Fidel walks in, and minus the beard he resembles his father.
"This is my closest friend, Robert."
"Jorge spoke of you last night."
"I hope he didn't exaggerate."
"No, on the contrary, I'm impressed with your family's kindness to him, his losing both parents in Mexico."
"How long have you been in the States?"
"Long enough to have met Jorge."
"But you know he was a supporter of your father."
"I was also until I saw his betrayal of my mother and my motherland."
"Fidel, do you have a family picture?"
Fidel takes out his black wallet and shows a photograph to Robert and George.
"Here we all are one big happy family. George can't really look up to my father. He has imprisoned all the intellectuals, the poets, the good people, the religious, even the gays."
"George doesn't want to hear about the real Cuba, just as he can't accept the fact of his parents' loss or my marriage. He is a perpetual adolescent."
"What's wrong with that? I am a professional dancer."
"And Jorge is a professional denier. He lives in his idealism, his dreams."
"Well, I told him last night Cuba is a nightmare."
"Doc, do you think I hide behind politics the way you hide behind God, to escape reality? Listen, Fidel."
"Imagine, you, an analyst, believe in God. I thought Freud was an atheist."
"I think for myself, Fidel. Is that really your name or your calling card or your excuse for being who you really are?"
"You don't believe me, neither of you. That's all right."
"We all have to believe we are something or somebody we are not."
"But I am Fidel."
"Robert wants to think he is my messiah."
"Guys, I'm neither a bastard of Fidel nor a Christ figure."
The sun comes through George's tiny kitchen in his Manhattan studio apartment. Under a Che Guevera poster, Robert intuitively pours dark coffee for George and Fidel.
"We don't have to reveal anything, but I don't mind. All this American shrink wants to know is the extent of our friendship. You wanted merely to embrace me as Fidel, didn't you?"
"Yes, your father was everything to me growing up. I even grew my beard like his."
"Well, well."
"Robert, don't get condescending with me. Leave that to your Beth Israel doctors."
"You know I had to undergo analysis myself."
"And did I come up in it?"
"George, does it always have to involve you? Why is it with you idealistic leftists it's always narcissism?"
"And why is it with you Dr. Zhivagos it's always to the rescue, to be messiah?"
"That was really my father, Fidel Castro. He once thought of the priesthood like Stalin or choirboy Hitler perhaps."
"You must really hate your father."
"I feel betrayed by a Stalin Hitler of a father."
"You see this is where the utopians go off the deep end; they want to play God or be God."
"Well, Doc, we can't always know God like you think you do; talk about your spiritual pride..."
"Perhaps, George, I turned to God after seeing so many patients suffering."
"Do you guys ever have fun, go out and dance?"
"Fidel, I'm disillusioned about dating bars."
"Then why did you show up last night?"
"Something different."
"You told me the bar scene last night was for sado-masochists. I won't deny it."
"Oh, this is getting interesting."
"Shut up, doc."
"What kind of a bar was it?"
"Mind your own business."
"You are my business. You are my brother."
"Not by blood."
"Yes, George, we melded our blood together when we were twelve. That was our confirmation."
"So you guys were one happy family too."
"I have my own family now and my own kid."
"But you are inseparable even so."
"You want to make it a psychological threesome, Fidel?"
"I don't mind being in a sandwich."
"Well, I do."
"Doc is a straight shooter."
"That's what you told me about yourself, Jorge. I know what you feel towards me. But maybe if it wasn't me, Fidel, next to you, you couldn't love me. I know you do."
"Prove it, Fidel."
"I don't have to. Two years ago I met a Jewish man in Buenos Aires bar named Samuel who told me he had sex with Adolph Eichmann's nephew. I knew it was true. Sam's parents survived the camps so Samuel could make love to the nephew of Eichmann."
"Why?"
"Maybe he wanted to make peace out of sado masochism. What happened to this Sam?"
"Someone told me afterwards he became Orthodox; another guy told me that he became a woman. I hear he lives in Jerusalem now."
"Maybe he's an Orthodox woman."
"Anything is possible in our parallel universe."
"What happened to Eichmann's nephew?"
"Who cares? Suicide, maybe. Samuel had to tell Eichmann he was a Jew. Who knows what drives all of us to that three-letter word."
"Fidel, or whatever your name, I like you."
"Robert loves people; they turn him on on his analytical couch."
"Is that what he does on the couch?"
"Why, what have you in mind, Fidel?"
"We men make it all into a pecker contest. And don't tell me, Robert, you are a God-fearing married man. I've heard that before in Havana, Barcelona and Buenos Aires."
"None of us have to prove anything to each other, but I think that's what we are about."
"I know why you never wanted to meet my wife. You've hurt her, George. We don't care that you didn't attend our boogie wedding uptown. My wife and her family are not into that. But that you ignore Nadia like she doesn't exist. You never even wanted to attend any of Pavel's birthday parties. You are just jealous of my relationship with my son and my wife."
"Maybe so."
"I asked you to be the best man."
"Well, I wasn't."
"Nadia feels betrayed."
"So you are Jesus and I'm Judas. Is that it, Doc?"
Fidel stares and smiles at the two men next to him.
"I asked you to go to church with me, to have some fellowship, to play basketball after church, to meet my friends."
"They're squares."
"You will always be a loner, George."
"You're a lone ranger Christian. You want to relate to the whole world but it's me you spend the most times with."
Fidel looks at the two other men. He has an off-center mustache and slouching hips.
"You are brothers."
"How can you treat Nadia as an enemy? She's a beautiful woman. She even has left messages for you. How has she offended you? Just because I love her?"
"Nadia got you to marry her, Robert."
"No, that's not true. That's your jealousy coming out, George."
"Is she a good dancer?"
Robert nods to Fidel. He starts to smile when Fidel chimes in, "I could teach her to be better."
"Fidel had the whole dance floor to himself last night. It was amazing; he was wild."
"It's my way of freedom, guys."
George turns on Afro-Cuban music.
"These are albums I got in Havana. I play them every day. I was happy there."
"I tried to pretend I was happy there."
"But, Fidel, what made you leave?"
"I wasn't free."
"George is becoming free. A year ago he wouldn't even talk to you, Fidel; he'd call you a name, worm -‘gusano’; he'd call you a pervert or a traitor to the revolution."
"Jorge?"
"Oh, yes. Wouldn't you, Georgie boy? But now that he's listening to his Cuban music with his boy Fidel..."
"You are jealous of me, Robert."
"Don't become George's boy toy. He's had hundreds of girl toys and now he wants to play around and manipulate you."
"Do you think so, Roberto?"
"I know so. He's bored with women. They all love him to death."
"So you are jealous of him, who has had so many women? You feel trapped by being married for life."
"Perhaps, Fidel, you are speaking for the devil and tempting me to turn on my friend. I won't, believe me. I made a vow to God to stand by George."
"You, Jesus and Jorge -- all the same blood?"
"Yes, it's the same."
"I feel jealous. I never had a real father or brothers. They all turned on me and called me a bastard. But there are many of Fidel's bastards around the Cuban countryside."
"I know your father is virile and know a lot about women. I have many patients at Beth Israel from whom I have learned about life, even married life."
"Roberto, you want to go out with George and I. You can bring Nadia along."
"If George won't object."
"Jorge wants to make peace, perhaps even with your wife."
"Didn't Jesus say He came with a sword?"
"And what about you, George?"
"I need to take a piss."
Robert and Fidel start to arm wrestle on the table and then to fight on the floor. Out of breath, Robert's hip gives way.
