Giannina Braschi - Yo-Yo Boing!

— I know what you want — you want to eat me up. I sold you Manhattan for $24.

— And some glass beads.

— And now you want me to surrender Spain?

— They never paid you?

— Not a penny. But I read in The Glass Graduate , it’s a problem that has existed in Spain since Cervantes’ time. They tell you they print 1,000 copies, when they print 5,000 copies — and then they reprint the 2nd edition, and they don’t tell you there is a 2nd edition. I know what you’re thinking. Hey, don’t get any funny ideas.

— Don’t get excited. Suppose it only sells a few dozen copies, then the deals fall through.

— Who? I won’t tell anybody. Top secret.

— It begins with V.

— Vantage, Viking, Vintage. Is it Vintage? They published Joyce. That’s my first choice.

— It depends who offers me more. But maybe I’ll keep the rights. We won’t be able to sell as many copies as the commercial presses, but if we can unload a couple thousand copies a year, we’ll do all right in the long term.

— Keep your classics in stock. What would you have if you sold Gertrude Stein or Eugene O’Neill?

— Suppose they make me an offer that I cannot resist.

— How big is cannot resist?

— Shh, come, lend me your ear.

— That’s all? You can resist that.

— But this is poetry. It’s a nice offer.

— What a dramatic table setting.

— My whole party ruined.

— No, Mona, chance as collaborator. It was just a piece of cotton and now it’s material for history. The tablecloth tells a mystery. Life is experimenting. So what if it’s burned? It’s still beautiful.

— Is it better than mine? It is, isn’t it? Admit it. It is better than mine. Isn’t it?

— You tell me. Is that what you feel? Because then I’ll go with the better.

— She is a better painter than I am a writer. She is. She has to be. These four panels of a musical fugue come out of freedom and solitude. Nobody interferes with her muse. Oh, I am painly jealous.

— Plainly zealous.

— What? What is my kindred spirit saying? It was all so much hustle and bustle sculpting the body of Jane, cutting piece by piece, until I made her scream: Homo poeticus .

— You stole it from me. I told you I love it. It was my love you wanted. You stole my fire. I no longer have a muse. Go. Go with her.

— If she is a better painter than you a writer it’s your duty to get on your knees and tell her:

— Mona, you outdid yourself. You outdid myself.

— I wish I could do as well and alone. Being free of these other voices that persecute me. The blue mask of Homo poeticus —I gave you the 2nd panel. You took it from me. It’s mine.

— Nerves of steel, lady, Homo poeticus is mine.

— You flung the sketch in the garbage. I pulled it out. And because I wanted it, you desired it.

— It’s sexual bread. Feel it.

— A round, puffy ass.

— If it’s sexual bread it’s like Mona. Give me some.

— What are these people going to think? Homo poeticus was mine.

— Yes, but it was me who recognized it. I told you it was good. And you set fire to my desire.

— As if thunder could be stolen from the map of the universe.

— Yes, it can, and sometimes the imitation outdoes the original. And it all makes sense. Unguent. Perfume. Laquearia . In the dripping red panel. Light my fire, Mona, my desire.

— How many olives ya got here?

— Got five. Ate four. One left. But you ain’t getting it.

— Let me have it.

— Okay, eat it. Four for me. One for you. The world is fine like this. It’s good for my stomach. I ate three. You watched me eating the fourth. And you asked for the fifth. I gave it to you. You asked. How kind. I ate four. Gave you one. Did you want to eat what I had — you had less than me — didn’t protest — are you hungry — why did you let me eat the other four — without saying a word — and now you even have the courtesy of asking permission — I am the boss because I didn’t mind eating the other four — I didn’t think about you — that’s what made me the boss — I am still hungry — are you satisfied — I gave you my olive — a pit of my appetite. The world is fine if you feel fine. I ate four. You only one. We are compatible. We ate five.

— Pum, pum, Paco. Pum, pum.

— She’s poetical, but she lacks Poetics.

— Sí, sí, sí .

— It’s chaotic. She’s looking for the order of chaos, but she lacks order too.

— Sí, sí, sí .

— Hey, watch out for Xana. She just told Paco you don’t have a Poetic.

— And what did Paco say?

— He smiled: sí, sí, sí .

— Sí , she has a Poetic, or sí she doesn’t have a Poetic?

— I don’t know. He said: sí, sí, sí .

— Like the Associated Free State. Puerto Ricans are semicolons. They can’t decide on the period or the comma. Of course she doesn’t know I have a Poetic because she has never read my work.

— Why do you care what she says?

— Why do you tell me what she says?

— Pum, pum, Paco. Pum, pum.

— And what about mine — aren’t mine soft too?

— Yes, they are soft, but hers — touch hers, she really has soft hands.

— Aren’t mine really soft too?

— Yes, they are soft, but hers, sheer silk. She hasn’t washed a dish in her life.

— You’re not kidding.

— Spoiled. Spoiled rotten.

— Hey, give me your hand.

— Why should I give you my hand, simply because you asked for it, without any certainty about a friendship, something that made you think I’d give it to you simply because you were going to ask me for it, I was going to give it to you, I wasn’t about to refuse it, but my pleasure isn’t your pleasure, yours is in my hand, mine is in refusing it. Tant pis. ça m’est égal.

— And it is quite true what our royal highness said.

— What did I say? I can’t remember.

— She suffers the collective amnesia of her people.

— What? What did I say? I already forgot.

— I won’t forgive what you said to me. I do remember it.

— What did I say? I’m sorry.

— I won’t forgive you.

— I won’t forgive you either unless you tell me what I said. Please tell me.

— I forgot already. It’s on the tip of my tongue.

— The chair I sat in, like a burnished throne, glowed on the marble, where the glass held by standards wrought with fruited vines. I was reading with five feminists. Three of them had already read. And I wondered:

— Why aren’t they sitting in the chair?

They had told me:

— Y ou can’t read with Tess because there is one chair behind the table. Only one of you can sit down.

But none of the three sat down. They read standing up. And the throne was empty — waiting for me — from which a golden cupidon peeped out. Another hid his eyes behind his wing. Doubled the flames of seven branched candelabra. So I was very angry because they thought I could not read well without Tess, and when my turn came, I sat in the chair and stole the show. Now a woman complained:

— Stand up. We cannot see you .

— Madam —I answered— there is a throne here and I am going to sit on it.

— Pum, pum, Paco, let’s dance.

— Later, Xana, let me enjoy this cigar.

— Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch .

— I feel Croatian, surrounded by all these languages.

— And, and, when we were children, staying at the Archduke’s, my cousin, he took me out on a sled.

— You stole that sled from my diary. It was not my cousin’s, it was my brother Benny’s.