Cubop City Blues (17 page)

The man who entered the store will stay in the small town teaching at the local college and looking out over the sea of his imagination, which increasingly becomes subordinate to his memory. Close to sixty, he wants comfort above all else, though it fails him often enough. Inside he feels no older than Thaddeus, waiting for someone to tell him that he has permission to lead the life he leads—a nice man who beds down women decades younger and sends them off wiser and stronger. He will grow older, perhaps with that dark-haired woman with whom he argues constantly, but more likely alone, his belly growing softer, his mind less able to leap playfully over the grave, waiting for fate to give him what he's due. Chances are he will die away from the land of his birth. For all his protestations to the contrary, his habits are thoroughly North American. Beans give him gas, and flan raises his blood sugar to alarming levels. He stumbles when speaking Spanish and avoids places where Cubans might congregate. Great changes don't come to a sixty-year-old man.

What about Amanda? She will suffer solitude in this small town, but she is young enough to pursue her talents. Tragedy will come in small, manageable doses. She will go to graduate school, publish many stories, have five children by different men, and live the rest of her life in the west, tending gladiolas, raising finches and songbirds, hundreds of them, that will turn her house into a palace of music.

DROWNING IN
A GLASS OF WATER

Y
ears later as the crow flies, it occurred to Angel on the spur of the moment to call Amanda. He'd been driving up the California coast, and, via an Internet search that cost him $29.95, he found her in a small town south of San Jose. He had a double bourbon for courage at a bar at the edge of town and dialed her number. Naturally there was surprise in her voice as he identified himself, but she followed her greeting with the question What kept you so long? Things, time, vectors, he answered. You married? he asked. Yes, she said, with two sons. And you? she asked. He took a drink before answering, Not now, then asked about her husband, what he did. Works on a oil rig in Alaska. How romantic, he said, trying for humor. It came out like a barb. Who said marriage was romantic? she said. Where are you calling from? A bar. It's called Quigley's. I know it. I'm there, she said. And your kids, he wanted to say, but she'd already hung up.

The truth was that he was suddenly afraid what life had done to her in the intervening years and told himself he wasn't ready to see her, briefly considering paying the bill and leaving. Instead, he ordered another drink and sat back on the stool, taking in the oceanfront establishment, where the scents of stale beer, sea, and cleaning fluid mixed uncertainly in the dead hours between lunch and dinner. Upscale Irish bar in California. How far west can you go before you stop being Irish? How far north before you stop being Cuban? He remembers eating in a Japanese restaurant in Madrid where the sushi tasted like criadillas, bull testicles. Go east far enough, fast enough, and you wind up in eighteenth-century Kyoto writing haiku to the emperor.

Several drinks later Amanda appeared on the stool next to him. Hi, she said, and made no excuse for being two hours late. He forced his eyes to focus, offered a faint smile—she was, after all, late beyond all measure of decorum, and she knew he hated waiting, unless the waiting was self-imposed. He was about to ask her what she wanted when the bartender placed a drink before her, vodka on the rocks with a dozen olives. You a regular? he asked. Sort of, she said. I work here two days a week. What happened to your insouciance? he asked, trying to keep his Cuban accent in check and failing. It invariably surfaced after more than two drinks, shortening the vowels, clipping some of the final syllables.

It's alive and well, she said with that tart western voice of hers, or was it her confidence—he'd never known anyone so full of confidence—or was it her eyes that fixed on him until all his defenses crumbled into lumps of brick dust? I have two boys to support. She had a husband working in Alaska, making, he was sure, a healthy amount of money. Support was a euphemism for something else. Boredom?

There was a lull in the conversation. He ordered another drink, though he was well beyond his limit. You were very late, he said rewinding the film to the beginning, a way of filling the silence between them. She responded that she was setting the boys up; she had the rest of the afternoon free, and hearing this he felt a chill run up his spine. He had wanted to see Amanda very badly when he'd first called. Now he thought calling might have been a mistake. She had a life worlds away from what they'd had or he thought they had—the cottage on the hill, the tall grass, the big sky, the fantasy that grew from his heart, his penis, until reality could not compete. You are happy, he said. It was a statement for which he was seeking assent. I have good days, I have bad days, she said. Are you drunk? I'm alone, he said. You are, she said. You're drunk. He leaned back on the chair, wanting to disengage, go away, fly back home. His life had become puny, peripheral; hers central, indispensable. Amanda called the bartender over and ordered food. They know what I like. That must be comforting, he said. And dull, she said. Small town. Everyone knows you. Children, he said. They'll do that to you.

In forty-eight hours he'd be in Cubop City, out of the flickering past and back in the present, where all things happen. He dreaded it. For now, he had Amanda before him. At thirty a woman doesn't yet show her age, and Amanda looked as good as she did at twenty. He found himself desiring her, though it seemed ludicrous considering how far and long they'd drifted from each other. At one point she leaned her head on his shoulder and his hand drifted to her thigh and stroked it. She let him, and he fell back into a miserable nostalgia. She, he, the hill overlooking the ocean, the late-afternoon sun, a song playing on the old
radio they kept in the kitchen. Then back to the din of the bar, getting crowded with the happy-hour crowd, and Amanda off to another life, a Paul Bunyan husband, suburban boys who played soccer. She was the same; she was completely different, leading the life of American dreams, and yet, magically disengaged from that life, as if she had allowed herself this little slice of paradise and was simultaneously aware that at any time she would be swallowed by the maw of Saturn or some other divine glutton. That's what made her irresistible—how she was the embodiment of grace before despair. He didn't feel love for her at that moment. He felt marvel.

STORYTELLER

S
tories were not cures. The cancer was final. Papa knew that and—truth be told—was glad of it. Mama dead ten days and festering. He'd be dead soon enough and I'd be freed from having to come up every day with a fresh one, caught right off the river of my imagination, which was fervent enough, considering all the time and solitude, my survival amid the corrosion, the move to Cubop City. I wanted to be not just blind but invisible, inhabiting the page. I thought the world was contained in books, not books in the world. Then filial duty: to obey first, to defer second, to oblige third. Love as practice, not emotion, unquestioned, unchallenged, as genetic mandate in defiance of time and the oblique tendencies of self. Love as a crab. The word for claw in Spanish, tenaza, like love—tenacious. Real love, of the sort I couldn't help but practice: tenacious and therefore oppressive. Love did not contain the world. The world contained it and the world beat outside the door.

The work of storytelling: to stand on the banks of the river, fishing pole in hand, jerking at its merest tug and coming up empty, slackening the line so that the hook could drift to the deeper parts at the center where the water rippled with currents and countercurrents. Somewhere in those waters was the big fish that had avoided being caught, that would make all the waiting, the dreaming, worthwhile. I tried to envision it: white, allegorical, and massive. I'd have to use all my strength and cunning to reel it in, pull it up on shore, then hoist it over my shoulder for the long trek to the place where love resides and carries on. Every day I offered my parents whatever I'd managed to catch, aware that the big fish had eluded me. No cure.

They complained. Sometimes the fish was too long, sometimes it was too short. Sometimes it had a weird shape with pieces going in several directions at once so that it looked more like an octopus than a fish. Sometimes it croaked like a toad or hissed like a snake or chirped like a bird. Once I brought one so heavy and motionless it was like a chunk of vulcanized rubber; another time I caught a feather that hovered over the bed a moment, then floated off behind the dresser. My parents' silence, when they were silent, I took for assent. On rare occasions I might have heard a reluctant laugh or a grunt or a woeful sigh, but it was their silence I preferred, the story doing its proper work under the surface, through their veins, and into their organs, what was left of them.

Papa looked up from the bed with a smile, Mama dead and rotting beside him. Oh, the smell. The fish you bring us, he said, come from the depths. They suffer the maladies of creatures who have never known the sun. How about a surface fish awash in light?

How could I know surface when I didn't know light? I kept that question from Papa. He would call me obfuscator, sophist, tautologist—words that wounded me not. I was already scar, regret, compunction, guilt. Rent by emotions, I quivered like a reed in shallow water.

SWIMMING
TO MIAMI

O
ut of gas and taking water where the prow had rammed into a piece of flotsam, the
Ana María
floated helplessly past the tall buildings of Miami, carried north by the Gulf Stream at great speed. When Johnny Luna realized that they might miss their destination altogether and wind up circling the Sargasso Sea forever, he took to the oars and began rowing as hard as he could toward the shore. Obdulio, his mind too simple or too complex to understand the situation, sat on the leather Chrysler seat and stared at the high clouds morphing into a myriad of shapes over the Florida Peninsula.

He saw a panther biting the neck of a lion, a ballerina leaping over a bishop, a giraffe on fire, ten angels pissing into a bottle, an old man with a crooked nose and a single horn growing from his forehead, a beast with the head of a crocodile and the wings of a bat, a baseball player who had just struck out, an ox, a 1956 Buick, and a pregnant mare with the face of the Virgin Mary.

¡Coño! We're going by Miami, Johnny said, interrupting Obdulio's catalog.

After two hours his hands were raw and bleeding, his upper back felt like someone had taken a baseball bat to it, and his arms were as heavy as concrete. Obdulio woke from his catalog and pointed out a stretch of shore toward which they could aim. In a final burst of energy Johnny rowed the last two hundred yards like a galley slave until the
Ana María
nosed itself onto the sand. Johnny jumped off the boat to secure it, and as he did so, a group of naked men and women came running to help. Johnny couldn't believe what he was seeing.

¡El Paraíso! Obdulio screamed as he took off his shirt.

Paraíso no, an old man in the group said. Haulover Beach.

He was wiry and brown and his long hair was tied in a ponytail. He was surrounded by equally tanned people, all of them naked except for a few wearing straw hats and old baseball caps. By now the group of nudists had pulled the
Ana María
off the water and were walking around it admiring its construction.

Miami? Johnny asked. Obdulio had taken off his clothes and was dancing around the group, who were as happy to see him naked as he was to see them. ¡Eto tá buenísimo, buenísimo! Obdulio said as he was embraced by a lanky and very jolly woman whose breasts flapped against his face.

Miami down there, the old man said, pointing to the south. About five miles. Welcome to America!

Johnny gave a pained smile. He never liked being unclothed in front of others, just as he never liked others unclothed in front of him, not even his wife. Now his emotions were experiencing a strange reversal, and he felt a growing discomfort at having his clothes on in front of the nudists. Modesty got the best of him, however, and all he could do was take off his shirt, which he folded neatly, though it was smudged and wrinkled and smelled of gasoline, and placed on top of a plastic cooler. His shoes he had left behind on the boat, wrapped in plastic so they wouldn't get wet.

The nudists led Johnny and Obdulio to their encampment about fifty yards away, and soon they were sitting on the sand devouring ham sandwiches and drinking beer. Johnny's embarrassment was gone along with his shirt. He looked over at the
Ana María,
glistening in the sun, and was overcome with emotion. He'd failed to cross six times, and he made sure he wouldn't fail again by building a solid, beautiful boat. Except for the piece of sea junk that had opened a breach in the starboard side of the prow, the
Ana María
had held and taken them safely across. There wasn't a better boat anywhere. With tears in his eyes, he raised his fifth bottle of Mexican beer and said in his best American-movie English, I want to be thanking you very much. Viva los Estados Unidos, Viva la libertad! Obdulio followed suit, and so did the rest of the nudists, except for a fellow with a handlebar mustache who looked like an overweight Jerry Colonna. He complained about aliens taking over the country.

You can't go anywhere without running into these people, even Europe, he said, chewing on a piece of carrot smeared with onion dip that stuck to his mustache.

A middle-aged woman with the breasts of a seventeen-year-old girl said, In this country you're free to do as you wish, and as far as I'm concerned everyone is welcome, especially the hungry and the oppressed. She looked over at Obdulio, her face bathed in compassion.

I don't know about oppressed, the man with the mustache said, but these boys look pretty well fed to me.

Johnny had had his fill of food and drink and wanted to move on. He was seeing double and the beach was tilting away from the ocean. Obdulio was still eating. His cheeks were smeared with mayonnaise, and it looked to Johnny like he was getting an erection, though he wasn't sure. It might have been the way Obdulio was sitting.

He was about to order him to get his clothes on when they heard voices in the distance and turned to see a man in a gray suit and a woman in high heels followed by a cameraman. The three were tramping in their direction, past an animated volleyball game and a European family that seemed never to have lost paradise, let alone regained it.

Obdulio, Johnny said, ponte la ropa. Obdulio started fumbling for his clothes, but it was too late. With his mouth full of ham, lettuce, and whole-wheat bread, he mumbled something back and smiled. Bits of ham were stuck in between his teeth and he looked like a shark that had swallowed a pig whole.

Not to worry, said the old man with the long hair. Es el television his-pánico.

Yes, me worry, said Johnny. He quickly retrieved his shirt and put it on.

Where are the balseros? asked the male reporter. He was a tall, handsome Cuban American with a voice trained to be deep and professional. He was out of breath, and sweat dribbled down the sides of his face. From the looks of it he had pulled this kind of duty before—balsero stories were a dime a dozen in those days—and he was not too happy; nor was the woman, who kept rearranging her hair and smacking her lips. She had to balance her considerable girth on Manolo Blahnik shoes, which sank all the way into the sand every time she moved. She complained about the heat and her puñetero producer, who kept giving her shitty assignments.

If it were up to me, said the cameraman, they would all sink in the sea. Que se ahoguen pal carajo.

Johnny and Obdulio stood up. Johnny tucked his shirt into his pants. Obdulio was still naked, his penis at half mast.

The female reporter shook her head dejectedly and looked away. The cameraman fidgeted with his camera. The male reporter, holding the microphone to his mouth as if the taping had already begun, wanted to know what had happened to the raft.

The
Ana María
no is a raft, Johnny said. He pointed at the boat. I built it I myself.

We were told there was a raft, said the reporter. You could cross the Pacific on a boat like that.

I work on it six months each night, Johnny said in proud deliberate English. He tried to sound like Ricardo Montalbán in
Fantasy Island
.

Martínez, the male reporter called out to the cameraman. Why don't you break the boat up a little. Make it seem more weather beaten, ¿tú sabes?

Martínez gathered up some dry seaweed and placed the camera carefully on it, making sure it didn't touch the sand. Then he started throwing karate kicks at the prow of the
Ana María
.

Johnny felt like his very grandmother was being kicked to death.

¡Coño! Johnny said. What are you doing? Then he jumped on Martínez, who fell backward and scurried away on his hands and feet like a crab, kicking up sand as he went.

El tipo está loco, man, the cameraman said. He stood and looked over at the camera. The male reporter held Johnny back.

It is my boat, Johnny said.

Take it easy, the male reporter said.

When things had settled down and Martínez was a safe distance away, the reporter explained to Johnny that crossing the Straits of Florida was a dangerous thing, and lots of people had lost their lives trying. Johnny said that that was because they didn't know what they were doing. The reporter said he understood, but they couldn't run a story on television about someone who had made the crossing on a sturdy boat he built himself. You are either trying to flee communism or off on a pleasure cruise, and believe me, nobody's interested in two guys on a pleasure cruise. This boat looks brand-new. Now he was lecturing the group of nudists around them. We need to show how hard it is for the people, how much they are having to sacrifice, even their own lives, in order to escape the tyranny of Castro.

He stopped, wiped his brow with a silk handkerchief he pulled from the front pocket of his jacket, and added as an afterthought, Too bad we don't have a mandarria.

What's a mandarria? one of the nudists asked.

A sledgehammer.

That's all Johnny needed to hear.

Me cago en el coño de tu madre, he said to the reporter. On that note he sounded like nobody but himself. You under-estan, idiota? ¡Me cago en el recontracoño de tu madre!

He grabbed the microphone from the reporter's hand and threw it into the sea.

That's a five-hundred-dollar mike, the reporter said, running into the surf and trying to retrieve it. He came out dripping wet, his suit ruined, his pink silk tie turned a corrugated brown. He stood inches away from Johnny and said, You'll pay for this, balsero de mierda, and ordered his crew to get out of the goddamn beach. The female reporter had taken off her expensive shoes and her jacket and given up on her hair, letting the sea breeze blow gently through it. She didn't seem half-bad that way, more relaxed and easygoing. As she ambled toward the exit through the sand dunes, she turned and looked out over the water searching the horizon for God knows what: a sailboat, a respite, a good story.

T
he police found Johnny and Obdulio walking south toward Miami Beach on Route A1A. Obdulio was fully dressed and was even sporting a New York Yankees cap one of the nudists had given him as a good-luck charm. Johnny hadn't been able to find his shoes in the boat, and so he went barefoot, hopping whenever he stepped on a pebble or a burr but otherwise happy they were headed in the right direction. He was singing boleros and looking forward to the day when there would be a woman on the other side of his love songs.

The police surrounded them with three vehicles, as if they were bank robbers or child rapists. Six officers spilled out, five in uniform, one in a sports jacket who spoke in the raspy baritone of Broderick Crawford. Johnny couldn't understand a thing. He was lost in a sea of language no American movie or television show would help unravel. The sky turned dark, and peals of thunder rolled over them, followed by lightning flashes far inland over the Everglades.

Johnny was afraid. Broderick Crawford was a tough cop and a drunk as well. He tried to explain their situation, but all that came out was a jumble of words that sounded like a lost language from a remote part of the Amazon. Obdulio was smiling his usual fool's smile and stood at attention giving the officers a military salute. Johnny shook his head. One of the uniformed officers handcuffed them and said something about remaining silent—Johnny caught that—and then he led them to the back of the paddy wagon. Just then the rain came down in thick sheets that made everything blurred. Mala fortuna, mala fortuna. Obdulio's face was twisted by apprehension and his eyes were wide open. He looked to Johnny for reassurance but found none.

Changó, Changó, he yelled. Ampáranos.

Changó was offering no protection today. The van moved with a lurch, then did a U-turn, and headed back north away from Miami, the two cruisers in front and the wagon following them, lights flashing, sirens wailing. It was too much for Johnny, who, exhausted from the last ten years of his life, the desperation, the secret planning, the work of building the
Ana María,
and weary from the hangover that was beginning to manifest itself in every cell of his brain, began to blaspheme God with such ferocity that God himself—if there is one—must have trembled in his heavenly seat. It rained hard, harder than Johnny could curse and Obdulio could pray. And as suddenly as it started, the rain ceased and the sun came out again.

A few minutes later, when the water evaporated from the asphalt and the cars, turning the air into thick Florida soup, the caravan stopped. The van doors opened and Johnny and Obdulio were led into a glass and brick building and made to stand before a young officer sitting behind a tall desk. His head was clean shaven, and he said to them in rapid Miami Spanish that they were under arrest for vagrancy and recited their Miranda rights.

Vago,
Johnny said.
Vago?
There were traces of Alfonso Bedoya's voice from
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
. I'm no
vago
. I build my boat. Wood by wood. In Jaimanitas. Now we come to La Yuma to work more.

Johnny protested that he was a decent man. They'd landed among a group of nudists. It wasn't their fault.

¿Cómo? said the booking officer.

Era inevitable, Johnny said, lying slightly. They obligate us to take off our clothes. They say it is natural. In Ho-lo-beh Beach.

The booking officer turned to the two remaining arresting officers and translated for them what Johnny said. The three of them broke out in laughter, and Obdulio laughed, too, though he didn't understand anything. Only Johnny was serious, serious as stone, serious as someone who didn't want to get sent back to the hell he'd just left. While the officers figured out what to do, he sat on a bench directly across from the booking desk. Obdulio asked him what was going on and he said he didn't know.

The only thing I know is that I don't know anything, Johnny said, quoting a self-styled philosopher who lived in his neighborhood in Havana. Maybe they were dead and this is purgatory; maybe this is a way station on the way to paradise, or hell. He kept the thoughts to himself, not wanting to alarm Obdulio, who could go from elation to panic in an instant.