“It’s showtime,” Brady said, smiling broadly. “Papi!”
Papi was a small, tan man with a shaved head and a bright smile. Every inch of him flashed gold: necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and sunglasses. He had a gold brow ring, a stud in his nose, and his teeth were lined with gold bridges and caps. On each finger, he wore at least three gold rings set with enormous stones. He had a gold-plated pinky nail, pierced with a gold chain that attached to a gold bondage ring. He was dressed all in white from his linen shirt to his drawstring trousers to his pristine white espadrilles. I had to squint to look directly at him.
Papi and Brady hugged and then Papi clicked his tongue. “Welcome to Havana, boys.” His voice was a soft falsetto, like the Blue Fairy gone to Buenos Aires. “You’re just in time for my birthday party. Cuban specialties: salsa and sexiness!” He noticed the stuffed Mickey. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Sure is,” Brady said. He handed Papi the Mickey, then pulled a bright yellow, plush Winnie the Pooh from his backpack. Papi squealed with glee, and danced around the car with Mickey and Pooh in his arms.
The Chevy was in terrible condition. It looked as if it had been sanded down and spray painted blue. The chrome was dull, the upholstery held together with duct tape. The interior smelled like gasoline, and the whole contraption rattled as Papi pulled away from the curb.
“Ain’t she a beauty?” Brady asked from the passenger seat. He stroked the cracked dashboard. “She’s one of the best-kept cars in Havana. Of course, she’s got one of the most loving mommies!” He reached over and pinched Papi’s cheek, a square of brown in a sea of gold. As we turned out of the airport onto the main street, my door swung open, and I grabbed the front seats to keep from flying out of the car.
The two friends talked in Spanish while I stared at Cuba just outside the window and watched my Disney framework dissolve away like a hand-painted fairy tale dipped in turpentine. The buildings were tall and narrow, crowded together like books on a shelf, their dust jackets faded and torn from years of use. The windows had no glass, and through the broken shutters and open doorways, I could see paint peeling away from the vaulted ceilings or, sometimes, no ceiling at all, just cracked wood and concrete where the roof had collapsed inward onto faded mattresses. Barefoot children played baseball from one side of the street to the other, using sleeping dogs as bases in the middle of the road.
The Cubans sat in their doorways, leaned out their windows, and crouched in the streets to watch us drive by. Papi drove slowly to avoid the obstacles, but still the car grumbled every time he sank into one of the monstrous potholes. The whole country smelled of smoke and decay.
Papi pulled up to the sidewalk and cut the engine. “Venga,” he cooed in his Latin singsong. “I will introduce to you my friends.”
His house was cluttered with artifacts from around the world: porcelain Buddhas, Peruvian mosaic flowerpots, Russian nesting dolls. Here, too, there was no glass in the windows, only brilliant blue shutters, which had been thrown open to let the sunlight into the living room. Every room featured framed photos of Papi with smiling people.
“He’s a very generous man,” Brady said, handing me a glass filled with something dark. “If he likes you, he’ll let you stay in his house forever. In exchange, people bring him gifts from all around the world.”
“What is this?” I held up my glass.
“Rum.” He flashed a wicked grin. “If you want, you can dilute it with cola, but don’t ask for Coke. They haven’t seen it here for forty years. Salud!”
People continued to pour into Papi’s house. Everyone was greeted with smiles, warm hugs, and rum. Eventually, I found myself on the rooftop where a group of people were toasting Cuba’s future. When he saw me, Papi waved me over.
“I wanted to thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome. Thank you for inviting us to your party.”
“That is nothing,” he said. “After your generous charity, it was the least I could do.”
“Charity?” I was so engrossed in the scene, I had forgotten that we were on a mission of Guerilla Philanthropy. “Oh, right. You’re welcome.”
He leaned close, his soft voice an excited whisper. “What did you bring?”
I had no idea how Brady had even transported the drugs, much less what they were. “It’s a surprise,” I said.
Papi’s gold rings sang as he rubbed his hands together. “I can’t wait!” He crossed himself. “Come with me.” He led me to his room where the stuffed Mickey and Pooh were sitting on his bed. Before I knew what he was doing, he had produced a knife and plunged it into Mickey’s stomach. Then he did the same to Pooh. Where the knife ripped the fabric, white pills poured out onto the bedspread. “If I’m not mistaken, it looks like Crixivan! And Epivir! Oh, this is wonderful.”
I recognized the names as pharmaceuticals used in AIDS cocktails. “I hear they’re hard to get.”
“You have no idea!” Papi pulled a handful of plastic bags out of a drawer and began to fill them with pills. “Cuba’s cut off from American business so that means they’re cut off from American medicine as well. Cuban scientists are trying to make their own versions of the brand-name drugs, but it’s not easy and it’s very expensive. You and Brady are helping to bridge the gap.” In the dim light, Papi’s face was the epicenter of a golden borealis. “Thank you.”
I left Papi to organize his shipment, and wandered back into the party. It was a good feeling, this Guerrilla Philanthropy. It was something I could get used to. I climbed the stairs to the rooftop, where the party was in full swing, and took a spot by the railing. From my rooftop perch, high above the streets of Havana, it was impossible to fit Cuba into my Disney paradigm. Here were worn building facades that hadn’t known rehabilitation since Disneyland’s Autopia was remodeled, wandering dogs that snuffled over bird carcasses in the alley, and bootleg cigar salesmen and sex peddlers who patrolled the sidewalks below.
I looked up to the sky and tried to imagine that I was in a sound booth in a pavilion at Epcot, waiting for the fireworks to begin, but the reality of Cuba was simply too grand. Sure, there were white linen wardrobes, live salsa BGM, and rum-laced beverages to keep me drinking around the world, but this was no theme park. I was on an adventure in Realityland. It was magnificent and dangerous, and like being in the ocean, I had to keep reminding myself not to turn my back to the experience. I felt awed and humbled to be a part of it.
As the night progressed, the music got louder and people started dancing. I sipped from rum bottles whenever they came my way, then passed them along. Every so often, Cuban girls would grab my arm and dance up against me. Brady flashed through the room, grinning like a Lost Boy, clinging to one girl or another. And so the night went, with rum, salsa, and laughter, and eventually, I curled up on a sofa and closed my eyes.
Brady was making breakfast when I woke up, whistling “Buena Vista Social Club.” “How you feeling?” he asked.
I sat up, expecting the worst. “Not too bad, actually.”
“Havana Club rum,” he said. “Best stuff in the world. Too bad we can’t get it back home.”
The sun was just peeking over the rooftops. Through the glassless windows, I could hear a muted salsa rhythm. “Why are you up so early?”
“I never went to sleep,” Brady said. He transferred a pile of scrambled eggs to two plates and laid them out on a tile-topped coffee table. “I’ve been up all night, talking with Papi and thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Yeah, no shit, right?” The eggs tasted different but good. He had used herbs from Papi’s garden and powdered milk. He cleaned his plate and put down his fork, all serious and sincere. “I’ve made a decision. I’m moving here.”
“To Havana?”
“To Cuba.” Brady wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “I feel good here, like, really good, like I’m supposed to be here, doing good things. Remember I told you about my dream? To do one altruistic thing that gives me no benefit whatsoever.
Well, I think this is the place. Cuba! It’s not a capitalist society, so I wouldn’t be doing it for the money. I have no family here, so I wouldn’t be doing it for the tribe. In fact, I have no real ties to the community, so nothing I do would come back to me. It’s perfect!”
“What about your life back home?”
“Home will always be there. I’ve gone as far as I can go with Disney.” He leaned back with his hands behind his head and stretched out his arms like a king on a throne. “This is what comes next.”
I cleared our plates, poured myself a cup of coffee, and got in the shower. It made sense in Brady’s eccentric way. I would miss our benevolent mayhem, but the guy was chasing down a dream. I could relate.
“Papi left early this morning on his distribution run,” Brady said, as I put my duffel bag together. “So we have to find our own way to the airport. I hope you don’t mind if we stop to pick up a couple of cigars.”
“Can we bring Cuban cigars back?”
“No,” Brady smiled. “But I know a place where they wrap them in Dominican labels. Come on.”
I followed him through streets with no real concept of direction, right-angle turns that led from one potholed, dog-paved road to another. Clusters of children wearing school uniforms scampered down sidewalks, hopping over divots in the pavement and crossing the streets whenever they found a break in the traffic. Quick Belgian taxis and Czech motorbikes dodged huge, lumbering Detroit autos: Oldsmobile, Chevy, Ford, Pontiac, cars with proud hood ornaments from postwar America.
Dogs draped like Dali clocks from windowsills and doorways. Old women peered through slats in the window shutters, watching the streets with curiosity. From every house, the strains of low-fidelity salsa filled the living rooms and spilled onto the sidewalks. Everything seemed to be under construction, but there was no sign of a crew. We hopped over bags of cement, stacked on wood palettes, covered in dust that could have been months old.
The city was really warming up now, beams of sunlight slanting through windowless windows, reflecting off silver hood ornaments the size of Barbie dolls. People crowded one another along the sidewalks, lined up in front of dark warehouses where sober counter attendants doled out bags of powdered milk and white rice. Urban chickens scratched in the dirt, fighting over space in sidewalk cracks and compost piles. The smell of freshly baked bread lingered everywhere.
“Wait here.” Brady ducked into a nondescript building, then reappeared a few minutes later with two boxes of “Dominican” cigars. He handed one to me. “From me to you,” he said. “Thank you for trusting me.”
“The pleasure was all mine,” I said.
He winked. “Still is.” Suddenly Brady broke into a run, and I narrowly avoided a parade of rusty cars following him across the street. He jumped up on the running board of a weathered flatbed truck and addressed the driver, “El aeropuerto?” he asked.
“Si,” the man behind the wheel said. “Diez minutos.”
Brady smiled at me. “Climb in.”
We were barely in the back when the truck pulled away from the curb. There were ten other Cubans standing there already, riding the flatbed like a giant surfboard, leaning from side to side when the road bent. The experience was wonderfully surreal; hundreds of miles away from Disney, and yet the air around me was electrified with Magic. I glanced over at Brady, eyes closed, smiling against a golden morning sunbeam. He had made this possible. If my life was a Disney story, Brady was my Genie, my Blue Fairy, my Magic broker.
After about twenty minutes, the driver pulled up to the airport terminal and honked his horn. Brady and I boarded our flight without a problem and switched planes once again in Montego Bay. When we landed in Orlando, I had a thought.
“Brady,” I asked as we moved toward the customs desk. “Why did you invite me on this trip? You carried the stuffed animals. You didn’t really need a spotter.”
He smiled. “I wondered when you were gonna put it together. The delivery to Papi was just the first half of the project.”
Our line was really moving. We were just a few steps away from the customs desk. “What’s the second half?”
“Last night, after you passed out, I arranged another shipment—this time, meningitis vaccine—really top grade stuff.”
“Medicine?”
“That’s right. The Cubans have done wonderful things with meningitis inoculations, but of course, the USA won’t allow it into the country. You remember my friend Beltran from the jai alai arena? Well, his daughter has developed spinal meningitis—a pretty advanced case. There’s not much we can do for her, but there are thousands of others who can benefit from Cuban science, so I volunteered us to bring some stuff back over the border.”
I hissed. “Now? You’re carrying the stuff right now?”
“Technically, we both are,” he said. “Keep smiling. They’re looking right at us.”
“But how—” And then I remembered the cigars.
Brady was beaming a Zen-like calm. “He’s one of the best cigar rollers in the city. He worked on these boxes all night, making them look just right. Don’t screw it up now.”
We were next in line to greet the customs officer. I could feel beads of sweat beginning to roll down my back. When the officer called us up, I put on a Disney smile.
“Papers?”
“Here you go.”
“Jamaica, huh?”
“Yep.”
“Did you visit any other places?”
“Just Montego Bay.”
“Did you see Ocho Rios?”
“I was only there for a night.”
“Any souvenirs?”
“Just a couple of shot glasses. I collect ’em so—”
“You’re sure you didn’t visit any other countries?”
“Positive.”
“I’ll be right back.”
The customs officer stood up and disappeared behind a wall of two-way glass. I looked at Brady, but he was flipping through a Jamaican magazine, his face cherubic. I tried to hum a Disney tune, but I couldn’t remember any. After what seemed like an eternity, the officer returned.
“Okay. Have a good day.”
When we got outside, I pulled the cigar box out of my bag and threw it at Brady. “You son of a bitch!”
“What.” Brady was laughing. “You did great!”
“What happened to full disclosure?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry.” He rubbed his face, sheepish. “It all happened so fast.”
“That is not okay.” I put my hand in the air, and a taxi pulled forward.
“Listen, that was the last time. I swear. From here on out, I tell you everything.”
It was like being in LA again, having friends lie to my face. Had I come all this way, spent all this time developing what I thought were real relationships, just to be on the butt end of betrayal again? It was the same at Disney as it was in the skate park. I threw my bag in the back of the cab and shut the door before Brady could get in.
“Hey, come on.” He was being melodramatic, standing on the curb, looking forlorn. As the car pulled away, I could faintly hear his voice. “It’s for a good cause!”
I didn’t stay mad for long. I spent the next day feeling sorry for myself, but by the day after that, I couldn’t remember what had made me so upset in the first place. He hadn’t slept with my girlfriend or wrecked my car. He was just doing what came naturally. But by the time I called, his phone had been shut off and his apartment was empty.
Brady was gone.
Beauty and the Beast
“Is that you?”
“Yeah. It’s been awhile, so I just—”
“It’s been two months!” Michael shouted into the phone. “Didn’t you get my messages?”
“I know I know. I’m sorry.” I was already trying to think of a graceful way to get off the phone. “How are you?”
“How am I? I am fine. I have never been healthier.”
I closed my eyes. “How’s Mom?”
He s
puttered a little, and I thought he was really going to lay into me, then he took a deep breath, and I could tell by his silence that he was rubbing his temples. “Not good,” he said finally. “She’s nauseous most of the time. Her hair is gone. Her fingernails are all cracked. And she has persistent neuropathic pain in her hands and arms.” He spoke about her condition with professional objectivity, but his words painted a detailed illustration in my mind of our mother’s wasted body lying alone in a room that was never warm enough to keep her from shivering, never bright enough to make her smile.
“I thought the treatments were supposed to help,” I said.
His professional tone turned hollow. “Chemotherapy is a last resort.” The bottom line was, the cancer may have been life threatening, but the chemo was sure to kill her.
Michael took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, it was with a level of vulnerability that I rarely heard in him. “Come back to LA,” he said. “Florida will always be there, and Mom and Dad could really use your support right now.”
I was touched by the honesty of his plea. He must have been exhausted, bearing what surely would have been an endless barrage of questions and concerns, during this crisis. At least if I was home, I could take some of the pressure off my brother. Once again, he was the lifeguard, trying to drag me out of the waves before it was too late. “Never turn your back on the ocean,” he had taught me. But wasn’t I turning my back at that moment, doing my stubborn utmost to disregard the real issues in my life?
I wanted to say yes. I wanted to rush back to LA, to be there for my family, but I was stuck in place, nailed to the cross of my own self-interest. Frantically, I tried to come up with reasons that sounded sincere. If I left Orlando, I’d be leaving Calico. I’d be walking away from Disney and the wonderful life that I had worked so hard to create, and returning to a place where I had nothing. I dredged up my martyr’s justification that I had been excluded, that within our convoluted family structure, the cancer still did not exist. Sure, Michael knew the real story, but as far as I was concerned, Mom was out “running errands” she was “taking a nap.” If I went back to help her, I rationalized, I’d be challenging their complex cover stories, which had somehow become the foundation of our interaction for the last year.
Chris Mitchell Page 23