Taken Hostage an Ugly Duck

1. TAKEN HOSTAGE BY THE
UGLY DUCK
Josephine Marcelo
John Miguel Morales

2. Story Ladder
A story ladder layout is an easy and good
way of organizing the plot line for your
story. It is a chart listing all of the
characters and events in the plot of a
story, and how they are related to and
interact with each other It can help you
identify strengths and weaknesses in your
story ideas and help you to tap into your
inner creative abilities.

3. VOCABULARY
Distress - To cause strain, anxiety, or suffering to.
Despotic - A ruler with absolute power.
Shrivelled - To lose or cause to lose vitality or intensity

4. GRETCHEN MCCULLOUGH
Gretchen McCullough was raised in Harlingen, Texas. After
graduating from Brown University in 1984, she taught in Egypt,
Turkey and Japan. She earned her M.F.A. from the University of
Alabama and was awarded a Teaching Fulbright to Syria 1997-
1999. Stories and essays have appeared in The Texas Review,
The Alaska Quarterly Review, Archipelago, National Public
Radio, The Barcelona Review, Storysouth, Gowanus and
Storyglossia. Recently, her translations with Mohamed Metwalli
of his poetry were published in Banipal. She has just finished a
collection of short stories, set in Cairo. Currently, she teaches
writing in the Department of Rhetoric and Composition at the
American University in Cairo.

5. TAKEN HOSTAGE BY THE UGLY
DUCK
The day after Mona was hit in the ear with a rotten egg thrown
by her American neighbor, she adopted a blue heron.
Complaining to her friends had not been enough, complaining
to the landlord and the gatekeeper had not been enough,
complaining to her husband had not been enough. She had
never suffered such humiliation! She had marched to the Friday
bird market and bought the bird with the harshest call. The
terrible yawing would surely torment her American neighbor,
whom she had nicknamed "The Ugly Duck."
When she came home with the enormous bird at three o'clock
in the afternoon, her husband, Mohammed, who was still in his
pajamas, said, "Don't you usually pluck your chin hairs on
Fridays?"

6. Mona was now too busy watching the Ugly Duck to
waste her time on vanity. She and Mohammed rarely
had sex anymore. And when they did, it was a
lackluster and cursory affair; he rolled off her quickly
and starting picking his teeth.
Every Friday, while she was looking in her hand mirror,
plucking her chin hairs, she sneaked a glance behind
her at the Ugly Duck in the building opposite hers. On
warm days he often strutted nude on his balcony, with
a gaggle of young Egyptian men. Such an unashamed
parading of sensuality enraged her. When she had
finished watching the Ugly Duck and his entourage,
she prayed and recited the Quran in front of the sheik
on the television.
Now, her husband Mohammed glared at the blue
heron. "Why didn't you adopt a kitten? There are plenty

7. "You hate cats," Mona said. She had begged
him to have a cat for years, but he always
refused.
"The heron is going to ruin our gold
furniture," Mohammed said, as if he were a
new bride, not a sixty-year old man.
"Maybe the bird will turn into a cat."
"Herons eat fish. This isn't a very practical pet.
Where are we going to keep him? With Amir
here, we have hardly any space," Mohammed
complained.
"Amir will have to find another place to live,"
Mona said. "He is thirty-five years old."
"But Mona, he's not married. You're going to
give his room to a bird?"

8. Mona was transforming. Internally, she had not
changed a centimeter for years. However, two events
had happened to distract her from her persistent
delight in matchmaking and speculations about the
price of gold: the day her precious Amir had slapped
her in the face because he couldn't watch "Terrorists
and Kebab," the famous Adel Imam film about a man
who is so frustrated by Egyptian bureaucracy that he
takes everyone in a government building hostage. Who
would marry him? He was a fat lug, who sprawled out
on her marital bed, watching Adel Imam comedies,
hour after hour. She and Mohammed had spent
thousands of pounds on private lessons to get him
through the faculty of Engineering at Cairo University,
but he had never gotten a job. Every presentable girl
she had brought to the house had left in tears.

9. But even worse than her son, Amir, was the
Ugly Duck, in the building across the way, who
taunted her with his unnatural, lascivious
sexuality: the obscene gestures, the hooting,
the loud, raucous music. Some singer always
moaned, "Boom. Boom. Yeah. Yeah. Boom.
Boom." On Fridays, the young Egyptian boys
would take turns, kneeling in front of the Ugly
Duck, sucking his thing. He sat, legs splayed
open, as if he were a king. His eyes were
closed.
Why didn't anyone in the neighborhood call the
police?
Once the Ugly Duck mooned her with his hairy
haunches when she was watching. Another

10. She flicked on the bright lights of her chandelier,
which were almost as strong as police searchlights.
There were no screens on her windows. Late every
night, she hung out the window, watching the Ugly
Duck's apartment. Egyptian soap operas were a bore
compared to the nightly scenarios on the Ugly Duck's
balcony.
A young man with beautiful black curly hair appeared
the most frequently on the Ugly Duck's balcony. He
wore royal blue turtlenecks and tight American blue
jeans. She guessed he was about seventeen and she
nicknamed him Feras, Knight. He was indefatigable,
thrusting himself into Ugly Duck's backside for hours.
She wondered what it would be like to have such an
energetic sexual partner. Her only sexual partner had
been Mohammed and he was lethargic and unoriginal.
She had heard from her women friends that there were
many other variations that would increase pleasure.

11. Now instead of her son, lounging on her marital bed, the
blue heron, yawed at Egyptian toothpaste commercials or a
veiled woman in a pink headscarf putting laundry into the
washing machine. One day, after a stormy row with the
blue heron over a pillow, Amir had suddenly moved out
and settled with his paternal aunt, who had no children.
Undeterred, the heron soon learned how to turn on and off
the television. And he even asserted his rights to the large,
marital bed. He flapped his wings between Mona and
Mohammed.
Naturally, they quarreled. Mohammed complained about
the bird in his bed. He complained about the smell of
rancid fish in his flat. He complained about the bird
feathers in his dresser drawers. The smell of bird shit
permeated the flat; no amount of cheap, Egyptian cologne
could dispel it. He complained that she was not making
stuffed squash or heavy, floury white lasagna for him

12. "You're jealous of the blue heron, " Mona said,
incredulous.
"You don't love the blue heron," Mohammed
said. "You hate the Ugly Duck."
Of course, she relished the intensity of her feud
with the Ugly Duck. She enjoyed hating the Ugly
Duck, much more than loving a man or even the
blue heron. Could love, be this intense, too?
The Ugly Duck retaliated by buying a colorful
Amazonian parrot. He taught it to say things in
English, like: "Hey, Ugly Sister. Hey, Ugly Sister.
Hey, Ugly Sister."

13. Did he mean her?
Or, "I'm Bad Like Jesse James. I'm Bad Like Jesse
James. I'm Bad Like Jesse James."
Who was Jesse James?
Or, "Hittin' the Bottle Again. Hittin' the Bottle
Again. Hittin' the Bottle Again."
She wanted to break a bottle over the Ugly
Duck's head.
The blue heron and the giant parrot competed
yawing in the cul-de-sac. The cawing of the
birds muted the call to prayer, the squealing car
horns and the restive, feral cats in heat.

14. The tall, slim bawab or gatekeeper from Aswan
reported to her: "All the neighbors are
complaining. The bird calls are much worse
than the Friday call to prayers. Nobody can bear
the noise."
As if the parrot had overheard their
conversation, he even started to imitate the call
to prayer. "Allah Akbar. Allah Akbar. Allah
Akbar."
God is Great. God is Great. God is Great.
The parrot alternated "Allah Akbar" with "Hey,
Ugly Sister." Or "Allah Akbar" with "Hittin' the
Bottle Again." Or "Allah Akbar" would be
followed with a series of calls, "I'm Bad Like
Jesse James."

15. The sheik at the neighborhood mosque
complained to the landlord in America about the
blasphemous parrot. The parrot's call "Allah Akbar"
was quashing the muezzin's call, which was
amplified to screeching point. This colorful parrot
was the work of the devil. The Israelis had planted
the parrot in Garden City to destroy the missionary
spirit of this small neighborhood mosque.
The landlord, a successful plastic surgeon, was
teaching at the University of Missouri at Columbia.
He began to dread the frequent, expensive phone
calls from Egypt, complaining about the
blasphemous parrot at the Ugly Duck's apartment
in his apartment building.
"I mean no disrespect, Sheik Abdou," he said. "Do
you really think the Israelis would waste their time
on a neighborhood mosque in Garden City?"

16. "Never underestimate the Israelis," Sheik Abdou said,
cryptically.
"Maybe the parrot was planted by the Copts in the
neighborhood. There's a Coptic Orthodox church just
right around the corner from the mosque," Dr. Hossam
said, offering another conspiratorial explanation.
"I never thought of that," Sheik Abou said.
"Haven't they been asking you to turn down the
volume at Friday prayers for the last five years?"
"Well, yes . . . " Sheik Abdou said.
The landlord promised he would call the university so
they could have someone in the housing office talk to
the Ugly Duck about the blasphemous parrot, but
because of his busy work schedule at the medical
school, he forgot. He was teaching wholesome blonde
American medical students from the Mid-West how to
do tummy tucks and boob jobs.

17. Meanwhile, the atmosphere at the Ugly Duck's
apartment in the landlord's building in Garden
City, changed. Instead of wild, ecstatic
couplings on the balcony, Mona heard shouting.
Bodies being slammed against walls. The
crunching of bones. Cursing. Mother Fucker!
Cunt!
The rage in these words was more terrible than
the parrot's monotonous calls, "I'm Bad Like
Jesse James."
The next time Amir came to lunch, she asked,
"What does cunt mean?"
He almost choked on his fried drumstick. "Why
do you want to know?"

18. "No reason," she said, not wanting to discuss the
Ugly Duck with her son. Had Amir spurned the idea
of marriage because he was like the Ugly Duck?
She pushed this unpleasant thought out of her
mind.
More and more, the Ugly Duck sat on the balcony
alone, a ragged ice pack on his ravaged face. He
was no longer the king on his throne. He seemed
as pitiful as a one-legged beggar on Kasr el-Aini
street. But hadn't the Ugly Duck brought this upon
himself? God's punishment for his depraved
behavior?
If the Ugly Duck saw her staring at him, he
shouted, "Stick it up your ass, sister." He made a
gesture with his hand; she was sure it meant
something dirty. Wi-hish. Ugly.
Soon after, the loud Amazonian parrot
disappeared.