The Color of Summer: or The New Garden of Earthly Delights (39 page)

Aurélico Cortés, deeply embarrassed at the brouhaha that had proclaimed him a fairy to the entire world, fled the city and found refuge in the mountainous region of the former province of Oriente—Mayarí Arriba, to be exact. There, disguised as a campesino, he settled down, joined a forestry project, and, employing the papal staff as a walking stick, gathered seeds from pine trees day and night, hoping that in time his canonization would be forgotten. But the fame of St. Nelly did not die; rather, it grew more widespread day by day. If St. Nelly had been able to resurrect herself, the world mused, could she not perform even greater miracles for others? . . . And out in the wilderness among the dense pine forests, almost every day Aurélico Cortés, disguised as a campesino, would come upon some new altar erected in homage to St. Nelly. Cortés would descend upon the altar in a rage, smash it to smithereens with the papal staff, and exclaim that it was shameful that in a socialist country people still believed in such nonsense. But whether she wanted to or not, St. Nelly was still performing miracles, because faith is stronger than reality, and the number of her worshipers grew larger every day.

As for Skunk in a Funk, having suffered the destruction of her manuscript, she began in the most disciplined way to write the story once again.

This is the story of an island on which a very big man had been born. The man was so big that he didn’t fit on the island, because he made all the other people who lived on the island feel very, very small. So the dictator of the island sent the big man to a smaller island, the island where the dictator sent
all
the men that were not of small spiritual stature. There, as the big man broke rocks in a quarry, he started talking about how big his island was and how big those who lived on that island were. The man spoke with a remarkable voice—a voice noble, and grand, and
big
—so big that it carried all the way from that little island he was living on, to the ears of the men on the big island. And the people who were living on that big island couldn’t stand that enormous voice that they didn’t have. So the dictator of the island deported the big man to a place far, far away, beyond the ocean, where his voice couldn’t be heard on the island. But the man kept talking—constantly—giving speeches that were so beautiful and so filled with light that they caused him to be bigger and bigger, so big, in fact, that even the people who had been deported from the island because they were big, or because they
wanted
to be big, were envious of that big man. So not only was the big man attacked by the dictator of the island and the biggest part (numerically speaking) of the people who lived there; he was also attacked by the dictator’s
enemies,
who didn’t live on that island but wanted to liberate it, yet who couldn’t bear the presence of a man so big that he’d surely prevent them from becoming dictators in their own right when they finally
did
liberate it. Living in exile, a man without a country, the big man became the target of all sorts of plots, insults, and slanders—millions of them. He was called a coward, “Captain Spider,” a pervert, an elitist, a drunk, a drug addict, and even a friend of the dictator of the island. And the dictator of the island echoed those insults and slanders, and added a few more of his own. Sometimes it was the dictator himself who invented and spread nasty rumors about the big man—nasty rumors that were gratefully respread even by the dictator’s enemies, who couldn’t bear the existence of that man who was so big. But despite the war that was being fought against him—against him
personally
—the man kept growing; he just kept getting bigger and bigger, and he continued to fight against the dictator. And the bigger he got, the more he realized—the clearer it all became—that none of that bigness made any sense if he couldn’t die on his beloved island, where, on the other hand, there was no place for bigness like his. And so, while he was insulted and verbally abused not only by all the people who wanted to keep the island under absolute tyranny but also by all the people who wanted to free it, the big man sneaked off to the island. When he got there, all the armies—the friendly forces as well as the unfriendly ones—conspired together, and they killed him. So then the big man dissolved into the island and nourished its soil. And when he was dust and nobody could even remember where he’d fallen or where his grave was, the natives of the island, friend and foe alike, were proud to have had such a big man. And they started to put up statues to him. And now there are so many statues that there’s not a single corner of the island where you can’t contemplate the thoughtful visage of that big man.

Cloistered, locked in quarantine, behind the thick bulwarks and hard iron bars of the ancestral bastion-prison of El Morro, where, locked up lacking air conditioning, he’s turned into a yicky despicable slob gobbed with gunk and perspiration, the crafty captive languishes. But one day the crafty captive encounters a compassionate fellow convict carrying a crowbar, and, speculating quickly, he conceives an escape and convinces his fellow captive to entrust the crowbar to him. Cleverly concealing the crowbar by day, he uses the conveniently encountered crowbar to excavate, and in a week the gunk-covered cloistered and confined convict tricks his captors by scrabbling his way to victory.

For Odoriferous Gunk,
whose real name is Bishop Toca

When the apparent Chelo, disguised as Delfín Proust (or the other way around), finished putting her life on the line to enumerate the categories of queenhood, SuperChelo (whose job it was to put the other Chelo in the shade) leaped over the retreating rafts and tumbled, eyes bulging, onto the table where the Grand Oneirical Theological Political Philosophical Satirical Conference had just taken place. She turned her blazing eyes on the alleged Chelo (who was planning to flee to Paris and keep working for both the French and the Cuban police), and addressing an audience which wasn’t listening because it was following Fifo to the Garden of Computers, she spoke the following words:

“This decrepit old mulatto rumba-dancing hag, who was born in Camagüey during the time of Agramonte and was the mistress of an old mummy in Paris, has overlooked the system of classifying bull macho butt-stuffers which is employed throughout the world. We all know that without bull machos there are no queens, and vice versa. So if we fail to make known to this jury the system for classifying bull machos that has recently been approved by the Security Council of the United Nations, her dissertation on the subject of queenliness will be incomplete. . . . Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, stop for a moment and listen: bull macho butt-stuffers may be classified in four major categories of tops, to wit: . . .”

And while the attendees were rushing for the exits, SuperChelo began the list.

“First: THE OCCASIONAL, OR SLEEPING, TOP. This type of top generally lives a normal life, not seeking out fairies to screw in any systematic way yet once in a while, in obedience to some unknown secret impulse, some mysterious and uncontrollable urge, feeling the need for a piece of fairy ass. The occasional butt-stuffer may love women and have many children, but one day in a men’s room, in a tunnel, or out in the middle of some field, a butterfly will flutter by, he will be dusted with fairy-dust, and he who on other occasions has been offended by a faggot and may even have busted a queen’s nose will at that fairy touch feel a certain stirring in the loins (the sleeping bull macho awakes), and he will ram it up the fairy’s butt. Then, zipping his fly, he recovers his manhood and his dignity and retreats to the bosom of his family or continues standing guard at his work center. As an example of the occasional bull macho butt-stuffer, we might cite any man.”

The water rose higher and higher in the room, the rafts were now being paddled ever more swiftly, but the queen continued her discourse:

“Second major category: THE TOP WITH A COMPLEX. This type of top is crippled by a curious sense of guilt at desiring another man’s ass, and his face reflects his terrible inner pain. He has tried everything he can think of to put his ‘perverse’ urges aside, and in practice is a good family man. Oh, but sometimes, when one of his small children climbs up on his lap, the suffering butt-stuffer feels a thrill. At that point, he wants to kill himself, but instead of putting a rope around his neck, he rushes into the street and puts a knot of flesh around his prick. After screwing some fairy—any fairy, actually, that comes along—he recovers his lost manhood and returns home, filled with remorse and a terrible sense of guilt but still turned on by the pleasure he felt as he rammed it up a fairy’s ass. As an example of the bull macho butt-stuffer with a complex we might cite Ramón Stivenson and almost all boxers, karatecas, and judokas. In ancient times, we might point to Christ, who loved all men.”

The huge conference room was now empty, the waters were rising, but the queen went on with her dissertation:

“Third major category: THE NATURAL-BORN TOP. The natural-born bull macho butt-stuffer is the kind of top that’s interested not in women, but only in faggots, and it’s faggots and only faggots that he aims his divine male dart at. The natural-born bull macho can screw up to thirty fairies in one day; he can also be married to one, though that doesn’t keep him from screwing every queen on the block, and all the ‘real men,’ too. Sometimes wars will break out between him and another natural-born butt-stuffer over some fairy they both have their eyes on. He may have a scar on his face as a mark of those bull macho butt-stuffer battles. He is tough, always ready for a fight, and extremely masculine. He’s a loud talker, and every five minutes he’s almost unconsciously cupping his balls or adjusting his cock, even when he’s talking to another natural-born butt-stuffer. As an example of this type of top we might cite Peerless Gorialdo, Lance Yardlong, or Maltheatus. In antiquity, we might mention the names of King Arsurbanipal and Alexander of Macedonia.”

The waters continued to rise. Out in the lobby one could see thousands of midgets diligently swimming for their lives, knives in their teeth, toward the Garden of Computers. But SuperChelo continued with her presentation:

“Fourth, the last major category: THE SUPERBUGGER. This rare type, now nearing extinction if not already extinct, is a man who is interested in screwing only another man—that is, another Superbugger like himself. The Superbugger will never screw a fairy—no way, my dear—because his dream, his goal, his sole burning desire, is to put it to a REAL MAN, if possible a high-ranking military officer, a famous actor, an Olympic athlete, or a high official in the Central Committee of the Communist Party. If he can’t do that, he’ll screw a horse or even a crocodile, but never,
ever
will he screw a fairy. The Superbugger is that man who wishes he could screw his own father-in-law or his brothers-in-law instead of his wife. Screwing a fairy would be a betrayal; screwing a woman is the most boring thing in the world, and barely even respectable. As I said, the Superbugger is a species that is now in danger of extinction, unlike the other types, which are multiplying daily. Oh, one of the last of the Superbuggers, perhaps even
the
last, was the President of the Spanish Royal Academy, who has just passed away before the gates of this very palace. At this terrible loss, we must all weep.”

And in spite of the torrent of water that was sweeping her away, SuperChelo shed a dozen or more enormous tears, which made the flooding of the auditorium all the more horrific.