My last night in Havana was yesterday. In a few hours gonna take a bus out to Trinidad for the weekend with a twice black-eyed Dutchman from the boxing gym, come back, catch the plane to snowy homeland.
The Latino film festival is on right now. Boxing's done. Some girl was at the gym yesterday, I couldn't tell from where, photographing everybody training. All the kids who hang around raced up and down the bleechers to catch her eye. It's an outdoor gym, so usually some apartment nearby has music going, the roof across the alley had construction workers toiling away with cheesy techno blaring so the kids went ape-shit shaking their asses 50 feet above us, grownup-moves, then kid-giggles after they broke down when she stopped taking their pictures.
The girl went over to one of the coaches who she found out was a 2x world champion and 2x olympic gold medalist. Click-click. He's a sullen guy of 35 who smokes while he lies sprawled out on the canvass. He's the only Cuban at the gym who doesn't make any effort to shake my hand when I arrive. So I watch with interest when girls perk up his spirits. It's the only time he ever smiles. He coulda defected and made a few million maybe. But no more family. He made his choice. But he certainly doesn't have much to say about it---not with me, anyway.
Last night a few drinks with this Dutch guy hatching a plan for today's trip. Late night after a movie at a theater next to Kid Chocolate in Old Havana. It was the wrong street to be on because all the hookers were out. "Coo joo buy me waan dreek?" one girl said through the wooden bars separating us from the street. I find hooker's eyes very slippery. I get shy in a hurry. "Jass waan?"
We started home. It was dark enough that I couldn't see my friend's black eyes. They annoyed him a fair bit and amused me. Both were cheap shots he'd got sparring. We're both leaving very soon. Him in a few days after me. He's been traveling for a great deal longer, several months in South America. Job to find back home. Sort shit out. Make sense of this trip. Girl stuff. Where will life settle...
We hadn't said anything to each other for a block. It was quiet. Traffic was dead. Street lights were dim. Stray dogs were roaming.
"Dat wass deezgusstin'."
"What's that?" I asked him. My favorite quality of his is how he registers disgust.
"Dat ol' man weeth dat prossdeedute. He shud be ashamed."
"She was pretty. Maybe he's gotten over his shame."
"Haav heez age, man! Motherfuck."
"Yeah well."
"I cood nevah do dat."
I looked over at one mangy dog chasing another in the middle of the street, then he caught her finally, hopped on top and went to town. Nothing spooks me in this town like the strays. So I looked up at the moon and on a rooftop some guy was perched like a gargoyle over the edge, gazing up at the stars. Such a strange melody to the nights here. Like the real business-end of it is fucking with your dreams more than your mind.
This place punishes you with it's beauty. It gives more than it takes, but it wants to fiddle with your values just to see the look on your face. You can't put your finger on anything. Any sight that takes your breath away---the moment it comes back you get a stink from something that gives you a migrane. Everybody pools and slums their dirty stuff with everybody else's. Soupy kinda deal. But real. Always real. Like how you feel swimming naked.
Kinda makes you wonder about the poetry of why somebody with Van Gogh's eye always had a weakness for diseased whores. And he never recovered from that kinda taste of domestic family life with one of them. Ah well... goofier shit abounds.
I hate goodbyes. Hate'em. The whole time I was here I was secretly hoping Fidel might die. I don't want him dead. But I wanted to see what would happen. No dice. Have to catch it on CNN. "The most trusted name in news". Note not "The most TRUST WORTHY name in news"---but as long as a bunch of suckers buy it, good enough for me. Consensus usually adds up to truth anyway. Yep.
What a lame note to end on. I saw that girl up on her balcony last night tho. Leaning into her hands over the railing. That was an okay goodbye-thing. It was so dark I couldn't even make out the color of her dress. No accidents in this place...
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