by Todd Grimson
Ulpiano Gutierrez answers the front door, expecting someone else, and is arrested by the S.I.M. He looks surprised: he’s been betrayed. He knows that he’ll be tortured, but maybe they’ll let him live. You never know. Maybe they only suspect him a little. A ‘little’: that means they just take off his fingernails and put an electric wire around his balls, then give him some juice.
“Why do you go with the blancos?” asks one of them, as the others are searching the house, alluding to the fact that almost all of the island’s blacks are pro-Batista—because El Hombre himself is mulatto, with an unmistakably Negroid face.
“You make a mistake,” says Ulpiano. “I stay out of trouble; I just take care of myself.” He’s decided to play dumb.
“Oh, I see,” says the S.I.M. man, with a knowing smile. “You’re a comedian. We’re gonna have some good laughs together, aren’t we? We know some excellent jokes, you’ll see; we’ll make you laugh and laugh.”
Ulpiano’s heart falls like a brick inside his chest.
In a dream it’s a hundred years ago and he’s a soldier on some smaller island, Martinique or St. Kitts or Barbados, wearing a blue fancy jacket with a wine-colored diagonal sash, a gold medal, and soiled white pants. He is supposed to arrest his mother, a singer who has fallen in debt.
“Why don’t you just kill me?” she says, in her hoarse, seductive voice, smiling, not seeming to care one way or the other.
Angel feels he has to let her go. The alternative appalls him. He tells her of a ship that is sailing before dawn: she must hurry to the harbor. He’s bribed the captain; it’s all arranged.
She takes his sword and suspends it between them, butt against his chest, point pricking her between her breasts.
“Kiss me,” she says, reaching out to draw him into an embrace.
He jerks back, and the blade clatters to the rocky ground. Elena picks it up, bending over in the dark, and then, as he steps forward to help her, she stabs him, pushing the entire length into his upper abdomen, so that perhaps the point comes out his back.
He is shocked, but feels no pain. Neither does he bleed. Elena laughs again, beguilingly, and says that as long as he doesn’t move he won’t be hurt.
“If you stay still, you’ll be all right.” She leaves him then. He doesn’t dare call out after her. He scarcely dares breathe.
He wants to sob, but he is too afraid. Slowly, numbly, he contemplates his position, unable to measure the passage of time. He doesn’t move.
Then he awakens, alone in his bed at daybreak. He groans, and groans again. He’s paralyzed with pain, the phantom sword still piercing him through and through.
Everything is owned by the North Americans. The Cuban Electric Company is a subsidiary of the Electric Bond & Share Company of New York; the Cuban-American Telephone Company is a monopoly owned by IT&T. The United States controls the deposits of chrome, nickel, and manganese, and these are mined only when the Yankees are in a war. During peacetime, the U.S. wants to keep these deposits untouched, in reserve for when they need them.
Although you can grow almost anything in Cuba, which has fine soil, plenty of rain, and virtually no winter, more than half the food consumed here is imported from the United States.
All Cuba is good for, they say, is sugar. But even here the North Americans have control. They have a deal to buy almost all of our sugar, every year, at a fixed price.
They need to eat a lot of Butterfingers, Baby Ruths and Almond Joys.
“Where’s Leonora?” asks Lieutenant Santamaria, looking past Justo to the interior of the house. He’s wearing his uniform, and sunglasses, and Justo is very frightened. He has dreaded such a meeting for some time.
“She’s not here. She went out to get some food.” He elaborates, nervously: “She wanted to get some peppers, you know, and a squid.”
“Are you living here then?”
“No, not really. I’m just visiting today.”
Angel barely smiles. “How long do you expect to be in Havana?”
“I don’t know. I’m looking for a job.”
“I thought you were a student, studying music or something…”
“Not anymore. I’m looking for a job now.”
“Unless you know someone, a job can be hard to find. You need connections. Do you have some friends or relatives here to help you out?”
“Nobody with any pull.”
“Well, I’ll ask around for you. If I hear of anything that sounds good, I’ll let you know.”
“That’s very generous of you.”
“No trouble at all. Will you tell Leonora Christina that I was here?”
“Yes, of course,” says Justo, smiling with a desire to please that does nothing to disguise his fear. He watches Santamaria go down to his car; when the officer turns his back to look at him one last time, just before getting in, Justo feels panic, like a fish might be trying to swim out of his gut.
There is no treachery that Santamaria might be above, no evil that he might not do. The day turns dark with danger; danger is like a fuzzy blurry black spot on the sun.
The plan for the attack is very simple. They surround the small barracks at El Uvero on the three sides away from the sea—and then open fire. Fidel fires the first shot, using his prized rifle with the telescopic lens. Che Guevera operates a machine-gun.
After about four hours of sporadic firing, Fidel gets tired of waiting and makes the decision to storm the barracks. They are in somewhat of a bad position, due to lack of cover, for such an advance.
Nevertheless they prevail.
“What are you going to do?” asks Leonora, and Justo cannot say. He’s at a loss for words. He just sits there, looking at the wall, through with talking, ashamed of his naked fear.
Leonora’s blouse sticks to her skin. It’s hot out, and she feels impatient and annoyed. She wishes that she had been here to see Angel. She wants to call him up and talk to him, but not in front of Justo. Justo will have to go.
Ulpiano is taken out for a ride in a speedboat, and when they reach a certain point, his friends throw fresh bleeding fish into the bright cobalt water, until some sharks become interested, fins crowding around the gently drifting craft. Ulpiano, already having been extensively abused, is set upon with a razor until he’s once again bleeding freely. He is still, it seems, in possession of a voice. Inside the black skin he is red, a communist.
One guy takes him under the shoulders, another by the feet. They swing him back and forth, one two three, on the last count flinging him into the teeth of the sea. Some of these men have gotten drunk, and they want to laugh, but the ensuing show is decisive and brief. Next time they come to feed the fish they’ll have to bring more food.
Santamaria gets word that he’s supposed to be transferred to the Sierra Maestre, to serve under the command of General del Chaviano. It’s well known that the two generals directing the campaign against the rebels, del Chaviano and Cantillo, hate each other: it’s impossible to conceive of them coordinating an effective strategy together. More likely, each will pursue an independent course of action, answerable to Batista only in the case of obvious disaster.
Angel thinks it’s a farce. He knows all about it. Too many lazy, corrupt officers, without combat experience, who bicker among themselves with far more seriousness than they are ever able to bring to bear against Fidel. They take it out on the peasants they come across, raping and burning and looting, all the while sending back communiques that proclaim yet another successful action — coming in time, perhaps, to believe in this nonsense themselves. Fifty rebels dead today, a hundred tomorrow; thousands after that. No mention of such escapades as the time that Fidel got hold of a code-book and radio and talked the air force into napalming their own troops. No; just fictional victory after victory. Angel wants no part of this charade.
He speculates that his affair with Sally may be the underlying reason for the transfer. Her husband, or maybe somebody else in the United Fruit Company, someone with power, found out ab
out it and didn’t like it. Angel must have flaunted her once too often.
If it’s a matter of a simple favor, and no money has changed hands, he may be able to have his order rescinded. Of course, this service will not be performed for free.
The best thing may be to go directly to General Tabernillas, the greedy Chief of Staff. Or, perhaps, better yet, to his son, who serves as Batista’s private secretary, and whom Angel has met once or twice in the Sky Club late at night.
He wonders which one might be less expensive. He doesn’t think he has enough cash on hand: he’ll have to ask Sally for some money. She’s bought him all kinds of presents, but this will be different. He despises the thought of it. No matter what he does, he will be lowering himself. It’s inescapable. Every alternative is bad.
Just thinking about all this exhausts him. Life is too complicated. He feels like he’s found some dirt from a graveyard in front of his door—which, if you believe in voodoo, is a very bad sign.
A devilfish swims round and round in the big, lighted aquarium with turquoise water that serves as the only ‘floorshow’ in this sleepy bar. The tourists assume that it’s the same one all the time, but I know that they frequently languish and die and are always being replaced. However, they all look the same, ugly bastards, and I too admit I can’t tell the difference between this guy and the one who was here a month ago.
Lately, I’ve found myself drinking early in the day; it seems to help me write. I point with particular pride to a piece I did about the elections El Hombre has had to postpone (yet again) until the fall.
You can’t write about Castro. He was interviewed on North American television, on CBS, right there in his camp in the Sierra, where the army can’t seem to find him, and everybody found out everything he said—but so far as the papers here are concerned, he does not exist.
But the North Americans have made him into a star.
She’s cooking rice and listening to a samba on the radio when they break down the doors, coming in swiftly through both the front and the back.
They handcuff her wrists behind her back. A man on either side of her: they walk her down to one of those dreaded black cars. She is driven somewhere, and then taken into a room, where she is instructed to sit down on a bare wooden chair. Her wrists are chafed by the steel of the too-tight, American-made handcuffs, which are shiny and seem brand-new.
Once they realize that she’s Lieutenant Santamaria’s girlfriend, she thinks, they’ll say that it’s all been a mistake and let her go. She says something, and is slapped and told to shut up, not to open her mouth until she’s asked.
Her questioners sit behind a long table, as if they’re a ‘panel of experts.’ A mean, fat, very dark-skinned black woman is the one who pulls her hair and hurts her, presumably on cue or according to some prearranged plan.
“Where is Justo Dominguez?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please try to think. He was with you: now where has he gone?”
“He didn’t tell me. I didn’t know that he was in trouble.”
“Then why did he leave?”
“I told him to.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t want him around.”
Smack!
“Tell us about his friends.”
“I never knew them.”
Repetition. They ask where Justo got the bombs.
What bombs?
They ask her if she’s ever thrown one.
Repetition. She is ‘stubborn.’
The big black woman knocks Leonora off the chair onto the floor. Kicks her in the ass as hard as she can. Jesus.
Repetition.
Back on the chair. Leonora is slapped, yelled at, threatened, thinking at the same time that it might get much, much worse.
There is a mirror on the wall to her right, a very large mirror, and she wonders if it might be one of those ‘whorehouse mirrors’ Angel once told her about. Anyone could be back there looking at her, enjoying the show.
They start all over again.
“What do you do for a living?”
“I am a model.”
“I don’t think you model very much. Try again.”
“I modeled for Bacardi Rum.”
“No you didn’t. Tell the truth.”
Could Angel be back there, watching her in her torment? Is it possible? And yet he loves her, she knows this beyond all doubt.
She doesn’t know a thing. She insists she does not know a thing.
Justo and Felipe have marched from the cactus on the lower slopes to the rainforest of tree ferns, and at last they have found a peasant in a bohio who will sell them some food. Hot black beans and rice. The peasant charges them at least twice what it is worth.
“You’re asking too much,” says Felipe.
“Then don’t eat it,” says the peasant. “How do you know what things cost?”
Justo doesn’t want to argue about it. He thinks they should pay the guy whatever he wants.
The bohio has an earth floor and a palm leaf roof. They sleep, and the next day they find Raul Castro, who’s not very glad to see them because they haven’t brought him guns or ammunition. He might not let them stay. If he has no use for them, he certainly won’t feed them, and this is made perfectly clear.
The American woman is tanned, with white flesh where her bikini would protect her from the sun. Her breasts are large and white, with big nipples and pink aureoles.
She lies on her back, one leg entangled in the lemon-yellow sheets. There is makeup on her face. The mascara is smudged. Her lipsticked mouth is open, as are her eyes, which are as blue as the blue on the American flag.
The entry wound is not much to see. The exit wound, which is not visible so long as she lies undisturbed, is something else. It is from this latter wound that almost all of the blood has come. Most of this blood is turning brown; but when they lift her from the bed they find some quantity that is yet relatively fresh, sticky, wet red.
There is money strewn around her, some of it bloody. The detectives chatter with animation about this curious facet of the case. They walk all over, flashbulbs flashing: nothing is concealed from their eyes.
The other body is on the terrace. There is a pistol in his hand. The bullet seems to have entered at the right temple and exited from the rear left-hand side of the skull, taking with it a good portion of the brain.
His eyes are open. They look afraid. It’s hard to get the gun out of his locked fingers so that the scene of the crime may be rearranged.
Colonel Sanchez Mosquera, advancing, has Fidel virtually surrounded, but does not realize this fact. Due to faulty map-reading, he does not know where he is. He has no idea that his force outnumbers that of the rebels by more than three to one. His men are tired; morale is low. They are not used to this terrain.
During the next three days of occasional fighting, Sanchez Mosquera’s battalion is decimated. The High Command then panics, exaggerating to themselves the extent of the defeat. The advance is halted; the army begins to withdraw. Desertions are heavy.
She goes out to the Sky Club with a journalist named Enrique, and gets drunk.
Mariarosa’s sugar-daddy got her released, in return for which Leonora has been showing extensive gratitude to one of his friends, another fat American in his fifties, most of whose desires she dislikes. All he wants is her ass. He thinks she’s stupid because of her accent when she speaks English. But he’s set her up in a new apartment. Her old home, her father’s house, was completely trashed and vandalized, nearly demolished, during the time she was away.
The last remnant of a violet-red bruise on her left cheekbone is covered up by Max Factor makeup.
She thinks that things will change, and that there will be all kinds of reforms after Batista is gone. She talks about Fidel.
Enrique is much more pessimistic. But he doesn’t contradict her, because he wants to take her to bed.
STABS AT HAPPINESS
ONLINE CHASE YIELD
S a thin Asian indie-type boy, 23, more and more beautiful the longer Nikki stares at the pixilated blank face. He goes by Taj but when they agree to meet he signs this email Justin Chen.
Nikki has not had actual sex with a woman here in New York for almost a year, but she’s the sort of not-too-butch young alt dyke who emo girls like to make out with—or be seen making out with—in all kinds of situations these days. The Club Europa is where dropdead stiletto-heeled Polish, Czech and Ukraine blondes will almost always consent to dance with her to nonstop sleazy techno, smoke machine, on the zebra-striped dancefloor, which tends to metamorphose in a sinister manner when you’re high on a hallucinogen concocted by some dweeb chemistry major who sees experimenting with such variants of Ecstasy as 2c-b and 2c-i as imaginary extra-credit unsanctioned by any oversight committee here on planet earth.
That’s when it really fucking rocks to fall onto one of those beat-up red velvet couches with your tongue jammed in the Absinthe Minded Martini-flavored mouth of Natasha 9 or Ludmilla 6 while the electrical gridwork of your physique pulsates in sine waves to the blessed warmth.
Lately though, Nikki hasn’t even been looking that much at girls on the internet, other than for the sake of baseline images to use in generating entirely fictional scenarios – usually far beyond a mere “date”—so that she can masturbate and cum for the sake of metaphysical hygiene… get dirty to be clean.
On one of the blogs where she likes to hang out Nikki as NineOh said that when she is ravished by some random girl’s image, she never knows whether she wants to Fuck Her or Be Her. She asked others: Which is it for you? Would you rather fuck this object of desire or become them? And I mean really, like if you actually gave it a lot of thought?
There were some gorgeous answers, just in terms of people defining themselves, trying to anyway, trying to define their ideals. But they played the game differently. They said Jarvis Cocker, Morrissey, Kim Gordon, Arthur Rimbaud, the young Robert Mapplethorpe. Enormous half-guessed bios and complex mythologies were attached to these names, making use of all kinds of preexisting resonant material. No one just posted an anonymous photo and said: That One. Instead, they felt a pull, they wanted it both ways, simultaneously (impossibly) Fucking That Hero or Heroine and Having That Career / Having Made That Art.