The bags of potato chips and the cans of ginger ale are handed out. There’s talk, the clinking of ginger ale cans, an air of muted celebration. In a few minutes they’ll sidle up to Felix one by one and cough up some form of bashful thanks.
It’s what happens at these parties, every time. That, plus the opening of the chip bags and the swift pocketing of the cigarettes.
The number of cigarettes in each bag is the same, and why not? They’ve all done so well. Once Felix is out of sight, the bargaining and trading will begin: cigarettes are an unofficial currency, desirable for bribes and the obtaining of goods and favors.
“Not my usual brand,” says Bent Pencil. Chuckles: everyone knows he doesn’t smoke.
“If there’s a hole in one end and fire at the other, I smoke it,” says Red Coyote.
Shiv: “You’re talking about my woman.” Laughter.
“Yeah, but which end is which?” More laughter. “Sorry, Anne-Marie.”
“Watch it,” says Anne-Marie. “Don’t forget, I’ve got that goddess power.”
“By the way, well done, Anne-Marie,” says Felix. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“You always say magic should be unpredictable,” says Anne-Marie. “I wanted
to surprise you.”
“And you did,” says Felix.
“We’re really grateful to you. Me and Freddie. It’s—”
“No need for gratitude,” says Felix. “I was pleased to help out.”
“We got a surprise for you too,” says Leggs, who has ambled over to join them.
“Oh?” says Felix. “What kind of surprise?”
“It’s an extra number we wrote,” says Leggs. “Me and the Hag-Seeds. We all wrote it together. We’re working on, like, a musical.”
“A musical?” says Anne-Marie. “About Caliban?”
“Yeah, about what happens after the play’s over. Doing that report got us thinking: why shouldn’t Caliban have a play to himself?”
“Go on,” says Felix.
“Okay, so, it begins at the part where Stephano and Trinculo put him in a cage and show him off for money. But in the musical, he gets out of the cage. That’s this number we did—where he gets out, and he says he’s not doing any more slave work or living in a cage.”
Boom boom boom, the Hag-Seeds start the beat. Leggs chants:
Freedom, high-day! High-day, freedom! Freedom, high-day,
freedom!
Got outta my cage, now I’m in a rage—
No more dams I’ll make for fish,
Nor fetch in firing
At requiring,
Nor scrape trenchering, nor wash dish;
Ain’t gonna any more lick your feet
Or walk behind you on the street, Ain’t gonna get on the back of the bus, And you can give our land right back to us!
Ban-ban, Ca-Caliban, Don’t need no master, I am not your man!
So stuff it up your hole, gimme back what you stole, Tellin’ you it’s late, I’m fillin’ up with rage, I’m gettin’ all set to go on a ram-page!
Ain’t gonna work for less than minimum wage— Live in a shack and piss in a pail, You earn yourself money by puttin’ me in jail!
You kick me in the head, you dump me in the snow,
You kick me in the head, you dump me in the snow,
Leave me there for dead,
’Cause I’m nothin’ to you.
Ban, ban, Ca-Caliban, You think I’m an animal, not even a man!
Now Hag-Seed’s black and Hag-Seed’s brown, Hag-Seed’s red, don’t care if you frown, Hag-Seed’s yellow and Hag-Seed’s trash white, He goes by a lotta names, he’s roamin’ in the night, You treated him bad, now he’s a sackful of fright, Hag-Seed!
Ban, ban, Ca-Caliban, Don’t need no master, I am not your man!
Move it, man! Let it go, let it flow— Don’t need no, need no, need no! No no no!
“That’s powerful,” says Felix. “Very powerful.”
“More than powerful!” says Anne-Marie. “It’s got—it could be really—but what happens after he escapes from the cage?”
“We figure he might go after everyone who used to treat him in such a bad way,” says Leggs. “Do a whole revenge thing, sort of like Rambo. Pick them off one by one, beginning with Stephano and Trinculo.”
“What about Prospero?” says Felix.
“And Miranda?” says Anne-Marie.
“Maybe they’re not in the musical,” says Leggs. “Or maybe they are. Maybe Caliban forgives them. Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe stalks them, jumps them, goes to work with his claws. We’re still working on it.”
Felix is intrigued: Caliban has escaped the play. He’s escaped from Prospero, like a shadow detaching itself from its body and skulking off on its own. Now there’s no one to restrain him. Will Prospero be spared, or will retribution climb in through his window one dark night and cut his weasand? Felix wonders.
Gingerly, he feels his neck.
“Think you’d maybe direct it, Mr. Duke?” says Leggs. “When we get it done?
You’d be, like, our first choice.” He smiles shyly.
“If I’m still alive,” says Felix. He’s absurdly pleased by the offer, though of course this will never happen. Or will it? “It’s possible. You never know.”
