The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (14 page)

So you recommended this clown, huh?

And then he practically drowns us!

This time, Paula, you’ve
really
fucked up!

R
AÚL
:

And with all these expenses, we’re going to be bankrupt!

F
IFO
:

You’d better think of something fast!

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:
(desperate)

I promise I’ll get someone more suitable,

someone who’ll be truly memorable

and utterly without parallel.

F
IFO
:

Such as?

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

I know! Julián del Casal!

Paula Amanda and other police officers compel Horcayés to immediately bring Casal back to life. The poet rises on the wall of the Malecón in a worn and faded nineteenth-century suit.

J
ULIÁN
D
EL
C
ASAL
:
(looking out to sea where Avellaneda is in full flight)

I am filled with a longing to commit suicide,

and therefore I applaud your own suicidal flight.

I, too, sigh
for those distant realms

whose skies are filled with halcyons,

gliding over the blue ocean.

A paradise—that is what I want to live in;

a paradise of centurions

beckoning

me to blow jobs.

F
IFO
:
(enraged)

What! Call out the firing squads!

No—better make it cannons!

While the artillery prepares its cannons, Casal goes on with his poem.

C
ASAL
:

To see a different sky, a different sun a-rising,

a different beach, and different horizons

where, singing like a mockingbird,

before a squad of men with vibrating erections

I can hover like a hummingbird

and sip at their sweet nectar.

F
IFO
:

Ready, aim—and
fa-a-ahr!

C
ASAL
:
(with the cannons trained on him)

Oh, if I, like you, should seek exile

far from this isle of crocodiles,

no place would make me cheerier

than exotic, warm Algeria,

where a hundred—no, a thousand—studly men

would await me in their palaces

(all ruddy and golden)

with their phalluses

emboldened.

F
IFO
:

Not another word, d’you hear!

C
ASAL
:
(as fast as he can talk)

Yes—Algiers!

That would be my intention.

Where every man’s bisexual or queer

and his prick’s at attention.

Fifo’s troops open fire, killing Casal and seriously damaging Avellaneda’s dinghy—she loses her oars.

A
VELLANEDA
:

Oh, dear, my boat is shipping water! Help!

O Cepeda, O Fonseca, O dear Gabriel,

O Quintana, O Zorrilla,

O Camilo José Cela,

quick—launch the Coast Guard’s best flotilla!

Sound the alarm! Two-whee! Too-whoo!

Hurry, my brothers! To the rescue!

While Avellaneda barely manages to stay afloat, in
K
EY
W
EST
a heated argument breaks out about the numbers in a survey that a big U.S. company has taken in an attempt to assess Fifo’s popularity, which scholars claim is on the rise.

A M
AYOR
:

The press, on good authority, has said

that Fifo’s brought back from the dead

all sorts of famous men and women—

Julián del Casal, José Lezama Lima—

all sorts of poets and poetesses

for his big event.

Which means, damn it, it’s been a huge success.

C
HORUS
:

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

A P
OETESS
:

It’s really sinister, the press.

Infiltrated by evil Fifo’s spies,

and always ready to print lies—

It’s just not right!

C
HORUS
:

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

T
HE
P
RESIDENT OF A
C
UBAN
M
USEUM
:

And who bears the burden of this plight?

We do—and I say we ought to fight!

C
HORUS
:

Right! Right! Right! Right!

A S
CHOLAR
:

Yes, it’s a deplorable situation,

so let’s give them some of their own medicine.

Let’s have our
own
resurrection,

bring back somebody that’ll get people’s attention.

I know—we’ll call Alta Grave de Peralta, see?

and resurrect José Martí.

C
HORUS
:

Sí! Sí! Sí! Sí!

Tremendous tension in Key West. Alta Grave de Peralta appears with her gigantic plastic egg that she is still throwing up in the air, spotlights trained on it. The egg keeps rising, higher and higher. The giant movie screen drops down and on it we see Zebro Sardoya.

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:

In just a few seconds, ladies and gentlemen,

from that egg up there you are going to see

Cuba’s greatest poet descend—

The one, the only—José Martí!

The egg keeps rising.

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:
(on the screen)

It looks like it’s not coming down . . .

A
LTA
G
RAVE DE
P
ERALTA
:

Drat! You’ll have to shoot it down!

The sheriff of Key West pulls out a .45 and fires at the egg, which splits into two halves. It’s empty. Meanwhile, out of the crowd (where he was lurking) comes José Martí, riding a stick horse and carrying an odd sort of suitcase or briefcase of some kind.

A P
OETESS
L
AUREATE
:

There he is! Over there! José Martí!

C
HORUS
:

Sí! Sí! Sí! Sí!

Martí rides his stick horse through the crowd, which falls silent, and throws himself into the sea. He rides out to Avellaneda.

A
VELLANEDA
:
(to Martí)

O dear god, help me!

I am sinking into the sea!

Perhaps if we work together

we can save each other.

M
ARTÍ
:

No way!

For my fate

is to ride on horseback.

A
VELLANEDA
:

Then woe is me,

for then
my
fate

is to die a shipwreck.

M
ARTÍ
:

No doubt—your boat is very rickety.

A
VELLANEDA
:

Have mercy! Give me a hand.

Don’t leave me—I need a man,

and I am not persnickety.

(Martí makes no effort to help.)

You will not help?

That is very bad!

Are you truly such a cad?