The Prince of los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood (17 page)

“How about you? Where are you from?” I asked, and she was good for fifteen minutes: “Oh, dahling, I’m a little from everywhere, but I’ve been living here for five years come September, ever since Harry passed—may he rest in peace. He was a hell of a good husband, but no good at business. He lost everything. I miss my old meshuggener, even if he left me nothing except memories and bills, and a few of these tchotchkes. Look at this one. Didn’t he have good taste?” she said, holding out her hand in front of her to show me the ring, joggling it in the sunlight as if to make the stone glimmer. “Who could part with this sparkler? Not me, even if I have to eat cabbage the rest of my days.”

She cleaned her glasses with the handkerchief, slid them back on, and turned her body toward me. “Let me take a good look at you. You’re a cute one. A little meaty, but not so bad. So, dahling, you got a name?” “Um . . . Ricky,” I said awkwardly, taken by her bluntness and wondering if I should ask her the same, but I didn’t have to. “What, you don’t want to know
my
name? Yetta, Yetta Epstein. Nice to meet you, Ricky,” she said with a chuckle. Her candid humor drew me in. I wanted to hear more from her and less of my own whining about Caco and my
primas
.

“So, where did you live before, with Harry?” I asked. “Oh, we had a gorgeous house off Alton Road, not too far from here, but on the bay side. What a palace—original marble floors, two-car garage, swimming pool, a big kitchen—the works, I tell you, the works. Harry and I knew all the stars back then: Sinatra, Lena Horne, Jackie Gleason, Dean Martin. It was like Hollywood here. And this crappy Copa? It was one of the most la-di-da hotels on the beach, nothing schlocky about it back then. The lobby was to die for. On Saturday nights they had a band by the pool. Harry and I were regulars—danced everything from the fox-trot to the mambo under the moonlight until all hours. Who would’ve known that when he passed, I’d have to move back here. Like my
mamele
used to say,
we make plans and God laughs
. But I have good memories inside these walls. So what if it’s falling apart like the rest of us.”

“Mambo?” I interrupted, a bit puzzled. “
Ay, sí, caramba
,” she broke out in Spanish, “We knew how to do
el
mambo, rumba, montuno—you name it. Harry and I popped over to Havana all the time; he knew everyone at all the best nightclubs. Picture me, dahling, twenty-five, in heels with my bazongas out to there in a halter top—bah! Those Cuban men couldn’t keep their eyes off of me. And Havana! It was even more beautiful than Miami Beach back then. Those late-night walks through the empty streets of
La Habana Vieja,
all the shutters closed and the balconies empty. It was like Harry and I had the whole city to ourselves. But I’ve heard it’s all falling apart now, just like Miami Beach. Who would’ve thought?” Her story made me think of the photos in the wall calendar from El Gallo de Oro. I pictured her and Harry the same way I had pictured my parents in Cuba.

“Cuba? That’s where I’m from,” I interjected again. “Oh, I thought you were from Westchester, dahling? Which is it? You sure move around.” “Well, my parents are from Cuba. I was born in Spain, then we moved here,” I explained. “So what does that make you?” “I’m American,” I said, sure of my answer at first, but then added, “I guess.” “Oh, you guess, do you?” she said, taking off her glasses again and lifting her penciled-in eyebrows. “Well, I’m going up to fix lunch.
Hasta luego,
dahling,” she said, folding her handkerchief into her patent leather pocketbook. She stood up, patted out the wrinkles on her linen dress, and slowly shuffled away. Throughout the rest of the afternoon I kept playing Yetta’s weird words in my mind—
mamele, meshuggener, schlep, schlocky
—and her not-so-weird question:
So what does that make you?
No one had ever asked me that before.

For dinner,
tía
Elisa offered to make grilled cheese sandwiches for me and Caco and my
primas
. Mamá reluctantly agreed, but made her stuff the sandwiches with slices of roasted pork so they would have
some
nutritional value. After our Cuban grilled cheese dinner, the conversation between Caco and the
primas
in our room began to sound like gibberish to me. They went on and on about the latest R-rated movies and high school pep rallies; they argued over who sang better than whom: Barbra Streisand or Karen Carpenter; Michael Jackson or Andy Gibb. Who cared?

Bored with their chatter, I blurted out “Where are you from?” at Caco, who was standing in front of the mirror with his hands in his mouth, strapping new rubber bands onto his braces. “What do you mean? I’m from Miami—where else, dummy?” he answered. “What about you,
prima
—where are you from?” I asked Denise, who was putting on a fresh coat of lip gloss. “From New York City,” she responded proudly. “Me too—the Big Apple,” Carla chimed in, combing the tangles out of her hair. She bounced the question back at me, “Why? Where are you from, Ricky?” “I’m not sure,” I answered. Caco promptly wisecracked, “Sure you are. You’re from Ur
anus
!” Embarrassed, I clammed up; they had no idea what I was trying to ask anyway.

They rushed out the door, telling me they’d be right back, but I knew better. I could tell they just didn’t want me to tag along. Still, I didn’t protest. I spent the night alone in the room, watching TV and browsing through the phone book to pass the time, looking up the names of relatives and classmates, counting how many Blancos lived in Miami, and I found Yetta—Yetta Epstein. There was only one.

WHEN I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING, CACO AND
my
primas
were already gone. Hurt, I realized they must have snuck out of the room early while I was still asleep. I hurried down to the pool and spotted my
primas
on lounge chairs, their long, svelte bodies smeared with a thick coating of sunscreen. I dragged a chair beside them as if nothing had happened. “Oh, hello,” Carla said kindly, lifting her sunglasses to look at me. “Hey, cuz,” Denise said, acknowledging me with a smile. They were friendly again, but not Caco—of course not. “Nice shorts. You belong at the
kiddy pool,” he wise-mouthed, and then turned his face away. “Dig it! Put that up!” Denise said, and turned up the volume on the boom box. She and Carla began singing along to “Disco Inferno,” their eyes closed to the sun, tapping their painted fingernails on the aluminum armrests and wiggling their bodies to the music. Even Caco joined in, flapping his hairy toes to the beat.

“This song is outrageous,” I offered, trying to ease my way back into their favor. “Oh shut up, blubbo,” Caco said. “You don’t even know who sings this.” My
primas
giggled. I had to save face. “Yes I do, butt-brains. It’s The Trammps—and it’s from
Saturday Night Fever
—I saw the movie too! What do you know anyways? You can’t even dance!” It was true. Caco was a terrible dancer. He knew it, I knew it, and he knew that I knew it from the nights I spent dancing with him after he practically begged me to help him practice his disco steps. For days afterward, I’d have to wear Band-Aids on my mutilated toes. But I didn’t mind. For an hour, sometimes more, we were not bratty brothers—we were tribesmen dancing barefoot in our Fruit of the Loom boxers, entranced by the percussion beating through our bodies. Though sometimes we’d dress up for the part in silky shirts and polyester slacks. Regardless, as soon as he’d lift the needle off the LP, the threats would follow: “I’ll kill you if you tell anyone, I swear. I’ll tell Abuela about you dressing up like a girl in your sheets.”

“You really don’t know how to dance?” my
primas
asked Caco, giggling even louder. “He’s a total nerd,” I answered for my brother, who was unable to come back at me with anything more than “Shut up, or else.” “Or else what, John Duh-volta?” I said, tripping my
primas
into a full-blown cackle, holding their tummies. In a flash he scooped me out of my chair—my feet wiggling as he carried me to the pool and flung me into the deep end. I could sense my
primas
laughing even as I swam underwater to the other side of the pool.

When I came up for air, I saw them tugging at Caco’s arms, teasing him out of his chair to dance with them. I sat on the pool ledge alone with my best poor-me face, hoping I’d get my
primas’
sympathy, or at least their attention; hoping they’d wave for me to come back and join them. But they didn’t. They were too busy showing Caco their fancy New York dance moves, trying to get him to follow their steps, his clumpy feet splashing up puddles of pool water everywhere like a bear on his hind legs trying to do the Hustle.

I could dance ten times better than Caco. I wanted to march back over to them and embarrass him with some of my fancy Latin Hustle moves. But before I got the nerve, they stopped dancing and followed Caco to the diving platform. Taking baby steps, my
primas
pinched their noses all the way to the edge of the platform, only to turn around and run back petrified. Then it was Caco’s turn to show off. He took a running start and leaped off, headfirst into the water like a pelican diving for fish. He was a natural athlete, and I was a klutz. I knew I couldn’t compete with him on the diving platform, so I played it cool. I lay down on my stomach along the ledge of the pool and rested my head on my arms, pretending to be oblivious, but I watched his every move through my squinted eyes. He pulled himself out of the pool, jogged confidently back to the ladder, and climbed up to the platform again as my
primas
clapped and whistled. In an instant, Caco became their hero, coaching them down the platform until the three of them finally held hands and jumped together, feetfirst, into the pool. My
primas
became his
primas
.

HAVING HAD ENOUGH OF CACO’S WISECRACKS AND
my heartbreaker
primas
, the next morning I went to the beach with the grown-ups. It took an hour of hauling the umbrellas, beach chairs, towels, sunscreen, and the ice chest filled with sodas and snacks. As well as Mamá’s
por si las moscas
beach tote: a colander to catch pesky jellyfish, kerosene to remove tar stains from the bottoms of our feet, fishing reels in case anyone was in the mood, mosquito netting to keep the flies from the food, a vial of Mercurochrome, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a box of Band-Aids. All that, and yet the hotel was only steps away from the beach.

Abuelo had invited
tío
Pipo and
tía
Gloria to spend the day with us. They showed up with greasy brown bags of
chicharrones
from El Cocuyito and a bottle of whiskey, trudging through the sand with a card table and folding chairs for playing dominos. After a round of hello kisses, everyone migrated into two camps. On my right,
las mujeres:
Mamá, Abuela, and
tía
s Elisa and Gloria taking snapshots of one another with Mamá’s Kodak Instamatic. They posed by the shore like beauty pageant contestants in one-piece swimsuits, pushing their busts out proudly and showing off their painted toenails, the coconut tanning oil on their arms and thighs glimmering like gold leaf in the sun. On my left,
los hombres:
Papá, Abuelo, and tíos Paquito and Pipo, stirring their highballs with their fingers, shuffling the dominos over the table, the sea breeze tickling the tufts of hair on their chests and under their arms.

And between the women and the men, I sat playing chef, preparing my specialties: sand cupcakes decorated with seashells, and seaweed spaghetti with sand meatballs, all the while listening to snippets of stories and banter in Spanish. In my left ear: “
Cojones,
remember the ass on Irene
la mulata
who lived by the railroad tracks in Hormiguero? If Nixon were still president, Castro would have been finished by now—finished. I heard that Ramón from Palmira came over as a political prisoner.
¡Coño!
Where did you learn to play dominos—in Canada?” And in my right ear: “Can you believe how much it costs to send shoes to Cuba? I don’t know why, but the yuca here just won’t soften up. Eugenia wrote that Tania just had another girl; she says she sent photos but they never arrived. Would you go back to Cuba if things changed?”

And in both ears, the same rant they’d get into every time we went to Miami Beach: “Look at all that seaweed and that muddy water.
De verdad,
nothing more beautiful than our beach at Varadero. Remember, the sand like sugar, the water so clear you could see a dull
centavo
down at your toes. This isn’t a beach, it’s
un pantano
—a swamp!” I took their insults personally. After all, it was
my
beach they hated. How could anyplace be more beautiful?

I stood up and walked over to my mother. “Mamá, why do you all hate Miami?” I asked. Amused by my question, the women chuckled, before Mamá answered: “
Ay, mi’jo,
I don’t hate Miami, but I’m from Cuba. This could never compare to home. You know that. We’re all
cubanos
.” “Me too?” I asked, which is what I really wanted to know, hoping for a simple yes or no, but instead she replied, “
Bueno,
yes, you’re
cubano
, but you are also a little
americano;
and
un galleguito
from Spain, where you were born.” I looked out across the sea, the same water that connected this shore with Cuba’s shore and so many other shores that seemed so far away. It seemed like everyone knew for certain where they belonged except me and Yetta, I thought, remembering what she had told me,
I’m a little from everywhere
.

I toweled off and told Mamá I was going up to the room to watch TV, but instead I went to check if Yetta was on the veranda again. And there she was in the same seat, as if she hadn’t moved since yesterday, only she had changed her outfit and her jewelry to match: a cluster of rubies on her finger, which were the same bloodred as the quarter-size buttons on her blouse and a silk headband pushing her bouffant up another inch. “Hi,” I said, standing at a polite distance. “Oy, it’s a hot one today,” she complained, patting her forehead with a red handkerchief. “Come, sit down, sit down—sit, will you? So what’s the trouble today—nothing again?” she asked boldly.