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996 lines
43 KiB
Plaintext
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FICTION-ONLINE
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An Internet Literary Magazine
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Volume 4, Number 4
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July-August, 1997
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EDITOR'S NOTE:
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FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing
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electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis. The
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contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of novels
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or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are
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members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group
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affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine
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is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the
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public.
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To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e-mail
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a brief request to
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ngwazi@clark.net
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To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the
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same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part of
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the message itself, rather than as an attachment.
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Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from the
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editor or by anonymous ftp (or gopher) from
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ftp.etext.org
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where issues are filed in the directory /pub/Zines/ASCII/Fiction_Online.
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This same directory may also be located with your browser at the
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corresponding website
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http://www.etext.org
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The FICTION-ONLINE home page, courtesy of the Writer's
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Center, Bethesda, Maryland, may be accessed at the following URL:
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http://www.writer.org/folmag/topfollm.htm
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of material
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published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed to possess
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one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal reading use
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only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish in whole or in
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part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage performances or
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filmings or video recording, or for any other use not explicitly licensed,
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are reserved.
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William Ramsay, Editor
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=================================================
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CONTRIBUTORS
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WILL HASTINGS is an attorney and a former government official. He
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now lives in the Berkshires , where he gardens, investigates aerodynamics,
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and writes poetry. His works have been published in leading journals.
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OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs,
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has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and produced
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in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has been
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produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folger Library in Washington,
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and is being performed with some regularity in theaters in the United
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States, Europe, and Australia.
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WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World
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energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the Northwest
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Fiction Group. His play, "Perry's Roots." recently received a reading at
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the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland.
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E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and plays the viola da gamba. He
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lives in La Jolla, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he
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practices his hobby of photographing and charting the migrations of
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cetaceans.
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=================================================
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CONTENTS
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Editor's Note
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Contributors
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"Kneeling in Front of Plants," a poem
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Will Hastings
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"XYZ," a short-short
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E. James Scott
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"Mr. Marcus," an excerpt (chapter 3) from
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the novel "Ay, Chucho!"
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William Ramsay
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"A Cold Night in Pittsburgh," part 1 of the play, "Duet"
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Otho Eskin
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=================================================
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KNEELING IN FRONT OF PLANTS
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by Will Hastings
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My hands are made for digging,
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my knees for leaving marks in front of plants.
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They accept me as a guest, drink my breath,
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urge me to pick potato beetles and
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kill the appetites of cabbage worms
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while they and I launch blessings at one another
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like swallows diving in crossed loops
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to protect the unfledged young.
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Knees draw me downward, take root,
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as we listen for the broccoli's explosion
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from green to lemon-yellow flowers or
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for the stubborn rooting of carrots
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pushing into June's warm, excited soil.
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Here I am met by energies erupting from the earth
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intense as the noise of bees
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swarming behind a restless queen,
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green legacies filling
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just enough of ordinary emptiness
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to liberate desire for another day --
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great illusion come from tiny harmonies.
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=============================================
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XYZ
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by E. James Scott
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"Who's gay? Who's not?" Today, at my local market, the red
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headlines of the national tabloid screamed scandal over the display of D,
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C, and AA batteries at the checkout counter.
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I could only laugh -- with sour irony.
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No, mine isn't a tale about a poor guy coming out of a closet. Big
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deal, I say, to all that. Do you really think that regular gays do the
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big-time suffering in this world? For real suffering, you have to seek out
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the lonely people. Gays have it tough sometimes, but look at all the company
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they have. Sure, gays are a minority, but what a large, vocal, and
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politically well-connected minority!
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I mean, how about real minorities. For instance, people who can't
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even tell whether they're properly gay or not? No, I don't mean lisping,
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hairy-chested bisexuals, or pink-wigged hetero-transsexuals, or "I-only-
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tried -it -once-at Vassar" young ladies, or those types with sunglasses
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down over their cheekbones and leather up over their ears who would say,
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"Hey, whatever," if you asked them a question about sexual preference.
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I'm talking about really different, what you could call undefined people.
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"Undefined," that is, by "normal" standards. What a word:
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"Normal"! Normal people are male or female. That's it. All the rest,
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like "neuters," hermaphrodites, and "XYZ syndrome" people like me are
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treated like circus freaks.
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Well, if we are freaks, let's glory in it, I say. I'll drink to that
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-- I prefer Hennessy in a large snifter, relaxing in my lounge chair watching
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the tube or reading a good book. Nowadays, since my life has stabilized
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tad, I live quietly in a townhouse on the edge of the city. Or maybe I
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should say that "we" live quietly. We who? That's for the neighbors to
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figure out, and I say let them -- if they can. If some extra-clever nosy
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parker did raise a fuss and force me to move, so what? I like changes of
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scene. Maybe it's in my nature, so to speak.
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I've always figured that my closest feeling of brotherhood (or
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sisterhood) should be to the hermaphrodites. But I must confess that I
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have always felt resentment, mixed with envy, toward hermaphrodites.
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Those guys are genetically mixed up, a dysfunction of the X and Y
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chromosomes, I believe, but at least they're what they are, they're in a
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stable situation.
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Not like those of us with the XYZ chromosome syndrome.
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My name is Jerry Camberwell. I was born as an apparently
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normal girl into a family of wheat farmers in Saskatchewan. My parents
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died when I was four and I was raised by my grandfather, a fur trapper, a
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great guy with a long beard, a head full of stories, and a golden voice to
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tell them with. I had a normal childhood, isolated, but ordinary. I had the
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normal kind of accidental education in matters sexual: I used to play
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doctor, I remember, in the long grass behind the old sod-roof spring house,
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with my friend Joe Platt. Our bodies were different, I was plain and he
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was fancy, and that was fun.
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The first time I noticed anything odd about my body was when I
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was about thirteen years old. One day, sitting on the cold, cracked seat in
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the privy, I noticed two strange swellings in my groin. Every day I
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watched the swellings grow and other startling changes take place.
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Within weeks it became obvious to me that my private parts had turned
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into something closely resembling Joe's. Shamed and horrified by what
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was going on down below my navel, I told no one. I stopped wearing
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tight jeans and adopted some loose khakis, which I wore until the cuffs
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and pockets were tatters. I had always been very modest and shy in
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undressing when my Grandpa was around, and he never suspected a
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thing.. But soon my girl friend Thelma, who lived five miles down the
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road, started kidding me about my breaking voice. Perry White, at the
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feed store in Minimuk, made a remark about my flat chest. Finally, that
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fall, when it was time for me to be sent away in the bus to Yellow Knife to
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enroll as a boarding student at the MacKenzie Union High School, the
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moment of truth came -- during the physical examination. The doctor
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wiggled his thick gray eyebrows and laughed, and picked up the phone to
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talk to the principal. In his office, the principal smirked at me as I
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sat on the hard wooden chair across from his desk and asked me questions
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about my upbringing that made me think he thought Grandpa was a little off
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his bean. Anyway, they admitted me into the school and gave me the end bed
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in the last row in the male dormitory. My body had completed its
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transition into my new lifestyle, and I became just one of the boys at the
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school.
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Learning to be a boy was challenging, but I I gradually became
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adapted. Then, just as I was about to turn sixteen, I noticed that my new
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masculine parts were beginning to shrink away. Within weeks, it was
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obvious that the whole process was starting over -- I was becoming a girl
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again.
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Scientifically, I found out later, I was a victim of the rare Z
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chromosome, which fiddles with the dominance of the male Y and the
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female X chromosomes to produce periodical sex changes in the victim.
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It's kind of like what happens with some sea worms, annelids or
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something similar. The worms go through sex changes as they age,
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producing sperm and then eggs, like an ongoing delicatessen caviar
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selection. With us human XYZ's, it's more of 16-to-24-month cycle
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continuing throughout the life of the sufferer.
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And suffer I did. Fortunately, this last disaster happened toward
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the end of summer vacation, and I had saved up enough money running a
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bulldozer to run away before I had to face school again. I left Yellow
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Knife and went to Saskatoon and then to Missoula, becoming a waitress,
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a bookstore clerk, a waiter, a handyman, an exotic dancer. I
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experimented with sex -- with men, with women, with men again. But I
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felt unfulfilled. I realized later I was longing for someone who really
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understood me. Somebody like me.
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Then I met Leslie. Exactly like me, he/she was another XYZ.
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And when I met him/her, I was in the male part of the cycle and my
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member stood as stiff as a mailing tube when I found out that tall woman,
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with breasts like melons and a scarlet wide-lipped smile, had just left
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his/her girlfriend a month before. She, hearing my history, sighed with
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ecstasy and fell into my arms on our first date. We became inseparable.
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Oh, there were awkward gaps during the sexual transitional phases -- but
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all couples have problems. And so we lived together for almost four
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years, cycling in tandem, really enjoying our specialness with each other.
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Then one day, while I was in my apron, fixing dinner and
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watching tapes of my soaps, Leslie walked in, took a beer out of the
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refrigerator, sat down, and slapped his hardhat on the kitchen table, where
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it rocked and clattered for an ominous moment. No kiss, no little pat on
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my behind. What's wrong? I said. Nothing, he said. There must be, I
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said, going over to him and putting my arms around his neck. He flung
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off my arms and stood up. I'm leaving, he said. No, I said, it's not
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possible. I've fallen in love, he said. I burst into tears. Who? I asked,
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finally, and finally he told me. He was leaving me for someone named
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George. Leslie had become gay. And I was a confirmed hetero, of
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course. I screamed at him until he left, slamming the door. I tossed and
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turned on my damp pillow that night. The rest of the week was a
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nightmare of Valiums and tears.
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But by Sunday, I began to feel better. For one thing, I had to
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smile when I thought of Leslie's hitting the feminine part of his cycle --
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would he then have to take up with someone named Georgina? Besides, I
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noted the familiar swellings beginning in my own body: I was about to
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become a man again. Grow up, I told myself, don't let one person,
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however special, destroy you. You're far from ordinary yourself, Jerry.
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There would be women out there for me now, new women. And in a year
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or two, there would be men out there, new men. And then again, women --
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and then men...
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After all, there is something to being special.
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=================================================
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MR. MARCUS
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by William Ramsay
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(Note: this is an excerpt, Chapter 3 of the novel "<22>Ay, Chucho!" )
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"Well, I guess that solves your problem," said Amelia, lifting her
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squash racquet, her eye shining with sports lust, obviously getting ready
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to try to smack one of her zingers into the far corner.
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I wouldn't have believed I heard right -- my problem "solved" -- except
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that I knew that Amelia had a mind like a steel trap -- logic in, logic out.
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At least whenever she was in one of her get-down-to-business modes.
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"Solved"! Christ. Her ball hit low down and dribbled away from the wall
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like water from a leaky toilet. I didn't have a chance. "I don't, _believe_
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you," I said. "I can't just walk into Cuba and say, hey here I am."
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"Hmmm. Yes." She looked pensive, and I knew what she was
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thinking about. Four years ago, Mama had twisted my arm into
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instituting a suit to force the bank in New York to turn over the safety
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deposit box to us. We hired a smart lawyer who argued that the owner of
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the box was being illegally "sequestered" -- he managed to attribute all
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sorts of improper and illegal behavior to the Cuban government. The
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Supreme Court of the State of New York had found against us -- but the
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Cuban government hadn't forgiven me for trying, and I was definitely
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persona non grata in Havana. "There must be some way around that,"
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Amelia said. "It's all just logistics."
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Logistics. I was so mad that I gave the ball an extra vicious smash low
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on the front wall and she ended up waving her racket limply at it. She
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wiped her forehead, pulling back a lock of her short brown hair. "The
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main point is, if you do get both your father and this patriotic type out,
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you're home free. Your serve."
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"'Patriotic'!" I whopped the ball and we batted it back and forth for a
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minute. She killed it and I lost the serve. I came in a strong sixth in the
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Little Havana Kiwanis Tourney last fall -- but I have to stay on my toes
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with Amelia. I got the serve back and stopped, leaning against the
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plexiglass wall, my breath reaching down into my chest. "So. What am I
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supposed to do? Take a one-man sub into Havana harbor, swim to shore,
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disguise myself as Raul Castro or somebody, and walk up to Fidel and
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ask him to let naughty Dr. Revueltos out - - and oh, by the way, would
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you mind throwing in this traitor to the Revolution, Jorge Pillo, please,
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Comandante?" I said. I caught my breath and served again.
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Amelia smiled. "You'd have to say 'Pretty puleeeze'!" She giggled.
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"With butter" -- whap -- "and sugar and honey on it." Amelia was born in
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the States, so she has a very firm grasp on the idiom. English is almost
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my native language -- but not quite: nursery rhymes, names for types of
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kids' marbles, farm implements -- all come to me more easily in Spanish.
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But a hearty English "Shit!" came to my mouth just then instead of an
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earthy Castilian "_Mierda_!"
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The slap of my shot against the back wall sounded like a backfire.
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"Cute shot," she said. But she killed it with a flip of her wrist and it was
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her set, dammit.
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Going back toward the locker rooms, she took my hand. "Don't worry,
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Chucho, I've been thinking about it."
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"Good, I'm glad you're thinking. Why don't_ you_ go to Cuba, you
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handle it, if it's so easy."
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"Your father is still a Red, isn't he?"
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"And Marx begat Engels and Engels begat Lenin and"
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"As his son you deserve to get a little help from the communists."
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"Oh, come on!" We sat down in the green leather couch that stretched
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cozily between the men's and women's locker rooms. I liked the faint odor
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from Amelia -- a sweetish-sour single-set smell.
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"Well," she said. "El Salvador's full of communists, and Uncle Paco
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knows people on our side that know every one of them." Her voice had
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turned low and throaty again, as if she had made some great scientific
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discovery.
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I stared into her green eyes -- they were nice eyes, I must admit I'm a
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sucker for women's eyes -- especially large green ones. "That's _it_?" I
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said. "Just 'El Salvador'?"
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She smiled and stared at a couple of tall young studs, one of them with
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a thick flopping pony tail, who were running, hopping and lunging
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athletically in the next court. "Oh, Chucho. Sometimes, I don't know
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about you!"
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"'Oh, Chucho' what?"
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"Don't bother me with details." I remembered Professor McKee's
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"Survey of European History" at Miami-Dade and remembered his
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lectures about Napoleon, the only thing about that course that interested
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me -- I got a B minus in the course. I imagined that the Emperor must
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have talked pretty much the same way to Marshal Murat when he was
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giving the order for some little military exercise -- like the battle of
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Austerlitz
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#
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So the next thing I knew, I found myself on Continental Airlines flight
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292, looking out my window at the top of an emerald green volcano. It
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looked too green, as if it were a ghostly kind of day-glo Mayan
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monument. Paco had told my mother only that I was going on a business
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trip to Central America. "Stay away from Cuba," was all she said.
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"Yes, _mamacita_."
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"If those Reds get hold of you, they'll cook your goose." "Yes,
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_mamacita_."
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She made a face like the Wicked Witch of the North. "Sizzle, sizzle,
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sizzle!" She laughed. "I know I don't have to worry about you, my
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both-feet- on-the-ground hijito_."
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'Both feet on the ground'! Didn't I wish.
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I must have been dozing on the plane. Suddenly the hostess' voice was
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announcing in both my languages that we were approaching the Ilopango
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airport. With her faint trace of an accent and a hint of a Latin intonation,
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her English made her sound like somebody who could have been in my
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class at Miami High. The good old days at Miami High, when life was
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sometimes boring -- but at least you were never scared shitless of what the
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next moment might bring. The plane lurched slightly, slowing, and the
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cloud-dappled green and brown of the fields came closer. My spirits sank
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with the aircraft. The truth about my situation suddenly hit me.
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I had no faith in Amelia's plan.
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I had no faith in Uncle Paco's competence, or in the good faith of his
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friends in the Association.
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I had no faith that I could pull off the "Abduction from La Cabana"
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scenario.
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All I had was a kind of perverted faith in the efficiency of the U.S.
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government. And not just in the IRS. Getting out of Miami had also,
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thank God, put me out of reach of the process server from the Federal
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District Court for Southern Florida -- sent around no doubt by Peters
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Electronics or ElectroServe, Inc. or one of the other of my suppliers who
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were being bad sports about the state of my accounts payable and were
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eyeing the appeal of bankruptcy proceedings. Luckily for me, at 8:45 the
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preceding Wednesday morning I had spotted this fellow in the dark blue
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suit leaning against the display window of the store, his body masking the
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top third of the "VCR Closeout Sale" sign. A summons from the feds
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would have really closed me out.
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The DC-10 shuddered, the wheels squealed and grunted, and I was on
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the ground in Central America, jouncing along not so merrily to my fate.
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But as we slowed to a quiet roll and began to taxi, the sun glaring off the
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wing on my side, my fear eased, and a sort of feeling of freedom started to
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ooze into my brain -- in some crazy way I imagined a whiff of liberation
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from my worries swelling up like a pure white thunderhead on a summer
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afternoon. I was on an impossible mission -- but what the hell -- what had
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I got to lose? And maybe what Amelia always said about me was right
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too. Maybe there was a Basil Rathbone inside me, impatient with being a
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desk officer at the forward Royal Flying Corps base, itching to get in a
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Spad and join a raid on the German aerodrome, flying wing to wing with
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the rest of the "gallant gentlemen" of the squadron.
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But as the van from the Camino Real Hotel thunked its way over the
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potholes in the Panamerican Highway on its way into San Salvador, the
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bumps seemed to sap my new-found optimism. Life was back to shaking
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me up.
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On the road, we encountered individual soldiers and small patrols. At
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one point we stopped in the middle of a traffic jam where an ancient,
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garishly decorated bus had collapsed onto its front axle in the middle of
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the road. I opened the van window to smell dust and cow dung and to
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meet the gaze of several dark coppery Mayan faces underneath
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olive-green trench helmets, arms cradling AK-47's or Uzis. The soldiers
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were obviously on the side of law and order and the free market system. I
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would be leaving all that behind me when I got to Cuba, and I began to
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feel a hazy nostalgia-in-anticipation for capitalism and Our Way of Life.
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In my room at the hotel, I sat down on the bed, nursing the cozy feeling on
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my ass of the aristocratically firm springs. I grabbed the colored card
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listing from the top of the TV set showing the video movies available --
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"Die Hard" was showing and I experienced some fellow feeling for Bruce
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Willis, fighting to survive against impossible odds. I went to the window
|
||
and looked down on the tops of the cars and the palm trees along the
|
||
Bulevar de los Heroes -- I could have been in Miami. I remember
|
||
thinking with a pang, standing at that window, that a childhood misspent
|
||
in Havana was all the foreign travel I had really needed for the rest of my
|
||
life. I vowed never to leave Miami again if I ever got back there alive.
|
||
Anyway, there I was in San Salvador, wishing for some way to opt out
|
||
from reality, reduced to making big life decisions like whether to call up
|
||
room service for something to eat or just sack out for a while. Then the
|
||
phone rang.
|
||
A gringo voice speaking Spanish asked if I was me. I said I was. He
|
||
said he was a friend of Paco's and asked me ungrammatically if we could
|
||
meet at the lobby bar downstairs. I said sure, and added in English that I
|
||
spoke that language. He continued in a flat, nasal Spanish, like I imagine
|
||
a Frenchman speaking Italian, instructing me to sit alone at a table where
|
||
he would join me. Then he hung up abruptly.
|
||
Fifteen minutes later a middle-sized guy with a prominent pot belly
|
||
slithered up to the table where I was working on my watered-down scotch.
|
||
He wore a pale beige sportcoat over an orange guayabera shirt: he took
|
||
the sportcoat off, folding it on the chair behind himself. The tails of the
|
||
shirt stuck out, making him look a little like a washed-out Baltimore
|
||
Oriole. He introduced himself as "Mr. Marcus."
|
||
As we talked, he kept turning his heavy-lidded eyes to peer over my
|
||
shoulder. From time to time, he twisted his long neck around, swiveling
|
||
his gaze over some of the other patrons: a middle-aged American couple,
|
||
a depressed- looking young man in a blue blazer. His eyes kept moving
|
||
from me to the room and back, and the back again. Every few moments
|
||
he would lower his head and drink greedily from a glass of rum-and-coke.
|
||
|
||
"Nice mustache," he said. He pointed at my lip. He made the Spanish
|
||
word _bigotes_ sound as if it referred to racial prejudice.
|
||
"Yes," I said articulately, in my perhaps slightly accented but careful
|
||
English. I was proud of my RAF-style mustache -- it flowed in a broad
|
||
wave across my lip and out onto my cheeks like a friendly black tide.
|
||
"I don't know if it'll be O.K. to keep or not."
|
||
"What?" I said.
|
||
He only raised his eyebrows at me. He winked. "Wait for
|
||
instructions," he said.
|
||
"Instructions?" I started to say, but he snapped up his sportcoat, made
|
||
a farewell clown face, and he was gone, head hunched into his neck. I
|
||
imagined "C.I.A." written clearly in invisible ink on each fold of his
|
||
flapping shirt- tail.
|
||
The next morning there was a message in my box downstairs:
|
||
Be outside hotel tonight at midnight, ready for mission. Pack bags,
|
||
leave them in room. (Bring toilet articles with you.)"
|
||
Toilet articles? Was this a slumber party?
|
||
At about 12:45 A.M., after a swerving, jouncing ride through the dark
|
||
streets stretching north of the hotel, and a trip over a pathway of wet
|
||
rubber matting through the kitchen of a restaurant, I found myself sitting
|
||
on a fold- up chair in what looked like an abandoned meat locker. Facing
|
||
me were Mr. Marcus and an officer in the Salvadoran Army wearing a red
|
||
name plate: Major P. Beltran. I clutched my heavy plastic Doppkit in one
|
||
hand. On the other side of the door, you could hear the clink of glasses
|
||
and the clattering of dishes.
|
||
The Major and Mr. Marcus each held one side of what looked like a
|
||
passport. Mr. Marcus frowned, the Major made faces. Then Marcus
|
||
nodded, the Major nodded, and Marcus told me that my mustache had to
|
||
come off. I protested.
|
||
"You can use the bathroom in the restaurant, there's a mirror," said
|
||
Marcus in English. The Major frowned -- Beltran spoke very little
|
||
English and tonight Mr. Marcus was insisting on speaking in his own
|
||
native tongue. I protested again. The Major took his finger and ran it
|
||
over my lip. Then he laughed. My lip felt greasy where he had touched
|
||
it.
|
||
I was getting the idea. I grabbed at the passport, but Marcus kept hold
|
||
of one side of it with his thumb and forefinger. The faded maroon cover
|
||
bore the incised words, "Republica de El Salvador." The picture inside
|
||
was of a young man with a triangular face and large eyes. The name was
|
||
Felipe Elizalde Q., with a looping, florid signature underneath the
|
||
typewriting.
|
||
"Is this the only way?" I said in Spanish.
|
||
The Major nodded.
|
||
"The best and only way to accomplish this mission," said Marcus,
|
||
again in English.
|
||
"What was that he said?" said the Major.
|
||
"Suppose they aren't fooled," I said in Spanish.
|
||
"We have to think of the mission," said Mr. Marcus in English, a
|
||
remark I didn't find very edifying.
|
||
The Major looked even more puzzled than I. "_Pero_ _que_ _dijo_?"
|
||
he whispered to me.
|
||
To hell with it. "O.K.," I said.
|
||
I snipped and scraped off my beloved mustache while a drunk rattled
|
||
the door to the tiny bathroom, making the latch-lock jiggle in its socket.
|
||
Errol Flynn, I remember thinking. What would he have done? When I
|
||
finished and went back into the meat locker, Mr. Marcus smiled narrowly
|
||
at me. The Major was smoking with intense concentration, the room was
|
||
becoming as foggy as the waterfront on a becalmed winter day in Coconut
|
||
Beach. Marcus wiped his eyes, patting carefully at the round folds of skin
|
||
underneath them, and told me I was already checked in under my new
|
||
name at the Hotel San Jorge. I would be contacted.
|
||
"But what about the real Felipe Elizalde?" I said In Spanish. I
|
||
coughed -- the smoke was terrible.
|
||
The Major smiled. "_Terminado_," he said.
|
||
"With extreme prejudice," said Mr. Marcus.
|
||
I heard myself gasp. In the movies it would have been a joke, but
|
||
hearing that spy-novel phrase used in real life, my throat tightened up and
|
||
I felt my gorge rise. Marcus stared at my face and then broke up,
|
||
giggling. "Don't panic, the Good Lord arranged this one -- brain tumor."
|
||
The Major got that one. "_El_ _buen_ _Dios_," he said like a
|
||
Hispanic echo. He patted his hands on his rotund belly like an olive-drab
|
||
Buddha.
|
||
Elizalde had been an FMLN cadre, in the custody of the Salvadoran
|
||
National Guard for over seven years. Few of the present FMLN knew
|
||
him -- but they all knew about him, his heroism during a car bombing of
|
||
the right-wing party ARENA's headquarters in '83, his ideological purity,
|
||
his high morals.
|
||
"High morals?" I said.
|
||
"Don't worry," said Marcus, "people can change in prison."
|
||
I asked who was going to contact me. They told me that their people
|
||
had planted the information on my "release from custody" with an
|
||
informer for the Reds, and that someone, probably a certain Dr.
|
||
Sanchez-Schulz, would be in touch with me.
|
||
"He's a doctor?" I said.
|
||
"She," said Marcus.
|
||
"A woman doctor," I said.
|
||
"That's O.K., that's even good," said Marcus.
|
||
"Why?" I said.
|
||
"You're a doctor yourself."
|
||
"_Doctor_," chimed in the Major in Spanish, with the accent on the
|
||
last syllable.
|
||
I looked at the passport again -- where Marcus' thumb had been, I now
|
||
saw the "Dr." "Jesus!" I said.
|
||
"No," said Marcus, "Not 'Jesus' now, 'Felipe'!" He chortled, then
|
||
gasped, choking on the cigarette smoke.
|
||
Very funny! It was all very funny, I thought to myself, as an hour later
|
||
I tried to prop myself up with pillows on the sagging bed in my new hotel
|
||
room, reading Elizalde's "resume" and trying to memorize the facts. The
|
||
"Q." was for Quinones, so if I ever ran into any of his mother's side of the
|
||
family, I was prepared. As for the Hotel San Jorge on 20 Avenida Norte,
|
||
it had turned out to be a definite comedown from the Camino Real. When
|
||
I had asked for room 201, the man at the desk lowered his newspaper
|
||
slightly. He gave me a wide smile, full of gold teeth.
|
||
"Yes, Doctor," he said. "Right up those stairs, Doctor. First room on
|
||
the left."
|
||
He winked and made a face at me. "Good night, Doctor." I figured he
|
||
must be the Major's brother-in-law or cousin.
|
||
It was two flights up. The stair carpet was secured by brass runners
|
||
but torn and speckled with greasy-looking dark spots. My toilet was
|
||
running and didn't seem to want to stop merely because I condescended to
|
||
jiggle the handle. Marcus had told me there would be no problem about
|
||
money -- the C.I.A. wanted Pillo out rather badly, I gathered. But the
|
||
San Jorge sure didn't look like someplace you'd stay on a no-holds-barred
|
||
budget.
|
||
Admiring "myself" in my new passport, I saw I did indeed look kind of
|
||
like Felipe Elizalde. He was thirty-one. I had lost two years of my life --
|
||
the "next" two years. Well, God knows the last part of the last two hadn't
|
||
been all that uniformly good to me.
|
||
One thing Mr. Marcus hadn't told me -- how all this was going to get
|
||
me into Cuba in any way that was going to do me any good as far as my
|
||
father -- and Jose Pillo -- were concerned. "If a communist can't get into
|
||
Cuba anymore, things must be pretty bad!" he said. When I asked for
|
||
more exact instructions, he made a face. "See Dr. Sanchez, you'll like
|
||
her." He leered. "And have a good mission."
|
||
Major Beltran took a piece of tobacco out of his mouth and said,
|
||
"_Adios_, _companero_! _Buena_ _suerte_." There isn't any good
|
||
translation into Spanish for the English slang "Lots of luck" -- but you can
|
||
get the idea across, as the Major did, through intonation and gestures.
|
||
My eyes ached slightly and my arms felt trembly, as if I had had five
|
||
cups of coffee. I took a Dalmane and floated off to sleep, the noise from
|
||
the toilet became a crystalline waterfall, and the faint stink of old
|
||
perspiration from the bedding metamorphosed in my drowsiness into fresh
|
||
smells of honeysuckle in the spring.
|
||
I remember thinking before I fell asleep: at least I've gotten out of
|
||
Miami.
|
||
Yeah, I thought, remembering the Major's smile, how the hell do you
|
||
say "out of the frying pan" in Spanish?
|
||
================================================
|
||
|
||
A COLD NIGHT IN PITTSBURGH
|
||
|
||
by Otho Eskin
|
||
|
||
(Note: this is part 1 of the play "Duet")
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
CHARACTERS
|
||
|
||
(In order of appearance)
|
||
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA DUSE
|
||
|
||
SARAH BERNHARDT
|
||
|
||
|
||
SETTING
|
||
|
||
Backstage of the Syria Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
|
||
|
||
TIME
|
||
|
||
April 5, 1924 Evening.
|
||
|
||
AT RISE: Backstage of an old theater. Flats lean against the walls
|
||
among props and clothes racks. To one side is a make-up
|
||
table with mirror. Next to it a space-heater stands on the
|
||
floor; to another side is a couch. An old, dusty theatrical
|
||
poster of Sarah Bernhardt leans against a wall.
|
||
|
||
The MAN (as Stage Manager) enters and begins
|
||
switching on lights. ELEONORA DUSE is revealed
|
||
seated at the make-up table wrapped in a heavy shawl
|
||
holding a book. She is dressed plainly, in black.
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
One hour, Signora Duse. One hour.
|
||
|
||
(DUSE closes the book.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Is it always cold here?
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
This isn't one of your fancy European opera houses, Signora. I don't turn
|
||
on the heat until just before the audience arrives.
|
||
|
||
(The MAN goes about the stage getting
|
||
things ready for a performance.
|
||
ELEONORA pulls she shawl more tightly
|
||
around her shoulders and looks at herself
|
||
in the mirror.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I don't want to die in Pittsburgh.
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
The doctors say your condition is not serious, Signora Duse.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
(Angrily)
|
||
Doctors are idiots! Fools! Everyone of them! I'm too ill to perform this
|
||
evening.
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
I insist.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
My lungs are on fire. Cancel the performance.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
The house is sold out. Your appearance is the highlight of the season. All
|
||
of the city's society will be here tonight. The Mellons, the... You cannot
|
||
disappoint them. You cannot offend them.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I can offend anyone I like. I am La Duse.
|
||
|
||
(The MAN removes one of the dresses
|
||
from a rack and lays it on the back of a
|
||
chair.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Was it cold like this in Ancona?
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
I couldn't say, Signora.
|
||
|
||
(DUSE rises, looks at the dress, then
|
||
walks about nervously.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I should have gone home to Italy after the last New York performance. I
|
||
would be warm there. A little warmth and I'd be fine. And a little rest.
|
||
|
||
(ELEONORA discovers the poster of
|
||
Sarah Bernhardt. SHE studies Sarah's
|
||
face.)
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
And tomorrow you go to Cleveland.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I hope it's warmer there. God, I hope it's warmer there.
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
Then to Boston.
|
||
|
||
(ELEONORA carefully puts the poster
|
||
away, face to the wall, out of sight.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
There is always someplace else. Is that what my mother thought? That's
|
||
what I remember. Moving always from one town to another. And
|
||
now, at the end, I am alone in a cold theater in a city I don't know, among
|
||
strangers.
|
||
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
You needn't be among strangers.
|
||
|
||
(Enter SARAH BERNHARDT dressed in
|
||
the style of the 1890's, all in white. Her
|
||
entrance is dramatic and theatrical.
|
||
SARAH looks around the theater
|
||
surprised and rather pleased to find
|
||
herself there.)
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I've been here before. It was 1893.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah!
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Or maybe it was 1905.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
What are you doing here!
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I think it was my second American Farewell Tour. Or was it the third?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
(Highly distraught)
|
||
I'm losing my mind. (To SARAH) You're not here!
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Of course I'm here. Where else should I be?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
This can't be true.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
It's as true as anything else in your life. Or mine. (SARAH wanders
|
||
around examining sets and props.) Of course, I was the most lied about
|
||
woman in France. The press said I slept with every crowned head in
|
||
Europe including the Pope. That wasn't altogether true. I was far too
|
||
busy.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
(Appealing to the Man)
|
||
Do you see her too?
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
See who, Signora?
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I had one child. His father was either Alexander Dumas or the Prince of
|
||
Wales, I forget which. Or perhaps it was someone else.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Her! That woman! I'm not myself tonight.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I know how you feel, my dear. I'm frequently not myself. Very often I'm
|
||
somebody else entirely.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I refuse to talk to you.
|
||
|
||
(SARAH instinctively heads for her
|
||
poster, pulls it out from where
|
||
ELEONORA hid it.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Get out! Immediately!
|
||
|
||
(SARAH dusts off the poster and studies it
|
||
admiringly, then places it in a conspicuous
|
||
place.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah, I insist you leave!
|
||
|
||
(SARAH picks up the dress the MAN had
|
||
laid out for ELEONORA, holds it up and
|
||
examines herself in a mirror.)
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
My dear, you should really do something about your wardrobe. You can
|
||
afford attractive costumes now.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah, leave my things alone.
|
||
|
||
(ELEONORA snatches the dress from
|
||
SARAH)
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
We must celebrate our reunion, Eleonora. (To the MAN) Bring us a
|
||
bottle of champagne. French, of course.
|
||
|
||
(The MAN makes no move to leave.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Stop this, at once! You can't do this.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
(To The MAN)
|
||
Be quick about it. Signora Duse and I haven't got forever.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah, you can't come here.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Why not?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
For one thing, you're dead.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Preposterous! I would have remembered something like that.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
You died a year ago.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
How sad.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
You don't belong here anymore.
|
||
|
||
(SARAH sits at the make-up table and
|
||
begins to put on makeup as if preparing
|
||
for a performance.)
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I seem to remember now at my home, surrounded by friends. Did they
|
||
cover my coffin with lilacs as I instructed? Was I given a grand funeral?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I didn't go. I had better things to do.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Was it grander than Victor Hugo's? I'm certain it must have been.
|
||
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah, stop this. I don't want you here.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Do they still speak of me, sometimes?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
We had nothing to say to one another when you were alive. Why should
|
||
we have anything to say now? Leave me alone.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
(To MAN)
|
||
Where is our champagne? What is keeping you?
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
I have duties to perform, Madame Bernhardt. I am far too busy to find
|
||
you a bottle of champagne.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
There was a time when you were happy to do anything I asked.
|
||
|
||
MAN
|
||
Madame is doubtless right.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah, you can't stay here. This is my theater. This is my play.
|
||
|
||
(SARAH concentrates on her make up)
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
How ironic. You are now the leading actress of the world. With my death,
|
||
you have no rival. No one compares you to the Divine Sarah any more.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I never had a rival, Sarah. Certainly not you.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
There was no one who came close to me as an artist of the theater.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
What you did was not acting it was all gesture.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
But gesture is everything.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Sarah, you don't imitate life. You upstage it.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
You imitate life but do not possess it.
|
||
|
||
(ELEONORA moves toward the make-up
|
||
table. SARAH reluctantly moves away
|
||
and ELEONORA takes her place.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
At least I was always honest.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
At least I was always exciting.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Your idea of good theater is all artifice.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
What's the point of going to the theater unless it is to see artifice?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
You always called attention to yourself as an actor.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Naturally.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
The true artist makes acting look effortless.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Then how would people know I was acting? Don't criticize the dead,
|
||
Eleonora. It's not polite. I may never have aspired to your dreams of high
|
||
art in the theater but at least I didn't make a hash of my love life the way
|
||
you did.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Nor did I sleep with every man and woman in Europe.
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Tsk, tsk. Don't be catty. It is not at all attractive.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I pity you, Sarah. Your life was empty. All those lovers! They could have
|
||
meant nothing.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
They kept me warm at night.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
I had love.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I wouldn't trade any of my meaningless affairs for a single one of your
|
||
prolonged fits of melancholy and despair you called love. And besides,
|
||
you had atrocious taste in men, if I may say so.
|
||
|
||
(ELEONORA snatches a bottle from her
|
||
make-up table)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
How dare you! How dare you say that!
|
||
|
||
(ELEONORA starts to throw the bottle at
|
||
SARAH. The MAN grabs HER hand and
|
||
removes it.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
You of all people dare criticize me for my choice of lovers.
|
||
|
||
(SARAH and ELEONORA glare at one another for a
|
||
long moment.)
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Have you come to apologize?
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I have nothing to apologize for, Eleonora.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
You behaved abominably in Paris.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
Is that what this is about?
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
You have much to account for.
|
||
SARAH
|
||
We did not start off well, Eleonora. But it could have been different.
|
||
When we met I was tired of never finding understanding. I dreamed of
|
||
meeting someone who would accept me unquestioningly. We might have
|
||
been friends, you and I. We had much in common.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
We had nothing in common. I searched for truth. You searched for effect.
|
||
You could never distinguish between what is true and what is invented.
|
||
You play-acted at life.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I always loved pretense. I acted every waking moment of the day. When I
|
||
drank my cafe in the morning. When I read my mail. When I rode in the
|
||
park. It was all an act. I did like to pretend pretend to be beautiful,
|
||
pretend to love, pretend to live, pretend to die.
|
||
|
||
ELEONORA
|
||
Get out of here! I have a performance tonight.
|
||
|
||
SARAH
|
||
I can't leave. Not yet. We have unfinished business.
|
||
|
||
(Angrily ELEONORA turns her back on
|
||
SARAH and begins to prepare for her
|
||
performance.)
|
||
|
||
[END OF PART 1 OF "DUET"]
|
||
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|
||
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