Learning to Die in Miami

by Carlos Eire

  None of our groundbreaking research will ever be published, however, until now.

  The garage is full of interesting stuff, which we can see through the window that faces the backyard, but it’s locked and we wouldn’t dare break in. Everything in there belongs to Mr. Guttman, our landlord, and we don’t want to mess with him.

  Oh, but what we’d give to go in there and poke around. It astounds me that anyone could have so much stuff that they never use and never even come to look at or paw through. The Guttmans are the opposites of refugees. Tony is not as amazed by this as I am. He’ll simply observe that the Guttmans are no different from our father, Louis XVI, and that he and I had more stuff than that, and more valuable, back in Plato’s cave.

  I’ll realize then, when he says this, how deeply I’ve buried my past self. And then I’ll forget this insight, almost instantly, and go back to being Chuck Neat-o.

  On Wednesday, a mere three days after our arrival, we start school. Bloomington Junior High School is only a block and a half from our house, and it serves the entire town. It’s housed in what was formerly the high school, a large brick building from the 1930s, slightly art deco, three stories tall, with a cafeteria in the basement. It has a huge gym and an Olympic-size swimming pool. It’s set back from the street and has a lawn in front, with maple trees that are taller than the building itself. Inside, the hallways are lined with lockers. All of this blows me away, for I’ve never seen a school like this before. What amazes me the most is the fact that not a single square inch of this school is open to the outdoors. Everything is so contained, so protected from the outside world. So untropical. So real in its acknowledgment of the harshness of cold weather, which I can’t wait to experience fully, sometime soon.

  I’m both excited and terrified as I set foot inside this building. I’m not only in a new school, in a new town, but also moving up from the safe and protected environment of elementary school to the bewilderingly new world of junior high school, where you don’t have the same teacher all day long and need to change classrooms all the time. I know I’ll also have to wear a uniform in gym class—something totally weird—and, on top of that, take a shower afterward, even if I’m not sweaty.

  This is the freakiest thing of all, and the most troubling. What? Don’t they trust me to take one at home? And they expect me to get naked in front of all these other guys every day? What? Are they crazy? Sadistic? But I’m painfully aware that this would have happened in Miami too, where the rules were the same. It seems to be a very peculiar and extremely perverse American fixation. So, at least I’m partially relieved to know that I’ll be getting naked in the world of light as opposed to the entrance to Plato’s cave, which was full of all sorts of thugs and potential perverts.

  I see some thugs milling around outside the school, and it surprises me. Thugs, in the real world? Wait, this is the realm of light. How is this possible? But there’s no use in denying the obvious. They’re here too. Thugs are easily identifiable, anywhere, regardless of geography or culture. But there seem to be far fewer here than I saw at Citrus Grove Junior High, which is where I’d be right now if St. Martin de Porres and God had not intervened.

  I’m immediately set at ease by my homeroom teacher, a tall blond guy with a flat-top haircut and black plastic eyeglasses. He calls the roll and when he gets to my name, he actually gives me a choice: “Charles, Charlie, or Chuck?” I hesitate again, for an instant, and then say “Chuck” as if that’s been my name all along. He explains what our first day will be like in great detail, and sets us loose.

  I almost miss some of his instructions because I’m transfixed by the maple tree outside our homeroom windows. It’s right up against the glass, this tree, and it blocks whatever is beyond it. All you can see are leaves and branches. The dappled sunlight is in constant motion as the leaves wave in the breeze, and the room itself is bathed in a greenish glow. The only other window I’ve seen that comes close to this is the one in Coral Gables, in that room where we had a Christmas party. It pains me to admit it, but this one tops the one in Florida. These leaves play with the light and share it with you. And the leaves themselves have a beautiful shape. The trees on Coral Way made me feel protected, but these trees make me feel as if I need no protection at all, from anything or anyone.

  I go from class to class and meet one nice teacher after another. Man, this world up north is so much better. Then I get to gym class and meet Mr. Henker. He’s different, all right, but I can’t put my finger on it. Icy. This guy radiates the opposite of warmth. He has a flat-top haircut, just like my homeroom teacher, but he also has a tattoo on his forearm: a bulldog’s head with the initials U.S.M.C. He tells us that he’s going to whip us into shape and turn us into real men, and that we’d better put one hundred percent or more of our effort into this class.

  I turn to the guy sitting to my left and say something appropriately skeptical and sarcastic. He responds in kind. I don’t know it yet, but I’ve just met my new best friend, one of the best ever. His name is Gary, and he, too, is new in town. His family has just moved here from farther downstate. Of all the guys I could have sat next to, it had to be him.

  Mr. Henker tells us that tomorrow we’d all better have the right gear for gym class, assigns us lockers, explains how it’s possible to shower and get dressed in less than five minutes, and lets us go.

  The rest of that first day is as wonderful as one might expect in the realm of light. By lunchtime, I notice that we have a lot of black kids in this school. This is something new—I thought all American schools were racially segregated. Wow—what a great change. That march on Washington and Martin Luther King’s speech from just a few days ago are already making a difference. I also notice that no one is asking why I have a funny accent, or where I come from. No one: not the teachers, not my fellow students. I also can’t help but notice that this school has more beautiful girls than I’ve ever seen thus far in my entire life. It’s not just the blondes, though there are so many of them and they catch my attention first. In this school, here in the realm of light, hair color makes no difference. Perfection abounds. I’m overwhelmed, and by sixth period the pain in my soul is getting in the way. Too many perfect features on too many girls. I find it hard to focus on anything else. Name a feature, I can count at least two dozen girls I’ve seen with perfect ones. And it’s not just a case of girls with one single perfect feature. No. I’ve seen some with multiple ones, and a few who seem to be totally perfect. Wholly and mindblowingly perfect.

  Legs are by far the most common perfect feature. Calves such as I’ve never, ever seen before, on any girl, anywhere. Perfectly symmetrical curves tapering down to a perfectly taut, inward-curving ankle. So, so many of them. The pain they cause is exquisite.

  By the end of the day, I’m practically levitating. In spiritual distress, yes, but euphoric. I’m overwhelmed by all of this beauty, and even more elated than I was when I landed at the airport. To say I’m high doesn’t even begin to cover it.

  I go to more classes, and get higher and higher. Industrial arts. What a concept: a class where you get to play with wood and metal and learn to use power tools. This isn’t school, this is a playground. I don’t know it yet, but this class will eventually lead me to many blissful moments with sawdust, metal filings, drills, chainsaws, and backhoes. And that teacher for my last period, Mr. Noden, put me over the edge. He was on fire. Social studies, of all things. I thought this was going to be a boring class, but hey, in this world surprises, along with perfect legs on girls, abound. This guy loves what he teaches. You can tell. All he did was lay out what we’d cover this year, but he made it seem like an adventure. I don’t know it yet, but Mr. Noden will know exactly what to do with my raw passion for history, and he’ll also teach me how to teach, even though doing any such thing has never yet crossed my mind.

  And I love my hallway locker, and the combination lock, and the combination. 17–8–23. Perfect. The gym locker I can do without.

  After schoo
l, I come home to real family warmth. These are my kin. I’ve known them forever, going back even to the lowest depths of Plato’s cave.

  Uncle Amado has always been the only sensible and pragmatic member of my father’s family, and, as one might expect, this has caused him some measure of grief, given how utterly dysfunctional everyone else is. I’ve always liked him, though, no matter how much the others carp about him. He can seem cold at times, but he’s never harsh, or mean-spirited. I’ve never seen him angry either. Tony and I will find it odd and irrational that he should harbor hopes of returning to Cuba and reclaiming his business and his property. As Tony and I see it, that’s all gone, vaporized, irretrievable. Of course, Tony and I are two punks who don’t have a clue and can’t even begin to imagine what it must be like to abandon absolutely everything that you’ve worked for your entire life at the age of sixty-two, or how it must feel to go from the top of your profession to the absolute bottom. He’ll write letters to American newspapers tirelessly, correcting their abysmally poor reporting on Cuba or praising the wonders of America, which Americans fail to appreciate. He’ll ask me to help with the English, and going over those letters with Uncle Amado will become one of my favorite moments of the day. He’ll write about two or three letters per week, during the two years, two months, and two days I’ll live with him. Tony and I will think he’s wasting his time, of course. But I’ll enjoy helping him with this quixotic obsession, while I puzzle over the fact that this man who knows so much more than I do about everything needs to ask a kid to help him with English.

  His wife, our aunt Alejandra, is much younger than him. She’s always been very nice to us. She has a great way of turning any awkward moment around and finding the right thing to say. She suffers from frequent migraines, though, and sometimes has to disappear for a while. She doesn’t speak a word of English, and after two years, she has made no effort to learn the language. In a town like Bloomington, where no one else speaks Spanish, this isolates her completely. It’s understandable. Like many refugees her age, she doesn’t see her present situation as permanent. As she sees it, this is a blip on the screen. She’ll be going back to Cuba any day now. Maybe next week. What amazes me the most about Alejandra is the way in which Amado loves her, and tries constantly to please her. Whatever she wants is what he wants. This was certainly not the case with my long-dead parents, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

  Marisol, their older daughter, is sweet, but a bit slow, physically and mentally. She’s slightly older than Tony, and during the first three or four years of their childhood, the difference in their development was so disturbingly stark that Amado and Alejandra asked our parents to stop visiting. Seeing what Tony could do broke their heart. Marisol is in junior high school, but in special classes. Two years after her arrival in the United States, she still has some trouble with English, as she does with every subject. Her balance is poor, and she has to wear orthopedic shoes. You can guess how all the other students treat her.

  I don’t know it yet, but a day will come when I’ll hear someone call her “Moose,” and I will lose control completely. I’ll punch the guy out before I can realize what I’ve just done. Chuck Neat-o will be shocked, unable to figure out where this violent response came from. Carlos will try to shout to him that it’s what he was supposed to do, to defend the family honor, but Chuck will pretend he doesn’t understand him.

  Alejandrita, their younger daughter, is just a few months younger than me. We’ve always gotten along well. She’s smart, funny, and talented. She’s everything Marisol can’t be. She does suffer from one handicap, however: She has to put up with the nearly paranoid protectiveness of her father, who, like all members of the Nieto family, thinks that the world is too dangerous and that the only way to survive is to stay indoors as much as possible. Amado doesn’t let her walk to school alone, even though she’s in sixth grade and her school is only three blocks from home. As soon as Tony and I arrive, it becomes our job to walk her to and from school every day. Tony will shirk this responsibility, but I’ll enjoy it, in part because I like Alejandrita very much and also because, finally, I get to be an older brother.

  During these first few days I ask my new family a million and a half questions about the climate up here. What’s fall like? Winter? Spring? I’m especially interested in knowing when it’ll start turning cold and when the leaves will change colors. Right now, in September, the weather here is no different from what I’m used to. It gets warm during the day, and it doesn’t cool off a lot at night. We sleep with the windows open and hear the most amazing symphony of insect noises outside, very different from any that we’ve heard before. The yard is full of large grasshoppers—green ones—and I imagine they’re the ones serenading us to sleep.

  It’s a comforting sound. So much better than gunfire and bombs.

  I see my first cardinal. My first blue jay. Rabbits. Squirrels. And no lizards—none at all. Free at last! Around here, the squirrels seem to have taken the place of lizards. They’re everywhere. Uncle Amado has built a shelter for them on the cherry tree outside the kitchen window. He’s built them a little architect-designed shed, about six feet up the tree trunk, in which he places ears of corn. Given how careful Amado is with his money, this expense shows how deeply he cares about these exotic creatures. We watch the squirrels more than we watch television. My aunt Alejandra is especially taken with the way in which they hold the corn cobs, and how methodically they chew them up.

  “Look, they eat the same way we do!”

  Alejandra is at her best when she contemplates the simplest things. She has a way of making the most mundane things seem marvelous, even miraculous. She won’t know she’s doing it, but she’ll be teaching me a most useful skill, which is also, at the same time, a great way to get high, naturally.

  I sleep as never before and have trouble telling the difference between my dreams and my waking life. They seem equally unreal, equally enjoyable. No nightmares. No fears as I drift to sleep. There’s nothing to dread, no roaches or scorpions to worry about. Nothing is scary. Not even the portrait of Jesus above my uncle’s chair, which is always the first thing my eyes fix on when I walk through the front door. Jesus H. Comforting Christ, how nice. The Void has been off my radar screen for nine months or so, and I’ve almost forgotten about it. No reason to worry about that now. This house is not only full of people, but they never go anywhere. Without a car, they can’t.

  Fade to black.

  Havana, at exactly the same time. The sunlight is screaming, as always, and slamming into everything. The tree outside my house has grown a lot since I left. A whole lot. The house has filled up with more art and antiques, surreptitiously acquired from collectors who left the country before the door was slammed shut. Ernesto now sleeps in the room that once belonged to Tony and me. Next door, the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution keeps a sharp eye on my house, and my parents. They don’t like the fact that Tony and I got away.

  My parents get the news about our move to Bloomington, and they are relieved. I’ll find out years later that they had no clue how bad the Palace Ricardo was, but that they suspected it was awful. What they didn’t know was a blessing of sorts, given the fact that they could do nothing for us.

  Louis XVI goes around with a huge hole in his heart, and the bigger and more painful this hole gets, the more he immerses himself in his art collection and the more out of touch he becomes with the reality his absent sons face, day to day. It pains him that Amado, a brother he never liked too much, should now be raising his children. His cluelessness keeps him sane. In the meantime, his real heart—as opposed to the figurative one with the hole in it—gets worse and worse. None of this will be reported to Tony and me, of course.

  Lying is sometimes the kindest sin, perhaps even a virtuous deed.

  My mom, Marie Antoinette, has been trying to find a way out of Cuba, with no luck. Finding out that she couldn’t leave in November, 1962, was a devastating blow, almost more than she could bear. The do
or out of the island has been shut tightly. But if you persist and find connections in the right places, you can luck out. She wears herself out, tries everything, pesters everyone. And she gets nowhere. The relatives in Spain can’t do anything for her. Uncle Filo’s diplomatic connections prove useless. All of the doors are shut tight. She cries a lot. A whole lot, too often.

  Fade to black. Back to Bloomington.

  I never think about my parents. I haven’t done so for months, and I have even less reason to do so now that I’m here. I write them weekly letters and fill them with all sorts of details, but I am on some sort of automatic pilot. I have no idea what they do day to day, how they feel, or what, if anything, they’re trying to do to reunite with us. And I really don’t care to know. I feel this odd, fleeting emotion I recognize as some kind of love or attachment, some primal desire to stay connected with them, but it’s much more like the attachment I have and the affection I feel for each and every one of my memories. All I can admit to myself is that Mom and Dad are nothing but memories. Yes, I know they’re alive, but they might as well be on Uranus or Pluto, or one of the stars in Orion’s Belt.

  Why do I feel this way? No, I’m not asking any experts, much less doctors Freud and Jung. Sometimes I ask myself this question. I know it’s strange to feel the way I do. I even make an effort to pretend that I still want to see them, or need them. But I know, deep down, that I’m feigning. None of my selves cares. Ask Carlos, Charles, Charlie, or Chuck and they’ll give the same answer, if they’re being honest. They’re all quite happy with the way things are now. It’s been only five days since I left the Palace Ricardo, but I already know that the time I spent there stripped me clean of any attachment I ever had to my parents. Bleached bones in the desert, buried by the drifting sands, that’s all that’s left of whatever I once felt for them.