While they were taking his mickeycharras, Mishi, la quijotesca Mishi, se les acercó a los negros y les dijo:
— Why don’t you steal from the rich. Exploiting someone poorer than you. You know what you are.
— You, fucking bitch, shut up, or I’ll slit your throat.
— Coward! Why are you stealing from this man who is more fucked over than you. Go to Saks Fifth Avenue.
— You shut up.
— You shut up. What’s he done to you? He is just trying to earn his daily bread.
— You racist bitch.
— You fascist bastard.
— Fuck you, maaaan.
— Fuck you.
— Don’t point at me.
— Fuck you, man. Fuck, and now I’m really fucking mad, you better fucking move your fucking ass.
— Fuck you.
— Fuck, fuck you.
— Fuck, fuck you.
— Fuck you — you hear me, I said, Fuck youuuuu. I mean you, fuck. Fuck you, maaaan.
— Did they smack her?
— No, they jumped the turnstile with the old man’s goods.
— I’m gonna say it happened to me, but I didn’t let them walk off with the goods. Mishi’s ending is rather dismal.
— If you want to tell Makiko that’s fine, but it’s mine at Suzana’s tonight. You weren’t there. I took the thugs on myself.
— It’s funnier if you say I was there looking invisible. Five guys against one woman and her cowardly mate.
— Is it true? — they’ll say. I’ll look sheepish.
— I couldn’t believe it myself and I was there.
— Isn’t that something?
— Then I’ll laugh:
— What?
— Did you really say that?
— I would have liked to.
— But did you?
— They’ll think you are a danger to society.
— I was just teaching them a lesson.
— You’re encouraging them to steal so long as they’re not stealing from the poor, but look whom you’re stealing from.
— From Mishi. And Mishi is teaching them whom to steal from. I want to play the hero tonight.
— When you’re really a cheater. You’re a riot.
— Maybe it’s true, a riot, yes, a riot, not bad, next time, a riot, I’ll say I started a riot. I’m a bullshitter.
— Oh, no juegues, Mishi está ahí. ¿Sabías tú que venía esta noche?
— I’m very glad to have met you. We can continue talking later.
— You’re leaving me hanging.
— Later. We can talk later. I have to go. My translator. The poetry reading. I’m nervous.
— What happened to the black guys?
— What black guys?
— Spike Lee. We were talking about Malcom X.
— Se cree que yo no me di cuenta de que me robó mi historia. Y lo roja que se puso. Con la poca precisión con que cuenta la historia. Y eso que me la hizo repetírsela por teléfono más de tres veces. Esta pinche puertorriqueña.
— Tonight we are going to have an enchanting evening. We will hear Darsha sing two arias from La Bohème. The Grunschlag Sisters will accompany her on the piano. Then, we’ll have some poetry.
— I hope she is not planning on reading half of her book again.
— I was thinking more along the lines of a sonnet or two before dinner.
— Suzana, you cannot mix opera and salsa. I cannot sing in an atmosphere where hips are swinging. And now with this cat. I’m allergic to cats. Red welts will spread over my face, and I’ll start sniffing.
— It’s not a cat, it’s a rabbit. I have her on a leash. I love animals. I don’t have work right now. I need a job badly. My parents will stop sending me money from Japan. The last $200 they sent me, I saw this rabbit, and bought it on impulse. I’m such a pendeja with money. When I see something I like I buy it. So I’m always broke.
— What’s its name?
— Brascho. When I saw this rabbit, I knew she was the reincarnation of Brascho. I was in love with him. He was a beautiful maricón. I must have been a maricón in another life. That’s why I’m called, Okoge, the rice that sticks to the bottom of the pot, a fag hag.
— Okoge, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Wassila.
— Makiko, Makiko Nagano. Okoge is the rice that sticks to the bottom of the pot.
— Her great grandfather was Japan’s first ambassador to the United States under Commodore Perry. They called him Shorty.
— Not Shorty, Tommy. They named a Polka after him, Tommy’s Polka, even though his name wasn’t Tommy. He used to hop off trains and run and jump back on them. I’m the reincarnation of my great grandfather. That’s why I feel I belong in this country. If my father had been born in America he would have been a maricón. He is very vain like Brascho. A whole collection of designer suits and shoes and ties. I illustrate children’s books. I don’t like children but I love animals. This is Moi — a schipperky — and this is Brascho — a Jersey Woolly. I lost my Chinese turtle, Ming. But I still have dozens of fish, and an iguana which lives in a fish tank that Tess and I stole from Brascho’s apartment. I loved him. He was beautiful. Ugly people give me rashes. Hillary Clinton looks like Yoko-Ono. Doesn’t she? We Japanese, love to imitate, but when we imitate — like we sing salsa — the woman that is singing this song — is Japanese — with a perfect Spanish accent even though she doesn’t know what she is saying. We Japanese are wackos. We always say yes, yes, yes, and you have to guess if it’s a yes or a no, and then you just have to confront our smile, and laugh with us, with your hand over your mouth. Japanese are not supposed to show their teeth when they smile.
— Nor whistle at night, it’s bad luck. But they don’t believe that to dream of weddings means death.
— I can’t laugh and show my teeth. That’s low class. But to dream of teeth or white snakes is good luck, especially on New Year’s Day. And I know five bad words in Spanish: coño, pendejo, puta, maricón, carajo.
— Perfect pronunciation.
— Corzas, a Mexican painter, taught me. And Tess perfected my pronunciation. I’m an expert at breaking up relationships. But I’m a very generous person, and I love to cook. What do you do?
— I worked with Martin Scorsese. But now I’m on my own. Scouting raw material.
— Where are you from?
— Canada. But my mother is from Chile. I am Jewish.
— Like Mona. You look like her.
— Very interesting. We are both northern Europeans. I don’t know if it was because I grew up in boarding schools three thousand miles away from my parents. My father was a diplomat — neither rich, nor poor, but I grew up in boarding schools. I don’t know if it was because of that that I lost confidence in myself.
— Mona went to a boarding school in Belgium when she was four years old and it was a boys school and the Beechnut girl and Mona were the only girls. Mona suffered because her mother never sent her Christmas gifts so the school had to give her a plain ol’ dictionary wrapped up so she wouldn’t be the only one without a gift but everybody knew it was just a plain ol’ dictionary. One year, her brother Benny got a sled. Mona got all excited thinking she’d get a sled. No such luck, just another plain ol’ dictionary. And she had to see all the boys receiving the holy communion, and she used to wonder: