Right now, Iâm out here earning pocket money until my visa comes through for Spain.
Like I said, it takes an occasional
novio
to get by. Mamá doesnât understand this. Sheâs immune from the day-to-day hassles because sheâs had that bureaucrat lackey lover of hers since the dawning of
la revolutión
. Every night, PepÃn brings her a feast from God knows where. Fresh steamed lobsters. Steaks thick as my thumb. Mangoes so perfectly ripe and sweetânot the stringy stuff you get with couponsâtheyâre a kind of ecstasy. He also brings her shampoo that doesnât glue your hair together like the local brand, when you can find it. Letâs just say the woman hasnât had to wait in a line since the Year of Ten Million, when the whole country went crazy cutting sugarcane.
Mamá isnât the most fervent revolutionary on the island, but sheâs basically tolerant of the system. She and PepÃn say that young people today are spoiled and donât appreciate all we have, that we shouldâve seen how things were before the revolution to understand deprivation. Everybody I know is sick of these arguments, sick of picking potatoes and building dormitories, only to find no meaningful work in the careers we trained for. Sick of not washing our hands after we shit because there isnât any soap. Sick of the blackouts and dry faucets. Sick of having nothing to do, period. At minimum, it can make a person permanently irritable.
You can never work hard enough here, either. Cuba is like an evil stepmother, abusive and unrewarding of effort.More, more, and more for more nothing. Until last month, when they fired me for fraternizing with a foreigner, I was the volleyball coach at José Martà High School (we came in sixth last year at the national championships), and I earned one hundred eighteen pesos a month.
Créeme
, itâs not easy staying in shape on sugar-and-lard sandwiches. At least this way, I make a few dollars. Thatâs how it breaks down hereâthose with dollars and those without. Dollars mean privileges. A roll of toilet paper. A bottle of rum. Pesos mean
te jodes
. Youâre fucked. Itâs that simple.
Come here. Look at this view, this harbor, this gorgeous curve of coast. Men from all over the world tell me that Havana is the most beautiful city theyâve ever seen. So when will we get it back? When will it be truly ours again?
Coño
, El Caballo has four broken legs, and no one has the courage to put him out of his misery.
My father, José LuÃs Fuerte, was one of the original revolutionaries. He was at Moncada and in the Sierra Maestra side by side with you-know-who. Part of a museum display in Santiago de Cuba is devoted to his exploits. Mamá took me there when I was a kid. There was a blown-up photograph of him with a rifle across his back. Heâs smoking a too-big cigar and has a beaded bracelet on his wrist. The odd thing was that he seemed very familiar to me, even though Iâd never seen him before. Then I realized it was because Iâd inherited his face.
All the while I was growing up and misbehaving, Mamá used to say: What would your father think if he were still alive? It used to shame me for the moment. I have a tattoo on my shoulder, three twisting vines intertwined with the name of my first boyfriend, coincidentally also named José LuÃs. When I was fourteen and got pregnant by him, my father was the first person I thought of. Mamá never found out, or she wouldâve insisted I have the kid. She was sixteen when Iwas born and says she couldnât have imagined her life otherwise. Mamáâs been after me to have a child. And for what? So she can coo over the kid before shipping him off to some boarding school in
el campo
like she did with me? Forget about it.
These days, I find myself wondering not what my father would think of me but what he would think of his revolution and his former
Like I said, it takes an occasional
novio
to get by. Mamá doesnât understand this. Sheâs immune from the day-to-day hassles because sheâs had that bureaucrat lackey lover of hers since the dawning of
la revolutión
. Every night, PepÃn brings her a feast from God knows where. Fresh steamed lobsters. Steaks thick as my thumb. Mangoes so perfectly ripe and sweetânot the stringy stuff you get with couponsâtheyâre a kind of ecstasy. He also brings her shampoo that doesnât glue your hair together like the local brand, when you can find it. Letâs just say the woman hasnât had to wait in a line since the Year of Ten Million, when the whole country went crazy cutting sugarcane.
Mamá isnât the most fervent revolutionary on the island, but sheâs basically tolerant of the system. She and PepÃn say that young people today are spoiled and donât appreciate all we have, that we shouldâve seen how things were before the revolution to understand deprivation. Everybody I know is sick of these arguments, sick of picking potatoes and building dormitories, only to find no meaningful work in the careers we trained for. Sick of not washing our hands after we shit because there isnât any soap. Sick of the blackouts and dry faucets. Sick of having nothing to do, period. At minimum, it can make a person permanently irritable.
You can never work hard enough here, either. Cuba is like an evil stepmother, abusive and unrewarding of effort.More, more, and more for more nothing. Until last month, when they fired me for fraternizing with a foreigner, I was the volleyball coach at José Martà High School (we came in sixth last year at the national championships), and I earned one hundred eighteen pesos a month.
Créeme
, itâs not easy staying in shape on sugar-and-lard sandwiches. At least this way, I make a few dollars. Thatâs how it breaks down hereâthose with dollars and those without. Dollars mean privileges. A roll of toilet paper. A bottle of rum. Pesos mean
te jodes
. Youâre fucked. Itâs that simple.
Come here. Look at this view, this harbor, this gorgeous curve of coast. Men from all over the world tell me that Havana is the most beautiful city theyâve ever seen. So when will we get it back? When will it be truly ours again?
Coño
, El Caballo has four broken legs, and no one has the courage to put him out of his misery.
My father, José LuÃs Fuerte, was one of the original revolutionaries. He was at Moncada and in the Sierra Maestra side by side with you-know-who. Part of a museum display in Santiago de Cuba is devoted to his exploits. Mamá took me there when I was a kid. There was a blown-up photograph of him with a rifle across his back. Heâs smoking a too-big cigar and has a beaded bracelet on his wrist. The odd thing was that he seemed very familiar to me, even though Iâd never seen him before. Then I realized it was because Iâd inherited his face.
All the while I was growing up and misbehaving, Mamá used to say: What would your father think if he were still alive? It used to shame me for the moment. I have a tattoo on my shoulder, three twisting vines intertwined with the name of my first boyfriend, coincidentally also named José LuÃs. When I was fourteen and got pregnant by him, my father was the first person I thought of. Mamá never found out, or she wouldâve insisted I have the kid. She was sixteen when Iwas born and says she couldnât have imagined her life otherwise. Mamáâs been after me to have a child. And for what? So she can coo over the kid before shipping him off to some boarding school in
el campo
like she did with me? Forget about it.
These days, I find myself wondering not what my father would think of me but what he would think of his revolution and his former
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