FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 6, Number 3 May-June, 1999 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 anonymous ftp (or gopher) from the website http:/www.etext.org where issues are filed in the directory /pub/Zines. The FICTION-ONLINE home page, 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 "To a Sister Who Did Not Land on Earth," a poem W. R. Hastings "In the End," a short-short story Don Barbera "The Easy Way," an excerpt (chapter 14) from the novel "Ay, Chucho!" William Ramsay "Plans," part 5 of the play, "Miss Julie" Otho Eskin ================================================= CONTRIBUTORS DONALD R. BARBERA is a former journalist for the Tulsa Tribune, the Pittsburgh Morning Sun, and others. He is currently working in marketing and sales in the corporate world, and does part-time university teaching. 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 Folger Library in Washington, and is being performed with some regularity in theaters in the United States, Europe, and Australia. He is currently working on a suspense novel with a Washington background. W. R. HASTINGS is an attorney and a former government official. He now lives in the Berkshires, where he gardens, investigates aerodynamics, and writes poetry. His works have been published in leading journals. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He is also a writer and a member of the Northwest Fiction Group. His play, "Through the Wormhole," recently received a reading at the Writers Center in Bethesda, Maryland. ================================================= TO A SISTER WHO DID NOT LAND ON EARTH by W. R Hastings She was always ready for love the way lions love zebras and bears find blueberry bushes but I was just a boy then, had only brothers, trouble in my shape, and thought that love meant having muscles or round hips and touching until all your chemicals smelt like sweet cider. Her face arises now from dreams: high cheeks, her blue delphinium eyes relentlessly following those of others, her laughter like a steel hoe striking stones, her hair out of place, a smoke tree in bloom, a heron lightness in the way she moves. We sometimes wrestle as we talk, dance wordlessly to '50's music or argue all night long. Her arrival takes me to gardens, to places where yesterday's rain lingers in leafmold or streams over old stones along the same runs it took last year and the year before. Though now we meet often under eyelids, there is still one question I cannot ask her: what is it like not to have been enfleshed with lipid fats, proteins and carbohydrates? How is it not to be and so be? ================================================== IN THE END by Don Barbera Vernon and Willie didn't have enough sense to poor piss out of a boot even with the instructions written on the heel. Now, they were contemplating robbing a convenience store. Once they had it all worked out, Vernon drove the raggedy truck to the front of the store where Willie hopped out and went inside. After wandering down the aisles for several moments, Willie grabbed some chips and a candy bar then stood in the waiting line as if he were going to pay for the items. When the last customer paid, Willie waited until the customer left the store and then with his hand jammed in his jacket pocket he bellowed at the night clerk, "give me all the money in the register or I'll blow your brains across the counter". The man behind the counter responded immediately. His actions suggested that this wasn't his first time being a part of a robbery. The clerk moved with precision removing the money from the cash register, handing the bag to Willie and stepping back behind the counter in one smooth move. That's when it all went bad. When Willie removed brought his hand forward to grab the money he didn't not realizing that it was the same hand that supposedly held a gun in it. Willie didn't notice it at first but the clerk did. While Willie's only weapon was his finger in his jacket pocket, the clerk had a .357 magnum that was very real. Fear hit Willie like a left hook. For just a second his feet locked to the floor as the clerk snatched his pistol from beneath the counter. In an instant, Willie broke free and sprinted to the door and into the parking lot. With pistol in hand the clerk leaped over the counter and opened fire as Willie zigged and zagged into the night. Just as Willie reached Vernon's open truck door, a bullet caught him in the ass knocking forward into the truck. The impact of the bullet and the remainder of Willie's speed knocked him forward and into the passenger's seat next to Vernon as they started their get away. Screeching from the parking lot, Vernon failed to notice the one-way sign and turned directly into the oncoming traffic where they promptly collided head-on with a police cruiser. The collision threw both of them forward and smashed their heads into the safety glass. They were both groggy and glassy-eyed when the police came to Vernon's truck. The store clerk arrived a few seconds later and blurted out the entire story. They arrested Vernon and Willie on the spot. A brief search produced the bag of money. That's when the clerk spoke up again. That's the bag I gave him, " he said. "He snatched it out of my hand and ran out before I could get to him." The policeman with the bag opened it and looked at the contents for several seconds before saying, "are you sure this is the bag?" The clerk looked closely and realized he had made a mistake. It was the right bag but it didn't contain money. It was his lunch-a bologna sandwich, a bag of chips and two Twinkies. When the policeman emptied the contents onto the hood of Vernon's truck, everyone laughed including Vernon. Willie's ass hurt too much for him to see the humor. ===================================================FIDEL AND ELECTRONICS by William Ramsay (Note: this is chapter 14 of the novel, "Ay, Chucho!") My mother had figured out a good way to get publicity -- not that the "March of the Little People" was covered on Cuban TV or in "Granma" or in any of the other official media in Cuba. But the next day, Sunday, I overheard people in the hotel -- two Colombians, a Czech trade delegation, two Russian engineers -- talking in guarded tones about the "little people," and I saw a group of teenagers cavorting along a sidewalk on the Rampa, crouching, jerking about, pretending to be dwarfs or twitching in caricatures of epilepsy. Walking along the Malecon, I heard an African and an Oriental talking in fractured English about "that foolishness at Lenin Park" -- as well as about a new bank robbery in Holguin. At Holguin, a provincial capital in the north of the old Castro country, a cat had been reported involved, and the robbers were supposed to have escaped in the direction of Mayari and the Sierras. Paco came around in the afternoon. He sat down on the edge of the bed in my hotel room and made apologetic faces, apparently to excuse his inglorious escape from the police. Fidel was said to be really angry. My mother was in custody and her case, anti-socialist behavior and possession of illicit drugs, was "under investigation." Then Paco must have taken in what I hoped was the withering look on my face, because he immediately volunteered that my mother had refused to get away while there was still time. "Really, Chucho, no kidding. I tried, really I did, Chucho." He twisted his big diamond pinky ring as if it were causing him agony. "Where were you after the march on the merry-go-round?" "I was coming back, Chucho, really, I was looking for the car that was supposed to pick us up afterward. Then I saw the cops closing in and I ran into Jerry, who told me to get out." "Yeah, sure," I said. Paco was the kind of guy who would always leave someone else holding the bag -- it was my mother's fault, or misfortune, that she had decided to hook up with someone like Amelia's brother. The fact remained that now I had, not just one parent, but both my mother and father in Fidel's jails. As for me, Pineda had me brought in for questioning later in the afternoon. Slumped in his chair, his triple chins sunk despondently on his chest, he interrogated me lackadaisically, as if I had been caught jaywalking. I figured that my G-2 shadow must have reported to him that I had only been an onlooker at the demonstration. Finally he said he was releasing me, but warned me that any intervention of mine on behalf of my mother would be looked at as "unfriendly." I asked what was going to happen to her. "If those tapes appear on American television," he said, "I won't answer for the consequences." Aha, I thought. The Canadian TV crew. Fearless Fidel didn't want to look ridiculous on CNN. I nodded. "The Comandante wishes you to continue on your work." "Yes, Comrade." "I don't want to be called 'Comrade' by a gusano!" "Yes, sir!" I said, getting up and leaving. I was unhappy about mamacita's imprisonment, but I was glad that somebody on our side was keeping the videotapes as a card to play against Fidel -- and that consequently Mama should be safe for the time being. So the only thing I could think of to do was to continue with my efforts on the cellular phone front. I had checked earlier with Dominguez who told me that the spooks had received my request. But ten days or so had passed and no response. Then on the Tuesday I had a message from Mr. Marcus that arrangements for a "shipment" were being made. They were waiting for a suitable courier. Meanwhile, no word on my mother, who was still being held incommunicado. But from an English tourist I found out that both the "New York Times" and the "International Herald Tribune" had had short articles on the "little people." The tapes, however, had not yet appeared, I assume because the Canadian producer had been negotiating with the Cubans. Looking back, I can see now that at that point I began to go downhill. I don't know whether it was something about strong rum, or whether it's the way I handle or can't handle my drinking -- I've never really been at ease with alcohol. Or maybe it was the situation. I had organized the transmitters and handsets for the phone system, and while I had enough to worry about, I didn't have enough to do. Waiting, waiting. I began to feel that everybody was against me. Except maybe Valeska. Valeska and rum -- the week after the march, those two were threatening to become my downfall. I would get too tiddly, then she and I would start something up, a little pleasure, a few more promises about consumer goods, then hours of drugged sleep. One night in my room, she sat looking down on me as I tried my best to get my dingdong up and going. Her hair had recently evolved into a sort of dark greenish color, and it hung down around her face as she made a little pout, her legs working futilely, the sweat standing on her temples. "God, the work a woman has to do for you!" she said. I told her I was sorry. "Let's not give up," I said, "I can still do it." She sighed. "I'll turn over." She turned away from me, pulling me to her rear end, and started to move again, her pelvic bones clunking on mine. My prick started to feel better. Oh yes! "I need some more nail polish," she said. "Tomorrow," I said, gasping. The phone rang. I leaned over to answer it, reluctantly plucking myself away from Valeska. It was Paco. "Chucho, my sister's here. Just came in on the midnight charter from Miami." "What!" I said, sitting up. "Christ!" The condom I was wearing began to collapse between my legs like a miniature pup tent. "Don't worry." "Shit. What made her decide to come to Cuba?" "She'll tell you about that herself. We're at her room at the Nacional, waiting for you." Oh God. I cleared my throat and told Valeska I had to go out. I went into the bathroom to wash up. "Oh come on, it's eleven o'clock, can't it wait until tomorrow?" I shook my head no, no. "Another woman?" I said no it wasn't another woman. "Give me a lift to the Rampa, then." I told her I was only going over to the Nacional, which is about ten blocks along the Calzada from the Presidente. She said fine, she wanted to see a friend there anyway. I figured I could ditch her quickly when we arrived, and so off we went in a cab -- followed by a dark gray Volga that I was growing accustomed to seeing in my wake ever since Lenin Park. I walked into the lobby of the Nacional, getting ready to escape from Valeska as quickly as possible, when I saw Amelia and Paco sitting in the bar just off the lobby. "O.K., I've got to go," I said, backing away. I glanced over my shoulder. Paco was waving at me. Amelia, in a rose-colored dress, smiled and raised a glass at me. "Kiss good-bye." said Valeska, looking over at Paco. "Later," I said. "Who's that pudgy girl with Paco?" she said. "Just a friend, tell you later." I edged farther away. She leaned close to me, gave me a peck on the cheek and, in the way she has, poked her long sharp fingernail through a gap in my shirt and into my belly button. "She looks like a schoolteacher," said Valeska. I backed away, waving, and then turned. Amelia gazed intently at me as I walked over to the bar. The distance between us over the soiled maroon carpet must have been no more than ten yards, but the walk seemed to last longer than a moon mission. "Who is that, Chucho?" she said loudly. "Please," I said, "Don't use that name here!" "Under any name, darling, you look wonderful." She put her mouth up to be kissed. "But what shall I call you?" "Felipe," I said. "I call you crazy," said Amelia. "Well, anyway, who is that tarty- looking woman?" "What woman?" I said. "She works for the government," said Paco. "Yes, the government," I said. "But doesn't everybody work for the government here?" "Yes," said Paco. "No," I said. Amelia looked over my shoulder. "And why did she poke you in the stomach?" "You see..." I began. "Why did she?" said Paco. "She's still there," said Amelia. "Oh," I said. "She's waving at you." "Better go over," said Paco. A sudden inspiration. "She's waving at Paco." "Me?" said Paco. "You," I said in what I hoped was a decisive voice. Paco smiled. "Sure, O.K., Chucho, I mean Felipe. I mean sure, sure." He got up and went over to Valeska, leaning over her and falling into what looked like an intimate conversation. "Why didn't you say she was a friend of Paco's?" said Amelia. "Well, she is." "I see she is." Paco's lips were close to Valeska's ear now. Amelia looked into my eyes. "Good to see you, sweetheart, may I call you sweetheart?" Paco and Valeska had moved away and were leaving the lobby, headed for the mezzanine restaurant. "Yes, of course you may." I kissed her. Tender lips, just like always. "But why are you here, Amelia?" "To see you," she whispered, "'hush-hush Chucho.'" "Oh," I said. "No, no," she said and laughed. "I don't want to mess up your 'project' here, whatever it is. I really came to get Elena out of custody." What?" "I'm not going to have my client treated this way." "But, but..." "Communists or not, they can't get away with this." "But Amelia." But me no buts, I'm going to get" -- she lowered her voice -- "your mother out of jail and out of this country. Come on, let's go up to my room, we can talk more privately there." She squeezed my hand. "Mr. Whoever-you-are!" When Amelia gets into one of her decisive moods, there's no point arguing with her. The Nacional's elevator was working that night. Inside, as I tried not to look at myself in the mirrored walls lest I see someone I didn't want to see staring back at me, she said, "I've got something for you. Upstairs." Inside her room, she rummaged in her suitcase and handed me two large manila envelopes. "I don't know what it's about," she said. As she took off her dress, I ripped the envelopes open. While she went to the bathroom, I pulled out: (1) a wiring diagram for a telecommunications switching module, (2) a circuit board for the key switch in the module, (3) a network diagram for a phone switching system, (4) a BASIC program code for sequencing and "handing off" calls in a cellular phone system. Mr. Marcus -- or his colleague Peterson in Miami -- had found his courier. I don't know what it was, the freshness of Amelia's body, the glow of her smile, or the relief at getting the cellular data, but I didn't have any more trouble in bed that night. Maybe it was being in a sense incognito -- even though Amelia knew the real me, yet another person in Havana who knew my real name -- I still felt disguised, like Zorro in the old Republic serials, or like the Man in the Iron Mask in the Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. flick. I was the dashing, romantic star that night, making love to the lovely leading lady. Until she turned over and said, "Jesse, you forgot me again!" and I had to lean over, shuck my star part, and take on the faithful love slave's role. But even slaves have fun -- after all, think of Kirk Douglas as Spartacus. For the next two weeks, I saw a good deal of Amelia. She was busy trying to arrange some deal to free my mother, but she also kept at me about my efforts to get my father out. I told her I was hopeful, but that it was a little complicated. It felt complicated enough at that instant, I was trying to get Pineda to let me test out the cellular network on just four units -- but he was insisting on at least ten. "We have to look like it's a real system," he said. "We have to be able to let a group of delegates to this conference try it out for themselves." In vain I tried to convince him that the principle was the same with four or ten or a hundred, and that we needed to minimize the chance that last- minute nitty-gritty problems would foul things up. He looked at me and smiled. "I don't know why you're arguing about this -- when it has already been decided at the highest levels." With his bristly little mustache and his prominent front teeth, he reminded me too much of a happy rat. But rat or no, I figured he was only relaying Castro's royal commands. "By the way," he said, "who is this new woman you're seeing, this gusana from Miami?" I started to hedge, but he interrupted me. "I know she's here about Mrs. Revueltos. Anything else?" I shrugged. "An old friend." He raised an eyebrow. I asked whether there was any news about my mother. He told me the case was being "evaluated." "At the highest level?" "At the highest level. There have been psychiatric tests. Some of the doctors think she's crazy." I could have told Pineda that without bothering with a test. My work was now cut out for me -- but at least it looked as if I had an outside chance of making the deadline, now just three weeks ahead. It would be close, but I already had a lot of the system together, installed in four MININT motor pool cars -- the easiest thing I had to do was to organize six more units -- one of which was to go into a new Alfa Romeo, Fidel's favorite automobile. The hard part was finishing the rest of the system. We had the space in a shed on top of the Havana Libre for my main transmitter and the essential computer links, and a location on the roof for my antenna. I was having a cable installed from the shed to an empty room below, where the main computer processing would be done. Luckily, we had been able to get some equipment from a Mexican subsidiary of IBM. My colleague at the university had supplied me with two students, and MININT had come through with a silent, beady-eyed, experienced engineer to direct the central operations. But it was Eddy who saved my life -- he was my good right hand. One day he came into my office smiling. "I've just told Apodaca that the two circuit boards you asked about have to be ready. Or else." "Or else what?" I asked. "Or else you would report it to 'the highest levels.'" "You're learning, kid," I said. One day Eddy and I had been drinking beer after work and I must have winced once too often at the 'Doctor' label. "What's the matter, Doctor?" he said. "Eddy, I'm not really a doctor." The secret of my identity was really getting on my nerves. The other people on the project hadn't been told much about my background, they just assumed that my doctorate was in engineering or one of the physical sciences. I explained to him about being just a plain engineer. "Oh well, then, you're an ingeniero. Even better. Where did you study?" he said. I hesitated. "Miami." "Miami -- you've lived in America?" "Yes." He shook his head. "What I wouldn't do to go to America!" He shook his head. "It must be like Carnival every day." "Maybe you'll get a chance one day," I said. "I'd be your slave." He looked at me, his eyes glowing. "Nobody needs to be a slave to anyone." "I wouldn't mind being yours, Doctor -- I mean ingeniero." And he put his arm on mine and gave me a look so intense that it made me nervous. "I have so much love and admiration for you, sir." His hand pressed more strongly. "Don't, Eddy, hey!" His arm was traveling up to embrace my neck. He sat back on the barstool and lowered his head. "I'm sorry, I can't help myself." "Pull yourself together. Honestly!" I said. God, that was all I needed, three girlfriends and a boyfriend to boot. Eddy was invaluable to me, but he'd have to handle his own social life. Speaking of sex, during these last weeks before the conference I continued to see both women. One day, I spotted Amelia on the Malecon. She was in her sweats. A light mist wisped about the edge of the sea. She invited me for a stroll. After a few minutes, she picked up the pace, and soon she was jogging. I was trying out some 4-peso Cuban-made sandals and they weren't made for athletics. They felt like slippers on my feet as I broke into a jog to keep up. Soon she was moving faster. "Stop, slow down, will you." My big toe began to chafe against the crudely cut sandal strap. "You're getting soft, Chucho." "Oh come on." She picked up the pace more. Gritting my teeth against the pain, I asked her how it was getting on with my mother's case. She shook her head and said that the police wouldn't even let her interview Mother. "They have her tucked away in some loony bin," she said. "But they know we have the tapes." So the tapes of the demonstration were in safe hands, thank God -- Amelia's. Then the cheap thong on the left sandal gave way, the sandal slipped off, and I tripped and fell on my face on the concrete. I raised myself slightly. Nothing broken. "Poor Chucho!" She wiped away the sand where my knee was slightly skinned and kissed it. I sat up and took a deep breath. She put her arm around me and asked me how my "secret project" was working out. I told her I was optimistic. She said it had better work pretty soon or something else would have to be done about my father. I leaned over to rub more sand off my wounded knee. "Easier said than done," I said. I told her I wasn't even sure that my father would leave prison if they opened the doors and shooed him out, he seemed so anxious to appease Fidel. "You make it all too complicated, like the prison break idea Paco told me about. All too much fuss." "It can't be helped." "Too much fuss -- there must be an easier way." I made a face. It was simple enough for her to talk about easier ways - - it wasn't her problem, I thought. She got up and started running in place. "Come on, let's stretch the legs a little more. Is your knee O.K.?" "Yeah, sure, but..." "Get off your butt, then, Chucho. Come on!" "But my sandals..." "Run in your bare feet. Come on, let's go." She started to move off. I took another deep breath, flipped off the other sandal, stood up, and jogged off after her. She kept talking, but my knee hurt and I couldn't concentrate on what she was saying. Now my feet began to hurt too from the rough concrete surface of the path. In retrospect, I should have listened more carefully. When Amelia gets an idea fixed in her skull, there's no stopping her. It makes her fun to be around sometimes. But it can be dangerous at other times. She was ten yards ahead of me now. "Come on, lazy. Get a move on!" "My feet!" I yelled. "Your ass!" came her voice back through the stiff sea breeze. "You're always giving up too soon!" I stopped and looked down at my feet. I started to move again, slowly. Even walking hurt now. I thought of Pepita, nostalgic for the old days when at least I didn't have to walk on the wounded parts of my body. Far ahead, running like a plumpish gazelle, Amelia was still talking, her voice fading in the wind. "For instance," I heard her say, "suppose that we could..." I followed at a crippled walk, now mostly hearing only the sounds, not the words: I caught the single words "women," "marital," but little else. Little did I know, that that day on the Malecon, that I was missing out on an idea of Amelia's that would almost be the end of my father, my mother, and me. Three days later, coming back to my room at the Presidente, I found my door slightly ajar. I pushed it open carefully. Marcus, in a red polo shirt with a Boca Raton Club badge, his thinning hair barely covering the top of his skull, was sitting on my bed reading my copy of "The Other Side of Midnight" by Sidney Shelton. He didn't look up. He said, "You can learn a lot from this kind of book." "If you're here to pressure me, forget it, I need more time. My plan should be implemented shortly." He now looked up and waved expansively, his chunky body bouncing on the soft bed, creaking and swaying like a toy top. "What is your opinion of Amelia Santos?" I told him my opinion. He nodded. "A very resourceful girl. How about her loyalty?" "Oh for Christ's sake, is this a witch hunt?" "She seems to have what it takes." "To have what it takes to do what?" He got up, putting on a brand new Panama hat which was slightly small for him. "Not like some of the rest of us." "I told you, Marcus. Just be a little more patient." He opened the door and smirked at me. "'Patient'! This is the U.S. government you're talking to." He turned, showing the tail of his polo shirt like the red flag on an overlength truckload, and clumped out of the door. As the door, shimmying slightly, shut behind him, I thought: God save these United States! # Meanwhile the preparations for the demonstration of the cellular phone system were beginning to look good. I went in to report to Pineda one day, and he took me along to Fidel himself. A group of people were in his office, but when Fidel saw me, he waved them away impatiently. I set the plans for the network down in front of him and he gobbled it up like a new toy. "Magnificent. Qaddafi will be out of his mind with envy." I gathered that he was running a socialist charisma contest with the Libyan leader. "How many? Only ten?" he said. My stomach felt hollow. I explained to him that we were pressing our luck in trying out a new system on even ten units. "Well," he said. He clapped me on the shoulder, and it hurt, but I suppose the honor was worth it. His large mouth widened into a delighted smile. "We have a sacred obligation never to be satisfied," he said. I recognized one of his favorite mottoes. He swung his chair around, so that his head was half-hidden by a pile of documents: I understood that he read fifty or so of them every day. Sticking out of the pile was the border of what looked like a comic book -- they said Fidel's tastes in literature were not of the highest. But I should talk -- I hardly read anything anymore -- I prefer the old movies, where men are men -- real men. On the wall, a photo of Fidel as a teenager with Raul and what looked like his half-brother Ramon, together with an middle-aged woman in a dark dress that looked like a collapsed balloon. He congratulated me at some length on being part of the resistance to the imperialists. The seat of my trousers were starting to feel imperially sweaty. "Chucho!" he said. We were on first-name terms now, which was fair enough since most people who didn't call him "Comandante" called him "Fidel." "Chucho, you should really think about throwing in my lot with your native land. Think about it! Cuba needs technical competence -- and those who contribute to the Revolution will be rewarded. Handsomely rewarded." He smiled as if he were hoping I wouldn't know how few rewards even the big shots in Cuba were able to come up with in those days of Soviet retrenchment. I said that the only reward I wanted would be my father -- and my mother -- released. "Well, we'll see," he said. He smiled. "But for yourself, consider staying on. If the Cuban Republic can keep the youth, we can leave the old people to their shopping malls in Miami." Uh oh! I wasn't too happy about being considered what amounted to a potential hostage for my parents -- on the other hand, I couldn't very well go back to the States under the present circumstances anyway. On the opposite wall was a photo of a pretty young girl. I recognized her as Fidel's illegitimate daughter, Alina Revuelta, whose picture I had seen in "Parade" magazine at home -- in Cuba, Fidel's private life doesn't get much publicity. Her family name was Revuelta, not Revueltos, like mine, but the coincidence started me thinking about myself, and what you could call my "illegitimacy" maybe, my being Cuban but not Cuban, my being, as I felt, totally American -- but still not quite like the mass of "other" Americans, the 90% or 70% or whatever. "I wonder whether you'd ever completely trust the son of Federico Revueltos, Comandante." Fidel thought, staring at his right hand as if he were looking for the cigar that used to live there before he gave up the habit some five years ago. "No, that's nonsense," he said after a moment, raising his chin to a Mussolini- type altitude. He told me that Stalinist guilt by association would never be part of the Revolution. Many comrades had parents or friends who were counterrevolutionaries. "The hombre nuevo of Cuban socialism would" -- he raised one finger -- "live and be judged totally as an individual." He smiled. "And individuals with talent -- he nodded meaningfully at me -- would be rewarded according to their merits by a grateful people." I told him that I had a lot of work to do -- the phones weren't ready yet. He made a face, waved me away and picked up a phone. I stood up, thinking: could it be that Cuba was after all where I belonged? On the way out, I looked around the anteroom at Fidel's bull-necked masseur, at his rigid-faced military aide, at the dumpy form of Pineda, sitting absolutely upright, perched on the edge of an easy chair, as if he were getting ready to be electrocuted. I saw the look of awe on their faces as they prepared for him to appear in the doorway behind me. I realized then: being a Cuban Cuban might only be possible for me if I could make myself believe that Fidel was infallible. Maybe I could have believed in Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. But the aging revolutionary sitting in the shadow of his documents and his comic books -- that wasn't my idea of a hero. The last week before the conference was hectic. As you know if you've ever worked with electronics, something always goes wrong at the last minute. Usually several things. Come to think of it, that's true about more than electronics. This particular time we found that the transceivers that we were using in the individual telephone units did not come equipped to operate on the central transmitter's frequencies. Fortunately, though, they were compatible with them. In other words, if we added an extra circuit board to each of the ten sample phones, we were in business. Unfortunately, the circuit boards we needed would take several weeks to get -- if we were lucky. So in order to be sure of making the units work, I chose instead to change the crystals and rework the antenna array for the main transmitter. It was more involved and expensive, but the changes could be made in a couple of days of hard work. And with the help of Baez, my morose engineer, my friend Apodaca from the university, and of course Eddy, we were able to carry it off. Fidel, a photo bug, dropped in unexpectedly one day and snapped pictures of me and the computer and the main equipment rack. He patted me on the back and gave me a cologned abrazo. "On time, right?" he said gleefully. I said yes, sure, Comandante -- not so gleefully. One day, I met Amelia for a mojito at the Capri. Rain came down in sheets just outside the open end of the veranda, and her lilac perfume cut through the moldy dampness in the air. She had just come from visiting my father in prison. "Is he still the loyal fidelista?" I said. "No, not any more." "What happened?" "Elena. He's furious about her arrest. He says that Fidel has besmirched the family honor, that the Revolution should never touch the sanctity of Cuban womanhood." I tried to think of my mother as the archetype of Pure Cuban Womanhood and failed. I shook my head. "He's crazy," I said. "It should be a straightforward matter to get him out now. At least in theory." "Oh, 'the easy way,'" I said. "You are so simple-minded sometimes, Chucho," she said, picking up her drink. "Come on, let's dance." Amelia prided herself on her mambo. After dancing with Valeska, though, Amelia felt like leading a smooth-running machine around the floor. Precision, rhythm -- but her soul wasn't in it. I visited my father again in La Cabana and found that Amelia was right about his change in attitude. "Beasts, that's what they are, Chucho, beasts!" He pounded his fist on the little wooden table that separated us -- I was amazed by his energy and the bristling look in his eye. "Shh, papacito, shh, not so loud. And not 'Chucho,' please, at least so loud." "It makes me think differently about a lot of things. I've been talking in the exercise yard to your friend Pillo, and I've come to respect his viewpoint." "You do? A right-winger?" "Respect, son." He raised a finger. "I didn't say I agreed with him. But his ideas are very moderate in some ways, and we both agree on Castro's misuse of power." I could tell things had changed if it was now 'Castro' and not 'Fidel.' "That's good, I'm glad you've made contact. It may be useful." "I think he has integrity, he's the kind of man you could trust -- I'm sure of that." "Well," I said, "you can't really trust anybody completely, Father." He sighed and stared, looking through me with his heavy eyeglasses. "I used to think that under Marxism all of humanity would come to experience mutual universal trust." "Yeah, well," I said. As I left the damp halls of the prison, I was at least glad that my father had made the contact with Pillo. I still couldn't see how I'd be able to get Fidel to let my father and Pillo out at the same time -- dammit. During that time, I also received an unexpectedly friendly letter from Pepita, hoping that I would be able to get back "home" soon. She didn't know if she'd get another chance to visit Cuba. Imagine, there I was, juggling Valeska and Amelia, all I needed was Pepita too! By the opening day of the conference, we had installed units in Fidel's Alfa, in five MININT cars, and in four INIT (Tourist Ministry) vans, and my assistant Baez sat at the console of the big transmitter on the roof of the Habana Libre, looking more than ever as if his girl friend (if such a person could actually exist) had just left him for a bus driver. The morning of the demonstration was rainy, with fresh gusts of wind off the sea, grayish-green whitecaps just visible through the murky skies over the white and pastel block- like buildings of downtown Havana. I was so busy, checking out each of the units, making test calls between the Alfa and the MININT and INIT vehicles, running a status check and debugging routine through the computer at the hotel, that I didn't have time to notice whether I was soaked to the skin with rain or just sweating up my own storm. The hotel lobby entrance was guarded by soldiers in riot gear, shields and helmets with plastic face guards. Members of delegations to the First Annual Latin American Rural Initiatives Conference from Peru, Argentina, Panama, Honduras, passed in and out again through the automatic doors -- which however were not in repair and had to be operated manually. By the time I was introduced to the delegates who would be carrying on the test conversations, the sky had cleared, and sunlight lit up pearls of water hanging from the pale blue canvas canopies covering the pool area. El Salvador had been invited to send a delegation -- but of course the right-wing government had ignored the offer -- which was just as well, in case someone should become too curious about "Dr. Felipe Elizalde" and his new-found engineering career in Cuba. The plan was this: the conference was going to open with a plenary session. While the delegates were meeting, I would go out with three of the MININT escorts -- at least one of which was G-2, I was sure, and run a last-minute test. Then, after a big lunch, the delegates would be driven around town, and during this excursion, a chosen few of them would be properly impressed by the "first socialist cellular phone system in the world." Well, the preliminary tests went fine. I was relieved, needless to say. I still had little appetite for lunch, but I managed to make my way halfway through a plate of doughy "socialist spaghetti" with Professor Apodaca and a couple of his students who were helping us out. The students were thrilled. One quoted a saying of Fidel's: think development, not consumption -- new technology plus a rigorously socialist attitude leads to the creation of the New Man. Well, I thought, I was going to give them the new technology, the product of exploitative capitalism. Maybe with a the proper socialist attitude they could cellular-talk their way into the Promised Land of Marx and Engels. Engels reminded me of my father -- and the necessity for the phone system to work, and work right! I rode in the Alfa with Fidel. He had taken pictures of all of us, including the Volga van full of bodyguards that rode behind us as we headed out the Rampa toward the Malecon. The other cars in the test were headed in different directions, one through the harbor tunnel to El Morro castle, others south toward the Plaza de la Revolucion and the zoo, still others west toward Miramar. The streets were full of people. Everybody knew Fidel's car, and he stopped to shake hands and give impromptu speeches. Soon the other cars had been gone over twenty minutes, and still we hadn't reached the waterside, where we had planned to test out the system. I squirmed. Fidel waved at the driver to stop again. "We have to move on, Comandante," I said. He glanced at me, but then a young girl reached over to shake his hand and he pulled her close and kissed her, making a loud smacking noise. "We can't let them get out of range," I said. He turned and made a face. "All right." He looked at his watch. "But we should still have plenty of time, Comrade Elizalde." The car started again, but an old man selling cloth remnants stood directly in front of the car and we shuddered to a halt. "Comandante," I said. "Never mind, Just a minute." A young soldier came up and wanted to talk to Fidel about getting into the technical institute after his military service. My squirming was making the car seat damp underneath me. Fidel had his Minolta out and was taking the soldier's picture. He looked like a friendly Santa Claus in olive-drab. "I'm going to try to call somebody up at the ordinary phone at the Havana Libre," I said. "Just a check." Fidel's head, bent over the camera, jerked up. "No, no, not a good idea. Don't worry." He patted the soldier on the shoulder and motioned to the driver. "We'll get going." I told him it would be a good time to check out the signal transmission. But Fidel was insisting on the first call being vehicle-to- vehicle communication between him and the Mexican Minister of Agriculture in the car heading toward El Morro. He was afraid the Minister would call him first and might find the line busy. He waved an arm in the familiar sweeping gesture, as adapted for the inside of a car. "We know the system will work between vehicles and stationary phones, don't we?" "It will work for all phones," I said, crossing my fingers and hoping that I was right. Actually, it was conceivable that problems might arise even with the stationary-link switching -- but I sure hoped not. The Alfa accelerated, Fidel waved idly at the crowds. We reached the shoreline and pulled over. Fidel picked up the phone set and looked questioningly at me. I nodded my head. He rang the number of the Minister's auto, we got a faint sound of ringing and then the flat, nasal "out-of-range" buzz. "They've gone too far east," I said, "that must be it." Fidel scowled. "It doesn't work." "It works, Comandante, they must have gone too far, our last cell covers only the harbor area. Fidel's scowl turned into pensiveness. "He did want to see Varadero." Varadero Beach was 100 kilometers from Havana, impossibly far away. I suggested we try calling another car. Fidel shook his head. "It doesn't work." Just then the phone rang. "You see, you're wrong, it does work," I said. "To hell with Mexican ministers, it works!" Fidel stopped the car and picked up the phone and listened. I didn't care about Fidel's stubborn insistence on calling one particular car, I didn't care about anything but that it worked, this crazy system that I'd had to build practically out of number 12 wire and discarded circuit boards. Let them put me and my whole family in jail in Cuba, at that moment it didn't matter, the system was working under a real field test -- and to hell with anything else! "What?" he said. "What was that, Pineda?" Pineda was back at the G-2 offices so I figured that the stationary link worked fine. Fidel pulled the phone away from his mouth. "It works!" I said. "Our first call!" "Comrade Elizalde," he said, looking at the driver and his bodyguard. "This ingenious system of yours works perfectly." Me: I knew it would, I knew it!" Him: Your phone has just relayed a very interesting piece of news. Me: Good, good, the system should turn out to be extremely useful, Comandante, you'll see." Him: You may be interested to learn that Federico Revueltos and another man have escaped from La Cabana and are at large somewhere in the vicinity of Havana. Me: (total silence, a cold lump forming in my belly.) Him (speaking to an officer standing beside the Alfa): Drop Comrade Elizalde off at G-2 headquarters. (He put his mouth to the phone again and talked. Then he talked to me, his eyes staring away, out to sea.) I've told Colonel Pineda to expect you. (He shrugged, scrunching his massive shoulders up toward his big ears.) Too bad! Me (in my quiet-as-a-mouse voice): Too bad what? (My stomach had grown as empty as a Cuban grocery store as the officer took me by the arm to lead me away.) Him: You were doing so well. So well, Comrade Elizalde. Too bad you couldn't wait and do things the easy way. ================================================== PLANS by Otho Eskin (Part 5 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. AT RISE: The kitchen, immediately afterward. RANSOM and JULIE. RANSOM has just taken a revolver from a cupboard. JULIE That's my father's old gun, isn't it? RANSOM Pick it up. I won' stop you. You can shoot me if that what you want. It's loaded. (JULIE stares at the gun.) RANSOM (Continued) It wouldn' really be murder. I'm just a uppity nigger. You just tell the sheriff I tried to lay a hand on you. No one'd blame you for shootin' me. They'd all say you did the right thing defendin' yore honor from a black man. No one would do anything to you. (JULIE pours another glass of brandy, drains it.) JULIE I think we'd better leave if we're going to catch that bus for Memphis. RANSOM Then you decided to go north with me? JULIE What choice do I have? RANSOM I'm not sure I want to go wit' you. Just to spend the rest of our lives makin' one another miserable. JULIE Maybe we could give one another a little pleasure for a few days a few weeks. RANSOM An' what happens after that? JULIE We die. RANSOM We die? That crazy! I rather live. JULIE You don't want to die with me? RANSOM I don' wan' to die at all. With you or nobody else. I like bein' alive. JULIE What are you going to do? RANSOM I don' understand. JULIE You've ruined me. You owe me something. (RANSOM takes some coins from his pocket and tosses them on the table.) RANSOM I don't wan' to be in nobody's debt. JULIE We've got to get married. That could solve everything. RANSOM What if I say no? JULIE You wouldn't. RANSOM You think the chance to marry you so good I couldn' turn you down just 'cause you white. You know what I think? I think if I married you I'd be comin' down in the world. JULIE How can you say that? RANSOM I know all 'bout yore family. Everyone in the county know. You put on airs an' you ack like aristocracy JULIE How dare you talk to me that way! RANSOM Yore family pretend you live here from way back in plantation times. But everyone know yore great grandaddy was a dirt farmer who made a fortune sellin' shoddy goods to the Confederate Army. JULIE Don't do this. RANSOM Those boys were dyin' 'cause the guns he sold wouldn' shoot. That yore great, aristocratic family. Yore great grandaddy bought this place from his profits after the War along with all the old furniture an' paintin's an' silver. JULIE Why are you hurting me like this? RANSOM I don' got any fine family tree with no oil paintin's. My people were slaves. I'd say they's a lot more honor in my family than yore's. JULIE You know nothing about me. RANSOM I know all I need to know. JULIE You must understand who I am. RANSOM I don' think you should tell me this. JULIE You've heard about the great fire everyone in the county knows about it. Father's warehouse in town the machine shop, the factory everything destroyed. The sheriff suspected arson but could never prove anything. I know you've heard the story: the fire happened on the very day the insurance had to be paid. My father thought he had sent his check for the premium but somehow the check was not mailed in time. (JULIE pours herself another drink.) RANSOM I don' wan' you to drink no more. JULIE After the fire, we were ruined. Father tried to barrow money from the bank to rebuild the factory but he couldn't pay the interest. Then my mother suggested that my father borrow the money from an old friend of hers a businessman from Nashville. Father went to this man and he gave him the loan. So he was able to rebuild the business. You want to know who set the fire? My own mother. She hated my father. But that wasn't the end of her revenge. You want to know who this generous businessman was? Mother's lover. Afterward she told my father about where the money came from. It almost destroyed him. You've heard the story about what happened. Everyone knows that story. Father got an old service revolver which had belonged to his father that one lying on the table there and he locked himself in his study. He told the servants not to disturb him. He stayed there all night and most of the next day. But he couldn't do it. He lost his nerve. Father told me in the morning he opened the window and threw the gun into the garden. Father and mother never talked to one another after that. They lived together for another ten years but never exchanged a word. Sometimes mother would sit for hours in the gazebo sometimes all night. He never forgave her for dishonoring him by taking a lover. She never forgave him for dishonoring her by not having the courage to kill himself. RANSOM I warned you not to drink so much. When you drink, you talk. JULIE You make me so ashamed. If only you loved me. RANSOM What you wan' me to do? You wan' me to jump over yore ridin' crop? What you want? I don' understand you. In my world we don' have scenes like this. We don' go 'round hatin' each other. We gotta work all day an' most of the night too. We don' got time for this. When we got time, we make love. But we don' go on an' on talkin' 'bout it day an' night. JULIE Be kind to me. Tell me what to do! Father will be back any moment. RANSOM We gotta get out of here. Right now. It's almost daylight. JULIE I remember other Midsummer days. When I was little. Flowers and dinner parties. When I was happy. However far we run, there will always be memories. And shame and remorse and guilt. RANSOM Stop talkin' like that.. JULIE I can't go. I can't stay. Give me orders. Tell me what to do. I can't think any more. RANSOM You weak! All yore kind are weak. You pretend to be bett'r'n everybody else but you can't do nothin'. Just like yore daddy. Awright, you want orders, I'll give you orders. Go upstairs. Get dressed. Find some money. JULIE I don't have any... RANSOM Yore daddy got any hidden away somewhere? JULIE I think so... in his desk maybe. RANSOM Get it! JULIE He keeps it locked... RANSOM Get the money anyway you can. Then come back here. JULIE Come with me. RANSOM To yore room? You really crazy. No. (RANSOM leads JULIE toward the front door.) JULIE Please be kind, Ransom. RANSOM Orders always sound unkind. 'bout time you learnt that. (JULIE leaves. Outside, dawn begins to break. CORA enters.) CORA Look at the time. (SHE looks around the kitchen) Lord Almighty! What you been up to, Ransom? RANSOM Nothin'. CORA I musta fallen to sleep. Maybe it escapin' yore memory, Ransom, but you promise to take me to church this mornin' an' you not even ready. (CORA gets RANSOM's coat and tie.) CORA You look a mess. You sleep last night? RANSOM I guess not. CORA What on earth you been doin', Ransom? RANSOM Talkin' to Miss Julie. CORA What you talkin' 'bout? RANSOM Nothin' important. CORA You been drinkin'. The two of you drinkin'. Together. RANSOM What of it? CORA Look me in the eye, Ransom. Did you? Tell me honest. Did you an' her? RANSOM Why you commin' on so high an' mighty, Sugar? It done mean nothin'. CORA Nigger, you bin actin' like a damn fool! How could you do such a fool thing!? RANSOM You jealous? CORA Of Miss Julie? No way I be jealous a' her. But I sure be mad you. You think you can treat me like some common girl from Track Street? You think can treat me like dirt? I got my pride, Ransome. RANSOM I tol' you it don' mean nothing. Jus' forget it. CORA Forget it? I'm not gonna forget it. An I'm not gonna let you forget it neither. An' another thing, I'm not gone' to stay in this house 'nother day. I won't stay in a house where the servants don't know they place. Where white folks ain't shown proper respect. RANSOM Why should we respect them? They don' deserve no respect. CORA Well, Mr. Smarty, Mr. Been-to-the-big-city-know-it-all, if you right, I won't stay in the service of people who ain't respectable. I won' demean myself. RANSOM Ain't it fine to find out they no better'n us? CORA If they no better 'n us, then they's nothin' for us to aspire to. RANSOM You talkin' nonsense, girl. CORA I givin' my notice soon as the judge come back. I cain't stay here knowin' Miss Julie, who so proud, who hated all men, give herself to you no better'n a field hand. RANSOM There's no call for you to leave, Cora.... CORA An' you gotta leave too. You should be lookin' for another position. You cain't stay here. Not after what happened. RANSOM I can't go back to workin' the farm. CORA They's that tire plant over at Sultan. They say they hirin'. Good benefits. Even a 'tirement plan. RANSOM I'm too young to start thinkin' 'bout 'tirement. I'm not gonna settle into some dumb job for the rest of my life. I got bigger plans. CORA You and' yore plans! You been talkin' 'bout yore plans ever since I knowd you an' ain't nothin' come of them yet. You all talk, Ransom. Time you faced that. You gonna have obligations. It's time you started thinkin' 'bout them. RANSOM Don' start hasslin' me 'bout my obligations, woman, hear? Now go on an' get dressed for church. (CORA exits. The sun has risen and is slanting through the windows. RANSOM goes to the door and gestures for JULIE to enter. JULIE enters, dressed in traveling clothes and carrying a bird cage) JULIE I'm ready. RANSOM Be quiet! Cora's awake. JULIE Does she suspect? RANSOM Not a thing. You white like a corpse. JULIE The sun is up. That breaks the Midsummer's Night spell, they say. RANSOM You get the money? JULIE Yes. RANSOM How much you get? JULIE Enough for us to start a new life. RANSOM We gotta hurry. =================================================== =================================================