"The Tumor Speaks" by Maggie Bofill

From TRUTH BE TOLD's June 10th, 2025 show ("First Love/First Lust") Maggie Bofill's "The Tumor Speaks" is a story about one human, against all odds, came to be born—after the Cuban revolution, and with the help of her gay uncle...

Maggie is an actor and writer. Her play Drawn and Quartered was a New York Times critics pick. Other productions of plays she’s written have happened at Ensemble Studio Theater, LAByrinth Theater Co., Edinburgh Fringe Festival, and at the King’s Head Theatre in London. Acting wise she’s performed all over the country, and most recently was in the World Premier of Public Charge, at The Public Theater, in New York City.

TRUTH BE TOLD was created by Susan Kim and David Zellnik and each episode was produced and scored by Eric Svejcar. Logo designed by Joseph Zellnik.

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to Truth Be Told Season 1: Love and Monsters. Each of these 14 episodes will feature one story performed at Ensemble Studio Theater in New York City as part of the live event Truth Be Told. This story night was created by Susan Kim and David Zelnick and features members of EST and friends who tell heartbreaking, embarrassing, hilarious, true stories based on a theme. This seven-week season draws from our first two sold-out nights, one called First Love, First Lust, and the other Scary Monsters. Please note, our first night was not captured live, so this story was recorded and scored in a studio. And now, without further ado, a story of how one human, against all odds, came to be born after her mother had her tubes tied, written and performed by Maggie Beaufil.

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So that was a surprise. She was 42 years old, my dad was 50. Not so crazy old by today's standards, but back then, especially for a woman, it was like ancient. And they weren't in any position to be overjoyed by this miracle. Circumstances were rough. People back then thought a woman that old would surely give birth to, as Cubans say, una retardada una normal, which is not good. Especially for people who just come from Cuba with nothing. My parents had escaped communism with their two little girls, my sisters, who were seven and eight, and gone to Chicago, where my mom's favorite little brother lived, my uncle Tío Leonides. Everyone loved Leonides. He was an amazing person, an incredible artist, larger than life. He was the Cuban Oscar Wilde. He adored my mom, and he is the reason I am alive today. What happened in Cuba that led up to this was that the dictator Batista had been taken down, which my father was a part of. Then Castro took over and decided communism was the way, which my father was not a part of. He instantly became an enemy of the state. It was at the very beginning of this fight that he and my mom paid the highest price. Overnight they became counter-revolutionaries, and in the midst of that madness, my mother had two stillbirths, one right after the other. The first baby she lost after she woke up one night and discovered that my father had disappeared. He'd gone into hiding but couldn't tell her because then she would be in danger. She assumed he'd been captured, and her intense fear caused internal bleeding, which then led to the end of an almost full-term pregnancy. The second time it happened, she was smuggling weapons in the trunk of a taxi. It got stopped by the police and ended up just being for some minor infraction where nothing happened. But once again, her fear was so intense it caused internal hemorrhaging and she lost the second baby. Both were boys. After that, she got her tubes tied. And then she went on to obtain false documents that allowed her to get on the plane to the US of A. She procured these from a friend of the family who had become a communist and a big shot in the party. He also had always liked Magdalena, my mom, like a lot. She promised to return to him after she delivered her nieces my sisters to the States. Then she got on the Red Cross flight with my two sisters, landed in America, and never looked back. My father, who'd stayed in Cuba to fight, joined her a year later. Once here, they worked in factories during the day and went to school at night. Poppy had been a lawyer in Cuba and Mommy a professor of chemistry and Latin. In Chicago, she worked at the Elgin watch factory, and my dad worked at the Dr. Scholl's shoe factory, which allowed him to send all the old ladies in his hometown slippers, which the government promptly took half of. But his mother wrote back assuring him that all the old ladies were still very much enjoying all the left slippers. My parents had no health insurance at the time, so when mommy went to the doctor 'cause she was feeling funny, it was a big deal. She told him she'd had her tubes tied, and he told her then it was probably a tumor. She wasn't convinced, but money was tight. So my uncle got one of his friends, a Cuban doctor, Dr. Lafita, to see her for free. And when she asked if it was a tumor, he said Ah see, un tumor con patibras. Oh yes. A tumor with arms and legs. Funny, but it was no joke. They were poor, they had no insurance. Women who were pregnant got fired in factories. Plus, they also already had two kids, and this kid would probably come out una retardada, so it was determined that my ass was to be terminated. He said I was a miracle, declared I would be born, I would be baptized and brought up Catholic. My parents were Episcopalian, long story. And Dr. Lafita would cover all the medical costs to be paid back when they could. And my parents agreed to his terms. Thank you, Theorionides. So on May 19th, at Belmont Hospital in Chicago's West Loop, where Dr. Lafita was the attending physician, my mother had her third daughter. Margaret Olga Diaspadia was born at 10 p.m., coming in at nine pounds. And I was the smallest. My sister Adrian weighed 10, and Magda, 11. The night I was born, my uncle Leonides got to the hospital first. He said he was the father of the baby, so they'd let him up. So when my father got there, they wouldn't let him up. My mother loved that part of the story. My dad, not so much. They called me La Fibroma, the tumor. Like a nickname. Ah, mira la fibroma. Mira com salio la fibroma. Look at the tumor. Look how it turned out. The tumor, which they all thought was hilarious. Me, not so much. My parents stayed true to their word. I was baptized Catholic, went to Catholic school, and on Sundays they would drop me off at Catholic Mass, go to their Episcopal service, then pick me up after, which I thought was all totally normal. My mom never did get fired from the watch factory because, as she always said, her boss was a very, very nice man. The reason this story came to mind in response to the prompts of first love, lust, and connection is most obvious, connection. If my dad, little swimmers, had not fought their way through those terribly tied tubes to connect with that egg, well, I wouldn't be here. Lust probably played a part in that too. Co-parents. And first love. Her whole life, my mother proudly declared how my father, Orlando, was her first and only love. They went out for 10 years before they got married and died 60 days apart after being together for 60 years. When they lost their country, another great love, they lost a part of their heart. But I'd like to think they got some of it back when they very unexpectedly welcomed the first American into the family. La Americana, as they also often referred to me, which connected them even more to a country they were already super grateful to for giving them a home when theirs had gone all to hell. When I was two years old, we left Chicago because my parents got jobs teaching at high schools in Gary, Indiana. But before leaving, my mother had gathered all the money she'd been saving for two years in cash and took it to Dr. Lafita to pay him back. He pushed her money away laughing and said, Hi, Magdalena, all be that La Americana Tasalio Gratis. Hi Magdalena, forget about it. The American is on me.

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Maggie Bowville is an actor and writer whose play, drawn and quartered, was a New York Times critic's pick. Acting-wise, she's performed all over the country, most recently at the public theater in New York City. Truth Be Told was created by Susan Kim and David Zelnick, and each episode was produced and scored by Eric Zvekar. If you enjoyed this, please tell your friends and keep listening. More stories of love and lust will be released every Monday and scary monsters every Thursday. And do hit like and subscribe, it really helps. Till next time, remember, truth wants to be known. Yours too!