The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (33 page)

But when she came to her room, a former maid’s room that she rented from her Aunt Orfelina (the She-Devil), Reinaldo couldn’t stand it any more, and giving a terrible cry of pain he began to bang his head against the wall. He banged the wall so hard that his Aunt Orfelina (the She-Devil), thinking that her nephew was having another one of his orgies, dialed the special number that Fifo had given her and was promoted on the spot to Stool Pigeon First Class.

In the end, Reinaldo grew more quiet. He sat down at the typewriter that he’d screwed to the table so that nobody could steal it, and he began to write, once more, the story of his novel.

This is the story of an island trapped within a sinister tradition, the victim of every conceivable political catastrophe, every kind of blackmail, every sort of bribery, every grandiloquent speech, every false promise ever made, and hunger that seems to have no end. This is the story of an island wearied and worn away by confidence games, the noise of bluster and braggadocio, five hundred years of violence and crimes. This is the story of a people that has always lived for grand illusions, glorious dreams, and has always suffered the most cruel disappointments—a people that has had to learn to humble itself, humiliate itself, betray itself in order to survive. This is the story of a people that intones anthems in praise of the tyrant by day and mutters prayers of rage and hatred of him by night—a people that bends over and scrabbles at the earth by day, planting yautías, pangola grass, nettles, California apples, ersatz coffee, and anything else the tyrant can think of, and by night gnaws away at the undersea rock that holds up the island ruled singlehandedly by that tyrant. This is the story of an island that has never known peace; that was discovered by a boatload of thieves, adventurers, ex-prisoners, and murderers; that was colonized by a gang of thieves and murderers; that was governed by a pack of thieves and murderers—and that finally (after so many
petty
thieves and murderers) fell into the hands of Fifo, the supreme thief, the Summa of our most glorious murderous tradition. This is the story of an island turned first into a huge colonial plantation, then into the world’s whorehouse, and now into a perfect and unanimous prison—an island in which the authorities talk about prosperity while they deposit in offshore banks all the treasure that they’ve stolen, an island in which the people are stabbed to death as they dance. This is the story of an island whose discoverer, while declaring it the most beautiful island in the world, at the same time was making plans to destroy it. This is the story of an island where only the most servile and mediocre have succeeded—an island subjected to infinite summer heat, infinite tyranny, and the unanimous flight of its inhabitants, who while applauding the wonders of the island think only of ways to flee it. This is the story of an island which is spangled in the tinsel of official rhetoric while, underneath, it tears at its own skin and lays its hopes in the final holocaust.

Man and woman, once warp and woof woven into human weft, oft warred. One half of weft, womb, woman, was worn by work of giving birth, oft to words, however wondrous sprung, and wanted rest; one half, worthy though oft wordless, was restless, wept for unspoken yearnings, would wound.

Woolf, wishing to give words to work of birth, to wounds, to man-woman war, but adrift in words unable to be sung, one day finds harbor.

Woolf moored, war won, words sung, wondrous armistice engendered, Woolfian splendor: Orlando.

For Virginia Woolf

New York, May 20, 1996

My dear Reinaldo,

This, my friend, is my seventh letter to you from New York. Since I haven’t received any reply, I thought I’d try again. It wasn’t easy to get here. I’m only semilegal, as lots of people are. I told you that New York is like a huge factory, full of tall crates with people running in and out of them. I can tell you now that in the months I’ve been here, I’ve seen the twinkliest of fairies and the queenliest of queens on earth, but the list is
way
too long to send you. Odoriferous Gunk is here. Don’t make the mistake of thinking the old queen is still down there—she came up here and left a double in charge of her dying mother. She’s definitely here, running around writing poems that are
so bad
that she’s already made a great reputation for herself in Miami (a town whose name I do not wish to remember). Up here, every Cuban queen considers herself a queen (if you get my drift) just because she’s alive, and a lot have made themselves into painters—such as Carlota María Luis and Brielíssima and Singadíssima (who, like so many of our queer compatriots, have escaped the island and left doubles behind, or double-doubles in the case of the Siamísimas). Just yesterday, while I was walking through Central Park, I ran into Brielíssima and Singadíssima, joined at the navel, cruising in the “badlands,” you know, but Brielíssima held her head so high and was walking so stiffly that she kept whacking her head against the tree limbs—so there she was, her bald head bleeding like crazy, but she would not bow her head. Apparently that jungle queen hasn’t realized that Noo Yawk is a jungle.

Naturally, I’ve tried to promote some interest in your work up here, dear brother, but as you know, here in the United States there are no intellectuals, no artists, no politicians. All there are are businessmen, and all they’re interested in is the short run—and that includes the president himself (who by law has to be mentally retarded). Up here, memory has been replaced by an unbelievable sense of rapacity. Why, Fifo herself could buy this country if she wanted to, and if she had the money—although you know, come to think of it the U.S. banks might give the poor old thing a loan if she’d pay a high enough interest rate. She might already be looking into that, who knows, or something along those lines. Anyway, the supposed U.S. “intelligentsia” (which of course doesn’t exist) calls itself “progressive,” “leftist,” etc., and in order to continue to be “liberal” (what a word), it opposes everything that the government might try to do—and, naturally, never does.

The beaches here are cold and dirty, and there are no men. The black men up here are the most beautiful things on earth, but as with all good things here, you have to content yourself with looking but not touching. There’s even a word for it here—window-shopping. Which doesn’t mean you go out buying windows, darling. And then, of course, with The Plague we’ve returned to the Middle Ages. Tell me—should we continue “onward”? And just what might that word “onward” mean?. . . “Gays” (that’s what they call themselves up here) are organized into unions, and they screw only among themselves. Some kid themselves that they’ve been screwed by a man. Not me. Down there, I was at least
real
, even though what you might call Painfully Real. Up here, I’m a shadow. Who the hell is going to care about my pain when all anybody is interested in up here is what’s called the Quick and Dirty? The Show. No Complications. And yet, my friend, this is the only place in the world where one can survive—I say that with all my heart, because I say it without illusions.

Some fairies, such as Miguel Correderas, have given themselves up to
la vie bohème
. With the adventures Miguel has had, he could write a book. Poor queen, always running after some nonexistent (i.e., extinct) man. On a beach one day he ran into a leather boy who handcuffed him, started whipping him, and forced him to lick his boots for
hours
. Then, practically beating him to death, he forced him to fuck him. All this on a public beach, mind you. After screwing this American specimen, Correderas had to pay him. Another time, he was jogging through the Village (an area where these gays dress in lavender and spend their lives working out in gyms so they’ll have big tits) and this gay called out to him from a window (so he says). It was New Year’s Eve and the poor old queen thought he was going to see out the year in the
most
exciting way. But it turns out that this supposed man throws Miguel into a cage he’s got in his living room and keeps him there for
eight days
, giving him vodka enemas and insulting him day and night. . . . Along with Correderas, Julieta Blanca, and several other screaming queens, I’ve explored the porno neighborhood on 42nd Street. There are some
real hunks
that hang out around there. Of course they’re hustlers, so they have their price, or prices. For ten dollars you can suck them off, for example; for fifteen, they’ll suck you off; and for twenty they’ll bend over for you. And they’ll tell you all this without batting an eye, as if they’re reading a contract.

A lot of us have died of The Plague, which is
raging
, my dear. So those of us who are left are the survivors of an afterlife that we pay for with our very lives—lives we are literally about to lose. Only the remotest twist of fate can offer even the
possibility
of increasing our life span—an increase that would in fact be a betrayal of life, because any homosexual man who lives more than fifty years in these times ought to die of shame.

However, even though I’ve arrived at the Big Five-Oh (how we used to laugh at that expression, not to mention that the birthday seemed so far away at the time) and, naturally, have been caught by The Plague (it’s not that
you
catch
it
, love—
it
catches
you
), I haven’t given up—in fact, I’ve gone out looking for a ceiba tree. Uh-huh, a ceiba tree—a famous
curandera
out in Queens (we
were
speaking of queens, weren’t we?) said it was the only thing that could save me. She gave me a
bilongo
—which is this little-bitty package with chicken claws and feathers and stuff in it, wrapped in a piece of cloth and tied with string—and told me to find a ceiba tree, walk around it three times with this bilongo in my pocket, stab the tree trunk three times, gently, kiss its trunk, throw the bilongo down, and without looking back, take off running. But don’t think it’s easy to find a ceiba tree in New York City, and don’t think this is Equatorial Africa or Brotherhood Park in lovely downtown Havana. I spent the
whole winter
dreaming of a ceiba tree. Finally I found out that there’s one in the Zoo over in the Bronx. So there I went, in the snow, with Salermo and Julieta Blanca. It was a huge tree, and it stood under an enormous vault and was surrounded with a tall iron fence. It was in a greenhouse, of course, with its name in Latin and everything, like something from another planet, and it wasn’t easy for me to get to the trunk. But I jumped the fence, stabbed it three times, kissed it, and threw down the bilongo. And just then, a security guard shows up (the other queens take off running), makes me pick up the bilongo (
No littering
, the sign says), and gives me a ticket. So now I have to go to court for assaulting a tree or jaywalking or something. Ñica told me that with that on my record I’d never become a U.S. citizen, but I never planned to, anyway.

I went to Prida again for a consultation, and she told me that if I hadn’t been able to throw the bilongo down at the foot of the ceiba tree, I should leave it behind the altar of a church. So I went to the fanciest church in New York City—St. Patrick’s—and there I witnessed a scene that I’m going to tell you about so that if this letter reaches you, you can put it in your novel.

Before I went into the church, I saw this gigantic black man—naked as the day he was born—walking back and forth in front of it in the snow. This is right on Fifth Avenue. But me, who can’t think of anything but my bilongo, I go into the church, and I’ve already totally forgotten about this naked black man. If you can imagine me forgetting about a naked black man. But the black man went into the church too, where there was a mass going on with organ music and everything. Full, full, full. The black man walks down the central aisle, picks up this huge candelabra that’s up near the altar, and starts swinging it around. He kills the bishop that was officiating at the mass with one swing and then starts hitting other priests and stuff that were trying to subdue him, and I think he killed a sacristan. Then the police came and killed him.

The next day I read in the paper that this black guy was a
Cuban
—OK?—that he’d come on the Mariel boatlift in 1980, and that he was crazy.

But in the church I had realized immediately that that black man was Christ, which is why in the confusion I threw my bilongo on top of his body (which was full of bullet holes) and turned and without looking back ran out the door. . . . Now I don’t know what’ll happen to me, but I also don’t think I ought to give it too much thought. Imagine how cold that black man must’ve been before he went into that church. Of course, you can’t believe how hot it is now. I don’t think there’s a nice middle ground anywhere.

Americans walk very very fast and if you don’t keep up with them, they’ll knock you down. You’d think they had important matters to attend to—and in fact, they do work like crazy. But the rush is over something else—they’re rushing to get home, take off their shoes, and lie on the couch and watch TV, which is awful.

Remember—don’t come up here. Or you’ll wind up walking into a church and killing a bishop and getting killed. You’ll wind up that way
if you’re lucky
.

Love and kisses—

Gabriel

P.S. Yesterday I went to the public library on 42nd Street.They didn’t have
The Magic Mirror.
But I’ll keep looking.