to key and giving howls of pleasure—all the way to the White House, where he spatters the white columns with blood.

O
DISEO
R
UEGO
:

For once up north, how keenly you will yearn

for the sea’s soft mist

and the waves’ whisper,

how hotly, fiercely you will burn

for the ocean’s warm caress

of your ample keester . . .

F
IFO
:

What the
hell
is that idiot babbling about? He’s just stolen the

whole show and now he’s going on about sea mist and caresses and who knows
what
nonsense!

who knows
what
nonsense!

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

It’s what’s called poetic license.

F
IFO
:

As far as I’m concerned that’s no defense.

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

But Comandante, it’s really excellent.

F
IFO
:

Bullshit! I’ve had enough of this!

Poet or not, he can kiss my royal arse!

I’m gonna feed him to the sharks!

Fifo runs over to the Malecón and with a single dropkick launches Odiseo into the bay.

O
DISEO
R
UEGO
:
(as he sinks)

O corruption, O witch with hardly any rear,

your ass is grass,

your end is near—

prepare to meet your maker!

F
IFO
:

I think
you’re
the one that better prepare yourself, you faker!

As Ruego sinks, Padre Angel Gastaluz appears, now riding the shark that had been pulling him.

G
ASTALUZ
:

Get up on this beast I’ve converted to Christianity,

and let’s make a run for it.

The two poets, riding the shark, speed away. The priest guides the shark by pulling this way and that on his long scapular, which he is now using as reins.

F
IFO
:
(sneering)

What do I care about those small fry?

They’re nothing to me—

let ’em think they’re getting away,

they’re bound to die at sea.