Cuba 15 Read online

  “I can explain everything, Officers,” I said, holding out my hands to accept the cuffs. “Just take me away, please!”

  After a whirlwind trial, I was sentenced to life in prison for belonging to such a notorious family. The ending bit was me, gripping the bars of an imaginary cell, contemplating my future confinement. My whole family shared the same cell.

  “I know there’s no hope of ever being released. But maybe,” my character hoped, “just maybe, with my record for good behavior . . . they’ll put me in solitary!” The end.

  I only faltered a little at the beginning, and I remembered nearly all my lines. Mr. Soloman gave me a hand and said, “A few more run-throughs and some practice on your focus, and you’ll be ready for Saturday. Then we can see how you stack up against the competition.”

  I gave him a bogus confident smile. “You’ve heard of Seinfeld? Chris Rock? Rosie O’Donnell?”

  My coach rubbed his chin. “Who’re they?”

  I nodded. “That’s what the judges’ll be saying when they see my act.” I scooped my books together and got ready to go.

  Mr. Soloman clapped me on the back. “I like your style, kid. Make sure you get a good night’s sleep before the tournament. And practice like crazy. And—”

  “I know, I know. Kick ass!”

  Mr. Soloman squinted at me through his raccoon-style glasses. “I was just going to tell you to wear matching socks.”

  I gave him a withering look and jammed out of there.

  I nearly ran past Clarence Williams.

  “Hey, Violet!”

  He was out in the hall with another Extemper, a serious-looking guy who said hi and bye and hurried away with a stack of Newsweeks.

  “Doesn’t he talk to females?” I asked.

  “Greg doesn’t talk to anybody when he’s on a trail.”

  “Huh?”

  “That’s what he calls his train of thought, Extemp-wise. Mental flash cards. He just made me give him a topic, and now he’s like a hound on the trail.”

  “What was the topic?”

  He showed me some teeth. “U.S.-Israeli foreign policy, the early years.”

  “Sounds like a breeze.”

  “Yeah, no sweat.”

  Clarence seemed taller than he had before. Then I realized I’d never seen him standing. He had on jeans and a long-sleeved red Chicago Bulls T-shirt and cross-trainers that had been scrubbed their whitest with a toothbrush recently.

  “I missed you at the last team meeting,” I said. “What happened?”

  “Dentist.”

  When he said it, I noticed how very white his teeth were. “What are you doing here? Don’t you Extempers guys just practice in a dark closet with a tape recorder?”

  He laughed. “You’d be surprised how much acting is involved. Mainly, it’s composure. But for me, that’s acting!”

  I knew what he meant. “Yeah!” I laughed weakly. “I hope I don’t melt into a puddle on the floor in front of the judges.”

  Clarence shook his head. “It’s all in the attitude. You put on your game face. And don’t forget the sugar cubes.”

  “Sugar cubes?”

  “Just bring some. You’ll see.” He picked up his pack and the Extemp file box from the floor. “I’ve got practice with Axelrod now. I’ll see you Saturday.”

  Indeed, he was the first person I saw at school on Saturday. At the crack of 7:30, we were the first two on the curb, waiting for the bus and the team to show up. Clarence wore a lightweight gray suit, double-breasted, plus a light pink shirt, silver tie, and shiny black shoes. In short, he was styling. I felt underdressed in khakis and a knit top.

  By 7:45, Janell, Leda, and the rest of the team had materialized, plus Ms. Joyner and Mr. Soloman. “The Ax never attends the early tourneys,” Clarence had explained, as though these were beneath the head coach. Mr. Soloman gave me a thumbs-up from the front of the bus, which I returned, glad he was along.

  The bus was hushed as we crossed the Lincolnville city limits. We hit the expressway and drove awhile, past the famous lip-shaped Magikist sign near the airport, bound for the far suburbs they call “the land beyond O’Hare.” One thousand nine hundred eighty-seven, I thought. I had started counting the number of times I passed the Magikist sign when I was, like, five.

  Then kids started to go over their lines. But did they practice together? No. Those working on their delivery faced their reflections in the bus windows and rehearsed out loud, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions.

  Soon a low babel of voices intertwined—some earnest, some grave, some in Brooklyn or French or Tennessee Williams Southern accents—rising and falling with an urgency born of fear and too little sleep the night before. Motorists who happened to glance at our bus that morning saw what must have resembled a rolling insane asylum for deranged thespians. If their car windows were open, they might have heard the odd “I have a dream” mixed with “Stella!”

  But on board the bus, the speechies acted like this was normal, so I gave it a try. You can never memorize anything too well.

  We pulled into the parking lot of Taylor Park High School, and my entire O.C. speech momentarily dematerialized from my mind. As we got off the bus and people greeted friends and pointed out old nemeses, the lines came floating back, and I frantically whispered my opening over and over again. Janell and Leda tried to tell me about some TV show they’d seen, but I shook them off.

  “The story you are about to hear is true. The story you are about to hear is true. . . .”

  They both looked at me like I was nuts, but I had already learned my lesson in the bus window. You can never memorize anything too well.

  18

  Teams formed little outposts in the Taylor Park High cafeteria, hunkering down with their folders and lunches until time for rounds to begin. I thought if you connected the dots between school clusters, you’d get a weird map of the entire Chicago suburbs.

  The competition schedule and room numbers for the different events were scribbled in blue marker on poster boards displayed near the cafeteria door. I left my stuff with the coaches at the Tri-Dist table and went to check the schedule for Original Comedy. My first round began . . . right away! In five minutes! Depending on the event, rounds were staggered. Leda had an early round too, but Janell’s didn’t start for an hour. I would have a whole two hours and fifteen minutes to get nervous before my second round. I saw that my O.C. teammate, Vera Campbell, would be in that round with me. Or against me.

  How did this team thing work again?

  I dashed back to the table for my folder and was about to bolt for the door when Clarence stepped in front of me.

  “Sorry, Clarence—I’ve gotta go! My first round’s in . . . three minutes! And I don’t know where anything is!”

  Clarence, looking cool and composed in his gray suit, took both my shoulders in his hands. “Take a deep breath, Violet. What’s your room number?”

  “Two-fourteen.”

  He let go. “That’s upstairs, third door on your left.”

  I looked at him with openmouthed wonder.

  “My brothers, remember? Years of competition.” He grinned and fished in his suit pocket, placing a small, square object in my palm. A sugar cube. “For a boost, right before your round.”

  I stared at him. I’d forgotten about the sugar cubes. “Thanks,” I whispered. Then I ran for the stairs.

  “The story you are about to hear is true. . . . The story you are about to hear is true. . . .” I stuck the sugar cube in my mouth. Yuck. Mom would kill me if she knew I was eating pure, unadulterated sugar, without even any food coloring to dilute it.

  “Violet Paz,” called a man as I slipped into a seat near the back of Room 214. About a dozen kids I didn’t know sat there quietly already.

  “Here,” I said.

  The judge didn’t continue the roll call. “Okay, Violet. You’re on,” he prompted.

  Now?

  I rose and forced myself to walk slowly to the fro
nt of the room. A lectern and a transparency projector had been pushed aside to create a few square feet of stage. Facing the audience, I dropped my eyes and took a breath. Then I made eye contact and began.

  “The story you are about to hear is true. None of the names have been changed, because no one is innocent. . . .”

  My mind raced at first—probably from the sugar cube— but when I found myself nailing my lines, I sort of let go. Used the Force. I even heard a laugh during the police scene, though I couldn’t tell where it came from.

  “Maybe, just maybe . . . they’ll put me in solitary confinement!”

  I held my gaze steady, then dropped it.

  The applause came. Well, scattered clapping from a dozen sleepy people. That was good enough for me. I sat down.

  “Way to go,” came a whisper from behind me. I turned to find Janell cheering me on; it was okay to visit other people’s rounds in between your own.

  I nodded at her. A warm glow returned, and it wasn’t the sugar cube this time.

  We kicked back and watched the rest of the O.C.s. It felt great to have mine over and done with, especially when I watched a tense guy with curly blond hair and an ill-fitting three-piece suit rock back and forth as he spoke, trying to physically force the lines out. His routine was about driver’s ed, only it wasn’t funny. The only laughs came when he popped a button on his vest.

  Among a few more unmemorable shticks, one guy named George somebody made everyone laugh, and you could tell some of the competitors tried hard not to. He did a spoof of a radio talk show, called “Dr. Speak Easy,” in which he did the voices of all the callers plus the crackpot psychologist host.

  “He’s good,” Janell said to me afterward, walking down the hall.

  “Too good,” I agreed.

  “But you were right up there.”

  Mr. Soloman was holding the fort at our cafeteria table. “How’d it go?”

  I smiled. “Pretty good, Coach. I got a laugh.”

  He beamed back. “That’s how Johnny Carson got started.”

  I didn’t feel like sitting still. Janell wanted to rehearse before her turn, so I polished off my half-empty bottle of juice and left to wander the halls.

  Speechies roamed alone and in small knots, muttering lines or talking boisterously to one another:

  “This tournament’s running ahead of schedule.”

  “I know you from somewhere. What’s your name? I’m one of Trish’s friends. . . .”

  “Something in the lockers smells like bad b.o.!”

  I moved past a storage room labeled EXTEMP PREP with a construction-paper sign. Those who had drawn their topics were sequestered inside. Not a sound slipped from behind the closed door, its square window emitting a glare of fluorescent light. Outside, two white-shirted Extempers argued.

  “Invariably, I’m wrong if I take a stance,” said one of them.

  “But remain objective and you’ve got no point,” complained the other, a girl dressed just like the guys, in suit pants and tie, the latter of which she fiddled with tellingly.

  I smiled; composure was an act for everyone, not just Clarence.

  When I saw someone else from my team, we waved or gave each other the I-know-you look. I peeked into one of the duet rounds through the window in the door and could tell by the cadence and volume of the performers’ voices that it was a humorous piece. Duet looked like fun; maybe shared stage fright was easier to take. I realized that, luckily, I hadn’t had time to fall apart before my O.C., thanks to being called first. That was good to know.

  Janell had asked me not to go to her rounds; she wasn’t ready for an audience yet.

  “But what about the judge and all the other Verse kids?”

  She wrinkled her nose and said, “It’s different when it’s someone you know.”

  For me, it’s strangers, but I wasn’t about to argue with her. Everyone has their own stuff.

  Janell and I rendezvoused with Leda during the lunch break. From the noise in the cafeteria, it sounded like everybody was full of adrenaline. Or sugar cubes. Leda and Janell said their rounds had been scary, and they didn’t think they’d done very well. “Even though,” Leda added, “mine was the best oration.”

  Clarence didn’t show for lunch, but neither did the other Extempers from our team. I saw Ms. Joyner carry three brown-bag lunches in the direction of the prep room, and that mystery was solved.

  I chewed my own cheese sandwich, though my taste buds would have no recollection of the event, and opened a bottle of sparkling water.

  “Tut, tut,” Leda tutted at me. “Wrong brand, darling.” She jerked her head at a nearby table where everyone was drinking from liters of Evian.

  I’d seen kids carrying them through the halls between rounds, cradled like infants. “What school is that?” I asked.

  “Evian High,” Janell dubbed it, and we cracked up.

  I felt pretty good going into Round Two, even had time to saunter casually up to my room, 215, which I figured would be right next to 214.

  Wrong. Next to Room 214 was the guys’ bathroom, and next to that were a bunch of locked offices. I ran the length of the building to the other end of the hall and arrived, dripping, just as the O.C. judge asked a student to shut the door.

  All eyes in the room locked on me as I slid past her and into a seat.

  “Violet Paz?” called the judge.

  Incredible. And I didn’t have another sugar cube.

  I walked to the front, feeling a sweatball roll down my back, paused, and began.

  I seemed to be a step behind my routine all the way through. My lines were shakier. I messed up the domino part and skipped the conga line, so the roast catching on fire didn’t make any sense and the cops showing up seemed tacked on to the ending. Then I stumbled over the last line, and when I finished, the audience wasn’t sure it was over. I practically had to say “the end” before they dismissed me with their cold-fish clapping.

  My heart sank into my stomach during the other performances. As a double insult, my teammate Vera went on right after me and did great. Vera was dressed in her Sunday best, including stockings and pumps, which seemed overblown until you saw her act. The costume fit right in with her one-woman monologue, a diatribe by an aged “Miss Sippy,” a country transplant to the city who rails on every aspect of Chicago life but refuses to leave. Miss Sippy was blunt, but she managed to evoke the cold reality of a wait at the bus stop in a January blizzard and the smell of the subway that comes up through the city sidewalk vents in July. Her stock complaint was: “You call that livin’?”

  The sketch ended with Miss Sippy deciding to move back to the country, until she heard there was no bus service there. “No CTA? I got to get to all the places I can’t stand to be in. No CTA? You call that livin’?”

  She brought the house down, which was a tall order for ten kids in dress clothes and a teacher playing judge on her day off. Even the girl in the third row from Evian High was laughing. Vera got a huge hand.

  “Good going,” I said to her afterward, meaning it. I was really glad The Ax had chosen comedy for me. If I had to lose to somebody, it was nice to be able to laugh while they were beating me.

  When the final-round postings appeared in place of the earlier schedules, I was crushed. Neither Vera nor I was included. Only two of our team members made finals, Zeno Clark and Greg Ibarra, Clarence’s Extemp buddy.

  The Extemporaneous Speaking final was closed to spectators, district rules, so most of us crowded into Zeno’s final round. This year, The Ax had him working on a scene from a new version of Dracula.

  Zeno’s Dracula was extremely creepy in his normalcy, and nobody else had picked such a cool excerpt. We weren’t surprised to hear Zeno called to take the Dramatic Interp trophy at the awards ceremony, a casual affair that took place on a portable riser in a corner of the cafeteria. A few cheers went up, rules notwithstanding, and mine was one of them. Greg Ibarra came in sixth, or last of the finalists in Extemp, but we all cla
pped just as hard for him. Dr. Speak Easy won the O.C. event.

  Forestfield High School took the team trophy; they’d had six finalists. Leda punched me when all six of them trooped up to accept the trophy, raising their water bottles in victory.

  “Evian High!” she said with disgust.

  So this was how losing felt.

  The lump in my stomach settled in for the long haul as our team headed for the bus. I forgot to count the Magikist sign on the way home.

  19

  My critiques from the judges varied. I had placed third out of nine in my first round, and the judge had remarked on the sheet, “Good topic—original! How about some more dialogue?”

  In my bumbling second performance, I’d come in seventh. There had only been seven O.C.s. That meant I was worse than the guy who’d spoofed a television wrestling match, and nobody had laughed at him. The judge’s suggestion to me? “Try to memorize your lines.”

  Yes, I would. Yes, I would.

  Mr. Soloman possessed the good grace to say only, “Next time, girl,” on our way off the bus. I figured he was saving the yelling for later.

  So I was feeling low when I got home and slouched into the kitchen through the side door. Mom sat at the table, writing, while Chucho stood at his bowl, chunking down his dry food without chewing.

  “How’d you do, hon?” Mom asked me, not taking her eyes off her notebook. She was working on restaurant plans again.

  “Okay,” I said. “I came in third.” Which was true, sort of.

  “That’s nice . . .” She finished the sentence she was writing and set her WBEZ pen down. “How about this one, Violet? I was up all night thinking about it: a drive-through bakery specializing in breads.” She paused, waiting for me to ask.

  “Let me guess. ‘A Moveable Yeast’?”

  “Close, but no cigar. I call it ‘Catch ’er in the Rye’!” She waited a beat. “HA!” she prompted, and when I didn’t join in, she gave three halfhearted shakes.

  These titles were getting so bad, she should’ve been naming hair salons. I said as much, then wished I could immediately take it back when Mom replied, “Hmmm. D’you think so?”