by: Luisa Leschin, Armando Molina, Rick Najera, Diane Rodriguez
Joaquin in Love - A Nuyorican Seduction
by: Armando Molina
A bench near Washington Square Park, New York. It�s late afternoon.
We hear romantic strains of Rodrigo�s �Concierto de Aranjuez.� Joaquin, a
Puerto Rican poet, sits reading a well-worn copy of the poems of Rimbaud.
Bitsy, a young, nerdy NYU student, enters, watches the pigeons, sits on the bench.
BITSY: Yes.
JOAQUIN: So do I. This poem, it�s for you.
BITSY: For me?
�I swallowed a terrific mouthful of poison, my entrails are burning. I am dying of thirst. I can�t cry out. The air of Hell does not permit hymns. I think I am in Hell, therefore, I am.� (With a flourish.) Ahh!
BITSY: That was beautiful.
JOAQUIN: Now you read Rimbaud to me.
BITSY: (Reading.) �Like a God with large blue eyes... (Noticing his eyes are brown.) brown eyes and a snow body, the sea and the sky entice to the marble stairs the swarm of young, strong roses on the rosebush.� I don�t know what that means.
JOAQUIN: What Rimbaud is trying to say is the thorns on the rosebush, ripping your leg from the limb, the blood splashing all over the place, and you say... �next leg, please.� Rimbaud is like being stabbed with a pitch fork a thousand million times. . . until you smile. Where are you from?
BITSY: Greenwich, Connecticut.
JOAQUIN: No! You come from the inner recesses of my imagination. A wondrous place, a magical place, a most sacred place.
BITSY: (Incredulously.) Greenwich, Connecticut?
JOAQUIN: Yes! What�s your name?
BITSY: Bitsy.
JOAQUIN: Bitsy, Bitsy, Bitsy. . . bits of suffering, bits of anguish, bits of nothingness.
BITSY: Bitsy Jones.
JOAQUIN: (Extending his hand.) Joaquin Bucaramanga at your service. (He takes her hand and starts kissing his way up the arm.) What an interesting limb you�ve got... Bitsy.
BITSY: Why, thank you.
JOAQU IN: This hand tells me many stories. This finger, for example, belonged to a Nubian princess. Many people handed you things, and
you. . .you. . . handed them back.
BITSY: Ohhh. I like that.
JOAQUIN: And this finger belonged to a three-hundred pound monk who tormented himself to death and was joyous ever after.
BITSY: Ohhhhh.. . I�ve always had a weight problem.
JOAQUIN: And this finger.. .this finger belongs to me. (He starts sucking her little finger, she is enraptured.) My God, Bitsy. Look. Your hair. You have the most exquisitely tormented hair I�ve ever seen. You will torment me, we will torment each other. You know Rimbaud?
BITSY: Uh?
JOAQUIN: You know nothingness?!
BITSY: Well...
JOAQUIN: Of course, you do! And what is Art? Art was the Pyramids. And why did they build the Pyramids?
BITSY: Hotels?
JOAQUIN: I never thought of that. It�s a sign. I live in a hotel. I believe in signs. I�m from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
BITSY: (Enchanted.) Oh my god! You�re a real Puerto Rican?
JOAQUIN: It goes without saying. Bitsy, why don�t you come downtown to my space.
BITSY: I�m not that kind of girl.
JOAQUIN: But you could be. We will make little poesies together. We will eat little nothings and starve and wither away in each others arms until we�re dried and desiccated.
BITSY: Ick!
JOAQUIN: Bitsy, don�t be like this. This moment was prewritten in time... before I was interesting.
BITSY: Oh, I think you�re very interesting now.
JOAQUIN: Come away with me. Come! Use your imagination! Fly away from this miserable place. We�ll fly downtown. (Leaps, attempting to fly.) Fly! Fly! Fly! Bitsy, you�re my left wing... you�re not flying! (He falls to the ground and embraces her knees, cresifallen.) I love you, Bitsy.
BITSY: This is really neat, but. . .
JOAQUIN: Well how about it?
BITSY: (Completely torn.) I have to the catch the 5:05.
JOAQUIN: 5:05, interesting concept, 5:05. I get the five on this side, and I understand the five on this side. But this thing in the middle doesn�t make any sense to me.
BITSY: It�s a zero.
JOAQUIN: Zero! Don�t you want to starve and wither like desiccated lovers?
BITSY: No. I have to meet my mother at the country club for dinner.
JOAQUIN: Can I join you?
BITSY: (Horrified.) No! (She runs stage left.)
JOAQUIN: Bitsy, don�t leave me. I�ll just sit here and let my atoms disperse into the atmosphere. (Reading.) Hell is eternal torment.
Mr. Parkhill played with a piece of chalk nervously.
"But arond dis time year ve have a difference
kind holiday, a spacial, movvellous time. Dat�s called
�Chrissmas."
Mr. Parkhill put the chalk down.
"All hover de voild," Mr. Kaplan mused, "is
pipple celebraking dis vunderful time. Becawss for som pipple is Chrissrnas like for odder pipple is Passover. Or Chanukah, batter. De most fine, de most beauriful, de most secret holiday fromm de whole bunch!"
( �Sacred,� Mr. Kaplan, �sacred,� "Mr. Parkhill
thought, ever the pedagogue.)
"Ven ye valkink don de stritt an� is snow on de floor an� aM kinds tarrible cold!" Mr. Kaplan�s hand leaped up dramatically, like a flame. "Ven ve see in de vindows trees mit rad an� grin laktric lights boin�ink! Ven is de time for tellink de fancy�tales abot Sandy Claws commink fromm Naut Pole on rainenimals, an� ciirnbink don de jimmies mit stockings for all de leetle kits! Ven ve hearink abot de beauriful toughts of de Tree Vise Guys who vere follerink a star fromm de dasert! Ven pipple sayink, �Oh, Mary Chrissmas! Oh, Heppy Noo Yiss! Oh, bast regotts!� Den ve all got a varm fillink in de heart for all humanity vhich should be brodders!"
Mr. Feigenbaum nodded philosophically at this profound thought; Mr. Kaplan, pleased, nodded back.
"You got de fillink, Mr. Pockheel. I got de fillink, dat�s no qvastion abot! Bloom, Pinsky, Caravello, Schneiderman, even Mitnick"�Mr. Kaplan was punishing Miss Mitnick tenfold for her perfidy� "got do fillink! An� vat is it?" There was a momen-tous pause. "De Chrissmas Spirits!"
(" �Spirit,� Mr. Kaplan, �spirit,� " the voice of Mr. Parkhill�s conscience said.)
"Now I�ll givink de prazent," Mr. Kaplan announced subtly. Mr. Bloom shifted his weight. "Becawss you a foist-cless titcher, Mr. Pockheel, an� learn abot gremmer an� spallink an� de hoddest pots pernonciation�ve know is a planty hod jop mit soch students�so ve fill you should havink a sample fromm our fromrn our�" Mr. Kaplan turned the envelope over hastily�"a ha! Fromm our santimental!"
Mr. Parkhill stared at the long package and the huge red ribbons.
"Fromm de cless, to our lovely Mr. Pockheel!" Mr. Parkhill started. "Er�?" he asked involuntarily.
"Fromm de cless, to our lovely Mr. Pockheel!" Mr. Kaplan repeated with pride.
(" �Beloved,� Mr. Kaplan, �beloved.� ")
A hush had fallen over the room. Mr. Kaplan, his eyes bright with joy, waited for Mr. Parkhill to take up the ritual. Mr. Parkhill tried to say, "Thank you, Mr. Kaplan," but the phrase seemed meaningless, so big, so ungainly, that it could not get through his throat. Without a word Mr. Parkhill began to open the package. He slid the big red ribbons off. He broke the tissue paper inside. For some reason his vision was blurred and it took him a moment to identify the present. It was a smoking jacket. It was black and gold, and a dragon with a green tongue was embroidered on the breast pocket.
"Horyantal style," Mr. Kaplan whispered delicately.
Mr. Parkhill nodded. The air trembled with the tension. Miss Mitnick looked as if she were ready to cry. Mr. Bloom peered intently over Mr. Kaplan�s shoulder. Mrs. Moskowitz sat entranced, sighing with behemothian gasps. She looked as if she were at her daughter�s wedding.
"Thank you," Mr. Parkhill stammered at last.
"Thank you, all of you."
Mr. Bloom said, "Hold it op everyone should see."
Mr. Kaplan turned on Mr. Bloom with an icy look.
"I�m de chairman!" he hissed.
"I�er�I can�t tell you how much I appreciate your kindness," Mr. Parkhill said without lifting his eyes.
Mr. Kaplan smiled. "So now you�ll plizz hold op de prazent. Plizz."
Mr. Parkhill took the smoking jacket out of the box and held it up for all to see. There were gasps� "Oh! "s and "Ah! "s and Mr. Kaplan�s own ecstatic "My! Is beauriful!" The green tongue on the dragon seemed alive.
"Maybe ve made a mistake," Mr. Kaplan said hastily. "Maybe you don� smoke�dat�s how Mitnick
tought" The scorn dripped. "But I said �Ufcawss is
Titcher smokink! Not in de cless, netcheral. At home!
At least a pipe!� "
"No, no, you didn�t make a mistake. It�s�it�s
just what I wanted!"
The great smile on Mr. Kaplan�s face became dazzling. "Hooray! Vear in de bast fromm helt!" he cried impetuously. "Mary Chrissmas! Heppy Noo Yiss! You should have a hondert more!"
Have you ever selected an item in the supermarket and put it in someone else�s cart? Then you realize what you�re doing and you get sort of an alien feeling?
"Wait! This is not my cart. Look at this! Brown flour and sheep entrails. God, I almost put my capers in this cart. Where�s mine? Oh, there it is! The one with the tapioca cupcakes and the mango popsicles. Thank God."
Or have you ever started to walk off with someone else�s cart?
"Hey! That�s my stuff!"
You have to think fast. "Not yet it isn�t! It�s not paid for. Technically, these things still belong to all of us, And if I feel like shopping out of your cart, that�s what I�ll do. Let�s see, any organic scallions in there? What�s this? Elk milk? That�ll be just fine. You may leave now."
I�ve found the best way to shop for food is to work up a really big appetite. Fast for several days, smoke a couple of joints, take $700... and go to the supermarket! It�s great. You buy everything!
"Wow, canned bread! Just what I need!"
And all the good things, the things you really love and can�t do without? Well, you buy two of them, because you know you�re going to eat one of them on the way home at a red light.
Shopping hungry is great; you just keep loading things into your cart. But then, after several aisles, you realize you may have overdone it: You find yourself pushing a motorcade of three carts, all tied together with long loops of string cheese. Once again, you�ve lost control.
And so, as you realize you don�t have enough money to pay for everything, you begin to put back some of the more expensive items. Like meat.
"Meat? Twenty-seven dollars? Bullshit! I�ll put back these steaks
and grab a few more pound cakes. The kids shouldn�t be eating meat, anyway."
The nicest thing about putting things back in the supermarket is that you can put them anywhere you want. No one cares. You can leave the Robitussin next to the ham hocks and stick the marshmallows in with the Bacon Bits. They don�t care. They have people who come around at midnight to straighten that stuff out, and in the morning everything is back where it belongs,
By the way, next time you shop at a supermarket in a neighborhood that has higher than average marijuana use, take a look at the cookie section. Combat zone. Half the packages have been opened, and all the really good cookies are gone.
"Where the hell are the Mallomars?"
"Oh, we can�t get Mallomars into the store. Folks line up at the loading dock for Mallomars."
There are always plenty of crappy cookies. You ever notice that? Shitty, low-priced local cookies? Like "Jim�s Home-Style Cookies, Twenty-six varieties," I say, "Damn, Jim, if you can�t make cookies in twenty-five tries leave me out,"
Time to head home, folks, Let�s get on the checkout line here and read People magazine. By the way, I must admit I�m a real sucker on the checkout line. I�m an impulse buyer. Anything that�s on display, I want it. I even buy things other people leave behind.
"Wow! Extra spicy diet fudge raisin tartar sauce. Must be a sale, Great. I got the last one!"
One last thought: have you ever been on the express line and tried to convince the tough-looking Hispanic girl with the tattoos that twenty-seven packages of hot dogs are really just one item? I�m always grateful when she finally gives in. "Go ahead, mister, it�s quicker than beating the shit out of you."
