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, 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."
As Felix is finishing his ginger ale, 8Handz, Leggs, and SnakeEye come over to him.
"There's one more thing," says SnakeEye. "About the coursework and all."
"What's that?" says Felix. What has he forgotten?
"The ninth prison," says 8Handz. "We only counted eight. Remember?"
"You said you'd tell us if we didn't guess," says Leggs.
"Oh. Yes," says Felix, gathering his scattered wits. "It doesn't come out all that well for Prospero at the end, does it? He gets his dukedom back, but he's not very interested in it any more. So he wins, but he also loses. Most importantly, he loses the two beings he loves: Miranda, who is now paired with Ferdinand and will live far away in Naples; and Ariel, who leaves Prospero's service without even a backward glance. Prospero will miss him, but Ariel himself shows no sign of missing Prospero: he's happy to be free. The only one who might stick with Prospero is Caliban, hardly a big treat. Still, why would Prospero need him, now that he's leaving the island? He will have other servants back in Milan. Maybe he'll take the thing of darkness with him out of some feeling of responsibility: it's his, not anybody else's. But at this moment Prospero's feeling guilty about a different thing."
"Where do you get all that?" says Leggs. "About him feeling guilty?"
"It's here," says Felix, rooting through his playbook. "He says, 'Let me not dwell / In this bare island by your spell.' Prospero has undone his charms and is about to break his magic staff and drown his book, so he can't perform any more magic. The spell is now controlled by the audience, he says: unless they vote the play a success by clapping and cheering, Prospero will stay imprisoned on the island.
"Then he says he also wants them to pray for him. He says: 'And my ending is despair, / Unless I be relieved by prayer, Which pierces so that it assaults Mercy itself, and frees all faults.' In other words, he wants a divine pardon. The last lines of the play are 'As you from crimes would pardoned be, / Let your indulgence set me free.' It has a double meaning."
"Yes, it's in the notes," says Bent Pencil.
"I forget that part," says SnakeEye.
"An indulgence was a get-out-of-hell-free card," says Felix. "You could buy those once."
"Still can," says SnakeEye. "It's called a fine."
"It's called bail," says Leggs. "Only that's not free, right?"
"It's called early parole," says 8Handz. "Only you don't pay for that. You're supposed to kind of earn it."
"What was the guilty thing?" says Anne-Marie. "What's Prospero done that's so terrible?"
"Indeed, what?" Felix asks rhetorically. More of the cast have gathered around. "He doesn't tell us. It's one more puzzle in the play. But The Tempest is a play about a man producing a play--one that's come out of his own head, his 'fancies'--so maybe the fault for which he needs to be pardoned is the play itself."
"Elegant," says Anne-Marie.
"I don't get this," says SnakeEye. "A play's not a crime."
"A sin," says Felix. "Not a legal lapse. A moral one."
"
I still don't," says SnakeEye.
"All those vengeful emotions? All the anger?" says Felix. "Making other people suffer?"
"Well, yeah, maybe," says SnakeEye.
"Okay, but what about the ninth prison?" says 8Handz.
"It's in the Epilogue," says Felix. "Prospero says to the audience, in effect, Unless you help me sail away, I'll have to stay on the island--that is, he'll be under an enchantment. He'll be forced to re-enact his feelings of revenge, over and over. It would be like hell."
"I saw a horror movie like that," says 8Handz. "On Rotten Tomatoes."
"The last three words in the play are 'set me free,' " says Felix. "You don't say 'set me free' unless you're not free. Prospero is a prisoner inside the play he himself has composed. There you have it: the ninth prison is the play itself."
"Okay, cool," says 8Handz. "That's neat."
"Crafty," says Anne-Marie.
"I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced," says Bent Pencil.
"What play're we doing next year?" says Shiv. "You're coming back, right? We saved the program?"
"I promise you there will be a play next year," says Felix. "That's what we all worked for."
--
"I feel kind of weepy," says Anne-Marie as they walk down the corridor together. "Because it's over. The revels now are ended. And that was a fucking good revel!" She takes Felix's arm. The security door locks behind them with a dull thunk.
"Revels end," says Felix. "But only these revels. You'll have others. How's it going with Freddie?"
"Not bad so far," says Anne-Marie, understated as ever. He surveys her profile: there's a definite grin.
They pass through Security, where Felix says goodbye to Dylan and Madison. "It's been awesome," Dylan tells him. "Fantastic cookies," he says to Anne-Marie.
"See you soon, Mr. Duke," says Madison. "Same time next year?"
"Triple merde, eh?" says Dylan.
"Looking forward," says Felix.
In the parking lot he thanks Anne-Marie once again, then drives out through the gates in his wheezy car and winds down the hill. Dirty heaps of snow line the road, meltwater trickling from them. All of a sudden it's the beginning of spring. How long has he been inside Fletcher Correctional? It seems like years.
Did his Miranda leave the cast party too, did she come out through Security, is she in the car with him? Yes, there she is in the back seat, over in the corner: a shadow within the shadow. She's sad to have seen the last of all those wondrous people inside their brave new world.
" 'Tis new to thee," he tells her.
Felix is in his shanty, packing; not that there's much to pack. Some odds and ends. A few elderly clothes; he folds them neatly, lays them in his black wheeled suitcase. It's officially spring; outside, the ice is melting, the birds are already tuning up. Sunlight streams through the opened door, which is just as well because Felix's electricity has been cut off.
When he'd trudged over to the farmhouse through the damp snow to ask about that, he'd found it deserted: the Maude family had decamped, leaving--presumably--a stack of unpaid bills. They'd made a clean sweep. It was as if they'd never been there at all; as if they'd manifested themselves only as long as Felix had needed them, then turned to mist and blended into the fields and woodlots. Ye elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes, and groves, he murmurs to himself. But most likely they're in Bert's truck, heading west to better pickings.
He got his revenge, such as it was. His enemies had suffered, which had been a pleasure. Then Felix had strewn forgiveness around while listening to the clenching of Tony's teeth, which had been a greater pleasure. And as long as he keeps that video footage in the cloud where he's stowed it, Tony won't be able to cross him any time soon, much though the conniving asshole would like to. But he's resigned from his position, so he's lost his credibility. He has no leverage, no power platform; he's no longer among those who matter. Tony is out and Felix is back in, which is as it should be.
Specifically, Felix has his old job back: Artistic Director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. He can stage his long-lost Tempest of twelve years ago, if that is his pleasure.
Strangely enough, he no longer wants to. The Fletcher Correctional Players version is his real Tempest: he could never better that one. Having pulled it off so spectacularly, why would he bother with a lesser attempt?
As for Artistic Director, he's accepted the position but in name only. He'll be an eminence grise, he'll work behind the scenes. He'll break his staff, he'll drown his book, because it's time for the younger people to take over.
He's hired Freddie as Assistant Director: let him learn by doing. Felix will help him out for a while, though in essence he'll be handing over the keys, a process he's already begun. The boy's a fast learner. Freddie can't thank him enough, and that too is a pleasurable feeling: never to be thanked enough.
Anne-Marie has been taken on as the chief choreographer for the musicals Freddie wants to add to the Makeshiweg repertoire. Crazy for You is the first one they're doing: it's got enough dance numbers to stretch Anne-Marie's talent. She can go to town on it, raise the roof, and he has no doubts that she will.
They're working beautifully together, those two. It's as if they were made for each other, like a pair of ice-dance champions. Watching them as they pore over the costume sketches and solemnly discuss their aesthetics and mess around onscreen with their digital set designs, Felix finds himself choking up, as if at a wedding: that strange mixture of nostalgia for the past mixed with joy for the future; the joy of others. He himself is only a bystander now, a well-wisher, a flinger of virtual rice. Their path won't be easy because theatre has never been easy, but at least he's given them a start. His life has had this one good result, however ephemeral that result may prove to be.
But everything is ephemeral, he reminds himself. All gorgeous palaces, all cloud-capped towers. Who should know that better than he?
--
He'd thought Sal O'Nally would kick up about Freddie: his adored firstborn son snatched out from under his nose by Felix, whisked away from the world of lawyerdom and politics in which Sal had wanted to encase him and matched up with a hoyden like Anne-Marie. But if anything, Sal seemed relieved: the boy's future had a direction, he was happy, and, best of all, he wasn't dead! All plusses for such a doting father. But even doting fathers have to let go sooner or later. From now on the boy will be working out his own destiny, as much as anyone can.
--
Felix pauses in his packing to take stock. Shabby is hardly the word for his wardrobe, and for himself, come to think of it. He'll get a haircut and eventually some better teeth; very soon he'll go shopping. He needs fresh garments, because he's embarking on a cruise.
Estelle has fixed it up for him. Among the many people she knows are some who run cruise companies. Seize the moment! she'd said. Grasp Fortune by the forelock, because after the strenuous time he'd been having, wouldn't it be a fine idea for him to take a relaxing break? Lie back in a deck chair in the sun? Be restored by the salt air?
No cost to him: all he'd have to do is give a couple of lectures about his wonderful theatre experiments at Fletcher Correctional. He could even show the videos, if he thought it appropriate; people would be fascinated, his approach was so novel! Or if he couldn't show them due to privacy issues concerning the actors, then at least he could discuss his methods. And the Caribbean would be lovely at this time of year, she said. She herself would be going on the cruise too. They could do some line-dancing and other things together. It would be fun!
At first Felix balked. A cruise ship filled with old people, people even older than himself, snoozing in deck chairs and doing line-dancing--that was his idea, if not of hell exactly, then at least of limbo. A state of suspension somewhere on the road to death. But on second thought, what did he have to lose? The road to death is after all the road he's on, so why not eat well during the journey?
So he'd said yes, but with one condition. 8Handz had been granted early parole, and Fe
lix could not find it in his conscience--he tells Estelle--to leave the young fellow at loose ends. From what he's heard, the day after getting sprung from prison is even more terrifying than the day after getting locked up in the first place. So 8Handz must come on the cruise as well. He could recite some of his Ariel speeches during Felix's presentations; he's got them down pat, he's a born performer. And on such a cruise, the boy might well meet some influential businessman--someone in digital tech--who would recognize his extensive talents and give him the creative scope he needed. The lad deserved a break, considering all the hard work he'd done for Felix.
Estelle's bangles jingled as she gave his arm a squeeze: they were now on definite arm-squeezing terms. No problem at all, she said, beaming full upon him. She would pull the necessary strings. It sounded to her as if young 8Handz deserved some good fortune, and the sea air would be so liberating for him.
--
Felix folds up his stuffed-animal garment: take it or throw it out? On a whim he packs it into the suitcase. He'll bring it on the cruise with him, where it will add a colorful and authentic note to his presentations. The aura it once held for him is dimming, like holiday lights at noon. Soon it will be nothing but a souvenir. And there's his fox-head cane as well. It's no longer a magic staff, it's only a wooden stick. Broken. Should he bury it certain fathoms in the earth? That would be histrionic. Anyway, who'd be the audience?
"Farewell," he says to it. "My so potent art."
It comes over him in a wave: he's been wrong about his Tempest, wrong for twelve years. The endgame of his obsession wasn't to bring his Miranda back to life. The endgame was something quite different.
He picks up the silver-framed photo of Miranda, laughing happily on her swing. There she is, three years old, lost in the past. But not so, for she's also here, watching him as he prepares to leave the full poor cell where she's been trapped with him. Already she's fading, losing substance: he can barely sense her. She's asking him a question. Is he compelling her to accompany him on the rest of his journey?
What has he been thinking--keeping her tethered to him all this time? Forcing her to do his bidding? How selfish he has been! Yes, he loves her: his dear one, his only child. But he knows what she truly wants, and what he owes her.