Laputa

Last year a Cuban on the flight over to their hometown told me a story. When Che left Cuba for the last time he changed his identity and radically altered his appearance in order to sneak out to Bolivia. But he had dinner with his family one last time. His wife introduced him to his children as "Raoul" and they didn't recognize him. When dinner was served, out of habit, he sat at his usual place at the head of the table. Instantly one of his small children confronted him and grabbed the chair. "You cannot sit here. My father sits here." So Che politely stood and left it empty while his wife smiled.

I'm pushing thirty this June and it embarrasses me that I don't know more of these kinds of stories. I should.

Whenever I touchdown in Havana I never have a place to stay. That isn't especially specific to Havana actually. I hate reservations. But Havana IS one of the only places I know that rewards you for having no plans and just hustling. All I'd lined up for my first week after leaving home was going to the movies with two Cuban girls, one on a stopover in Toronto, the other in Havana. I'd never gotten around to catching a movie at the Charlie Chaplin theater and I didn't feel like going alone, I wanted a stranger.



The cab dropped me off on the Malecón near the Hotel Nacionale. It was that strange hour between the sun sinking out of view and the street lights turning on. Still warm out as the colors drain and begin smear and stain stuff, in this case the rooftops in old Havana behind me and ahead of me the whole chocolate Christmas calendar of hurricane bruised apartments skirting the edge of the sea. Bike taxis hustled rides while the fisherman worked barefoot and shirtless, smoking unfiltered cigarettes next to a bucket of today's catch pulled in. Some work alone with rum, others in groups with conversation. Jineteros (jockeys---as in, RIDING the tourists) keeping an eye out for an easy wallet while jineteras arch their backs and hiss, "Warr joo frawm?". I prefer their guesses to my honest answer. Kids too busy flirting with each other to mind another gringo looking around for a stall to buy some cigarettes and a juice box of rum with a sipping straw. Lots of people alone walking, turning over decisions made a little easier with the proximity to the sea. Old women with sacks of candy holding out fist fulls of lollipops and bags of popcorn to families sitting or leaning against the seawall near lone musicians with trumpets or guitars. Tourist cruise ships off in the horizon, some warships too. Out beyond the perfect line where the sky and sea kiss, only 90 miles, three days float if you make it, and pay dirt of the whole shitload of Florida relatives. Get lost thinking about anything and some wave might wash over and soak all your baggage to hell. Not that I ever have much. Nobody gives you shit if you wear the same shirt all week if you have to. And everybody likes to swap.

Back in 2000, the first time I saw Cuba, five minutes after arriving I went over to the Habana Libre (which used to be the Hilton until Castro rolled in and set up government headquarters on the top two floors) and asked everybody milling around outside where the "maricon" was, not knowing I was using the vulgar pronoun for queer. Also not knowing that this was the unofficially designated cruising area of town. I do most of my research on the fly. Anyway, after a quick glance at the policeman on the street corner I was ignored. I approached somebody else, "How do I find the maricon please? Can you show me?" This woman was more helpful. I was pointed in the direction of a handful of homosexuals across the street at an ice cream stand and when I seemed confused by her advice someone corrected my vocabulary and walked me around the corner until I could see what I was looking for for myself.

Then it turns into a wet painting like this:


And the girls with price tags offer a little company, whatever you want, but I'm always too shy to go for it. It's too easy to get thinking about the people you've been with where you're just a stepping stone for someone hopefully a better fit. Likewise them for you. Musical chairs was just practice for it and for death's role in things too.

Beginning of November in this place where the seasons tap a shoulder and don't mind if you don't pay attention. Whenever you get lost all you need is the sea to get back on track. I have one of the worst senses of direction on the planet but this is redeemed by the golden rule I discovered of asking only the most attractive local women for directions. It's fun going out of your way to get as lost as possible as the purpose of your day---or life for that matter. Nearly everybody I've ever met I found just asking for directions.




I met her in a hotel lobby but she didn't come up to my room until the second night. Now she was still back in my country while I'd arrived in her hometown. There she was in the lobby dressed up:

"What deed I tell joo. No chemistry."
It was our joke about each other leading up to meeting. But I wasn't sure if she was joking this time. And I knew she could tell.

The human voice is really fucking creepy when you think about it. Usually you don't. But It's not really PART of the human body, it's sorta BETWEEN the human body. Which makes everybody a ventriloquist. Whatever thing possesses the voice sorta CONTROLS the rest of the body. Or it feels like it. Some bodysnatcher-effect.

But her voice was familiar cause I'd talked with her a bunch of hours leading up to this. I was used to her voice, excited and comforted by it. My favorite ingredients with anybody. Used to it singing or falling asleep or laughing or flirting---leaving her movie trailers to my imagination from the still images I'd seen. This is how her mouth moves when she talks. How her hands gesture along with it, fluttering like wild trapped birds over her head as all Cubans use them. I was used to her letters. Everything's a conversation, the SAME conversation really.

That's why even if I get to fuck you it's still gonna be the same argument, guapa. Stop glaring at me. Stop trying to rattle me when you already know I'm nervous. You're gonna force me to unleash many many 4th rate Marlon Brando facial expressions. Don't make me do it Carmen Miranda...

"Look at deez silly face. You're nervous. I can understand. No chemistry and you're sad you came all this way for nothing."
"Did you eat something?"
"Stop making your goofy faces. I'm hungry. You told me to come hungry."
"What are you hungry for?"
"Reebs."
"What the hell is that?"
"Reebs."
"I don't know that word in Spanish."
"It's not Spanish. REEEEBS. Puerca, what you always call me. Barbecue sauce. REEEBS stupido!"
"Ribs?"
"That's what I said."
"Sure you did."

Then leaving the restaurant with her licking her fingers clean, snow under her feet, wandering around the corner and spotting a movie theater. We find our seats and during the credits she sings along with the song in the movie, really belting it out, until a guy down the aisle turns around and tells her to shut up. She freezes stiff. Make or break time. I have enough things to worry about on my own without French Canadian testosterone interference, so I get up out of the seat and approach him. This settles affairs. She starts singing again at operatic volumes. He leaves. I reach for her hand and try for a kiss. Shot down. Wallow a little while until I catch the breeze from her batting her hair straight out of a mexican soap opera. Try again and do better. I love making out at the movies in the dark.

But it's a strange feeling consummating something over the page, on the phone, then in person. Every time you're translating something into a different language... it's this goofy shell game in many many cases.


I recognized this new girl in front of the Yara movie theater in a yellow dress, school books under her arm from the university just down the street. Very sweet, open face. She looked embarrassed but it was because they couldn't show the festival movies instead only some Kevin Costner movie and wondered if I minded. I said I didn't. It turned out it didn't matter anyway. Cubans treat the movies as an interruption on their conversations anyway. They yell over whatever the American movie stars are pretending to be concerned about so we just sat there and talked under the screaming at the screen. Got an ice cream across the street at Coppelia's after the show.