The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (11 page)

(To Paula Amanda)

Now then—after that presidential hanky-panky

we’re going to need something X-rated.

I want to see people spank their monkey

till they can’t see straight!

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

Spanking monkeys!

Ooooh—I love it!

It sounds so wonderfully depraved!

F
IFO
:

(I give up!)—It’s just a saying.

I want people to
masturbate!

The idea’s to get back in the spotlight,

to get all eyes on us tonight,

and to do that we need some sex appeal.

P
AULA
A
MANDA
:

If you want to make sure people squirm and squeal

and engage in a little pre-Carnival whoopee,

I can call in Endinio Valliegas—

he’s the best, I guarantee;

he’s even played Las Vegas.

Of course first you’ll have to get him fed—

he’s just been brought back from the dead.

and I’m sure he’s ravenous.

F
IFO
:

No problem there—

just get him, please,

I’ll send out for Chinese.

Before Valliegas begins his poem, the lights come up on
K
EY
W
EST
.
We see several executives, mayors, presidents of museums, and press agents sitting around a table.

T
HE
M
AYOR OF
M
IAMI
:

After that screw of the President’s,

I think it’s pretty safe to say

we won the ratings battle today,

which, as we know, is what really counts.

Because whether Tula comes ashore or drowns,

the more people watch, the more the sponsors pay.

A P
OLITICAL
L
EADER
:

Yes, but don’t forget—Fifo’s on the other channel,

so we’ve gotta make sure that people stay tuned in.

I say we put on a special panel,

I know, a shouting match!—like they do on CNN.

T
HE
E
DITOR OF A
F
ASHION
M
AGAZINE
:

What I have learned, and I’ll pass this on to you,

is that without TV, there’d be no ads,

and without ads, there’d be no dough,

and without dough, you might as well be dead!—

’cause money, as we all, I’m sure, have found,

is what makes the little wheels go round.

K
ILO
A
BIERTO
M
ONTAMIER
:

There’s also power, too, of course . . .

T
HE
A
TTORNEY
G
ENERAL
:

Girl, I couldn’t agree with you more!

A P
OETESS
L
AUREATE
:

You know, now that everyone’s

into this resurrection thing,

somebody ought to do an ad campaign,

with designs

by Kelvin Klein—

Resurrection—

it would sell a million!

A C
ONGRESSMAN
:

And it’s not important who gets selected

to be the next celebrity

that’s resurrected;

what counts is the publicity.

T
HE
B
ISHOP OF
M
IAMI
:

By the way, who
is
going to be the next candidate

for resuscitation from the dead?

Because I think it would be
very
cool

to borrow a tutu made of tulle

from my dear friend (and sometime office-mate)

the Cardinal.

A N
UN
:

Perfect! It’s scheduled to be Mariano Brull!

C
HORUS OF
P
OETESSES
:

Brull! Brull! Brull! Brull!

B
ISHOP
:

Mariano Brull! No! He’ll be
divine
in tulle!

C
HORUS OF
P
OETESSES
:

Tulle! Tulle! Tulle! Tulle!

Suddenly all the people in Key West—including children, old folks, and statues—are wearing long tulle dresses. Swaying, they all begin to dance the Dance of the Resurrection of Mariano Brull. From out of the dancers emerges Alta Grave de Peralta with a gigantic egg that she constantly, rhythmically waves about. The egg appears to be quite light; sometimes it floats high, high up and then suddenly plumps back down again—it gets knocked down by the chopper blades. All raise their hands to heaven. We see Ye-Ye, the Only Remaining Go-Go Queen in Cuba (undoubtedly an infiltrator) reciting one of her PornoPop poems.

T
HE
O
NLY
R
EMAINING
G
O
-G
O
Q
UEEN
:
(as she dances)

A fairy queen in her elegant tutu,

A fairy queen, in tulle of baby blue!

The egg floats up so high that it’s almost out of sight and it looks like it’s not ever coming back down again. Then Alta Grave de Peralta pulls out a pistol from under her tulle skirt and shoots at it. The egg bursts open and out of it emerges, like a butterfly from a chrysalis, Mariano Brull, dressed head to foot in tulle. Swaddled and wrapped in yards and yards of vaporous fabric, he drifts down slowly, gently, as though descending on a parachute. The poet lands on the stage at
K
EY
W
EST
and begins to recite
:

M
ARIANO
B
RULL
:
(absolutely head to foot in tulle, my dear, with a long skirt, leg-o-mutton sleeves, the whole nine yards)

I am a prisoner of the rhythm of the ocean,

and that, dear boy, is precisely the reason

that
I am bound for the sea of June,

for, dear boy, the sea of June,

in my tulle and ermine.

On scores of Mondays, under scores of suns

on scores of sunlight-dappled beaches

I have scored with surfer-hunks,

and with hunks agricultural

in the middle of the cane field.

And when comes ’round the big blue new moon,

in the hot green month of June

I’ll cruise again (in gowns of tulle)

the lovely fields of Purial—

cruise the sweet green greenery, the sugary green scenery

of the itchy fields of prurient Purial!

Grr-grr-grr-grr-grrrrowl!

Then through the sweet green scenery I’ll steal,

steal through the hothouse scenery of the fields,

in pink flesh gloriously incarnate I will come,

come the queen omnicuntipotent,

come—on Monday or on Friday come,

come, cunning queen omnicuntiferous,

roly-poly feline pussiferous—

mrr-mrr-mrr-mrr-meoow!

Sea-greeniferous, omnimellifluous,

polymorphous perversiferous,

but not a
trace
of syphilis,

will come the tool-seeking, tulle-dripping Brull—

grr-grr-grr-grrroowl!

Through the green all lemony and limey—

but watch out! they might take a bite out of your heinie!—

through the sea-green, pea-green verdor,

will come the cuntiferous, lickerous whore!

(This queen sucks dick

and pays for it!)

But then through the green green green green greenery

the humected wet-dream long-live-the-queenly-queen green

the wet sweet and eminently eatable purslane—

I fade

(how it pains me to relinquish it)

once more away—

prisoner of the rhythm of the sea,

prisoner of the rhythm of the ocean.

“—Hey! you forgot

to get
me
off!”

We see Zebro Sardoya, accompanied by the Guadalajara Symphony Orchestra, singing “I’m a Prisoner of the Rhythm of the Ocean.”

A M
IAMI
S
OCIETY
L
ADY
:
(all in tulle, dancing)

So that’s Cuba’s national poet?

If you ask me, he’s a pervert.

A
N
O
LD
W
OMAN
:
(in a wheelchair)

Not national—
municipal.

A P
RIEST
:

National, municipal, I don’t care if he’s pontifical,

if you ask me, he’s not—um—you know, normal.

Z
EBRO
S
ARDOYA
:
(laboriously swaying his hips through the crowd and pausing beside some people who are having a perfectly nice conversation)

I am a prisoner of the rhythm of the ocean . . .

A N
UN
:

I am
utterly
repulsed

by those disgusting verses

which, I agree, are totally perverse

and to which, like you, I am utterly averse.

They are totally detestable,

virtually indigestible,

and radically homosexual—

a sin against our nature

and an offense against the Church.

A F
EMALE
P
ROFESSOR OF
L
ITERATURE
:

And to think that once upon a time

his poetry was so sublime . . .

A
NOTHER
P
OETESS
L
AUREATE
(S
ELF
-A
NOINTED
):

The one to blame for it—eh?—