Beantown Cubans

by Johnny Diaz

  Tommy and I settle into our cushioned seats, and we immediately study the menus. It’s been months since I’ve had Cuban food in Miami, so this place will have to do.

  “So what’s going on with you, chico? How was school today?” Tommy asks, putting down his menu, which features yet another image of my country on the cover. Ay, Havana! As we talk, Tommy begins to rip and twirl small pieces of his napkin over and over again into little balls, something he does often at restaurants.

  “I’m still getting to know the students. They’re a mix of blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, and I have to wait about fifteen minutes at the beginning of class to get them to settle down. All they want to do is talk about their online profiles and who did who over the weekend. But when I sit in front and stare at them without saying a word, they finally start to settle down and let me talk. It’s all psychology, Mr. T, but sometimes I just want to start the day without them interrupting me.”

  “I can’t imagine being a teacher here, especially in Dorchester or Dotchestah as the native Bostonians say. It’s one of the rougher schools. It’s where all those shootings take place and close to where they filmed that 2007 Ben Affleck movie, Gone Baby Gone, which showed the grittier side of Beantown. You get SHOT in DOT!” Tommy jokes. He tends to preface his conversations with pop culture references.

  “But don’t you live in Dorchester?” I break some of the warm bread the waitress brought us.

  “Um yeah, that’s why I know what I’m talking about. Don’t leave home without your bulletproof vest! But I’m in the nice part of Dorchester, near Milton by the old Walter Baker Chocolate Factories, so I don’t have to strap on my bazooka. Actually, I’m teasing. I do like living there. It’s like a cute little urban hamlet. Speaking of cute, are there any cute teachers at your school?” As usual, Tommy plays reporter after hours. He flashes his big smile again. A chronic smiler, Tommy makes people wonder what he’s thinking about.

  “Except for that night we met at Club Café, I haven’t met anyone. All the guys at Club Café are too good-looking. They’re all about themselves, and they seemed snobby. They’re all in their little cliques talking about everyone else like gossiping girls on a teen show. I don’t know why you like that place. I was about to head home when I met you that night. Everyone else seemed really rude. Is there another bar to go to?”

  “Snobby? Club Café is fun, Carlos. Loosen up,” Tommy snaps back. Oops. I forgot how much he enjoys hanging out there. It’s where he met his ex-boyfriend Mikey, the alcoholic. I better not go there right now. If I get Tommy wound up again about Mikey, the Ethan Hawke clone, and how much he loved him, I’ll have to throw myself through this beautiful glass window, and I wouldn’t want to upset the Cuban restaurant owner. In the short time that I’ve known Tommy, I’ve noticed that he repeats himself with his stories, especially those concerning Mikey. From what Tommy has shared with me, Mikey made him feel at home in Boston when he moved here from Miami, but Mikey was constantly drowning himself inside a Corona bottle. I don’t know what that is like from personal experience except for Tio Augustin, my uncle who was never invited to family gatherings. We feared he would become an obnoxious drunk. From what Tommy has described, I don’t want to ever experience that with a boyfriend. I’ll take his word for it.

  “Well, Club Café is more your scene, but is there another place we can go that is more laid back, more ethnic, sort of like Miami? Club Café is so white. I want to see the other side of Boston,” I say, sipping my water.

  “Um, white, Carlos? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror? You look like a Cuban Josh Groban except with shorter hair. You’re just as white as the guys here in Boston.”

  “Yeah, but I’m Cuban so it’s not the same thing, but I don’t look like Josh Groban. I’ll take that as a compliment though because he’s handsome, so thank you. I just have more café mixed in me.” I joke back. Tommy is right though. I’m pretty pale for a Cuban. People often mistake me for a European from Spain. It’s the milkiness of my skin, my dark brown, wavy hair, and light brown eyes. Tommy is slightly darker with his olive skin, short, brown, curly hair, and cinnamon brown eyes. I would say that he looks like that soccer player who won Survivor a few years ago but with more tamed hair. (Just don’t tell Tommy that because it may go to his head.) Tommy appears more Greek and Italian, which is what caught my attention when we first met. He looked, well, ethnic, and I like ethnic-looking guys, which is something this city lacks unless you’re here in Jamaica Plain or in Dorchester or East Boston, Logan International Airport’s neighbor. When I first met Tommy, I thought we would hit it off romantically. I was interested. Tommy is very attractive, and I immediately sensed he has a good heart. But from the get-go, he talked endlessly about Mikey and their break-up. I could tell that this ex-boyfriend resided in a large part of his heart. Besides, I needed a friend here, un amigo, and Tommy seemed like he would be a great one. And Mami would agree. I can picture myself introducing her to him. He would have passed the Maria Martin test with flying colors. (Oops. I am talking about Mami again. Sorry. I tend to do that a lot.) Tommy tells really cheesy goofy jokes and announces the year when movies and songs came out as if he had OCD. I call him loco or loca but as terms of endearment. I just never met anyone with all his quirks. He’s a good guy, and he’s taken the time to show me around the city and teach me how to navigate the subway, which is called the “T” here, and explain how some neighborhoods are stand-ins for others in Miami. (Tommy says Newton is like Boston’s Coral Gables and Quincy is like North Miami Beach but with more history.)

  The night we met this summer, after we talked about our families, and growing up in Miami Beach and Coral Gables, Tommy handed me his Daily business card with his cell phone number scribbled on the back. He said words that made me realize I had made a new friend. By the lip of Club Café’s front door that night, Tommy said, “I know what it’s like to be a stranger in a new city—especially one that is as cold as Boston—in more ways than one. I was where you are now, and I know what you’re going through, trying to make sense of this staid and sometimes too provincial town. So if you ever need anything or you want to hang out or if you’re feeling homesick and need someone to talk to, I’m here, okay? I know my way around, and I can help you figure this place out. You’re not alone. Remember that! You’re with a fellow Cuban. Familia.”

  We hugged that night, and from them on, we’ve been chatting on the phone almost daily, our conversations spiced with stories about our families and workdays. I call him on my breaks from school or when I’m on my way home. From the beginning, we would hang-ear, our word for hanging out, which means anything from me going over to his condo to watch Project Runway, or our favorite all-time Que Pasa USA? episodes, a classic PBS show about a Cuban family in Miami adapting to America in the 1970s. Hang-ear also means that he keeps me company as I fold a load of laundry. We don’t have to do anything formal. Spending time with Tommy is like being with family, a brother from another mother. And although he tends to talk about his job a lot and he becomes long-winded with his Mikey tales, I can handle that. Hey, no one is perfect. I am far from it, with my hairy arms and upper back that require monthly wax jobs. Some Cubans are as hairy as wolves. Just ask conga queen Gloria Estefan, who admitted during a concert how hairy she was as a teenager. I believe it. (She used to have a unibrow.)

  “There’s a place called Paradise in Cambridge next to MIT. It’s a two-story bar. You’ve got a lot of Brazilians, Hispanics, some blacks, and Asians in there. It’s a little gritty and the extreme opposite of Club Café, but it’s fun if you like that sort of thing,” Tommy says, gesturing for the waitress to return so she can take our order. “I like to call it Paradise Lost because no one from Club Café would be caught going there.” Tommy laughs, which makes his brown curls shake like a shivering bush.

  “Bueno, we should go. I want to see the other side of Boston’s gay scene. I know it can’t be just these twinks and yuppies at Club Café. Where’s the color in these bars? I kn
ow Latinos must dance and drink somewhere around here!”

  “If you want, we can go. I’ll show you Paradise, but don’t say I didn’t warn you. The guys there aren’t that great looking, but I’d be happy to take you there. It’ll be fun. I can finally dance with another Cuban here,” Tommy says. “If you remember that club in Miami called Ozone behind the University of Miami, then you’ll know what to expect in Club Parasites, uh, I mean Paradise.”

  “You the man, Tommy! Paradise, here we come!” The waitress scribbles down our order on a small pad filled with shaded green sheets. I order the Cuban sandwich and a mamey shake, just as I envisioned earlier. Tommy gets a pressed turkey sandwich with fries and a Diet Coke. No big surprise there.

  We sit here for the rest of the afternoon charlando about our work day. We laugh about the differences between Miami and Boston. Occasionally, we observe the hunky Puerto Rican construction workers as they order from the restaurant’s café window during their break. The more Tommy and I hang out like this, the more at home I feel in my new city.

  “So you’ve been christened. You ate at the one and only Cuban restaurant in Boston. You’re officially the new Beantown Cuban. I pass on my tiara to you.” Tommy holds up his half-empty glass of Diet Coke to toast the occasion.

  “Thanks, loco. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t even know this place was here.” I clink his glass with my frosty mamey shake.

  “That’s what new friends are for. You’re not alone here. Remember that.”

  “I will, loca!” I say, raising my drink. “To Beantown Cubans!”

  2

  Tommy

  I can’t believe Carlos talked me into coming to Club Paradise. I hope no one from Club Café catches me here. I try to make a covert entry by walking quickly inside with my head down and my right hand on the side of my head, cloaking my face. Paradise isn’t such a bad place. There aren’t many cute guys here, that’s all. It’s just off the MIT campus, and looks like a former meat factory or deli. The only dance floor is in the basement and it smells like a mix of urine, club smoke, and alcohol. It’s dark in here, too, something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre but with pumping music and outdated strobe lights. (Did I just hear a chainsaw?) Ah no, just some nighttime construction workers hammering into a new condo high-rise down the street.

  Once inside, I notice the bar is filled with unattractive guys who look as if they came here straight from Jabba the Hutt’s cantina in Star Wars. They seem like Club Café rejects. I’m not elitist or anything. I’m just being brutally honest. Club Café radiates more style with its cute young guys, thirtysomethings, and plasma monitors featuring the latest video mixes. But I’ve gone there one too many times in the last year, so a change of scenery might be good for me. Part of the reason why I want to maintain a low profile at Club Café is because it reminds me too much of Mikey, my ex-boyfriend. We met there one Thursday night, and I fell for him right then and there. I blame those piercing bright blue eyes and the way he spiked up his straight brown hair. I assign more blame to his endearing grin, which made me smile. I hold him guilty as charged for seducing me whenever he nodded his chin or bit down on his tongue when he thought he said something funny. Mikey was my first and, so far, my last boyfriend in Boston. He showed me Boston from a native’s point of view. He took me on road trips to Portland, Providence, and Provincetown. He slept over at my Cambridge condo in Harvard Square, where we cuddled through the night. We were inseparable. Something—an emotional pull or magnetic force—directed my heart toward Mikey, as if Cupid had a GPS and shot me stone cold on that chilly November night. When I was around Mikey, something clicked, lighting me up from the inside like an electric spark. An unspoken magic, an invisible energy, lingered between us whenever we were together. It surfaced when we did the most mundane things such as sitting on my big blue sofa, walking on Newbury Street, or watching Saturday Night Live. Spending time with Mikey felt natural and right—except on our nights out at Club Café.

  His drinking gradually wore me down. He was drunk almost every weekend. He’d wake up on Sunday mornings hungover, slouched on the side of my bed. It didn’t matter how many times I tried to talk him into getting help, he just wouldn’t listen. After a few months of watching Mikey seesaw between drunk and sober, I had to move on and let him go. I confronted him about his drinking at the Barnes & Noble in Braintree, our meeting place, since he lived on the South Shore while I lived in Cambridge at the time. And right there near the Self Help section, he dumped me because I called him on his drinking. He walked away from me because he couldn’t walk away from his drinking, and that left me heartbroken. I haven’t been able to fill that hole in my heart. It didn’t help that I would see him sloshed at Club Café every time I dropped by with Rico, my reliable and studly Italian wingman. After a while, I stopped going to Club Café because I didn’t want to see Mikey drunk in the corner of the bar flirting with some guy. It hurt too much and reminded me of what might have been, if only he had cleaned himself up and stayed sober. It never happened.

  “Loca, are you still with me?” Carlos says as we walk deeper into Paradise. “Stop thinking about Mikey and don’t deny that you are. His name is written all over your face in big bold letters.” Carlos knows me pretty well.

  “Um, I was, um, just thinking about my next story, that’s all.” Carlos’s eyes roll like two light brown bowling balls at my statement.

  “Por favor, Tommy! In the short time that we’ve known each other, I’ve learned to read you like a gay romance novel. You wear your expressions too well. Let’s have fun. Leave Mikey in the past. Comprende?”

  And with that, we venture deeper into the bar. We walk a few steps up into the main bar, where some extremely young-looking guys pole-dance á la Britney or the Pussycat Dolls. They look too boyish to be legally working. Maybe a story for the Daily’s Metro section?

  I agreed to come here with Carlos because I wanted to show him another part of Boston, well, Cambridge, since the bar is on this side of the Charles River. Carlos is the newest addition to my crew of friends in Boston. I still have Rico to hang out with, but he’s been too busy with his sailor boyfriend and competing in the gay football league. That’s left some room to befriend Carlos, who is extremely nice but a little bit needy at times. When I met him at Club Café, we couldn’t stop talking. He reminded me so much of myself when I moved here from Miami. Carlos was lonely and adjusting to his new surroundings and trying to make sense of a city filled with icy stares from native Bostonians. But there’s one major difference between us. I still have my parents (who call me every night on cue). Carlos lost his mom to cancer. Out of the goodness of my heart, I decided to show him around The Hub. We became instant friends, as if we’ve known each other for years. There was a familiarity there. It never ceases to amaze me how at home I feel with a stranger when I learn that he is Cuban. We’re like instant oatmeal. Just add water or, in Carlos’s case, a Cuba Libre, and you get something that warms your tummy. Cuban comfort.

  Carlos is your typical Cuban poster boy. He punctuates his speech with whiney Ay, Cuba or Ay, mi tierra and Spanglish phrases. Carlos is proud of his roots, even more so than I am, but I have always felt more American than Cuban after growing up in mainly Jewish Miami Beach. (I speak Spanish with an American accent.) With Carlos, it’s the other way around. He feels more Cuban due to his American upbringing and speaks with a true-to-Miami thick accent in both English and Spanish.

  I remember what it was like to be a newcomer to Boston, so I couldn’t help but want to show Carlos that Boston is a great place to be, no matter where you are from. I found a good friend in Carlos, and that’s why I’m here, showing him something new even though it’s an old and tired place called Paradise. Wait, was that Antonio from Club Café standing in the corner? Nah, a look-alike. Whew.

  I direct Carlos to the dance floor located in the basement. We squeeze through a musky herd of guys as we descend the dark steps to nowhere.

  “Guao, there are so many guys
here,” Carlos says, his brown eyes lighting up as much as they can in this sub-level dance arena.

  “Where? I can’t see a thing. I left my glasses in the Jeep, so everything looks slightly fuzzy.” All I can see is Carlos’s eyes glowing from our new adventure tonight.

  We head to the one-man bar in the front of the dance floor, where a gay Boston Benetton ad unfolds before us. Guys are crunking, gyrating, jumping, their bodies jerking to the left and sashaying to the right like wind-up dolls. Carlos and I grab our drinks. I ordered vodka and Diet Coke, my favorite. Carlos asked for a Cuba Libre. We clink our cheap imitation plastic glasses and take big sips.

  “To Beantown Cubans,” we declare, using our new catch-phrase and taking swigs from our drinks. We lean against the bar and watch the parade of men stream by. Carlos nods my way to point out a cute guy he sees.

  “Not really my type,” I say, eyeing the lean, tall, and tanned Brazilian guy with the green and yellow tight-fitting jersey and baggy blue jeans that seem to defy Cambridge gravity.