Act 2, Scene 11

MELI

Alright, my turn.

Long story short, I’m a professor (it’s been about 30 years doing that gig). I tried really hard to be good in any of the arts, but the only one that I’ve been any decent at has been teaching. I’ve been to and fro. I have three cats, though one of them is not really mine, she only comes around when she’s hungry. I have a partner…

I’m sorry, I guess I’m bad like Fede when talking about the present, since I don’t see how much I have to report on.

Notable selected works I don’t know if I have, but I can truly brandish with pride is the work of the students and artists that have been close to me. For some reason people trust my judgment, and I’m sought after for guidance. Sometimes one rises, and others one has to be a step. I hope I have been a good step for others.

I didn’t plan for this. I liked it, but I didn’t plan for this.

So, big question, ¿have I finally learned who I am meant to be, who I am?

I think that is a question that can be asked way too many times.

Here’s what I mean: we, at any given time, wear one mask that represents who you think you are, on top of this one there’s another mask, this one shows who you’d like to be. We have to carry these pieces of crap and try to watch where you are going while looking through the tiny overlapping eyeholes. And to cap everything, everyone else wears their own masks.

¿Is then your face really your face if you can’t see it in the mirror?

Yes.

No.

Who knows?

Since no answers sound correct I’ve decided to make up my own answer instead, that’s how real mysteries often go anyways. If you need an example, there’s the mystery of what my friend Fede is up to today and why you don’t see him besides me here.

¿Is it that Fede disappeared without trace during a visit to Mexico City on the third of October of 2019 and this whole play is his family and my own way of getting closure? ¿Or might it be that he gets the most horrible stage fright?

One explanation may seem likelier than the other, but I have to remind you, what scientific, foolproof method is there to prove it?

Therefore, choose.

Fede, I’m very sorry for the mistakes I made and thank everything for getting to know you. I also forgive you and hope you can forgive me as well.

Thank you Camila, Maggi, Flor, for being such splendid women and for pushing us to tell this story.

And thank you too for listening.

THE END

Act 2, Scene 9

MELI

In When Harry Met Sally, our two main lovebirds discuss the dilemma of men and women being able to be just friends, or if attraction will always get in the way; that’s the same thing Fede and I were chatting on our way to the airport, half a year later of our fight in the movie theater.

By this point we had forgotten how not to be together, so there you have us still.

Less than a home, we had become to each other just a place to sleep in.

As a hail mary to salvage the situation we had decided to get a regular apartment so we could actually see each other more often.

Despite Fede’s insistence, I did not apply again for the scholarship; for the moment I didn’t feel like doing anything.

Some friends of mine invited me for a weekend getaway to Chicago which was most likely a ploy to get me a change of air.

Fede and I concluded a couple of things about the movie: first of all, it was really good, second of all, romance should not be the be-all and end-all of a relationship. After that we didn’t say much until we got to the gate, making it one of the better last conversations I’ve had with someone.

We hadn’t planned anything, it just turned out that when the time for goodbyes came, we immediately understood what should happen after, or what shouldn’t.

If it weren’t for that trip, I’m quite sure that we would still be together and unhappy.

He smiled, and I smiled back at him. He looked happy, which calmed me; that was all I wanted.

For a moment only the good times existed and we kissed goodbye.

I did not think I felt bad, but when I sat down afterwards I realized I was crying.

            END OF SCENE

Act 2, Scene 7

MELI

The picture he had painted of his folks did not really fit the people I had met in the Distrito Federal. Mellow old folks that were hard to read, which goes to show just how close the apple falls from the tree.

It was a good distraction from the chaos of my Dad’s passing, anyhow. Still, distractions have to come to an end and real life has to get you in its claws eventually.

On the red eye flight Fede looked catatonic, as if me meeting his parents had gone horrifyingly, which it hadn’t, I think. I knew that I wouldn’t get much if I asked directly, so I tried taking his mind off whatever was going on by asking him: “hey, what should I do with Dad’s company, now that it is my company. You know, cause he died?”

I knew I was gonna end up scaling it down and giving away the excess, but I guess I just wanted to hear my boyfriend’s voice, which was a sound that I was hearing less and less those days.

He gave out a gruff “anything that you want” in a tone that was less “I think any option is good in a way” and more “who cares”.

I dropped the subject; I had more things on my plate to worry about.

The main thing being the Fulbright scholarship, of which the results awaited me in Monterrey.

I won’t drag it out. I did not get it, and I know that just feels like the obvious result.

The rejection came in a letter which I read while I was taking care of Mom, who looked like she had aged 10 years in the past weeks.

It felt like time to come back home, my home inside Fede’s head. Unfortunately he may have had a similar idea, because he already had gotten inside mine and wouldn’t come out until two weeks after I had gotten my results.

Thankfully, a girl always has her work, and so I buried myself there instead. I recreated at least five versions of the sculpture I had made of him. Each new iteration looked less and less like him, it felt like.

I had come back to a punk style, and who knows how it reflected inside my head since Fede was not around to describe it.

            END OF SCENE

Act 2, Scene 5

MELI

If there’s something that can without fail piss me off is the way so freely assume that I hated my father.

I know; we were always fighting. All the time we were fighting, but never once did either of us want the other to lose.

My mother once explained to me when I was  very young that fighting was the only way Dad had ever learned to interact with the world, it was his first language.

Believe me, you don’t need to tell me that there are healthier father-daughter relationships, but this is the one I got and there’s nothing to do about it; you don’t get a second father.

And anyways, he always went easy, always let me win. No matter how many times he’d scold and shout for me to get out of the house and to never return for I was ruining my life and hanging out with a bunch of bums, and that he had had enough and this time I had pushed him too hard and so and and so forth –no matter all that stuff, I would always find him back home, watching some old John Wayne flick, waiting for me to join him.

I did not hate my dad.

The people who would tell you that I did were those who actually had a problem with him, the sycophants and the vultures that hung around the house calling themselves our friends. Empty folk, who believe themselves the Anointed. They could never wrap their heads around someone beneath them rising to their level and even further beyond instead of simply being born in it. The only kind of love these people have on offer is always conditional, and I have never had any use for conditional love. 

Now, at my 50s, I think my dad was of the same mind, that’s why he would cut me loose and always take me back, he just needed to see if my love for him really was unconditional, to see that I’d come back out of my own volition.

That’s why, even though I know that there was nothing I could do, even though the chance had been taken away from me, I still feel guilty that I came back home too late for him.

I wanted Fede outside with me during this time, so I have no idea what my head looked like then.

            END OF SCENE

Act 2, Scene 3

MELI

My hands, my pencils, my brushes meant to say “I love you”, but he’d rather have it said differently.

Fair, quite honestly.

Still, any artist worth their salt understands that any and all criticism hurts, even if just a tiny tinge; you can’t help it, especially when it’s aimed at what you think is your masterpiece.

(And I mean “masterpiece” in the classical sense, the sense where it qualifies you as a master.)

There would be no issue if I wanted to use it to apply my scholarship, it was “mine to do with as I please” is what he told me, but I decided to start another project from scratch, this one based on my head, or how Fede had described my head, at least.

Aaaand… things got better!

…

That was a bold faced lie I just told! The government began hounding us for tax evasion!

Uh you see. (It sounds quite stupid out loud). I had been earning some extra doug has an oil painting teacher, working sort of informally, and when it came time for me to register myself as a law-abiding tax-payer, in all that chaos of paperwork, and signatures, and birth certificated did our venerable government realize that I was a virtual destitute while also having never paid a tax in my life.

They pinched me and they pinched Fede at an afternoon barbeque with my parents, who very paternally decided not to get involved.

(As Dad) I’m sorry honey, I’ve got enough problems with these assholes.

And what followed was the beginning of the worst time in my life.

They accused us of some weird tax evasion scheme that Dad supposedly was involved in and more bureaucratic crap that I refuse to understand.

Despite being quite terrified, I didn’t think explaining the head situation was a good idea, but Fede said:

(As Fede) We could give them a demo.

“In front of others?” I asked.

“Why not”, he said, and unexpectedly, broke my heart.

We asked the tax ghouls to leave the office for a second and when they came back Fede was inside my aching head. Then it was my turn in his head and so and and so forth, like some sort of Three Stooges bit. They had us bring objects inside and take objects outside. They tried looking through a security camera how it happened, but all they could see was how in one frame, there were two of us, and in the next, only one.

            END OF SCENE

Act 2, Scene 1

MELI

Three years passed, just the same as one or 27; one day you are in a moment –bam, then you’re not.

The Corpses still hung out, but our meetings had turned more into study sessions than bohemian boozing. We we’re all on the cusp of graduating and our paths would diverge even more. I was still studying Visual Arts, of course, but now I was so damn spent. If you need any evidence; it had been one year since the last time I dyed my hair.

I was practicing a lot, paying attention to the classes, giving it all on each project, though I never felt I was breaching the line between those of us that try hard, and those that achieve their dreams. Believe it or not, the academic part wasn’t the real problem; I was an unofficial tutor for many classmates for a reason. Now I know what was giving me so much grief was the “earn a living” part of all of this.

Meanwhile Fede was on a roll; no surprises there. The boy had always been a genius and so the Che Guevara 2.0 plan should have been going without a hitch. That is if that plan was still a thing; he didn’t talk about it much.

So yeah, he was bound to be the one to bring stability to us.

We also sort of forgot we were living in the other’s head. My internal changes didn’t faze him much anymore, while I stopped holding my breath for something new inside his head. 

My journey from adult in theory to adult in practice was preoccupying me too much  to give a lot of thought to the head situation, to be honest. I was focused on getting the Fulbright scholarship and going abroad, and I had been cooking up this special project that would have done just that. It was years in the making, inspired in the Russian avant garde, and its name was “Fede”.

I planned on unveiling it at its namesake’s birthday party; a gift that was kind of half for him and half for me.

In regards to my head, I’m not sure what style it had taken on; it was lit by candlelight, that much I know.

            END OF SCENE

Act 1, Scene 15

MELI

Fede wasn’t as interested in the director’s proposal as I sort of expected, and an awkward silence ensued. To break it, I suggested going for tacos, but then Rolo, Berto’s self-titled guerrilla brother, loudly entered the theater bleeding from the side. Safe to say my appetite was gone.

Berto shouted: “Rolo! We gotta go, they’re coming for me!”

And then we saw red and blue, red and blue flashes on the windows. We all shut up, the only sound being Berto’s heavy breathing. Ideas popped up in whispers: 

“Go out from the back!”, 

“No, they’ll catch them in the alley!”, 

“Under the seats”, 

“The cops will catch him there”, 

“Through a sewer?”, 

“You want his injury to get infected?!”

I then approached Berto and asked him where the police found him. It was near the Rio 70 movie theater. Okay, that meant there was a chance I knew the cops outside. I headed to the entrance but Fede stopped me.

(As Fede) “Huh, where are you going?”

To say hi, man.. What do you think?

(As Fede) I’ll go with you.

Fede was sweating bullets, though he looked calm. I took his hand and told him that they would not do anything to me; nobody ever did anything to me. Maybe he could check on Berto in the meanwhile, apply some of those first aid guerrilla lessons his parents had given him. He took a big breath and nodded without a word. He could look pretty handsome under pressure.

I got out and there he was, good old Claudio Termos, the cop who had arrested me the second most times.

(Meli’s impression of Termos sounds fun, nice and jovial, though raspy from years of alcoholism and smoking. There’s an underlying sharpness and cunning to it.)

(As Termos) Imelda! Darling! How are you?

Termos always stank of booze, but you couldn’t deny he had the nicest smile. That was his secret weapon.

(As Termos) You know, dear. Right now’s not the time for you to be around here.

(When talking to Termos, Meli feigns a naive, sugary, preppy girl tone.)

(As Naive Rich Girl) ¿Why not, Officer?

I saved my dumb rich girl voice for such occasions.

(As Termos) We’re looking for somebody. Boy your age. Artsy-like, just like the ones you hang out with. And wouldn’t you know, just like the ones who come to this theater here.

(As Naive Rich Girl) Well, we haven’t seen anything at all.

(As Termos) Well, you and who else? You can tell me. What’re you kids up to?

(As Naive Rich Girl) Narrative bauhaus ballet.

(As Termos) Which drug was that one?

(As Naive Rich Girl) It isn’t. It’s theater.

(As Termos) Ah, come on! Live a little, Imelda.

(As Naive Rich Girl) We haven’t seen anything, Officer.

(As Termos) Might this boy be a friend of yours?

(As Naive Rich Girl) I have many friends.

(As Termos) Too many, If you ask me. You can’t help if we end up pampering at least one.

(As Naive Rich Girl) But, what kind of… “pampering” are we talking about.

(As Termos) The appropriate kind. An appropriate pampering.

(As Naive Rich Girl) Would you say, you pamper me appropriately?

(As Termos) Oh, well. You see, we like you, Imelda. We like your family. You’re good people.

(As Naive Rich Girl) So it all depends on the surname.

(As Termos) I mean, why do you think these losers hang out with you? Your good name is a hell of a lifesaver. Whatever, dear. We’ll catch them later. We always catch them.

And so, he was gone. Inside my friends were doing yoga to calm the nerves. Fede and Berto holed up inside a dressing room. Fede was cleaning his wound with a rag and a tequila bottle someone had brought.

            END OF SCENE

Act 1, Scene 15

MELI

I’d never been more lost than when that first semester ended –even more than when it started. I knew nothing of art, really. All my “work” was a series of pretty puddles, all looks and no depth. It disturbed me so much that one night I snuck a crowbar into Fede’s head and forced open the locked apartments out of some confused rage.

One was a home for a small family, barely furnished, but with piles of books on every corner. There was a room for the parents and one for a boy, though I couldn’t find any kind of toys. Where he grew up, I suppose; he didn’t like talking about it. Hell, it wouldn’t be years till I met his parents.

The second one was like a museum exhibit: lights pointing to a mural hung on the far wall. There I was, triumphant like a cosmonaut holding a paintbrush as if it were the Hammer or the Sickle. On my other hand I held Fede’s head to my side, which appeared to be in the most peaceful dream. On a closer look, the tiling where the mural was painted over told another story, one where a giant statue had been brought down and the Workers stood victorious over it.

I closed the door blushing and smiling like a maniac, then my joy turned to embarrassment; it might have been something I wasn’t meant to see. The shame then increased when I subtly asked Fede if he had seen something about him in my head.

“Nothing in particular”, he said.

I got so angry at myself that I told him I loved him for the first time, which had been true for a while now. ¿What was going on with me that wouldn’t show it within? ¿Was something blocking me? ¿Was I just that self-absorbed and superficial?

See, a big chip on my shoulder was the shame of taking so much from the world and not knowing how to pay it back.

This moment spurred me further. I’d change the scales, somehow.

Man, poor Fede, my beatnik style of that season apparently meant no furniture inside my head.

            END OF SCENE

Act 1, Scene 13

MELI

Life always felt like combat to me, emotional, intellectual… physical sometimes; a reality you couldn’t escape even with your partner. But, with Fede it wasn’t that way, which I gotta say put me right and very on edge.

To which you could respond by saying: “Well yeah, Meli, what were you thinking living with a boy that you had only known for about a month”. To that I’d kindly counter with a: “Oh, come on. I know, you don’t have to rub it on my face”.

If I had to pick out my main problem-causing trait it would have to be that I much prefer running to the fire than waiting for it to catch me. You know? Just stab me on the front already, I don’t take it personal any more.

However, we had this head-thing going on. It could mean something, that this time it was different, right? Also, he kinda reminded me of The Graduate-era Dustin Hoffman and that’s all I really need in life. That’s how I decided to try something new and trust that the guy was what he appeared to be, somebody that had trouble saying “I like you” from how much he felt it.

The moment I really started letting my guard down was when he told me that he was sleeping on the sofa, hahahaha.

If a guy does that and admits it to you, I can’t take it as anything but a good sign.

All the while I got into New Wave again and so the chandeliers within shone in neon red.

            END OF SCENE