FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 5, Number 6 November-December, 1998 EDITOR'S NOTE: FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis. The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the public. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e- mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part of the message itself, rather than as an attachment. Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from the editor or by downloading from the website http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Fiction_Online The FICTION-ONLINE home page, including the latest issue, courtesy of the Writer's Center, Bethesda, Maryland, may be accessed at the following URL: http://www.writer.org/folmag/topfollm.htm COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage performances or filmings or video recording, or for any other use not explicitly licensed, are reserved. William Ramsay, Editor ================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Note Contributors "Argive Odes" E. James Scott "Getting Started," a short story Alan Vanneman "Monster Carrot," an excerpt (chapter 11) from the novel "Ay, Chucho!" William Ramsay "Gentleman," part 2 of the play, "Julie" Otho Eskin ================================================= CONTRIBUTORS OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs, has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in Washington.. His play, "Season in Hell," recently had sixteen performances at the SCENA Theatre in Washington. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the Northwest Fiction Group. His play, "Topsy-Turvy," recently received a reading at the N Street Playhouse in Washington. E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and plays the viola da gamba and is learning the shawm. He lives in La Jolla, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he practices his hobby of photographing and charting the migrations of cetaceans. He is currently studying Greek tragedy. ALAN VANNEMAN is a writer living in Washington. He has published short stories in numerous journals, most recently "3 AM Zurich Time" in issue No. 14 of "Gulf Stream Magazine.". He is a professional editor, currently working in educational research. ================================================== ARGIVE ODES by E. James Scott Agamemnon Agamemnon, Agamemnon, Valiant destroyer of Ilium. Death-dealing warrior, Paramount leader of Greece. The gods have brought you safely home. Agamemnon, Agamemnon, Your captive princess screams in fear. Ancient wrongs lie in wait. Crimson paths lead to your hearth. The air is filled with treachery. Fateful Days The air of Argos smells of blood, Words are sweet but voices hard. The sacred Python flicks his tongue, The night is thick with fear. O fateful days! ================================================== GETTING STARTED by Alan Vanneman After graduation I lived with my folks. My dad's a contractor, and he got me this job with a friend of his. The guy was kind of a jerk, but it was OK. We were working on this housing development, and he was teaching me about electricity. I was hanging out with Louis, mostly. He lived in this little house that was practically out in the mountains, with his mother. There was this waterfall near his house where you could crawl back under the rock and behind the water and just watch it fall. We used to go there and smoke grass. It was pretty cool. I did that for about six months. Louis had this girlfriend whose family gave her five thousand dollars when she graduated from high school. Louis said he was going to invest it for her, I guess in a new car for him, although he hadn't gotten it yet. He had this old beat-up Honda Civic. Anyway, this girl's brothers came around to Louis' house with an ax, and they chopped up all four tires on his Honda, so he couldn't leave. My dad had like five or six mounted tires in our garage. I don't know where he got them. Anyway, I put four of them in the back of dad's truck and went over to Louis'. We changed all four tires and Louis followed me home in his Honda. I left dad's pickup in the driveway and then Louis drove me into Culpeper. After that I bought his car for $500 in cash. When I gave him the money Louis said "OK, if anybody asks you, you don't know where I went." Well, I didn't, but I could guess that he took the bus into Washington. Then about a week later the police came looking for me. They said Louis was going to be indicted for felonious conversion. They said they were going to charge me with being an accessory, but they didn't. I didn't know that he was going to be indicted when I bought his car, and I didn't know where he'd gone. My dad was pretty mad, about the tires, I guess. He didn't like Louis very much. Also, the cops were giving me a hard time. This old guy I worked with asked me if I wanted a job in Washington and I said sure, because it was like get out of town. I knew some guys in Alexandria who had a house, and they let me sleep on their sofa for $25 a month. This job was on Capitol Hill, right near the Capitol, polishing railings. That was all it was. They have all these brass railings around the buildings, and this guy and I would polish them. I got $7 an hour, which was OK, but it wasn't the greatest work. I'd watch all these girls go by, going to some air-conditioned office, while I was sweating my butt off. At nine o'clock in the morning it would be ninety degrees. Then the guy fired me. We didn't get along. Also I didn't always show up on time. After that I didn't work for awhile. It was pretty unstable where I was staying. We were up a lot at night so I slept most of the day. I was cool with it until my cash ran out. The guys I was living with started to give me a hard time, like this one guy didn't want me to watch TV because I didn't help pay for the electricity. Also they had these porno tapes that I couldn't look at because they weren't mine. This guy was a real pain. Then this other guy told me about this job I could get with the law firm he worked for. He worked in the copying department, which was all these printers and stuff. It paid like $8.50 an hour because it was from noon to eight, and there was a lot of overtime. Also it was air-conditioned, even though it was like in the basement of this big building. So now I work at Culbertson and Manning. Jerome is the shift manager. He practically lives there, like he comes in around ten and leaves at midnight. He's an older guy, about 30, a recovering alcoholic. He will always tell you that-"I'm a recovering alcoholic." It's a big thing with him. Jerome had to keep busy. He works like 80 hours a week, a lot of it overtime but some he doesn't even get paid for. "It's better than sitting at home, looking at Regis and Cathie Lee," he says. Well, I guess. I hang out with Jerome a lot now. A lot of times when we get off shift we drive around in this Ford Explorer he has, which is pretty cool. He's got a 454 engine and these monster tires. Usually there are four or five of us, like the white guys. The black guys all think Jerome is a jerk, because he doesn't do drugs. They think we're all crackers. Anyway, it's Jerome's shift, and it's mostly white guys. We can't go to bars because of the alcohol. Usually we buy pizza and ride around. Jerome pays for everything because he likes having us with him. I don't think we're really screwing him. Jerome is kind of a maniac when he drives. He saw this cop video about this 15-year-old girl who was arrested for doing 110, so he always wants to do that. We go out on US 1 sometimes and he says he gets it up to 120. Well, I don't know. The car shimmies so much it's hard to tell. When the windows start rolling down by themselves, he slows down a little. You have to wear a seat belt because of the way he bounces you around. Once he went around a curve and the Ranger really swayed, and this guy in the back says "this motherfucker's top heavy," and Jerome says, "this truck ain't top heavy, there ain't nothing that will tip this motherfucker over," and he goes around this next curve really tight and we flip right over, wham! down this embankment and wham! right back on the tires again. So all this shit from the floor is all over us and I say "are we having fun yet?" That was pretty cool. After I went to work at C&M, I started seeing this girl, Rosalie. She was going to be an actress. Well, that was what she said. She hadn't acted in much. She used to be in these "Night of Mystery" parties, where these actors would go to a party and act out a mystery for the people at the party. She would tell me about all these rich married guys hitting on her. She wasn't really that pretty. If you saw her, you wouldn't think she was an actress. She lived in this house on Capitol Hill with these two gay guys, who were actors, Ralph and Bruno. Bruno was this little German guy. I was there once when he was all upset because this play he was in was reviewed in the paper and the reviewer said he looked like a rodent. I guess that would be limiting. Rosalie was the first girl I had sex with. Later I found out it wasn't as good as it should have been. I didn't like her that much, really. She was kind of fat. I guess she liked me more than I liked her. She kept wanting me to move in with her. She slept on this futon in the basement. I couldn't see that. I don't think I was very good in bed, or on the futon. I'd go off pretty quickly. She'd say "that was great," but I don't think it was. After we did it a few times I didn't want to do it any more. Rosalie would talk about stuff, like should she get a ring for her navel. Well, do it. Who cares? But she never did. Finally, we had a fight about it and we broke up. Jerome was glad when we broke up. "Girls will fuck you up" he says. I don't think Jerome's gay, but he's like against women. "Women are fucking trouble." "A man without a plan is not a man." He likes to say that. "A man without a plan is not a man." "What's your plan, man?" I tell him "to keep this joint lit." He doesn't like that. He doesn't like dope. "Zero tolerance, motherfucker." He's always telling us he'll fire us if he catches us smoking pot. He thinks I smoke it all the time, but how can I, when I'm at work 10 hours a day and out driving with him until 4 in the morning? I tell him I'm going to buy a Jeep Wrangler, that's my plan. They are cool. I like those rollbars they have, and those big tires. Jerome thinks it's important for a young man to buy an expensive car. That's what he calls me, young man. "A young man like you needs a real car, not that piece of shit you're driving." He tells me I need to work for a year at C&M and make a 50 percent down payment and the bank will give me a loan. He says he'll help me. He wants me to get one with monster tires like his, which would be a couple of thousand extra. But I don't want one of those really redneck trucks that cost like $40,000. Jerome says he can get me as much overtime as I want. Well,thanks, but I don't want that much. I have over $3,000 in the bank already. I do work Sunday overtime when we have it, because it's double time. But I need to do more than work at C&M and party with Jerome. After I broke up with Rosalie I started going to bars. First I have to get served, and then I try picking up a girl. Getting served is pretty cool. Usually I can get a beer but that's it. I still look pretty young. I only need to shave like once a week. When we were in bed together Rosalie would call me babyface. Thanks a lot. What I like to drink is tequila, except I really don't. If I have three I'm under the table. I'm not much of a drinker. A lot of times I'll get served, and if there are no girls there I'll leave. Getting served is what counts. There are a lot of clubs around C&M that I can go to after work, like on a Friday or Saturday, if I'm working. Jerome gets pissed off if I go. Sometimes he'll take us all out to dinner at a nice restaurant so we won't leave him alone. But usually if it's Friday or Saturday I'll take off. Usually I take the Metro because my car really is a sort of a piece of shit. The tires aren't all the same size, and they're really bald, so I can't get it through inspection. Also the transmission is shot. I don't want to put a lot of money into it because I figure I'll get my Wrangler in less than a year. I don't make it with girls much. I'm pretty shy. Also being a copy guy isn't so cool. Once I was talking with this girl and she seemed to like me a lot. Then it turned out she thought I was a copier repair guy, like I went around to offices and fixed them. When she found out I just made copies she kind of deflated. I try to go to bars like around nine or ten. After girls have had a few drinks they don't ask you as much about what you do. Once I was in this bar which is up the street from C&M on Connecticut called Timberlakes and I met this girl who was pretty gorgeous. She was older than me. They usually are. If I'm around Georgetown or GW it's like "you don't go to college?" I don't need that. I started talking to this girl and I was telling her about going to the Bayou, which is this club near the river, to hear this band Smashmouth, because this guy I know from C&M is in the band. She started telling me that she was a songwriter, and I was like, this is really cool, maybe she has a song that Smashmouth could do, so I'm asking her about who she likes and stuff like that. Then she told me that she tore up all the songs she wrote and I'm like why do that? Finally I left, and I thought, she doesn't really write songs. She made that up to impress me. To impress me! I was already impressed. She was gorgeous. Everything about her was great, her hair, her clothes, her make-up. If you saw her on the street you'd think, well, if I had a girl like that, everything would be cool. Since I broke up with Rosalie, I have slept with a few girls, like one-night stands. Girls are funny. They think my accent is cute. I have sort of a southern accent. This one girl told me I have a body like a Greek God. I don't. I play in this zombie soccer league, which is like for guys who work second shift. Our games are like at nine or ten. I like to play, but I'm no Greek God. We don't always play because guys don't show up a lot. Jerome works out for an hour each morning before he comes to work. He's always talking about upper-body strength because his hero is Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's seen "Terminator II" about a hundred times. Also he has this tape with "Bad to the Bone" on it. That's his favorite song. He doesn't know anything about music. Of course he hates hip-hop. He thinks the Spice Girls are hip-hop. I bought one of their tapes which I put on when he's not looking, because he hates them so much. They're not really a group. I like going to girls' apartments. I feel like I'm a spy. They always have nice places. They have these magazines like Cosmopolitan and Elle about how to be gorgeous and drive men insane with desire. The best time I've had with a girl she wasn't really a girl, I mean she was a woman. She was a lot older than me, like 30. I met her in this bar at Union Station. I was just having a beer. Her name was Linda. She was a school teacher from Colorado. I guess she thought I was funny, because she laughed at everything I said. We had a beer and she said "Why don't you show me Washington?" She was laughing when she said it. Anyway, we went on the Metro, which she hadn't done before. We went over the Potomac, which she thought was neat, and then we went to the airport. They have this new building which I've been to a couple of times that has some pretty nice bars, where you can watch the river and the planes taking off. Also I usually get served there. We were talking the whole time. She knew a lot about music. When she was young she had gone to all these concerts, like the Grateful Dead like 15 years ago and the first three Lollapalooza tours. Also she'd spent a lot of time in San Francisco. She used to go to this club where the Red Hot Chili Peppers played before they became famous. She had this coupon for a restaurant on Capitol Hill so we went back there. After that we went back to her hotel room. She was beautiful. She had a beautiful stomach and beautiful thighs and a beautiful crotch, just the way you want a girl's crotch to be, with really thick pubic hair in this little triangle. But she was really flat-chested. In fact, she wore like falsies, I think, like her bra was sort of plastic. But that was OK, because the rest of her was so beautiful. I felt really peaceful when I was with Linda, not the way I was with Rosalie at all. I was always tense with her. I read this article once by a woman about how to give oral sex, like "the man in the little boat," or "the little man in the little boat." I can't remember. Anyway, that's the clitoris. So I thought I'd try it. I started licking her crotch along the line of her vagina, and I could see it open up. She started moaning and I kept licking and her vagina opened up more and more, and I could see her clitoris. It was like it was a science experiment, because it happened just like the woman said in the article. I started licking her clitoris, really softly. I remember in the article the woman said that whatever you do you should keep on doing it, like everything should be very rhythmical. So I kept on licking and then she had an orgasm. She just drew her legs and her hips back. Later I told her I loved her because she was bushy. I meant her crotch hair. I guess I must have blushed when I told her that because she laughed for about ten minutes. She was really beautiful. After that we made love like six times, almost all night. In the morning she told me she had to leave. I wanted to come out to Colorado to see her, but she kept saying no. I wouldn't take the hint so finally she told me she was engaged. Thanks a lot! She was wearing this little gold ring that was set with emeralds. How was I supposed to know? I was like disappointed but not mad. I felt so great from having made love six times but now I wasn't going to see her again. I just didn't want her to go. After I had sex with Linda I guess I thought I had women figured out, like I was cool, but it didn't work out that way. The next time I was with a woman was this woman I met in this Irish bar on Connecticut Avenue called the Four Provinces. They have like Irish folk music and people dancing. It's pretty cool. Anyway, I met this girl and we started talking. After about an hour she says to me "let's go someplace quiet" and I said OK. I was kind of drunk because I had had a couple of tequila shooters and a beer or two. We went to this other bar to have a glass of wine. I'm almost surprised they served me because I must have looked like this little drunk kid. Sometimes people don't hassle you, which is nice. Anyway, we were talking, and all of a sudden she leans across the table and then all of a sudden we're frenching. I was about to explode but then she started sucking on my lip, like she pulled it inside her mouth. That was so weird! But of course I didn't care, because I'm already to get laid. So we finished our wine and went back to her place and started making out. She was pretty sexy but she kept sucking on my lip until it was like bleeding. I don't know what the fuck was wrong with her. Finally I couldn't take it. We got into an argument and I was really pissed off because she was so weird. Also, I was really drunk. That pissed me off too. I knew I was going to be drunk for a long time, that I'd have to sleep it off, but I couldn't exactly sleep with her. Finally I just went in the bathroom and locked the door and went to sleep in the bathtub. Then like five hours later I hear her beating on the door. She was really making a racket. She says "I want you out of my bathroom!" Well, I figured it was her bathroom, so I'd have to go, but I was really pissed. I was still drunk but I was hung over too. When I went outside I couldn't tell what time it was. It was all gray out, kind of misty and really humid. She lived way up on Connecticut Avenue. I started walking toward downtown and then I stopped at this bus stop. I waited for like half an hour but no bus came, so I started walking again. Then it started raining, and by the time I got to the next bus stop I was soaked. I sat down in this little shelter and I fell asleep. Finally a bus came and I got on it. I felt like I was a bum. I got off in Georgetown and walked across Key Bridge to Rosslyn and caught the Metro back to my place. That was like the pits. Since that happened I haven't gone to bars as much. I don't spend that much, but I'm trying to save more money. Girls are always asking me why I don't go to college, but I've had enough of school. Being a shift manager like Jerome wouldn't be so bad. Anyway, I don't have to decide right away. Also, I figure that once I get my Wrangler I'll be more organized. Like, if I meet this girl and she eats my lips off, I won't have to walk home. ======================================================================== MONSTER CARROT by William Ramsay (Note: the is chapter 11 of the novel, "Ay, Chucho!" "BOOM!" Paco smiled, his mustache raising its brisk little hairs along his fat upper lip. "Oh, come on, Paco," I said. He had been explaining the plan for a prison break: the idea evidently stemmed from Mr. Marcus or one of his gang of spooks. "And keep your voice down," I said. One of Pierre's many friends had saved a place for us in line at Copelia, so we had only had to wait a half hour to get in. We were jammed into a corner, working on mango and pistachio sundaes. I spooned up a big gob of butterscotch and chocolate syrup over a disappointingly small mound of ice cream and tried to make the sweetness soothe my mind as well as my tongue. "Boom." Hell, it was like talking to a little kid. Outside, in the park, we passed teenage boys with their arms about each other, horsing around, laughing. I felt a pang for my high school days, and I thought about Eddy, just beginning his life. "Paco, you can't blast a hole in the wall of La Cabana and drag my father out. This is a major jail we're talking about, not some sheriff's hoosegow in Dodge City." "Mr. Marcus says you can get out of any jail if you go about it the right way." "Like Alcatraz." "La Cabana isn't any Alcatraz." I had to admit that there had been escapes. "Yes, but still..." "Yes, but what?" "Maybe you can by bribing the commandant or some of the guards. Or smuggling in a weapon or something to Pillo. But not by blowing the place up!" "Oh Chucho!" He made a face. "'Felipe,'" I said. "Felipe. We won't be blowing our way out, it will be a diversion. Dominguez or one of his friends will help me. Meantime, you're to get your father and Pillo out through the visitor's entrance. A couple of well-timed bangs -- wow! -- and no one will be watching you." He giggled. "They'll be too busy shitting in their pants, wondering whether the _yanquis_ are finally bombing Havana." I couldn't help smiling. "I guess the _yanquis_ would be, at that" -- both Paco and I were American citizens now. He clapped me vigorously on the back, making me stumble. "That sounds more like you, Chucho -- I mean Felipe." I saw him glance over his shoulder. It was getting to be dusk, but following his glance, across the street I could see a fellow I'd seen before, with brooding eyes and a long narrow bald spot, peering down at the tall piles of paper cones at a chitlin vendor's stand. "Paco, that guy..." I said, whispering. He shook his head and hurried his pace. I jogged to catch up with him. "Is it G-2?" "G-2" was the name everybody called the espionage section of MININT, the Cuban version of the KGB. He shook his head no. "One of ours." "You know him?" "No, but you can tell by his clothes." The fellow had on a drab brown sport shirt and trousers. "The MININT guys wear bright stuff they buy in the dollar stores."` Paco himself was elegantly turned out in an electric blue _guayabera_ and canary-yellow slacks. I wondered what he considered "bright." A tall girl in faded jeans looked at him and pursed her lips in a speculative way -- Paco had that effect on some women. Lots of luck, girls. I supposed I'd rather be followed by "our" side than by Fidel's bunch -- but I suddenly recalled the unpleasantness with Mr. Gomez' motorist friend in Miami. It was like getting used to living in a problem dream, there seemed to be no waking up. Whichever way I turned, first my debts, then the Association, and now this wild trip to Cuba posing as somebody else. A small part of me liked all the intrigue -- but most of me was scared shitless and would have been happier home in bed. On our way back to the hotel, Paco kept going on and on about the explosives scheme. He sounded like an assistant film director planning stunts and special effects shots -- and maybe in a way that's what he was. O.K., I thought, it might work, maybe he and a friend or two could create enough of a distraction to make an escape possible. But an escape for the benefit of my father, who didn't even want to get out of jail, and with me playing the key role? Me, who wasn't cut out for this kind of thing at all? What a mess. Was this worse than the trouble I was in in Miami? I didn't know if I totally believed what I told Amelia about "The Men," that they'd rather frame me than kill me, but at least that was a possibility. And if I went to a U.S. jail, at least I'd be alive -- at least as long as they sent me to some white-collar facility where I wouldn't be raped till my behind gave out or a knife got stuck in my gut. But the alternative? Suppose Castro caught me being involved in a prison break. With Paco one of the masterminds behind this plot, that seemed more than possible. Even if I didn't get shot (or blown up) during the attempt, I could see myself getting tortured by one of the sadists in G-2 and then being stood up in front of the _paredon_. Not for me, I decided. I'd hold out for a safer, more rational way of getting the job done. Let Paco play with fire. What I should do was play _along_. So I nodded absently as he went over the plans for bribing guards, setting plastic charges in the prison laundry and in the guard cell next to the visitor's room. Over the next days, he went out "scouting around," returning all giggly from Cayo Hueso with more plans, involving the kitchen instead of the laundry, or a different guard to be paid off. I would listen and show enthusiasm, meanwhile I'd be thinking of ways to put a spoke in his wheel and scotch the whole misbegotten plot. Given Paco's mental equipment, it shouldn't be too hard to see that things got screwed up. As an electrical engineer, I figured that I could either jam the mechanism in the new-style electronic detonators -- or maybe better, set them off prematurely, thus scuttling the whole operation before it became too serious. A nice explosion on the beach road would do the job -- but it would be quieter and safer if the small charges inside the detonators could be set off without disturbing the main explosive. Instead of a "boom," you'd have a few puffs and pops -- and Paco and his friends would find themselves fresh out of ways to startle the La Cabana guards. One day, I had made use of my V.I.P. status to pick up for free some cashew nuts at the shop down the street from the Havana Libre to nibble with my rum and coke. I had to evade a group of teenagers who were hanging around outside the store, trying to buy dollar goods for pesos at the black market rate. Then I walked back to the Hilton and got myself a seat on a lounge chair by the giant star-shaped pool. As I watched, a reddish head of hair suddenly rose out of the water on the other side of the pool. A large but definitely feminine mop of hair, dripping water. I stared, it looked like a statue in a fountain. Then the head disappeared in a splashing fountain of white water, and a welter of long arms and legs churned through the pool coming toward me. I became certain of who it was as she turned her face aside to breathe. A kind of paralysis hit me. Her hair and then her eyebrows appeared, she brushed the water away from her eyes and stared, then smiled. "Felipe!" she whispered, gasping, then she coughed. "Comrade!" she said more loudly, in the soprano voice that had always seemed too high-pitched for her size. I could see again the dark blue waters of Lake Coatepeque under the cloudy afternoon skies of El Salvador. "Pepita?" I said stupidly, as if there were any question about her identity. She pulled herself up smartly onto the edge of the pool, her Rubenesque thighs flattening out into fleshy ripples on the tiles. She laughed merrily. "You seem so surprised. Didn't you get a cable from the Committee?" "Committee? What committee?" "'The Democratic Physicians' Committee for Freedom and Progress in the Americas.' We're holding a meeting here." She brushed away a straggling strand of red hair from her face and frowned. "You don't seem, well..." The frown turned into a pout. I tried to get control of my face -- I had an irrational longing for a mirror to check it out. I reached up, patted her lightly on the face and blurted out what I hoped were some reassuring words. The pout smoothed out into a reluctant smile, and her entire magnificent body in its gray swimsuit slowly eased up from the water like some great smooth sea lion out of a tide pool. I didn't know how I was going to handle this new turn in my life in Havana -- the life of Felipe-Jesus -- but as I peered at the faint outline of her nipples under the fabric of her suit, I had the frivolous thought that the condemned criminal could still hope for a fine last meal. And, if experience was any teacher, a good swift bruising into the bargain. "Hola, Chucho!" Paco's voice was throaty, his darkly tanned body glistened with oil, and his gold bracelet jangled as he slapped me on the back. I looked at Pepita's surprised face as she heard my real name. Getting up, I frantically waved at a bald man, a stranger sitting across the pool, the sun gleaming on his bald pate, "Hi, Chucho," I yelled, "I didn't see you." I saw the man's face begin to change, but I was concentrating on Pepita who also stared across the pool, while I punched Paco in the belly and whispered shush to him. My fingers felt oily where they had touched his lotioned body. Pepita looked back at me. Paco said, "Oh, yeah, Felipe." He stared at Pepita. "Friend of yours?" I introduced them. He took her wet hand and held it, saying to her, "'Doctor'?" "Are you Cuban, Mr. Santos?" she said. "Uh yes. I mean no, well, that is..." "Paco lives in the States now," I said. "Oh," she said in a disapproving tone. Her face turned sour. The bald man on the other side of the pool was getting up and seemed to be heading in our direction. "Come on," I said to Pepita, who was toweling off, "let me buy you a drink -- see you, Paco." We went off toward the terrace bar. I tried to take Pepita's arm, but I'd forgotten the Prussian side of her personality. She frowned, shook off my hand, and gave me a steely smile. But after a couple of daiquiris, we found ourselves back in my room, and her psychological armor plate turned out to be still only skin deep. And that hairless skin -- sometimes I think that it's all about skin. The surface of life. You know, everybody puts down the surface of things. Amelia: "Chucho, all you think about is basketball (I was short but fast on the court) or playing the piano, or girls." As if there were better things. Don't knock surfaces, I always say. Lying there, scrunching myself up in the massive, chlorine-scented arms of Pepita, I felt contented. (Except for a new pain in my shoulder -- I hadn't been able to duck all of her "love pats.") It was like lying on a float out beyond the breakers off Palm Beach, watching the slow-motion life ashore, young tanned skinny couples, little sand- speckled two-year-olds digging awkwardly, shovels flashing red and blue in the sun. Behind me the restrained furor of the open ocean. I preferred not to look behind me -- who need all the struggle? Maybe people like Amelia -- not me. "The struggle," whispered Pepita in my ear. "What?" She raised herself up, one breast still under the sheet, the other open, golden tanned, giving her a deliciously lopsided look. "The Struggle!" This time I caught the capital letter. "What?" I said articulately. "I hope you're finishing up your project here soon. The Struggle at home needs all its best fighters. Critical times." "Oh?" I said articulately. I felt as if I were losing my ability to converse. "You're never at a loss for words Chucho," Amelia always said to me. But the tenor of my life was beginning to leave me speechless: I like variety, surprises, the same as the next man, but there is a limit. "No," she said as I grasped one of her broad nipples and began to press on it, trying to knead her nerve endings into a non-revolutionary mood. She pulled gently away, dragging her nipple with her. "No, I'd rather talk, Felipe. I want you to understand the situation of the comrades at home." "Quiet!" I said. "What?" she said. Me: The Life Force, Pepita. Her: What? Me (remembering and adapting some of Pierre's little speeches on anarchism): The Revolution heightens the healthy, vibrant feeling between male and female comrades. (I raised a finger and waggled it.) It leads to the glorification of the Life Force and the infusing of the wisdom of the flesh into the drive to create a New Man. (I frowned, then I improvised.) Engels. (I trusted nobody but my father was crazy enough to actually _read_ Engels.) Her: Oh, Felipe. (She sighed and let her fingers droop gently over my cozily bulging genitals.) Me: The Revolution is Sex. Her: And of course babies, new comrades. Oh, God. "In time," I said, "in time. When the situation is optimal for the emergence of such new comrades." "Of course there's my work," she said. She frowned. "But Comrade Felicia Suarez had her baby and was back in her forward observation post the next day, nursing her infant." I kissed her hard on the lips. She sighed. "A true heroine of communism." "Felipe?" "Yes?" "Don't think of me as a communist always, think of me right now as a woman, a person of the feminine gender." "I'll try, Pepita -- Comrade -- I'll try." "Good!" she said, and gave me a solid punch on my breastbone and a quick back-handed slap on my chin. She sighed deeply. "I guess," she said, "I really need a little break from the Struggle." # Meanwhile, Marcus or whichever spook or mafioso was in charge of this operation had sent around some character named Llemo Duran, a driver of a Turistaxi, a former bartender at a downtown cafe, and the part-owner of an export-import business in the bad old days. Duran claimed to have some contacts in the Prisons section of MININT -- you had to guess that he had made the contacts the easy way, from the inside. He and Paco became thick as thieves, and I felt increasingly left in the background. In one way was fine and in another was kind of worrying. God knew what screw-ups Paco and his pal could get into. I was also unhappy that now there was one more person in Havana who knew my real identity. Fortunately, Paco had asked me to design the wiring circuit for the detonators, so I was able to kind of keep track of their various changes of plans and schedules, which guards were going to be on duty when, and what dates were holidays when the staff might be at reduced strength. One night I had a call from the lobby. It was Pierre. A friend in the police had notified him that most of the heat was off, and he'd come into town on an errand. I went down and we had a drink in the bar off the lobby. He was wearing a gray wig now, and dark glasses. He pulled two barstools together to set his butt down on. "Surviving in the land of the big bad Castro?" he said. He was still drinking rum -- just two. But his face looked less puffy, he seemed fitter. I wondered what he was up to. But I didn't ask, I didn't think I wanted to know. "Surviving? Barely," I said. He nodded his head several times, gravely. "Despite everything, Felipe, I think you _are_ a survivor." I wanted badly to believe him. Fifteen minutes later, as he left, first adjusting his wig in the mirror over the bar, I wondered whether I'd be seeing him again -- before either he or I ended up in a Cuban jail. Meanwhile, Pepita had become busy with her meetings -- they elected her chairperson of some committee on anti-social pathological personalities. One day I was in the lobby of the Presidente saying good-bye to Pepita after we had had lunch together. She was excited, she had had a long interview with Fidel that morning, and they had gotten along very well. "He told me he had heard of my work!" she had told me. Just then I spotted Mama getting out of an elevator in the hallway off the lobby. I quickly took Pepita by the arm and led her out the front door while my mother was entering the lobby -- maybe I could have handled a meeting, I thought, but women are so smart about each other that it would be better not to risk it. I looked back and saw _mamacita_ glance at us as I led Pepita out into the foyer. I gave her a peck on the cheek, gave her a sharp good-bye slap on the fanny, and hurried back into the chrome and fluorescent lobby. Mama had thrown herself into a gigantic leather chair, in her print dress she looked like a flowery toy doll left in a chair by a thoughtless child. She raised an eyebrow at me and said, "It's a good thing Amelia isn't here, I suppose." But before I had to come up with an answer, her dark brown eyes lit up, and she said, "Men are all the same." "Well, I don't know." "I do, look at Paco, I've seen him eyeing that girl you were with just now." "Hell, Mama..." "It doesn't matter, I'll straighten him out when I get a minute. What matters is that I've _done_ it." "Done what?" "I'm going to see _Him_." "Fidel." "Everybody calls him the Comandante here. Or the Horse. The big Red stud, I suppose!" She giggled. "Lots of luck." "You don't have any faith in your mother, shame on you. I'm good at doing things like this." Actually I was never quite sure what my mother could do. She had never stayed home and made cookies, she didn't go out and practice some important profession, she just _was_. But boy, was she! Like a force of nature that the average person couldn't cope with. Maybe it would work with Fidel -- trouble was, maybe he was a force of nature all to himself. "I have faith, Mother. I have a lot more faith in you than I do in Uncle Paco." "Oh, Paco. It's true, whatever he does turns into a disaster." She smiled. "But he is cute, just like a bright-eyed little boy -- though I don't like to tell him so. Swells his empty little head." "Keep an eye on him, will you _mamacita_?" "I always do, but right now I'm depending on my son to do that." She smiled mischievously. "When he isn't too busy chasing the local girls. Looks like you have yourself an Amazon this time." "She's just a friend -- or rather a friend of 'Felipe's.'" "All this mumbo-jumbo. You and Paco, playing at being secret agents or something. I have a feeling Fidel will listen to reason. I know Mirta's family." "He doesn't hang around with his ex-wife much anymore." "Oh, I know, but that isn't the point. Castro's got the big head, he comes from plain country folks and it shows, but he knows how to be a gentleman, he was educated by the Jesuits -- which is more than I can say for you, Chuchito." Jesuit education or no, I felt that I was about to burst with hidden knowledge. "Mama." "What?" "I'm afraid Paco is going to get out of control." She patted my hand. "Leave everything to me, let Paco have his fun." I didn't dare tell her about the explosives. # In the event, she did at least a little better with Fidel than I. But you wouldn't know it from the expression on her face as we ate dinner together two nights later. "Your 'Horse' said he'd look into it." "That sounds good." "I told him how loyal Federico was to him, 'loyal in the true sense of the word,' I said. I was pretty smooth, I thought. And he seemed to take that in, he raised his head, fingered that nasty, scruffy beard of his, and nodded. 'You can't have that many comrades left who really represent the old ideals,' I said, 'men who really think about the little people.' 'Yes. yes,"' he said, 'you are absolutely correct, Senora Revueltos. It is a constant struggle to build a socialist consciousness.' I started to tell him I wasn't a socialist, but a believing catholic. He broke in and explained to me, rather wetly -- he sprays little clouds of spit when he gets excited -- that the ideals of the Revolution were the ideals of Christ, of the best elements in the Church, and so on and so on. A convergence of disparate ideals, and so on. He does like to talk, I must say." She went on describing their conversation. It sounded as if she had insisted on doing a lot of the talking -- not the easiest thing to do with the Comandante. "He treated me with respect," she said. But when I asked her whether she had gotten any idea of precisely what Fidel was going to do about my father, she smiled with her lips clenched and shrugged. "We'll see." "Well," I said, "at least you've tried." "'Tried'! That isn't enough, just to try. Chucho, you always give up too easily." I thought about my present situation, masquerading in Cuba, a fugitive from the I.R.S. and the Cuban mafia in the U.S., and wondered whether she was right. "Nice guy" Revueltos strikes out again and again and again -- you wouldn't see Errol Flynn doing that. Cutlass in hand, back to the wall or the yardarm or whatever, first he would give you one of his sparkling smiles, but then the white even teeth would take on frightening sneer, and you'd know that you weren't going to get the better of _him_. The trouble is, it would be easy enough to figure out how to bull your way out of things if you're following a movie script. But in real life -- lots of luck! My mother had that faraway look on her face. "So you're going to wait?" I said. She shrugged. "Patience is a virtue." She grimaced as if at an odd smell. "But virtue can be overdone, can't it? She was right -- It sure as hell can be. On the other hand, the way it turned out, I wish my mother had exercised a little patience instead of just talking about it! # Pepita was out of Havana the next weekend, and Valeska and I went out on the town Saturday night and ended up at a _jai_-_alai_ player's hangout near the old country club -- now the School of Art. We saw Arnoldo, who was having a spirited conversation with some of his fellow players. Then he saw us and looked as if he'd like to get his _cesta_ out and fling a _pelota_ or two at me. I suggested to Valeska that we leave. She pooh-poohed the idea, saying that if Arnoldo was going to be a bore about it, he was always free to take off and leave us alone. As it was, Arnoldo decided instead to make up to a redhead sitting across the way. When that didn't get a rise from Valeska, he slumped down in his seat, head in hands, and ordered another bottle of rum. I saw a waiter with a big mustache bring the rum to Arnoldo's table and then head our way. His walk was familiar. Then, as Valeska left me to go talk to a friend, the waiter came over. It was Mr. Marcus, his brown hair parted in the middle and slicked down with oil. Him: Act natural. Me: Oh, God. Him: Dr. Sanchez-Schulz is in Havana. Me: Now you tell me. Him: Just verifying the information. Also, your mother has been observed near one of Castro's locations. Me: Can you actually give me some help, Mr. Marcus, instead of just telling me things I already know? Him: It's not easy. Me: I know it's not easy. A customer called for him and he waved back at him, saying "un momento" as if he were talking about a souvenir. He leaned over and whispered to me: Him: If this all goes smoothly, I should be in line for chief of station in Mexico City. Me: Congratulations. Him: Don't get distracted from the mission. Me: I wouldn't jeopardize Mexico City for a minute. Him: I appreciate that. Remember you have to get, not one, but two people out. He pursed his lips, turned, and left to attend to the customer. We left the club soon after that but still didn't get back to my room at the Presidente until 2 A.M. When I woke up Sunday morning, Valeska was still asleep on the other side of the bed, her hair like a floppy nest of some exotic bird, one gently sloping breast looking at me blindly with its purplish-dark nipple. Her nostrils quivered, her breath rippled the frayed edge of the pillow slip. She stirred slightly, and I grew conscious of a knocking on the door. "_Un_ _momento_," I said, sounding to myself almost like Mr. Marcus. I noted that it was almost nine as I pulled on my robe, yanking the sash tight. The lily-scented perfume that Valeska had been wearing seemed to grow stronger as I stood up. I opened the door a crack, just on the chain. It was Pepita. "_Salud_, _companero_!" she said. "Oh, hey. "How are you, Felipe?" "Hi, yes, wait just a minute, will you?" "Too early?" "Yeah, maybe a little later." "I'll just be a moment." She pouted. "It's important." She pushed at the door. "Well..." "Please, Felipe." "Just give me a minute." Heart pounding, I shut the door and took a deep breath. Then I shook Valeska awake. While she was rousing herself, I told Pepita through the door I'd just be another minute. "Are you kidding?" said Valeska, when I asked her to hide in the closet. "Just for a minute, I'll get rid of her, I promise." "Who is she?" "It's business," I said, "just business," gathering up her clothes and prodding her into the closet. "What a bore!" said Valeska. "I'm tired -- and I've got to pee!" I shut the closet door. Then I pulled up the bedcovers, combed my hair, and opened the door. Pepita strode in like Princess Di on an inspection tour, moving her lips, subjecting the room to an assessment -- mostly negative. She was dressed in a stylish but no-nonsense blouse and slacks outfit. "It _is_ a little early, Pepita, maybe we could meet for breakfast in about an hour." She leaned over and kissed me casually on the cheek, then stuck her tongue in my ear and swished it around. The shivers went down my legs to my feet -- but I didn't feel like the shivering bit just that moment. She smiled at me and whispered: "It's important, darling, or I wouldn't have come. It concerns the Revolution." "Which Revolution?" I said, before I realized that I was out of character -- all revolutions, in Cuba, China, El Salvador were part of one grand world struggle of the proletariat, etc. She stared at me. I put on an expression that I hoped was comic. "You and your jokes, Felipe. This is serious. I got back late last night, the meetings today were canceled because Comrade Rubios was sick...." I lost some words of what she was saying as I heard something scrape in the closet. Pepita's eyes widened slightly. "Too bad about your meetings," I said quickly. She waved impatiently. "No, no, it's not that. It's a possible plot against the Revolution." "Plot? What plot?" "Listen." She had lowered her voice. "You know the corner of the Terrace Bar downstairs, next to the piano and the exit to the pool? I went down to look for you last night when you weren't in your room. I sat down and I heard your good-looking friend Paco Santos' voice. He was talking to that loathsome-looking fellow Duran. They were sitting on the level below me, and they couldn't see me. I started to call over the edge of the wooden railing to them, when I heard what they were talking about. I heard the word 'plastic.'" My stomach felt light. "'Plastic'?" "Yes, yes, explosives, that's what they meant, you know. I heard that Duran say something about 'prison.' I lowered my head and got closer. When I peeked over, Paco was looking around and I ducked before he looked my way." A rumbling in the closet. She didn't seem to notice. "What kind of _gusano_ gangsters are you hanging around with, Felipe? Those men are planning to break into La Cabana." I held back a gulp. "La Cabana?" "Yes, La Cabana." "Well. Well." "Is that all you can say, 'Well, well'?" "Did they say why?" "I'm not sure, something about getting out somebody named Pio or something." Something that sounded like a shoe fell in the closet. "What was that?" I froze my face, ignoring the closet. "Oh, I don't know, Pepita, it all sounds crazy. Probably just wild talk. Paco seems O.K." "I don't know, I don't trust these pretty boys. Anyway, I had to come to you first, Felipe." She sat down on the bed, which zinged with her weight. "I thought you might be able to help the Cuban police. What do you really know about Paco? Is he C.I.A., do you suppose, or..." A moan came from the closet. "My God, what was that?" "What was what?" -- I stuttered on the second "what." Another moan. The closet door eased open. A maroon-dyed frizzy head of hair appeared and then Valeska's dark eyes. "Sorry. I've just got to pee." Pepita's mouth was wide open, she looked like a startled fish. I shut my eyes. Valeska appeared, covering her lower parts with a shirt of mine. The tips of her breasts jiggled as she tiptoed toward the bathroom. "Sorry, I'm being boring," she said, looking with a mixture of shame and naughtiness at Pepita. Pepita's thin lips set into a hard line and she drew herself up, looking like a Viking princess surveying the land of the dwarfs. "Go on ahead with your business," said Valeska. "Felipe!" said Pepita. "I really, really have to go -- bad," said Valeska, making a shaking motion with her heart-shaped buttocks as she went into the bathroom and slammed the door. We could hear the splashing rush of her urine. I wished that time travel had been perfected. Pepita shook her head as if clearing her thoughts and stood up. "Time for me to go too." "Wait, Pepita. Wait, comrade." Her face twisted. "I wish this didn't shake my confidence in your political sincerity, _companero_ Felipe -- but it does." The jerk of the faulty toilet lever was followed by the loud but feeble flood of water in the toilet. Valeska, partly draped in a towel with a ragged edge opened the bathroom door. Pepita stared at her, and then me. "Who is this tart?" Valeska laughed and turned to me. "What a joke this is." "Yes, a joke. What taste, Felipe!" said Pepita. Valeska drew in a sharp breath. "Big pasty-faced bitch!" Pepita sneered and shook her head. "'The New Socialist Man!'" she said. She went to the door, swung it open, strode across the threshold as if she were a Viking bride, and slammed the door with a Wagnerian bang. Valeska plopped herself down on the bed. "What's eating the big _vieja_? God, she looks like a monster carrot." "Christ, Valeska!" "And what's all this stuff about your friend Paco, anyway?" "Just shut up about that." She took a comb in hand and looked into the mirror. "I could use a new hair drier." "Tomorrow," I said. "American -- or Japanese." "I'll buy you one of each." That would take care of _her_. But it might be harder to take care of Pepita, her jealousy, and her concern with the Plot Against the Revolution. ======================================================================== GENTLEMAN (Part 2 of "Julie," a play based on "Miss Julie" by August Strindberg, a new version) by Otho Eskin CHARACTERS: MISS JULIE White, early thirties, the only daughter of a "patrician" family in the deep south RANSOM African-American, late twenties. The family chauffeur. CORA African-American, early twenties. The family cook. PLACE: The kitchen of a large, once-elegant home somewhere in the Deep South. One door leads to the kitchen garden. Another door leads to Cora's bedroom. TIME: Sometime during the 1930's. It is Saturday night Midsummer's Night (June 23). At Rise the sky, seen through the doors, is still light. As the play progresses the sky will darken, then lighten again with morning. SCENE 1 (continued) JULIE Good evening, Cora. Do you have something cool to drink? I swear I'm about perished from the heat. CORA I got some lemonade, Miss Julie. JULIE I'd be much obliged if I could have a glass. (CORA signs to JULIE that RANSOM is in the room.) JULIE Why, Ransom! Wherever did you go? I wanted to hear you play some more. I just love your music. RANSOM I had to talk to Cora here. JULIE And leave me all alone? Shame on you! (CORA takes a pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator, pours a glass and gives it to JULIE. JULIE takes a deep drink.) JULIE That about saved my life. I declare, it's hot tonight. CORA Yes, ma'am. (JULIE holds the cold glass to her face.) JULIE I don't see how you can abide to stay here in the kitchen when it's so hot. You should go out in the garden where it's a little cooler CORA I got work to do. JULIE Is it ready yet, Cora? (RANSOM starts to go toward the stove to look. JULIE flips her handkerchief coquettishly at him.) JULIE Now you go away! You mustn't look at what we're doing. RANSOM Is that some cunjerin' you two doin'? Somethin' for Midsummer's Night? Somethin' to tell the future by? JULIE I don't think I could bear to see the future. It would be too terrible. CORA puts the material she has been cooking into a mason jar, puts on the top and gives it to JULIE. JULIE puts it on the table. The dance music grows louder.) JULIE (To RANSOM) Let's go back to the dance, Ransom. RANSOM Begin' your pardon, Miss Julie, but I promised to dance with Cora. JULIE (To CORA) You'll lend Ransom to me, won't you? CORA It's nothin' to do with me, Miss Julie. RANSOM I don' think it's too smart for us to be dancin'. You know how people are ready to jump to conclusions. JULIE (Angry) What are you saying? RANSOM Ma'am, it just ain't seemly for you to be dancin' with with black folks. JULIE That's ridiculous. I'm doing you an honor. Besides, I'm mistress of this house and I can do what I like. And I can dance with anyone I want. RANSOM If those are your orders, Miss Julie... (JULIE drops her handkerchief on the table.) JULIE Don't take it as an order. Tonight on this special night we're all equal just people who want to have a good time. RANSOM I don' think yore daddy would see it that way. JULIE Father won't be back till morning. You and your friends can play all night if you want. Play me something on your trumpet. RANSOM It ain't right, playin' here in the house. You know how the Judge feel 'bout what he call jungle music. JULIE He's not here so it doesn't matter what he thinks, does it? Play something. Something sweet for me. (Reluctantly, RANSOM picks up the trumpet and begins to play: a slow, blues piece. After a moment, he stops.) JULIE (Continued) Why'd you stop, Ransom? That was beautiful. RANSOM It don' feel right playin' in the Judge's house. JULIE It's so hot in here! Don't you feel it, Ransom? Why don't you take off your jacket? RANSOM I'm jus' fine, Miss Julie. JULIE Go on! Take it off. RANSOM Begin your pardon ma'am, I'd rather keep my jacket on. JULIE I'm burning up. You must be too. Make yourself comfortable. This is a holiday. You're not on duty tonight. RANSOM No, Miss Julie JULIE Why, I do believe you're shy! You're embarrassed to change your jacket in front of me. Is that it? I declare, chivalry isn't dead yet. Don't worry, I won't look. (JULIE turns her back.) JULIE Now go ahead and take off your jacket. RANSOM If you say so, Miss. (RANSOM goes to the corner and strips off the chauffeur- uniform jacket.) JULIE Tell me, Cora, are you and Ransom engaged? CORA I guess so. JULIE Is that what you people call it? Engaged? CORA (With barely suppressed irritation) Yes, Miss, that's what we call it. You were 'gaged yoreself, I do believe. JULIE That was different. CORA Yes, Miss. It din' work out. (JULIE turns away, angry. SHE watches RANSOM putting on a clean shirt.) JULIE My, don't you cut a mighty fine figure, Ransom! Very much the gentleman. You didn't buy that shirt around here, I believe. RANSOM No, Miss. In Chicago. JULIE What were you doing way up North? RANSOM I worked in a jazz club in Chicago for a year. Played horn. Took a fancy to nice shirts an' clothes. I like to look sharp. JULIE I declare, you are surely the best-looking man in the county. RANSOM You be flatterin' me, Miss. JULIE I'm not flattering you. RANSOM I know better'n to think you'd pay me notice. JULIE A man who dresses well and who talks well, too. You sound to me like a man who reads books. Do you read books? (CORA glances uneasily from RANSOM to JULIE and back. RANSOM is uncomfortable.) JULIE (Continued) Well? I asked you a question. Do you read books? RANSOM Sometimes, Miss. JULIE I'd say you read more than sometimes. I think you read a lot. RANSOM Whatever you say, Miss. (CORA looks disgustedly at them both.) RANSOM Cora, you all wore out. Why don' you go to your room an' rest a while? CORA I be plumb give out, that a fact. JULIE It's too hot to be working at the stove. Go and rest. This is a holiday. CORA I do think I'll lie down for a few minutes. Just a few minutes. (CORA goes into her bedroom.) JULIE I know people around these parts don't approve of colored folks reading anything except the Good Book. Believe it puts ideas in their heads. What do you think, Ransom? RANSOM I think they got a good point. JULIE Personally, I believe that's all stuff and nonsense. It's important that people like you read. You're from around these parts, aren't you? RANSOM My daddy was a sharecropper on you daddy's estate. We were neighbors growin' up. JULIE I don't remember you. RANSOM I remember seein' you. Many times. JULIE You saw me? RANSOM One time, in 'ticular, I remember... JULIE Go on! Tell me! RANSOM I can't. JULIE Please tell me. This is Midsummer's Night. It's a very special night. There are no secrets tonight. (THEY look at one another for a long time.) JULIE Why don't you sit down? RANSOM I wouldn' take that liberty, Miss. JULIE What if I order you to sit down? RANSOM I'll do what you tell me. JULIE I'd like something to drink. RANSOM Another lemonade? JULIE Something stronger, if you please. RANSOM I 'spect we got beer in the icebox, Miss. JULIE A beer will do just fine, Ransom. I have simple tastes. (RANSOM takes a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, finds a glass, pours the beer into the glass and presents it to JULIE with a flourish, like a waiter in a fancy restaurant.) RANSOM Your beer, Madam. JULIE Thank you. Won't you have one yourself? RANSOM That wouldn' be proper. JULIE Please. Remember, this is midsummer's Night. There are no rules. RANSOM Is that an order? JULIE I'd have thought it was just good manners to keep a lady company. RANSOM If that's what you want. (RANSOM gets two more bottles of beer, opens them and they drink. JULIE holds out her hand to him.) JULIE Now, as you're so much a gentleman, I want you to kiss my hand. (RANSOM is clearly uncomfortable and hesitates.) [TO BE CONTINUED] =================================================== ===================================================