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04:46 hrs – Habana, Cuba. I can’t sleep. Too much to think about. Jim’s a handsome fellow and I figure he’d rather spend his day fucking our creamy whores, smoke our cigars and write slimy novels instead of teach me (I read this somewhere that all therapists are blocked novelists). But I’m Castro’s last and deadliest weapon, el asesino cubano. To bring down imperialism, I must understand American from the inside. Jim gave me Hemingway to read, un escritor bianco, who wrote: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” When I inquired why I was not taught Huckleberry Finn instead of the cheesy For Whom The Bell Tolls, Jim said that Mark Twain’s sense of irony was not contemporary enough. I sensed ambiguity, which I hate. I look out the window of my hut at las putas, and I stroke my cock, and there’s no ambiguity there. Ambiguity is the death of the revolution. Long live El Máximo Líder, chupame ahora. |
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EL ASESINO by Marcus Speh
Filed under Marcus Speh
Well now I am seriously pissed off! “I sensed ambiguity, which I hate.” Why did I not think of that line myself?! Anyway, I liked this story a lot, transported me back to Cuba – never been there in person, though was there in a book, and perhaps in a film I saw once (in Berlin?) – and it made me wonder, if in fact, all therapists are really constipated novelists? Food for thought … as all your stories are, Marcus …
thank you, matt. i’m sorry to not have left this line for you. isn’t ambiguity just great…i must have channeled this piece which is kinkier than i’m used to (more down your dirty alley, my friend).
It’s funny and yet there’s a sense here of urgency (that goes beyond the action). Nicely done, Marcus!
thank you, susan. i always felt as if there was a much, much longer story behind this particular piece. when that happens, i remain mildly dissatisfied and grumpy with the writing. know what i mean?
I’ve been rereading Papa lately, and this fits right in. Well done.
awww. i will, too, i think. just to clean the air vents. thanks, michael.
“I stroke my cock, and there’s no ambiguity there. Ambiguity is the death of the revolution.”
You blend two completely different tones beautifully in this story. Amazing!
kim, it’s the assassin’s curse, i think. thanks for noticing and commenting!
Masterfully crafted, Marcus! I am coming to expect nothing less when I read a “Speh.” How the sexual details are inserted (please, forgive me!) work perfectly in this short short.
I cannot pretend to have read lots and lots and lots of Marcus’s work, but n most of what I have read, there is a great undercurrent of sex, which is why it so often appeals to me
matt, you’re on to me. go away ;-)
thank you so much, robert. penetrating comment. at least you said “inserted”.
Perfect ending. Heh.
No ambiguity there, indeed! This was a lot of fun, would probably be even more so if I wasn’t too lazy to translate the Spanish. What a great combination of elements; delusion, conspiracy, and sex.
thank thee both, Elizabeth and Al. Sorry for the Spanish – it seemed to fit. This would upset me too in a story if I felt as if I had to translate. The ancients weren’t so picky: I think 14% of Tolstoy’s War and Peace was (untranslated) French.
Definitely works better untranslated.
The Spanish three me a bit but wow!
enjoyed the ambiguity :)
and today in facebook, a talk about classic novels waiting to be read, and someone mentioned “Twain”, in a cross-over of fiction and reality.
“Historias del subdesarrollo” has a scene where the protaganist goes to Hemingway’s Cuban place and similarly dismisses Hemingway. The Papa putdown seems to be a necessary move in this context.
My Spanish is not good, but i had no problems here. Anyone with a halfway dirty mind should understand.
And come to think of it, Che Guevara’s Bolivian diaries remind me of Hemingway’s Michigan stories.
Well. Fanning self. Very much like the layers here, and the way you poke in the sexual bits quite appealing. Peace…
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thanks everyone. the entire 24 hours at christmas day cycle from which this is taken will now be published in the metazen christmas book 2010: http://www.metazen.ca/?p=5529/