Benjamin Jenkins

318 4th St. SE

Rugby, ND 58368
jenkinsben@hotmail.com

THE MAMBO KING

ACTS I and V

Lights up. The theater is empty. The stage is empty but for a

rectangular cardboard box (3' by 6') on a small plastic folding

table at stage center.

ACTS II and IV

Inside the box, the town of Pobrecito comes to life. VILLAGERS

appear to be readying the town for some sort of quaint

festivity: they tie on masks of skulls or of animals; they

bedeck straw-roofed homes with ribbons and garlands.

In the city square, a large feasting table is set by a dozen

BUSTLING SERVANTS. Their feet echo on the cobblestones. CHILDREN

run, laughing, beating THE GHOSTS OF DOGS with sticks.

A UNITED STATES POSTAL CARRIER enters R. Exits L.

Lights up on AUDIENCE in their own homes. AUDIENCE eat large

pieces food and prescription drugs of geometrically diverse

shapes. WOMEN give birth to strangely angry CHILDREN. Immense,

obese MEN buy boats. TELEVISION is general.

ACT III

In the box city, THE MAMBO KING enters the bell-tower of the

quaint village's basillica. He narrows his eyes. He laughs

silently to himself. He dances a soft shoe.

The THROBBING, BEATING, FLAMING, SACRED HEART OF CHRIST beats

and keens at the back of the theater.

In Pobrecito, three thousand VILLAGERS scream, run to the edge

of the city (box R.) and take up rifles, torches. SEVERAL

POLITICIANS orate. AUDIENCE spend money and go to sleep

regretting the majority of their expenditures. CHILDREN in

audience, and in Pobrecito, are bewildered but make their faces

calm.

THE MAMBO KING:(writing furiously) Over these bright lights

bungle-town mumblers, an evening, once safely dead,

progresses toward chaos. You must stop straining--you

cannot hear it. These are new pages: too white, too young.

Yet, on this dark, old street, from my perch upon this

roof, all ears unblocked by concrete could hear the

spectacle tonight: the roar, as of a drunken giant flailing

haymakers against the moon!

I did not say some will not die! I emphasize: when

festivity finds its most fevered tremolo, only the power of

human gore may push the furor’s swell to highest

exaltation!

(Though I crow with peasants, I assure you, sisters, I

do not idly regard the power of shed blood).

I possess a keen eye and a cool nerve or two. I have

seen savages paint their faces with strange brushes. I do

not denounce. I have hanged many men, still, I am no judge.

I have hanged myself from taller trees.

I should make the introduction you (I pray!) desire,

but it seems unseemly to name myself just yet.

Digressions (note the last!) are apropos of the

atmosphere of our festival. Our torch bearers in the

village streets below digress, after all, from a single

fist of mob, into a thousand wagging fingers of queues

pouring through the streets.

Streets fill with ANGRY MOB brandishing torches.

Reminiscent of molten lead, this human substance, so

thick and gray when cool, runs ember orange with fire when

heated in indignation’s flame. This elemental crowd streams

through the alleyways. It overruns the lawns and bursts the

trap ends of cul de sacs.

I like a little anarchy!

I have strummed the guitar for pious saints, but found

more mirth in playing the coronet for lepers who fling

themselves in ecstatic clumsies, threatening to toss a nose

across the dance floor and into the mayor’s soup! I’ve seen

it happen, too!

In our little town of Pobrecito, a monkey on the

streets is an intrigue! A sharp word from wife to man, a

scandal! We have no newspapers. No televisions. We write

nothing (forgive this humble note written on posterity’s

behalf to snare and cage a vivid moment in the otherwise

disposable life of our village!). Even our daughters are

raped quietly.

Are we so different, brothers? I will tell you a

secret: there is a difference neither between your cities

nor the Roman Empire nor the backwards peoples of the

little villages dotting the face of the earth with the

impudence of a pimple on the back of a beautiful woman

(both sit upon real estate better developed by the cigar-

chomping, greasy-hand grabbing of your fat finance fellows,

yes?). I love a caricature! I write one as easily as the

chaps who paint them on the town-square’s cobblestones,

yes?

We, of Pobrecito, dance and laugh and cry as you do.

I do not mind telling you, however, that I feel no

compunction to (nor respect for those who do) make people

cry. The onion brings many to tears, yet, where is our good

vegetable’s art? The world was born steeped in sorrow.

Is it wrong to love a joke--the mirth-flavored tale?

Though I have not found my refuge, per se, in mirth, I

have ever girded myself in it and sallied forth with an eye

toward your fabulous windmills, and I have stuck the lance

in a whirling blade or two (in a well-loved eye or two!)!

Look at this grand, malevolent rage upon the streets!

I feel silly. I thought a toy horn the only necessary

instrument for the job, and, stubbornly, I left the other

cases home among the dust.

The crowd roils in the streets! The crowd thunders

toward me.

Their majesty would be best greeted with a trumpet

formed of bronzed conch! Truth to tell, I did not think

them capable of earning even the leering tease of my

trombone. I have been an ass to undervalue their pomp! They

deserve the trumpet and this old dotterer has left it to

linger in elsewhere’s cobwebs.

And something else: If you were here and not humdrum,

dutifully poring over our page (you have my every

permission to stop reading!) I would be forced to

apologize. Yes, I have been a little slipshod (and too

humble, too). I have not painted every feather in the

plume. I have not named my crimes.

You (were you only here!) would notice, in the nearing

crowds, effigies (set to hot blue flame, no less!) of your

humble narrator.

Effigies hung from tall poles burst into flame.

As to my crimes: imagine whatsoever you will. It is

all true. The bodies hung from the chapel rafters; the

policemen sewn into the bellies of their horse’s corpses;

poisoned wells, cyclones and famine. The sin is mine of

interrupting the thoughtless quiet of their lives.

So I am pleased to let this end. Their passion my

gift.

From my high perch atop this bell tower I present my

dancing silhouette (my immense and quivering silhouette). I

offer it not to exhibit smug superiority, only to entice

the little ones below.

A gift of myself. To catch the flying hawk (fat and

evil though I am) nourishes the soul. To catch a mouse is

glory only to the selfsame hawk (and I have clenched a few

mice in my talons (in my sweat-slicked grip!)).

ANGRY MOB gather around basillica, set tall

ladders against walls, beat against the doors

until they shatter. ANGRY MOB enter basillica.

Ah! The staccato rapping of feet on the stairs below!

Hark! The groaning of laden ladders against the wall’s

stucco. The ladders chirp and grind, raking against the

stucco. It reminds me of the flatulence in our childhood

jokes. Toot toot toot!

Oh, sisters. Oh, brothers. I am spent. Do not be angry

with me. I need violence to spark me. I adore you all. A

better mob than the one that burned your Frankenstein down!

I will not hide from the rope. Nor the snap! My

failing bones long for this music, this last percussion.

The shudder at the end.

In my youth I lapped at these broad, dark pools. I

lapped up little quantities then tore away, shamefully

proud of myself, and returned time to time. Now it will put

me into its belly, please.

Welcome, sisters and brothers, but--please--send this

letter by post. Deliver it and me. Look for me in the

endless deep velvet of the postman’s bag.