Yo-Yo Boing!

— what a beautiful voice you have.

— what are you doing here?

— how come you understand us so well?

Their big black eyes gazed into mine as I sang:

— with the sound of music

I extended the sound, until the vowels vibrated inside their eardrums, inside their bellies. They were melting, swaying, dripping, almost milking while swinging their tails in harmony

— with the sound of music

with songs they have sung

for a thousand years

It was magical. The word years started their tails again. They crowded closer, penetrating my eyes, and letting me know that they listened, understood, and most of all, respected with silence and devotion.

— I know I will hear what I’ve heard before.

I was invoking the spirits to come and get me. I knew I would hear — music, poetry — like I heard before, with the same love mounting over a fountain of passion — water, water — I was thirsty, and the mountains so full of yerbas, árboles, pelos, pelos puntiagudos y escarbando sus rodillas, los montes profundos — que muchas piedras y raíces y margaritas y aguas y rizos, rizos de ramas, tallos, ramitas bien débiles, tan débiles, is that the word, endebles, y algunas tan fuertes — y yo pisando el lodo, enfangando mis tennis y mirando las nubes bajar y bajar hasta encontrarse perdidas, no, suspendidas, algodones, la ramita moviéndose, y el pájaro sembrado en ella cantando, y las vacas mugiendo, y ahora una de ellas en conjunto con toda la armonía del universo dice sí, sí, sí, sí, sí. Baja y sube la cabeza, afirmando que sí, porque sí, señor, me gusta cómo canta.

— Yes, we’ll hear it again. Don’t you agree?

— I doooo.

— Lo afirmamos.

Y entonces, reclinándose, como si la música no fuera con ellas, se pusieron a comer yerba.

— Tú ves, ni caso que te hacían.

— I thought you believed me.

— Yeah, but they immediately forgot you and went for the grass.

— I made my impression. They paid attention until the sound of music wet their appetite. What better than that. When I left, they were happy, content, to eat their grass as if nothing had happened, and I continued singing on my road, and they continued on theirs. I did it my way, and they did it theirs.

— I have the most beautiful dream on the tip of my tongue. Woody Allen appeared in flesh and blood in the middle of a crowd. Everyone was dressed in black tights and we formed a midnight train.

— Was I there?

— You were the second car and I was the third. The train was circling slowly behind Woody. I was getting impatient. This won’t get us anywhere. I squeezed your waist and shoved you ahead, so instead of chug-chugging in circles, we bolted straight through the crowd, and all of a sudden, it was only Woody, you and me. We were schmoozing. Actually, he was doing all the talking.

— I couldn’t do what I wanted in Husbands and Wives. The director repressed me.

— Lame excuse. He was the director.

— What he meant is that he didn’t think it’s his best work. I agreed.

— I have writer’s block and you’re making it worse. You’re dreaming my fears. You know this isn’t my best work.

— It wasn’t you, it was Woody, and he was relating to me, in confidence, about his work.

— Cut! — Woody said.

— Just like the one Paco Pepe had with Fellini.

— You always want to one up me.

— No, really, he dreamed Mastroianni and Fellini were strolling down La Strada and Fellini was saying:

— Marcellino, pan y vino, qué vamos a hacer ahora. Ya lo he hecho todo. Pero tengo que seguir.

You should have seen his face — drained, pained. He was wearing Guido’s hat from 8–1/2. The roles were swapped. Paco says Guido had the face of Fellini, Fellini the face of Guido, except that Guido wasn’t suffering like Fellini. Then out of the blue un verdadero grillo verde que tú conoces salió brincando.

— What’s a grillo verde.

— Una esperanza.

— Hope?

— Un grillo verde que brinca y salta. That insect that brings good luck.

— A lady bug?

— Is it long and green?

— Oh, you mean a grasshopper.

— And you know what?

— What — what?

— When they examined the grasshopper, it had my face. Era yo. Paco Pepe me dijo que yo era la esperanza de Fellini. I was so happy when he told me that dream.

— I didn’t tell mine right. It was epic.

— Go ahead.

— Ya me quitaste el deseo.

— Scenes repeat themselves. Tell it again.

— Why?

— Because you told the story wrong.

— I wasn’t done.

— Go ahead. Start at the World Wide Plaza.

— It wasn’t at the Plaza. It was in front of Rizzoli’s.

— Yes, but there is a fountain in front of the Plaza so you can make the train run circles around it until we break the neurosis and take us out-out.

— Faith DeRoos, ¿sabes quién es Faith DeRoos?

— No, no sé quién es.

— Fue mi maestra de español. Con ella fui a la Edad Media. Apareció en el sueño con sus tacos altos rojos finitos, y su pelo negro rizo y largo como la peluca de Cher. Estábamos en Inglaterra, y tú querías transportar un castillo a Nueva York, con una grúa inmensa, hecha de madera y ruedas de piedras. Tenía muchas manos para agarrar y mover columnas y rocas inmensas.

— So that’s how Stonehenge got here—I thought—Yo no sabía que tenían tantas machinas back then.

Faith y yo estábamos rodeados de unos monjes medievales que tenían unas caperuzas azules, y unos flequillos como los de los Beatles, y unas barbas rojas, masking their whole faces like Paco Pepe’s. Droves of monks were loading the stone tablets and wooden beams onto a boat. Tú estabas al frente diciendo:

— Heave — Ho — Heave

— She plans to crown the World Wide Tower with the castle.

— Nunca me dijiste—Faith said—que es una loca. Cómo se va a sujetar este castillo encima de ese triángulo.

Pero cuando miré arriba, ya tú habías quitado el triángulo.

— Tengo la punta de un lápiz para hacerlo. Voy a dibujar con toda mi maquinaria encima de ese cuadrado rosado, tan inútil y tan gordo. Forces of this rockety earth. I need the past and the present to make it work. No more doubts about myself. I’m making it right now.

Lo próximo que supe es que Faith y yo were on a wagon cargando sobre nuestras cabezas, como si fuéramos las columnas, todo tu castillo. Fireflies were swarming around us. Y el castillo se movía para un lado y para otro.

— Vengan, enciéndanse—tú gritaste.

Y balanceaste tus manos, llamando con ellas una manada de caballos galopando al trote de un paso fino, y sin relincho, con rayas negras y crines rosadas, enseñando la mare-jada de sus dientes. Tacatá-Tacatá. Y entonces un camino redondo, una escalera de caracol, encaracoló todo el cubículo del World Wide Tower. Faith looked at me con el rabo de su ojo — the castle swaying on our heads — about to collapse — about to crush us to death. The wagon jutted and a loose beam came tumbling down y toda la estructura cayó perfecta en su lugar. I knew he was going to use our scene. Bright white lights went on, the crowd dispersed and the crew started climbing down scaffolds and girders. Woody turned around to see who had changed his pace. He was panting and sticky, with his face blotchy red. Esperaba que estuviera fascinado. Fellini se hubiera enamorado del runaway train.