Let’s begin here, in Henry and Lucia’s bedroom, they’re feeling each other up, experimenting with Doctor Vishnu's prescribed Tantric sex.
Tantric sex, noncoital contact work exercised to achieve mindfulness, breath-work, prolonged eye contact, deep emersion. The goal of Tantric sex is to facilitate the transmission of sexual energy between two willing participants to heal oneself by dissolving negative personality traits such as—
- dishonesty
- disloyalty
- unkindness
- meanness
- rudeness
- disrespectfulness
- impatience
- greediness
- abrasiveness
- pessimism
- cruelty
- unmercifulness
- narcissism
- obnoxiousness
- maliciousness
- pettiness
A snake pit of isms and nesses, fat words, plenty to go around.
Henry and Lucia took the oath when it came to disloyalty, disrespectfulness, and pessimism.
They were Disrespectful and disloyal, casting a cool eye towards social institutions, or patterns of beliefs and behaviors focused on meeting social needs, such as government, education, family, healthcare, religion, and the economy.
Pessimistic about the future.
It’s mid-morning in Key West. The couple’s in the backyard, tripping the cosmic highway, waist-deep in a hot tub, drinking Cuban beer mixed with Clamato. Lucia reminds Henry,
darling, we have a meeting at the Center for a Stateless Society at three.
Yeah, let’s eat,
si muñeca.
The freak couple’s raven locks bluster unscrupulously. Later, at the mall, they park and walk to Goldman's Deli.
Sears Town Shopping Center isn’t much, just a strip mall, but, Conches love the retro, single-story, blushing color mall because it's filled with stores they love— Taco Bell, Radio Shack, Orange Julius, Red Owl, Banana Republic, and of course Sears & Roebuck.
The main draw for Henry and Lucia is Goldmans Deli, the only authentic deli in the Keys, a reproduction of a Brooklyn Deli.
Inside, at a table, they stare at the condiment tray and a half-gallon stainless steel bucket of Kosher pickles.
The owner, Pinkus Goldman, comes to their table. He has a white shirt on, open at the collar, an apron, and is bald. He greets the couple,
good to see yous people, how bout the Libertarian meeting, ya goin?
How’d ya know Pinka?
I’m a member,
Yeah, we’re goin.
Better eat then, whataya have? Henry orders,
let’s see? How bout a corn beef sandwich, lean, a bowl of matzo ball soup, noodle kugel, cole slaw, and ah, a malted egg soda.
The couple's peckish, they eat off of each other's plates.
When they're full they pay Pinky’s wife, Golden Goldman. She's smiling, sitting cross-legged behind the cashier's station.
The next stop is The People for a Stateless Society in the Anchors Away Club.
They walks up the fire steps to the third floor where they're greeted by Edgar Shankman at room thirty— a champion of the Libertarian cause who’s happy to see them saying,
welcome Libertarians.
Inside there’s a circular row of folding chairs facing inwards. The room feels like a third-floor living room— ten people have shown, later, every seat is taken. The group is telling jokes and laughing.
Edgar Shankman is chair, he opens the meeting saying,
hello, people, welcome to the monthly Libertarian free for all meeting. Please, only one person can speak at a time. The meeting is over when there’s nothing left to say.
A middle-aged white woman, who looks like a librarian speaks first.
Libertarianism is an express view of political philosophy. We value individual freedom and we believe this justifies strong protections for individual freedom. We believe in the rights of others. And most obviously, people should refrain from violating the rights of others. Libertarians strongly endorse, drug decriminalization, freedom of sexual choice, and oppose most military interventions.
Edgar Shankman says,
amen sister, you said a mouthful.
Lucia whispers in Henry’s ear,
the señora mayor, she’s smart, but her share was memorized, espontáneo is better. Pinkus Goldman speaks up,
I’m a Jew and a Libertarian, but a Libertarian first. I need what we have here, the unity of purpose and support you all give me, it's grounding and it gives me hope.
Lucia jumps in,
I'm from Cuba so I adore freedom. It's no fun living in Cuba, it's a derelict place. Gracias a Dios, Henry got me out. Cubanos are afraid to talk about Libertarianism, but Gringos are free to say what they want, gracias a Dios.
Attendees nod their heads and some say Amen. Henry, who’s uncomfortable with the heady, ethereal shares says,
Enough with the civics and staged speeches, political parleys engender hesitancy and consternation. We can talk ourselves blue, but a single idiom that brings peace is better than a thousand words.
There are a few minutes of silence— the minutes hover on the ceiling, longer than usual.
Edgar Shankman jumps in saying,
Fellow Libertarians, we have found the end, or it has found us. We’ll close the meeting in the usual way, with some selected Libertarian adages.
Communities don't have rights. Only individuals in the community have rights.
The libertarian worship of individual freedom, and contempt for social convention, comes easiest to people who have never really had to grow up.
Then Shankman calls it day saying,
drinks at the Moon Dog Cafe.
Henry and Lucia skip the after-party, riding home on their Vespa. Their hungry so they order a Mediterranean Pizza and boiled artichokes spritzed with Key Lime butter.
They camp on the living room sofa with the Chis. The doorbell rings, its the delivery guy, Fritz, from Italian Kitchens who says,
the Lucowskis, local literatus. The za’s sprinkled with bush, you'll love it.
great— Henry pays Fritz, taking the goods from Fritz, placing the square pizza box and cardboard buckets of artichokes on the sofa table in front of the TV. Lucia brings a pitcher of rum cocas and a couple of cocktail glasses.
The moony couple eats with their hands— surrendering to the run the wet artichokes drip.
Henry picks up the remote, turns on the TV, and says,
the more pizza I eat the higher I get. Is there a concert on?
They have cable TV, the premium package. He presses the CH button on the remote, landing on the opening scene of the film— Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.
Virginia Woolf was a British writer who pioneered stream of consciousness writing and the exhaustive study of a character’s emotions and psycho-motives. Dame Woolf suffered from psychosis and eventually commented suicide.
Unlike the central characters in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, George and Martha, played brilliantly by Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, Virginia Woolf had a happy and loving marriage to Leonard Woolf.
Lucia brings in another pitcher of rum cocos.
No one knows how it happened, but, George and Martha got their names from the seventeenth century Washingtons and lived on the campus of a New Carthage, Massachusetts college.
George is a history professor and Martha thinks he is a failure, he has been teaching college in New Carthage for years and still wasn’t a dean.
Martha would often remind George of his failures, alone or in front of others. Mostly, George’s career failure and another topic, their dead son.
As the film opens the couple is already half in the bag, waiting at home for Nick and Honey, played by George Segal and Sandy Dennis, to show for a drink.
Nick is a new science professor at the college. The young couple’s naivety and niceness are in contrast to George and Martha’s jaded spitefulness.
The first act is Fun And Games. Nick and Honey show at George and Martha's house, walking unknowingly onto the battlefield.
As they sit on the sofa, the older couple is pushing drinks on them.
George and Martha use Honey and Nick as pawns, transforming their guests into an audience to witness humiliation, whipping the green-eyed monster as they express their own sides of their mutual story.
Eventually, Martha comes on to Nick and the two go upstairs to have sex. Nick was very loaded and he wanted to impress Martha because her father was president of the university.
Unfortunately, he couldn't get it up for Martha and self-loathing Martha really lets him have it from then on.
While the two were upstairs trying to get it on, George was alone with Honey who is unaware that her husband is upstairs with Martha, thinking he just went upstairs to take a catnap. When George tells her what is really going on, Honey who has had too much to drink throws up all over the sofa.
When Nick comes downstairs the young couple goes home, mentally beat and wondering what the fuck happened?
In the last scene, The Exorcism, George and Martha are sitting alone at home and they begin talking about their dead son. Well, it turns out he isn’t dead, he is just an illusion the couple uses as part of their twisted love game.
George announces he is killing talk of their dead son and they will have to get along by simply loving each other without the illusion.
In life, things tend to evaporate— the mystical couple, George and Martha, are falling apart again, back in the pits slugging it out.
Lucia cries when the short film is over saying to Henry,
it’s the film, it's muy depresiva. It’s about real-life maybe, we’ll forget it in the morning, I'm going to bed querido, I love you.