Carmen Read online

  FRASQUITA

  And suddenly all the streets with the empty food wrappers and the potholes and the garbage will disappear and you’ll be in a gleaming white castle on a hill far away.…

  CARMEN

  It could happen. I feel it in my bones. There’s something about him, something that draws me to him. That excites me, too. You don’t like him?

  MERCEDES

  I guess he’s all right. I like men, too, but I only like them for a little while. Two weeks, three, unless there’s a holiday coming up. You have to stay with them through the holidays.

  CARMEN

  He makes me feel like a schoolgirl again.

  MERCEDES

  That’s good to you? Why? I don’t remember you doing any dancing on the way to school.

  CARMEN

  You’re getting to be too hard.

  FRASQUITA

  Or you’re getting to be too soft!

  CARMEN

  Maybe, Frasquita. Maybe I’m too soft and he’s too romantic. I know.

  MERCEDES

  Your head knows, but your heart is too crazy to listen.

  FRASQUITA

  You got to be careful, homegirl. You open your heart, and it’s more dangerous than opening your legs.

  CARMEN

  What don’t I know?

  MERCEDES

  (resigned)

  It’s wonderful, Carmen. Good luck with this dude.

  FRASQUITA

  Yeah, it’s wonderful.

  The three girls, knowing what a momentous decision CARMEN is making, embrace one another.

  On the small stage, a guitarist picks up his instrument and slowly plucks the same “Destiny Theme” we heard earlier.

  MERCEDES

  Whoa! What is that tune? Is there a funeral? Play something with life to it!

  The guitarist quickly switches to something much livelier. Several patrons enter, including GERALDO, OFFICER SHEA, and SERGEANT ZUNIGA.

  GERALDO

  Cold drinks for the ladies over there.

  BARTENDER

  Six dollars!

  GERALDO

  Six dollars? You selling blood? What do you mean, robbing people like that?

  ZUNIGA

  I can afford it. Three drinks for the lovely ladies.

  FRASQUITA

  Keep your drinks! I’m not thirsty.

  ZUNIGA

  They’ll keep you cool. You look like a hot mama to me.

  FRASQUITA

  And you look old and cold to me.

  ZUNIGA

  You’d be surprised, chica!

  MERCEDES

  Chica? Now you’re acting Latino? I don’t think so.

  OFFICER SHEA

  What would you like us to be?

  CARMEN

  Gone! That’s what we would like you to be.

  OFFICER SHEA

  She’s longing for José. He makes her blood boil. He’s good with these locals.

  MERCEDES

  Local? I don’t go local, but I will go loca on your skinny butt!

  ZUNIGA

  José’s a loser. We’ve got him sucking fumes on traffic duty.

  OFFICER SHEA

  He’s back on the beat today. Maybe he can find somebody else to turn loose.

  CARMEN

  (perking up)

  He’s back? Today?

  ZUNIGA

  (edging closer to CARMEN)

  Look, you can do better than that guy.

  FRASQUITA

  Man, you really think you’re hot stuff, don’t you?

  ZUNIGA

  I’ve been around. I know how to make a girl like Carmen happy. Maybe I’ll take her shopping. Bet you would like that, eh, Carmen?

  CARMEN

  Cierra el pico, man, because ain’t nothing coming out that I want to hear.

  ZUNIGA

  I know what I have to know. You’re straight street, and I know how to take care of you.

  FRASQUITA

  Go home and take care of your wife.

  MERCEDES

  (looking at her watch)

  He can’t go home yet. His wife’s boyfriend is still there having dinner.

  The girls all laugh.

  Suddenly we hear a commotion. A PATRON gets off his stool, shrugs to the crowd, and goes to the door. He looks out.

  PATRON

  It’s Escamillo!

  MERCEDES

  Here?

  FRASQUITA

  He’s going to shoot a video in the neighborhood. It was in the papers.

  ESCAMILLO enters. The one-time street rapper turned entrepreneur and film producer fits the description often ascribed to him as the richest man ever to come out of Spanish Harlem. Tall and broad-shouldered, he’s wearing a light-gray tailored Italian suit with a sky-blue shirt. Over his shoulders is a satin silver-gray cape that shimmers as he walks. As he enters, he hands his assistant, GORDITO, his walking stick and hesitates just inside the doorway as one of his bodyguards removes the cape.

  GORDITO takes center stage and begins framing film shots with his hands as ESCAMILLO leans casually against the bar.

  GORDITO

  (raps)

  Hey, Escamillo can lift this place from its obscurity

  And bring it to a place of peace and security

  With a slam bam jam that opens the dam of go and flow,

  But he needs something real to express how he feels

  As a master blaster lifting his fate above the disaster

  Of free-floating hate, and if your brain has the uplift

  To master the hard drift from grime to sublime,

  He might give you some time and… who knows?

  He puts his hand to his ear.

  MERCEDES

  Who knows?

  GORDITO

  Even a 3-D flick! Let me step aside for the pride of San Juan, Santo Domingo, México, Bogotá, and El Bronx Remembered! Escamillo!

  ESCAMILLO

  I said what? I said what? I said WHAT’S HAPPENING?

  FRASQUITA

  Yo, Escamillo! Put me in a movie. The world needs to see me.

  In the background, we hear the strains of “The Toreador Song” , rhythmic and upbeat, which continue as Escamillo speaks.

  ESCAMILLO

  (begins rapping)

  The world needs to see all of us, mis amigos. That’s what Escamillo is all about. Fighting against the invisibility of being poor, being a nobody. They don’t kill us! They don’t lynch us! They make us invisible, as if we don’t really exist! They take away our identity. At first we think it’s harmless; we just don’t see ourselves anywhere. We see shells where men should be standing; we see cartoons where our women should be. But then one day you wake up and look in the mirror, and there’s no one there looking back at you. All the dreams that held you together are gone, and all the hope you could feel is gone. You know your brain is fading fast and you feel a sense of panic.

  Invisibility sees your panic, smells your despair as it paws the ground waiting to charge across the arena, waiting to destroy you. But now ESCAMILLO has given you the warning, and you are ready to fight back. The cold steel of truth is in your hand and you get ready. Across from you, invisibility trots proudly, snorting its contempt for you.

  Okay, my people. Show me what you got!

  The club suddenly comes alive as the patrons begin to dance. The dancing ranges from salsa to a kind of street flamenco. ESCAMILLO nods approvingly as he sees the vibrant life of the community. But throughout the dancing, CARMEN sits at the far end of the bar, looking on with apparent disinterest.

  ESCAMILLO

  Yo, I see the happenings! I feel the beat! I see the beauty and feel the heat! But where are the stars in this tiny universe? Where are the sisters and brothers gonna shoot across the sky? Who’s gonna light up the firmament? Where are the heart stoppers? The hammer droppers? Yo, mamacita, I see you glowing like you knowing something spelled truth. What’s the word, little bird?

  CARMEN


  I’m not interested in your moves or your movies, Escamillo. And Hollywood is not on my to-do list.

  ESCAMILLO

  I thought you were special, and I definitely got an eye for fly.

  GORDITO

  She fades into the woodwork like yesterday’s news.

  ESCAMILLO

  No, Gordito, she ain’t fading. She’s masquerading as ordinary, but she looks dangerous to me, and you know how I flirt with a danger high. It brings out the bullfighter—the toreador—in me.

  CARMEN lifts her hands to her head, fingers pointed as if to represent horns, and struts sensuously toward ESCAMILLO, who instantly takes the challenge and goes into a bull-fighting pose. CARMEN makes three passes at ESCAMILLO, all of which he sidesteps deftly. Hands on hips, she throws her head back in laughter. Then she lifts her arms to the ceiling and swoops them down, jabbing her fingers into ESCAMILLO’s side. She and ESCAMILLO both laugh.

  GORDITO

  It’s time to go. We have to see the manager before the concert to iron out last-minute details. And there are a million dollars in these details. He wants to negotiate foreign rights and subsidiaries. We have to be there.

  ESCAMILLO

  Of course. Of course.

  (He takes his cape.)

  But I will be back for you. What is your name, angel?

  CARMEN

  Carmen. Or Carmencita. Your choice.

  ESCAMILLO

  Carmen. Carmencita. It’s all the same. You are too beautiful for words. My tongue gets excited just saying your name. I will be back for you. To everybody here: you are all invited to my concert this weekend. I’ll send fifty tickets over to

  (looks around and sees the sign above the stage)

  Lillas’s place.

  FRASQUITA

  This show is going to be good, right?

  ESCAMILLO

  The fire department is sending over a special truck, it’s going to be so hot.

  FRASQUITA

  Is it going to be on television? Because when concerts are on television, they’re usually pretty good.

  ESCAMILLO

  This won’t be good because of television, baby.

  (turning to Carmen)

  This is going to be good because of Carmen. Everything I think up I’m going to be asking myself what Carmencita’s going to be thinking about it, and then I’m going to make it even better. I’m good whenever I’m awake, but when I got somebody to inspire me, I’m knee-deep in fantastic!

  CARMEN

  You got game, and you’re running it!

  ESCAMILLO

  Your game is deeper, baby, but Escamillo’s steadily climbing on up. I think we just might reach the top together!

  CARMEN

  I’ll be there.

  ESCAMILLO

  All you need to bring is your heart and your dancing shoes. Leave the rest to Escamillo.

  ESCAMILLO and his entourage leave.

  MERCEDES

  Carmen, he was digging on you something crazy. No tengas pena just because you’re in love.

  FRASQUITA

  He can take me to Hollywood anytime he wants to, but I’m not doing nothing nasty in front of a camera.

  ZUNIGA

  (after ESCAMILLO’s people leave)

  That Escamillo’s all glitter. Nothing more. No substance. You can dress up street, but you can’t take away the stink. Let’s get out of here.

  ZUNIGA and SHEA leave.

  MERCEDES

  He’s going to go look for somebody else to hate.

  CARMEN

  He probably hates himself.

  The excitement of ESCAMILLO lingers for a while in the air, then slowly dies down as DANCAIRO and RAIMONDO enter. DANCAIRO is thin and nervous and has a teardrop tattoo under his left eye. RAIMONDO is short and heavy, with the nervous habit of hunching his shoulders as he speaks.

  RAIMONDO

  (to MERCEDES)

  We got it going. Major-league stuff all the way.

  DANCAIRO

  We can score every credit card number in the city of Pittsburgh for three hours. That’s a hundred and fifty-nine thousand names.

  RAIMONDO

  And they’re rich in Pittsburgh.

  DANCAIRO

  In three hours, we can make a fortune.

  RAIMONDO

  And since it’s all electronic, there’s no evidence.

  DANCAIRO

  No fingerprints. No DNA. Just get in and boom, boom, boom! It’ll take them three hours to figure out what’s happening and another three hours to shut the system down, and we’ll be done by then.

  RAIMONDO

  We’ve got the log-in code. All we need is two smart kids who can hack into one lousy computer to get the master password. Then we’re in and gone without even a gun drawn. Thank God for technology.

  DANCAIRO

  (to CARMEN)

  And we also need the charms of some beautiful women to keep a certain computer security chief—how do you say?—occupied!

  MERCEDES

  How much is in it for us?

  FRASQUITA

  We don’t work for nothing!

  RAIMONDO

  Fifty thousand—twenty-five thousand apiece—if the score is small.

  DANCAIRO

  I would tell you how much you would get if it is completely successful, but I can’t count that high.

  FRASQUITA

  You got us!

  RAIMONDO

  Carmen?

  MERCEDES

  She’s too much in love. With a cop!

  RAIMONDO

  No, I’m serious. Carmen, are you with us?

  CARMEN

  I’ve got stuff on my mind, Raimondo. Maybe some other time.

  RAIMONDO

  What some other time? This is once in a lifetime, sweet cheeks!

  MERCEDES

  Lighten up, Raimondo. She’s got a life, too.

  FRASQUITA

  (spots JOSÉ at the door)

  And here he is.

  JOSÉ enters. DANCAIRO and RAIMONDO back away quickly, DANCAIRO shielding his face with his hand. They both exit out of the rear door but not before RAIMONDO glances toward CARMEN and shakes his head in disbelief.

  JOSÉ

  Carmen, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. I thought you were going to be home.

  CARMEN

  Too hot in there. I got home last night and a mouse was sitting in the refrigerator!

  JOSÉ

  A mouse? Oh, that’s a joke. Right. At first I couldn’t remember the name of this place. But then I did. You’ve been on my mind all day.

  (looks around)

  Can we go somewhere?

  CARMEN

  José, I want you to meet my friends. This is Frasquita.

  FRASQUITA

  Hey, guy.

  CARMEN

  And this is Mercedes. They’re my homegirls.

  MERCEDES

  What’s happening?

  JOSÉ

  Hello.

  FRASQUITA and MERCEDES retreat to a table, and JOSÉ kisses CARMEN’s hand tenderly.

  JOSÉ

  Nice friends.

  CARMEN

  The kind that look out for you. You know what I mean?

  JOSÉ

  Yes, I do. I like loyalty in my friends.

  CARMEN

  Frasquita asked me why I’ve been talking about you so much.

  JOSÉ

  You’ve been talking about me? What did you say?

  CARMEN

  That you make me remember the girl I once was, the girl who believed in every dream that came her way, who used to roll the top of her skirts up outside of Saint Dominic’s, hoping the boys would notice her.

  JOSÉ

  You did go to Saint Dom’s.

  CARMEN

  In a way I did. I mean, it was me, but I wasn’t who I am now. I was just a little girl with wide eyes and teeny boobs. I was maybe softer inside than I am now.

  JOSÉ

  You are like
a breath of fresh air to me, Carmen. My life has been just stupid for the last few months. First it was that kid—

  CARMEN

  I know about that, José. It was in La Prensa that you shot a boy who threatened you. But I know that’s not who you are. I know that.

  JOSÉ

  It really hurt to see the things they wrote about me in the papers.

  CARMEN

  Nobody wants to hurt another person.

  JOSÉ

  The thing with the boy—it happened so fast.

  CARMEN

  The thing?

  JOSÉ

  He came out of the shadows and…

  CARMEN

  (putting her fingers on his lips)

  Don’t talk about it.

  JOSÉ

  I’ve been really depressed since it happened. I can’t sleep.

  CARMEN

  Let’s talk about us.

  JOSÉ

  Last night I tried to make my mind blank, just not think about anything. Then, in the morning, the air was all still and I reached over to get a glass of water and my hand touched the flower you gave me. You remember the flower?

  CARMEN

  You kept it? All this time?

  JOSÉ

  And suddenly the flower was more than just a flower. It was a promise that your soul had made to mine. I put the light on and took it in my hand, and the lightness of it just spoke of you. I put it to my lips and I could smell it, and it was as if you were near.

  CARMEN

  You speak very well, José. I’ve never been that good with words. They seem to only get in my way.

  JOSÉ

  Words are only tools, Carmen.

  CARMEN, somewhat unsure of what JOSÉ is saying, stands and moves awkwardly away from him. He reaches for her and takes her wrist, and she turns to face him.

  CARMEN

  Dancing is a tool, too. Let me dance for you!

  JOSÉ

  Dance?

  CARMEN

  (brightly, changing the mood)

  Yes, you’re the hero that kept me out of the slammer, and I’ll dance in your honor!

  CARMEN begins to dance for JOSÉ. From time to time, he reaches for her swirling figure, but she moves away from him.

  CARMEN

  Look at me! Giddy as a schoolgirl. My body wants to move!

  JOSÉ

  You move your body, but you’ve captured my soul. We’ll be together from this moment on. From this very moment. Promise me. As the flower promised me.

  CARMEN

  (stops dancing and looks at JOSÉ)

  José, my friends say that I’m taking a big risk.

  JOSÉ

  Take it, Carmen. I’m offering you my life.

  CARMEN

  (turning slightly away from JOSÉ)

  José, why do you want me?