The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (7 page)

Amid the confusion that reigns in Key West, Raúl Kastro, sent as a spy, is swishing around disguised as Olga Guillot.

R
AÚL
K
ASTRO
:
(looking hungrily at the American sailors)

What hullabaloo!

What a racket!

I’ll tell you, with all this whoop-de-doo,

I’ll never find a man to
string my racket!

Raúl Kastro strips off the Olga Guillot drag, asks to borrow the wings from H. Puntilla (who is delighted to hand them over), and flies off toward the Malecón in Havana. But he doesn’t find his longed-for buttstuffer there, either. Enraged, he calls Abrantes, the Minister of the Interior, and sentences him to death for dereliction of duty. “You let the man of my dreams escape!” he shouts
as he pummels the minister. Abrantes, along with other high-ranking military officers, is led away by an escort of midgets. We hear a volley of shots off to one side of La Cabaña Prison.

F
IFO
:
(enraged)

What are you doing, you halfwit pansy!

Did you forget the silencer?!

R
AÚL
:

Don’t worry, the Carnival has started—

People will think it’s a skyrocket.

F
IFO
:
(irate)

I told you there’ll be no Carnival, you twit,

till we bring back that Avellaneda bitch.

So out with it—tell me what you spotted, eh?

up there in Key West, Florid-ay.

R
AÚL
:

Oh, it was terrible—my stomach almost turned!

The island is covered with filthy Cuban worms,

all waiting to welcome her with open arms—

like she was some kind of heroine! The gall!

I’ll tell you, bro, it was enough to make your skin crawl.

F
IFO
:

We mustn’t allow her to reach Key West!

Did you see my other spies, by any chance?

R
AÚL
:

Sure. I even saw the president.

Now, if you’ll excuse me . . . (winks lasciviously again)

F
IFO
:

Hold on. I’m working on a plan.

At a gesture from Fifo, the “spontaneous” demonstrations against Avellaneda continue. The orchestra, conducted by Manuel Gracia Markoff, plays a
guaracha.
While everyone dances, Silvo Rodríguez sings “They’re Even Being Killed for Love.”

F
IFO
:

Strangle that man this instant!

Shut him up any way you can—

I have to get my thoughts together,

and besides, I prefer “Stormy Weather.”

(To Raúl)

Is it true that Puntilla swiped those wings of yours

and headed north?

R
AÚL
:

’Fraid so. Although for what it’s worth

I don’t think he’ll stay.

F
IFO
:

Oh, he’ll be back—and this time he’ll
really
pay!

Suddenly a huge zeppelin, sent by the BBC in London, appears above the ocean. A voice from the blimp announces that it is over international waters and that its purpose is to broadcast impartially to the world at large. The Cuban community in exile has invoked the “equal time” doctrine, and so there is to be a
mano-a-mano
between the poets of
K
EY
W
EST
and those on the
M
ALECÓN
in
H
AVANA
.

The spotlights in
K
EY
W
EST
come on with a boom. The poet Fernando González Esteva appears, wearing a guayabera and carrying a pair of maracas. (From this point on, the program can be seen on television, so I challenge you to keep reading.)

G
ONZÁLEZ
E
STEVA
:

She threw herself

on the mercy of the seas

in a leaky ship;

as old as she is,

and frail as can be,

it’s a wonder she didn’t break her hip!

But with Gertrudis’ grand arrival

Poetry incarnate will grace our proud nation

I’ve come all the way from Calle Ocho

to express to the poetess our deep admiration.

K
EY
W
EST
C
HORUS
:

Come, Avellaneda, come on, dear—

there are
ever
so many nice things here,

things you’ve never seen before,

like traffic jams, and Disneyworld,

mamey milkshakes, the Internet,

and thousands of kick-boxing poets.

Acting out the words of the Chorus, thousands of poets (and poetesses, naturally) begin to kick at each other. While this is going on, Olga Guillot sings “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.”
K
EY
W
EST
goes dark. Now it’s the
M
ALECÓN
’s turn. From the zeppelin, a voice announces: “Now we will hear from an old horse thief and chameleon—can anybody guess who that might be? It’s none other than—José Zacarias Talet!” José Zacarias Talet, who has just turned a hundred and one, climbs laboriously up onto the Malecón wall. The cheery
voice of the color announcer is heard: “This old fellow, who’s still so full of spirit, has just received the José Martí Order of Merit.” The lights in
K
EY
W
EST
come up. José Martí is waving his hand, trying to say Oh, please—leave my name out of it!
K
EY
W
EST
goes dark and the
M
ALECÓN
comes up.

J
OSÉ
Z
ACARIAS
T
ALET
:

Heavens, Tula, is this some kind of joke?

Turn your boat around and come back home!

You big overgrown goateed old biddy,

can’t you just once show some pity?

Don’t turn a deaf ear, or pretend you’re blind—

have you no feeling for us who’ve stayed behind?

Why, for you I feel nothing but tremendous love

(though not unmixed with lingering remorse)—

I wish I’d shown you
this
before—

Look at this prick,

look how it’s still kickin’.

I might be a hundred and seven,

but
this
takes a licking and keeps on ticking!

When he finishes his speech, Talet stumbles and falls flat on his back on the Malecón, allowing us to see that he is sporting a monster erection. We hear his raspy voice shouting “Nobody can take it all!” But two militia recruits carry him off on a stretcher.

C
HORUS OF
R
EHABILITATED
P
ROSTITUTES
:
(wriggling and writhing as they look out at the sea)

Avellaneda, go away,

and don’t come back another day.

If you do, we’ll make your pay—

sticks and stones your bones will break.

Nyah! Nyah! And what’s more—

you’re a dirty fat old whore!

As the dance continues, Elena Burke (with that potbelly and outsized head of hers!) sings “Sentimental Me.” Her bellowing and honking ends in a long moo-oo-oo. Now the light in the lighthouse of
E
L
M
ORRO
comes on. We see Avellaneda, whose boat is still being swamped by the rotten eggs thrown at her from Cuba and the chocolate bars from Key West. It has started to get dark, and night is coming on, but the spotlights of the helicopter and the lighthouse at El Morro make the glimmering ocean as bright as day. Even so, as Avellaneda rows, she begins to recite her famous poem “Night of sleeplessness and the light of morning.”

A
VELLANEDA
:
(tossing eggs and chocolate bars overboard)

Dark

night

now attired

in air

sky

ocean

land . . .

Suddenly a huge screen is lowered at the back of the stage. On it we see a fat transvestite with long fake eyelashes and long curls, like Avellaneda’s. S/he is wearing a crown of laurel. This is Zebro Sardoya (a.k.a. Chelo), who, wriggling her backside laboriously, begins to address the audience. While in the foreground we see Zebro Sardoya’s face, behind it, on the ocean, we see Avellaneda’s lips moving, but the sound has been cut off.

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:
(looking quickly back at Avellaneda, then addressing the audience)

We’re very sorry, but neither the BBC in London nor France-Radio nor any other news organization in the world can
possibly
carry that whole poem. I mean, it would totally spoil the show and turn it into a long lyrical
bore!
Oh, Gertrudis hon, forgive me, but I’m from Camagüey, and we have an old saying—“time is not poetry, it’s golden.” (And speaking of gold, that’s what that sable-skinned hunk I was with last night was worth his weight in!) But anyway, folks—before returning to the escape that has us all sitting on the edge of our seats—look at me, I’m so tense I’m about to have a spasm, but they tell me there’s not room for another single fairy in the hospitals!—let’s pause for some very appealing commercials, which I understand have some information that is
extremely
important for your delicate health. . . . So-o-o-o, pay attention, everyone, please!