Rafael Yglesias - Hide Fox, and All After

He’s at his best like this, Raul thought. When he pleads his love, the whining is intolerable. “I know,” Raul said, his face burrowed into his plate. He cleared his throat.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

Raul could walk with all the arrogance of an actor and speak in a powerful and threatening voice. Anywhere but before his father’s voice, he was a man. He cringed at its tone. “Today,” he said, obviously exhausted, “I was hounded into nine make-up tests. Is that enough?”

“Are you going to study for them?” Rafael asked.

Raul sighed. No, he was not. He would never waste the time, the energy. He had talents to be cultivated. He would not bow before the petty, flatulent arrogance of school. “Yes. I’ll study for them.”

Rafael’s puffed, red face flared briefly. “You had better, young man.”

Raul’s mind felt as if it were unbearably constricted; something white hot had been isolated, yelling to get out. He felt blinded as it exploded. “Why? What are ya gonna do?”

“Never mind. I just wanted to know that you are going to do it.”

In a moment, after Raul had declared that he would work when and where he wanted to, Rafael was dragging him across the living-room floor, slapping both sides of his head. Raul was screaming, in a high, tense whine, that he was a son of a bitch, a fucker, a bastard. Raul’s mother ran to her room, crying.

Despite Raul’s curses, while he was being beaten he only felt weary, desperate to escape. And he was more angered by his mother’s pointless tears than by his father’s hands. It was only when he shut himself in his room that he discovered an uncontrollable rage.

He trembled and cried, his frame torn by his impotence. The memory of the scene returned to him again and again, his furor pitched to near insanity. And there was no release, no counter to this insult. The fight between his parents and him had always been waged along specific strategic lines. If they took away his money, he stole from them. The more they insisted he go to school, the less likely he was to do so. Not out of obstinacy, but out of a natural, deeply rooted dislike for doing anything their way.

When Raul had discovered that his father’s ego had overwhelmed his, he refused to grant even the most superficial acknowledgment of the likeness. Raul was struggling against the ideal that was forced on him, creating others. Beneath his father’s acquired sophistication was a passion for the family unit; his son must inherit his ambience, his values, his life style. To Rafael, no idea or emotion that Raul developed was unpredictable — after all, as a boy, he had gone through that; in the same way any accomplishment became a reflection on his merits. The idea that everything he did was either a natural phase of adolescence or a result of his father’s teachings was repulsive to Raul. He even shied away from sex on that basis: he wouldn’t give Rafael the pleasure of observing the typical, clumsy beginnings of love: much less allow him to search his face for the beaming smile of a boy who had just lost his virginity.

In a demented state, Raul opened his penknife. He walked out into the living room where his mother was reading and sat next to her. His father was washing dishes in the kitchen. She looked at him sorrowfully, obviously about to say something consoling. Raul cut her off. “I’m going to ask him to apologize.”

“You’ll just get hit again,” she said.

Raul drew his knife out, smiling. “I don’t think so.” He put it away. “If he tries, I’ll have to fight him.”

“You’re crazy,” she said, mocking yet worried.

“Dad,” Raul called.

“Yes,” he said, coming into the living room.

“I want you to apologize.” Raul was arrogant. The scene was written. He had lines and could be secure in them. This was a struggle that he had set up.

Rafael laughed. A loud, mocking, sure laugh. He returned to the kitchen.

Here, in essence, was Raul’s humiliation. How neatly he fit into the would-be rebel. Put me in a cubbyhole, I fit so neatly. Now my image is comfortable.

His mother looked at him. A look mixed with confidence, sympathy, and rebuke.

“Well, he didn’t fight me, did he?” And he left.

Raul avoided speaking with Miller on the subject of Iago, though the other candidates, John Henderson and Michael Sussbaum, had been doing so. They were so obvious in their attempts to feel him out on the subject, so ridiculously greedy for the part, that Raul thought he’d maintain his dignity by not speaking of it. But he was desperate to play Shakespeare. God, he thought, would that be a reason to stay!

It wasn’t long before he abandoned that decision. He thought that if he didn’t seem eager Miller might not give it to him.

Of all the actors in the theater, Miller loved him the most. He saw Raul every day for more than an hour, constantly giving him advice and encouragement. Raul never took, for a moment, any of that advice seriously, but he appreciated the man’s love for him.

In the theater Raul was God — with Alec the only other. This was his domain, perhaps his only one. Here, his walk was consistently important. So when it was heard that Raul had decided to speak to Miller about Iago, a small panic was set off.

Raul got Miller talking about the production. Soon he was being shown the stage design. After that, Miller went on to the problems he would have with Hinton. And then he talked about casting Iago.

He said he was thinking of either Michael or John. Raul looked shocked and hurt. Miller looked sadly at him. He said he had to give the part to a senior or a junior. He knew Raul could handle the part better than anyone else, but there were other problems. Raul was too skinny: he wouldn’t look good in tights. Exercise? Maybe. If he could build himself up before next year, he would reconsider. Nothing was definite, he ended, he just didn’t want Raul to hope for much. There would be a good part in the fall production in any case.

Raul told this to Alec, Davis, and Hinton. The three of them decided they would go to Miller to get him to realize how important it was to give Raul the part. Davis threw a fit. Who else could play it? Raul wouldn’t play it very well, but who else could? Alec just frowned and said it was absurd. Hinton said he didn’t want to play Othello without Raul supporting him.

Though all the major leads pleaded with him, Miller promised nothing. To Alec and Davis, he pointed out that Raul would overshadow Hinton. Raul’s voice, no matter how much Hinton improved, would point up its faults. Then there was his body, and the fact that he would be only a fourth former. There had been an uproar about his giving second lead to a third former. They had to remember that, under the circumstances, no one else could have played Rosencrantz.

Hinton spoke to Miller alone, and after that no longer stood behind Raul. He didn’t desert him, but he treated him as he did all the other candidates.

Raul went to Miller and said this to him. He wanted the part terribly, however he understood why Miller might not give it to him. Miller repeated all his reasons, promising a lead in the fall production and a marvelous lead in his senior year. He wanted to save him, he said.

Raul was exhausted from this. Harassed, disappointed, listless, he didn’t, or couldn’t, care about honor. When his father came into his room to apologize for hitting him, Raul nodded — I don’t care, he thought. You’re a liar. He promised his parents he would work. Pass his make-ups, go to the school next year and not cut.

He pulled himself together to face the awful week ahead. Nine make-up tests; nine hours of waste, anguish, and humiliation. Within, the blackest hate grew for this system that shattered the mirror he held up to himself. In his eyes, he was the most miserable of worms. In his diary he wrote: “My lips are raw from the asses I’ve kissed this week.”