Leaving Glorytown (14 page)

From around the corner appeared a gang of boys—four or five of them. Their leader was the biggest kid my age I'd ever seen. His knuckles practically dragged on the cement.

“What did you say?” the big one said. “Who are you talking to?”

“You!” I said. “I'm going to wipe the street with your face. Let's go, right now.”

“I'm ready whenever you are, punk,” said this behemoth.

Then I remembered the bread. Looking down at the bags at my feet, I realized that if I lost this fight, the bread would be lost, too. These kids looked like they were even hungrier than I was. The leader of the gang caught on right away.

“What's in those bags?” he demanded. “Is it food?”

“None of your business!” I said.

Quickly, I sized up my options. There weren't many. I could defeat this kid in a fight, but there was no way I could defend the bread from the others at the same time.

I wasted no more time. I dashed back across the street to Tío's—just as he opened the door.

“Booooooooy!”
he bellowed.
“What is going on out here?”

I tossed the bread into his house.

“Tío, watch that bread for me!” I said.

“What do those kids want?” he demanded.

“They want to fight!”

“Well? What are you waiting for? Get over there and kick their butts!”

“Tío, I'm working on it! I just need to make sure the bread is safe!”

“Bread, shmead! There has not been a Calcines yet who's backed down from a fight! Get in there and mix it up, boy!”

“Aaaaaaaaaagh!”
I yelled, turning and putting on my best game face.

The effect of Tío's presence was visible on the faces of the gang. Now they didn't look so brave, and the big one didn't even look so big anymore. But there were still four or five of them, and only one of me. I had to adopt a new strategy. Quickly I decided on a technique that I'd been practicing in private—the Helicopter of Death.

The basic theory behind the Helicopter of Death was that I would swing both my fists as wildly and quickly as possible. Come to think of it, it was a technique similar to the one Tío William had used during the rumble of Noche Buena. My hope was that I would score enough random hits to convince the enemy to retreat. When the odds were this bad, it was the only tactic that made any sense.

I charged at the gang, eyes closed, screaming.

But I connected with nothing. I opened my eyes, and all I could see was dust. And all I could hear was Tío Amado's laughter. I turned to see him doubled over in the doorway, slapping his knees.

“What was that? Boy, I'm telling you, that was the best fighting I've ever seen! Hooah! Yah! I now know that you are a Calcines, niño! Wait'll I tell your father! Hee hee hee!”

He wheezed and puffed a few minutes longer, and then he paid me the ultimate compliment: “I'm proud of you,
sobrino
! Now, nephew, take your bread and get on home before your mother starts to worry!”

I needed no further urging. I grabbed the bread, decided that the bus was a lost cause, and started walking.

When Papa came home the next weekend, as promised, Tío Amado told him all about what had happened. Afterward, Papa came to me and put a hand on my shoulder.

“I hear you defended yourself very bravely, my boy,” he said.

“I tried, Papa,” I said.

“You tried, and you succeeded,” he said. “I'm not happy to hear that you were fighting, but I'm proud that you didn't back down, even when the odds were against you.” He was silent for a moment, his eyes
twinkling. Then he said, “I've been thinking about something. What would you say to a little reward?”

“A reward?” What could it be? “Sure, Papa! That would be great! What is it?”

“There's this man I know who raises tropical fish in his home. I think Mama and Esther would like to have a fish around the house, don't you? Maybe you and I should go over there and see what he has for sale.” Papa winked at me. “You know, I hear that man has a very pretty daughter about your age, too. Maybe you'll make a new friend.”

I blushed. “You think?”

“What do you say? Let's go.”

“Right now?”

“Yes, right now!”

I knew how tired Papa must have been, and how uncomfortable his hernia was making him. But that he wanted to spend time with me proved to me all over again what I already knew—I had the most loving father in the world. And it was an honor to stand next to him at the bus stop, feeling his warm hand on the back of my neck, and listening to his deep voice, knowing for a change that I didn't have to imagine his presence, because he was right there with me.

O
ne morning early in 1967, I awoke to find San Carlos Street covered in a light coating of ash. This was a yearly occurrence, and I knew what it meant: the sugarcane harvest had ended. Abuelo had explained to me that after cutting the cane, the workers set fire to the fields to clear the stubble. All over Cuba, the same thing was happening. For several days, the air above our island grew as dark as if a volcano had erupted.

I went into Abuela Ana and Abuelo Julian's yard and held out my hands. Flakes of burnt cane collected on my palms. I looked at them glumly. The ashes of spring always gave me a pit in my stomach, because they meant that Abuelo would be going away soon.

At that moment, Abuelo himself came out onto his porch, holding a litde cup of coffee. “In the north in America,” he said, “snow falls all winter, just like diis. The children go sledding and skiing on it. Someday you will, too.”

“I'm not even sure I want to go to America anymore,” I told him. “Maybe we should just stay here. Then they would let Papa out of the work camp, and there wouldn't be any more of this waiting.”

“And you can forget about your dreams of freedom, too, in that case.” Abuelo looked at me with concern. “What's the matter, niño? You look sad.”

“You know what's the matter!”

“Aha. You're upset because I'm going away again.”

I nodded. When the harvest ended, the refining process began. This was where Abuelo's expertise came in. As First Sugar Master, his presence was required for every moment of the three to four months it took to render tons and tons of cane into sugar. It meant that he had to live at the mill, twenty miles away. When Abuelo left, I had no one to play catch or talk about life with. And with Papa gone, I was without my two most important male role models. It was going to be a lonely spring.

“Don't be sad,” Abuelo told me. “You're practically a man now. You have two households to be in charge of while I am gone—yours and mine. And make sure the women listen to you in my absence!”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “They burn my butt if I so much as talk back to them!”

“Even so, you must behave like a man,” Abuelo said. “Life gives us challenges, niño, but the Lord helps us handle them. For every problem, there is a way to deal with it. Just remember that.”

“Well, then, what's the way to deal with the Communists?”

“Don't worry about the Communists. Just worry about your family. God will help us find a way through these times. And he expects us to continue doing our best, not to sit around and complain. That's why I'm going to the mill again this year, niño, and that's why you must not walk around with this long face. Esther looks up to you. Your job is to give her encouragement, and to make your mama's and abuela's lives easier by being helpful and staying out of trouble. M'entiendes?”

“Yes, Abuelo,” I said. “But don't you think you're getting a little old to work so hard? Maybe it's time to let someone younger take over.”

Abuelo stiffened. For a moment, I thought he was going to get angry. But then he relaxed and smiled.

“Listen, niño,” he said. “It took me a long time to work my way up from a simple field hand to the most trusted and important position in the mill, and I can tell you right now that I will not stop working until the day I drop dead. None of these young men knows as much as I do about sugar. They need me. If they didn't, they wouldn't ask me to come, would they? These Communists may be running the show now, but you can't make sugar with propaganda!”

“Why are you going to help them, if they're not forcing you to?” I asked.

“I'm not going to the mill for the sake of the Communists,” he said. “I'm going because Cuba is sugar. It's been an important part of Cuban life for a very long time, and it will continue to be long after this idiotic Revolution is nothing more than an unpleasant memory. Besides, to make sugar, you need experience and know-how, and these stupid Communists possess neither.”

“Well, why can't you just teach them what you know, so you can stay home from now on?”

“Because I like to work and it takes years to learn all that I know,” Abuelo replied. “You think I can just give them a few pointers? To master the art of sugaring requires a lifetime of patience. And patience, it seems to me, is something you could use a little more of, my boy. You're acting like a caged animal these days.”

“I can't help it!” I told him. “Everything is up in the air, and I don't
know what's what anymore. Waiting for this telegram is driving me crazy.”

“Don't worry about the telegram,” Abuelo said. He looked away, probably so I couldn't see his eyes welling up with tears. “It will come when it comes. There's nothing to be done about it, so you might as well just think about something else.”

I, too, grew misty-eyed. To hide my emotions, I asked, “Can I have a little of your pomade?”

Abuelo took me into the house and put some pomade in my hair. Then he combed it back.

“Slick as a groom on his wedding day,” he said. Then he dabbed aftershave on my cheeks. “What a handsome boy,” he said. “Let's see that wink you've been practicing.”

I had a lazy left eyelid, which had never bothered me until I realized it meant I couldn't wink. Girls always fell for guys who winked at them, at least if the movies were to be believed. I'd been practicing in the mirror for weeks. Finally, I'd gotten that stupid eyelid to move on its own. I showed Abuelo now, and he laughed and clapped his hands.

“Excellent!” he said. “That worthless doctor told us you might lose that eye completely. And now look! You're a regular Don Juan!”

“Did you have a lot of girlfriends when you were young, Abuelo?” I asked.

“Niño, I have been in love with only one woman my entire life, and the day I married her was the best day of all!” Abuelo said, very loudly. Then he bent down and whispered in my ear, “But let me tell you, when I wed your grandmother, there were a lot of brokenhearted girls in Rodas!”

“I heard that!” Abuela yelled from the living room.

“Heard what? I didn't say anything!” Abuelo said. Then he elbowed me in the side, one hand over his mouth.

The next day, the hated brown company car showed up to take Abuelo away. The whole family gathered in the front yard to say goodbye and wish him a safe and successful trip.

That spring, Tío William was released from prison and we thought it was a miracle that the government released him when they were supposed to. It had been a long and trying ordeal for him. He had been a massive man; now we could count his bones through his skin and he kept more to himself, smiling rarely and never laughing.

I had a hard time understanding this change in him. On one of his visits home Papa explained: “The Communists were very cruel to your uncle. He had spoken out to the guards when someone's rights were being trampled, and spoke for all prisoners when they had a demand. This earned him the respect of the other prisoners—and the constant torment of the guards. They barely fed him and sometimes they kept him for weeks in a cell that was so tiny he could neither lie down nor stand up. There were rats and bugs. He could feel them crawling over him at night. Whenever he fell asleep, the guards would pour cold water over him to wake him up.”