by Brad Listi
Mixing Instructions:
In a tall, thin glass, muddle mint leaves with simple syrup. Add ice, rum, and lime juice. Top with soda and stir. Garnish with fresh mint. Serves one.
According to article 302, law no. 62, of something called the Cuban Penal Code, prostitution in and of itself was not illegal in Cuba. However, acts related to prostitution—such as the exploitation of prostitutes by others—were forbidden by law. Those caught engaging in such ancillary activities—pimps, for instance—faced prison sentences of four to ten years.
sentence n.
1.) A grammatical unit that is syntactically independent and has a subject that is expressed or, as in imperative sentences, understood, and a predicate that contains at least one finite verb.
2.) Law:
a. A court judgment, especially a judicial decision of the punishment to be inflicted on one adjudged guilty.
b. The penalty meted out.
3.) Archaic: A maxim.
4.) Obsolete: An opinion, especially one given formally after deliberation.
The sexual energy in the Oasis was overwhelming. I could practically smell it.
People were emitting pheromones in there.
pheromone n.
A chemical secreted by an animal, especially an insect, that influences the behavior or development of others of the same species, often functioning as an attractant of the opposite sex.
To my left, in the corner, a pair of tourists was getting it on. They appeared to have zero inhibitions. The guy was sitting in a chair, and his girlfriend had mounted him, fully clothed. She was kissing him with tongue and writhing in his lap. Maybe they were French. The French, from what I’d heard, have few reservations about engaging in public displays of affection. They lack American self-consciousness and puritanical attitudes toward sex.
The Puritans were a group of hard-core English Protestants from way back in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who, generally speaking, considered pleasure and luxury to be deeply offensive.
I couldn’t stop smoking cigarettes.
In the classic film comedy National Lampoon’s European Vacation (1985; Amy Heckerling, director), bumbling middle-American father Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) and his dysfunctional family win an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe. While dining in a Parisian restaurant, they encounter a young honeymooning couple from the United States. Deeply in love, the newlyweds are taking full advantage of the social freedoms afforded by France’s lax attitude toward public displays of affection, freely engaging in aggressive physical intimacy while waiting for their food, oblivious to fellow restaurant patrons, including (but not limited to) the Griswold family, seated at a nearby table.
It is at this point in the movie that the following exchange takes place between Clark Griswold and his impressionable teenage son, Rusty (Jason Lively):
RUSTY
Dad, I think he’s gonna pork her.
CLARK
He’s not gonna pork her, Rusty. Just eat, okay?
RUSTY
I think he is, Dad.
CLARK
He may pork her, Rusty. Just eat, okay?
I had just ordered my fourth mojito from a voluptuous waitress with a large brown mole on her cheek.
The French couple in the corner was oblivious to the waitress, the band, and all fellow patrons.
I was pretty sure he was going to pork her.
I hadn’t porked anyone in a long time.
I had never porked a prostitute before.
7.
My fourth mojito arrived. I lit another cigarette. Across the room I saw a beautiful girl. She was sitting on the lap of a middle-aged man who appeared to be of middle-American descent. The man looked fifty. The girl couldn’t have been a day older than twenty. She was wearing red velour pants and a matching halter top. She had shoulder-length hair, and the guy beneath her was a geek in glasses who looked like your average, weed-whacking next-door neighbor in Illinois. They had zero visible rapport. It was a business arrangement, plain and simple. The weed-whacking geek had paid the beautiful girl to sit on his lap for a while.
Later, he would pork her.
A song ended. The band members talked among themselves and tuned their instruments. The girl took the man by the hand and led him onto the dance floor, smiling. He tried to decline, but she insisted. She shook her hips, snapped her fingers, and smiled. The man shrugged, snapped his fingers, and tried to laugh it off. He was clearly self-conscious and, I noticed for the first time, perspiring heavily. Sweat was visible on his forehead, illuminated by the glowing stage lights.
I was convinced he was the kind of guy who had twice been arrested for masturbating in his automobile near a suburban elementary school.
The music began. The man was awkward. He looked like he was in a conga line on a cruise ship. He had no business dancing. It should have been illegal for him to dance. The girl, on the other hand, was a wonderful dancer. She moved with natural grace and was wonderful to watch. She was young and beautiful and had sex with men twice her age in order to make a living. She was impoverished and desperate, subjecting herself to physical violence and potentially fatal venereal diseases on a nightly basis, for cash.
She was killing herself, essentially.
I finished my mojito. I lit another cigarette. I ordered another drink.
I told myself that I must save the young, beautiful prostitute from the arrhythmic weed-whacking geek, because I was there and he was the death of her, and I could see it.
Just then two prostitutes walked over and sat down next to me in a solicitous manner. They were young and ugly and asked to bum cigarettes. I pretended I was deaf. They continued talking to me, using hand motions. I pretended to use sign language. Then I handed them four Camels. Then they asked me for a light. I gave them an entire book of matches and a twenty-dollar bill. They looked at each other, spoke rapidly in Spanish, and laughed. I pretended not to notice.
Admittedly, I was feeling pretty strange.
The prostitutes tried once more to strike up a conversation. I didn’t respond. A minute or two later, they gave up entirely. They rolled their eyes, shrugged their shoulders, and rose. They said something in Spanish and walked away with their twenty bucks and their four smokes.
God bless you, I said to myself, though I didn’t really know why.
The song ended. The crowd cheered. The beautiful prostitute and the weed-whacking geek walked back over to their table. The geek sat down, and the girl said something to him, pointing toward the back of the club. The geek nodded and smiled, and the girl walked toward the back of the club, toward the bar. I rose and followed her, making efforts to appear casual. It occurred to me that I was drunk. The girl hung a left into the bathroom. I found a place at the bar and stood there, waiting.
A few minutes later, the girl exited the bathroom. Without a moment’s hesitation, I walked up to her and told her that I would like her to come with me. I told her that I would pay her. The girl said something in Spanish that I didn’t understand. She pointed toward the weed-whacking geek. I turned around and looked in his direction. He was on the other side of the dance floor, obstructed by salsa dancers. He could not see me. I turned back to the girl, pulled a wad of cash out of my waist belt, and handed her a fifty-dollar bill. She took it and said, “One more.” I handed her one more.
She smiled, grabbed me by the arm, and led me past a bouncer out the back door of the club.
8.
Her name was Pamela. That’s what she told me, anyway. She had light brown hair and dark brown eyes. If she had been a foot taller, she could have been a model. She spoke better English than I had originally thought. Coupled with my rudimentary understanding of Spanish, we were able to communicate with relative effectiveness. Pamela told me she had been living in Havana for six years. She liked Madonna and Baywatch and dreamt of being a pop star. She seemed relaxed and happy, completely at ease with our arrangement.
I, on the other hand, was feeling pretty edgy. I’
d been feeling pretty edgy ever since we got to my room. We walked in the door, and all of a sudden I didn’t know what to do. My buzz faded and my humanitarian confidence went with it, and I had no alcohol on my person with which to bolster it. Flustered, I said a few salutatory words and offered Pamela a seat on my bed. She sat. I walked over to the nightstand and picked up a bottle of water. It was the only thing I had to drink. I poured us each a glass. No ice. She thanked me. We drank. There was silence. It was awkward. I could hear myself swallowing. I didn’t know what to say. I kept drinking. I finished my glass of water and stood there. I kept drinking, even though my glass was empty. Pamela smiled. I smiled back and asked her how she was doing. She told me she was doing fine and asked me how I was doing. I told her I was doing fine and asked her once again how she was doing. She didn’t say anything, and neither did I. I looked at her, and she looked at me.
The poor girl is dying, I told myself.
I will not have sex with her, I told myself.
Pamela got up and set her glass down on the nightstand. Without a word, she walked over to me, moved in, and gave me a light kiss on the lips. I closed my eyes and offered no resistance. She pulled away slowly, biting my bottom lip.
“You want to fuck?” she said.
conflict n.
1.) A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war.
2.) A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash.
3.) Psychology: A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies.
4.) Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.
conflicted, conflicting, conflicts v. intr.
To be in or come into opposition; differ.
Archaic: To engage in warfare.
“Shower,” I said to her, stepping back. “How about a shower?”
“¿Cómo?” she said.
“You should use my shower,” I said.
I pointed to the bathroom and said the word baño. I pantomimed the act of showering and made water noises with my mouth. Pamela nodded and began stripping immediately. She took off her halter top and walked into the bathroom. The girl was all business. I turned away, walked over to the nightstand, and poured myself another glass of water. I sat on the edge of the bed and listened as the shower turned on. I took a deep breath and looked at my water glass. I massaged the inside corners of my eyes with thumb and forefinger.
Pamela called out to me.
“Wayne,” she said. It sounded like “when.”
“Yeah?”
“Come here. Venga.”
I walked over to the bathroom door slowly. I could hear the water hitting the bottom of the tub in uneven slaps.
“You all right?” I said. “You need anything?”
“Come in,” she said.
“No, no. I’m going to stay out here. You go ahead.”
“Come in. Is good.”
“I’ll be here when you get out.”
“Come in, Wayne.”
I stuck my head in the door. Pamela was on other side of the glass, naked under the showerhead. She looked at me and motioned with her forefinger.
“Come in,” she said.
“I’m not getting in.”
“You need bath.”
“Tomorrow morning. Mañana.”
Pamela made a face. “¿Que es la problema?” she said. “You no like?”
“No, no. Not at all. I like just fine.”
“Come in.”
She smiled at me and motioned again. I looked at myself in the mirror above the sink. I looked pretty ravaged.
“Look,” said Pamela. She was pointing at my feet.
I looked down. My feet were dirty. I’d been wearing flip-flops, wandering the streets and clubs of Havana for fourteen solid hours.
I looked at myself in the mirror again. “Shit,” I said.
I stripped and got into the shower. Pamela giggled and stepped to the side. I stood under the water and let it run over my head, my body. Pamela started soaping my back. I lifted my hands to my face, wiped the water away from my eyes, and turned around to face her. She pressed up against me and gave me a kiss. It tasted like soap and cigarettes.
9.
Pamela and I were kissing. We had been kissing for a couple of minutes when I suddenly experienced a moment of realization. I had a drastic change of heart and pulled away in a rapid burst of motion. My feet squeaked on the floor of the tub, and I nearly slipped and fell. I grabbed hold of the handrail and attempted to gather myself. I was standing there, naked, wet, and erect. I started rambling to Pamela.
I told her that I wanted her to know that she was a fine human being. I told her that I didn’t consider her a subhuman because she was a hooker and that I didn’t want to harm her. I told her that she was subjecting herself to grave danger, night in and night out, and I wanted to do whatever I could to help her. I was slurring.
Pamela laughed at me. She laughed really hard.
“You crazy, Wayne,” she said. “I no understand you.”
I asked her how old she was.
“How old?” said Pamela.
“Sí,” I said. “¿Cuántos años?”
The great soul singer Sam Cooke wrote a hit single called “Only Sixteen” back in 1959. The first verse went like this:
She was only sixteen, only sixteen
I loved her so
But she was too young to fall in love
And I was too young to know
Pamela was the same age as my little sister.
Sam Cooke died on December 11, 1964, at the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California, at the age of thirty-three. The tale is tragic and controversial. Apparently, Cooke was in his room with a young woman, preparing to have sex. They had a dispute and the woman fled, taking most of Cooke’s clothes with her. Cooke went after her, half naked, wearing only a sport coat and shoes. A little while later, the manager of the hotel, a woman named Bertha Franklin, shot him in the chest with a .22 caliber revolver. She claimed that Sam Cooke had attacked her.
The coroner’s office later ruled that Cooke’s death was a justifiable homicide.
I was showering with a sixteen-year-old Havana prostitute in room 404 of the Hotel Ambos Mundos.
I told myself that I must stay calm.
According to the Cuban Penal Code, the official age of consent in Cuba is sixteen.
Prostitution is illegal in the United States of America, except if you’re in Nevada.
You can do pretty much anything you want to in the state of Nevada.
I set the bar of soap down on the little ledge. Pamela picked up a small plastic bottle of shampoo, and we took turns washing each other’s hair. Then we rinsed. Then I turned the shower off, and we toweled off.
I put on a pair of boxer shorts. Pamela stood there, comfortably naked. I gave her a pair of my boxer shorts and a T-shirt. She put them on uncertainly. We climbed into bed. She asked me once again if I would like to fuck. I told her no thanks. This confused her. She asked me if she should stay. Yes, I told her, please stay. She asked me if I would continue to pay her. Yes, I told her, I’ll pay you. With that, I reached up and turned off the bedside lamp. We lay there on our backs, two feet apart, listening to the sounds of cars, voices, and laughter echoing up from the Calle Obispo. And eventually, we fell asleep.
10.
Ernest Hemingway is a major icon in Cuba. In Havana, it is particularly noticeable. All over town, there are reminders of him—in bars and hotels, in restaurants and kiosks. Hemingway had lived in and around the city for much of his adult life, and Castro was reportedly a fan. In the years since taking power, the dictator seemed to have co-opted the American writer as one of his own.
Hemingway’s history in Cuba dates back to the middle part of the twentieth century. In 1940, shortly after m
arrying his third wife, Martha Gellhorn, he purchased a fifteen-acre estate in the village of San Francisco de Paula, located approximately fifteen miles from downtown Havana. The property was called La Finca Vigía, or The Lookout Farm. It would be Hemingway’s principal residence for the next two decades.
In 1953, Hemingway was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for his novella The Old Man and the Sea. The next year, he received the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In 1959, Castro came to power in a violent uprising. Cuba was in a state of unrest, so Hemingway and his fourth wife, Mary Welsh, left the finca and moved to Ketchum, Idaho.
It was around this time that Hemingway began to go seriously batty. Depression, persecution mania, obsession, phobia, and delusions conspired to take his mind. He couldn’t really sleep, and he couldn’t really write. He was talking and acting like a crazy man. As the months went by, his condition became worse and worse. His friends and family members began to fear for his life.
In November 1960, on the recommendation of a prominent New York psychiatrist, Hemingway was sent to the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where, at the behest of a team of expert physicians, he underwent extensive electroconvulsive therapy.
electroconvulsive therapy n. (abbr. ECT)
Administration of electric current to the brain through electrodes placed on the head in order to induce seizure activity in the brain, used in the treatment of certain mental disorders, especially severe depression. Also called electroshock, electroshock therapy.
Though still not free of all of his delusions, Hemingway was released from the Mayo Clinic in January of 1961. His doctors cited his strong desire to return to work as their rationale for setting him loose. They felt he was on the rebound.