The Cat King of Havana

by Tom Crosshill

  That machine was a giant tower of a computer, with lots of blinking lights. It must have been a beast back when I was in diapers. Still, it ran Chrome all right, which was all we needed. Ana showed me a few indie filmmaker sites she liked; we discussed the pros and cons of WordPress versus a custom-made site.

  “I want a gallery to show off my short films,” she said. “Plus a page for my new project, a film about Cuban salsa in New York.”

  I asked to see one of her short films, to get a sense of her style.

  “My stepdad gave me a camera his first Christmas with us,” she said. “So I went out and made this with my friends.”

  Ana’s first film starred a giant walking teddy bear with a top hat and a wide sewn-on grin. He woke up in Ana’s apartment every morning, had breakfast, and took the L train into the city. He stood all day in Union Square—grinning that sewn-on grin, holding a sign that said Free Hug! Except no one ever came for the hugs. Day after day, month after month, year after year.

  It wasn’t a cheery film.

  “Huh,” I said.

  “I wasn’t very good back then,” Ana said. “The lighting’s crap, some of the composition makes me wince, and that shaky camera . . . ugh.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, “but I like it.”

  “You do?”

  “I was expecting some reversal,” I said. “Someone comes in and gets his spirits up, you know.”

  “Her spirits,” Ana said. “The bear’s Angelina.”

  “Oh.” I scratched my neck. “Yes, of course.”

  “I was planning to do something like that. But I decided this version was more true to life in New York City.”

  There was an energy to Ana as she spoke, an enthusiasm that she rarely showed off the dance floor. Something swelled in my chest as I listened to her. It was a strange, buoyant, exhilarating feeling. I wanted to tell her that she inspired me to . . . to . . .

  To do what? Create a spinoff site for pony videos?

  I’d built CatoTrope mostly as a distraction after Mom’s death. Now that it brought in money I felt proud of it, but it was hardly War and Peace—not even the War and Peace of lolcats.

  Listening to Ana, I could almost imagine what that must feel like—having something that consumed you, that drove you, that meant everything to you. I had never felt that way about anything.

  Except maybe the first time I’d seen Ana dance . . .

  I spoke before I could stop myself. “I’ve got a problem, Ana.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s about this school concert.”

  Ana watched me blankly.

  “I . . . umm . . . I kind of agreed to dance salsa in front of the whole school.”

  Ana nodded appreciatively. “Estás jodido.”

  “Yeah. I don’t even have a partner yet . . .”

  There followed a silence. Patrick Rothfuss, my favorite author, might have called it a silence of three parts. The part where my self-respect curled up quietly to die. The part where desperation sank its stiletto blade into my gut. The part where I implored Ana for help with mute, mournful eyes.

  She started. “No,” she said. “Go away.”

  I added a trembling lip. Not intentionally. It just happened.

  “I’m too busy. School. Exams. My new film.”

  “You could use me for your salsa film,” I said. “Clumsy beginner makes good.”

  Ana’s face told me this plot summary didn’t seem likely to her.

  “If I don’t do this, I’m finished at school,” I said.

  Ana’s face told me how much this prospect upset her.

  “I’ll pay you,” I said. “Like for a gig. A hundred bucks. Two hundred.”

  Ana threw her hands in the air. “Shut it. I’m not doing this for money.”

  “But—?”

  “What makes you think there’s a but?”

  “Optimism? Desperation?”

  “If I agree, you’re going to make me the spiffiest website on the intertubes,” Ana said.

  “Of course!” I was nodding so hard my neck hurt.

  “Just one more thing,” Ana said.

  “Anything,” I said.

  “I won’t be your girlfriend.”

  I gaped. I choked. I sputtered. All the repertoire appropriate to such an announcement. “What do you . . . I don’t . . . I mean . . . I didn’t even . . .”

  “Come on, Rick,” she said. “I’m not blind. You follow me around, you make puppy eyes, you ask Gregoire about me.”

  My jaw constricted. Damn you, Gregoire.

  “Look,” Ana said. “It’s fine. I’m not annoyed or anything. I just figured I’d save us both trouble. I’m not looking right now and you’re probably not my type anyway. Sorry.”

  She sounded so reasonable about it. That was the thing—so damn reasonable.

  “So what do you think?” Ana asked me. “Can we just be friends?”

  I could give you some wise advice at this point. If a girl you really like says let’s just be friends, you should nod and smile and get the heck away from her. Once you get over her, sure, be friends—if you liked her enough to want to date her, presumably you like her enough to be pals. Until then? Clear the blast radius.

  “Sure,” I told her. “We can just be friends.”

  By which I meant one day you’ll see my brilliance! One day you’ll realize how great I am! Me, Rick Gutiérrez, Cat Guy Extraordinaire!

  You’re probably not my type, she’d said. Probably.

  Cue training sequence.

  You know how those go. Rousing music plays. An awkward but likably scrappy kid trains hard at the dance studio. Practices his steps on the empty subway platform. Taps his feet under his desk at school. Runs through the Siberian snow with salsa shoes tied around his neck.

  Montage of a wall clock in fast-forward. Then green leaves sprouting on trees, days crossed off a calendar, and, voilà, you’re in late May.

  It was almost like that, except for all of Ana’s cursing. You would have needed an industrial grade bleep-machine to censor it.

  We practiced for forty minutes after class every day, alone at Chévere—they trusted Ana with the keys. For our choreography we’d picked “Me Dicen Cuba,” a gentle, sweet tune by Alexander Abreu y Havana D’Primera. It seemed to have little effect on Ana.

  “Get a flashlight and dig your foot out of your ass,” was about the sweetest suggestion on her spectrum. Her comments always came with a smile.

  But as the weeks went on, something strange happened. Ana got quieter and quieter. Her attacks faded, but so did her smiles. Often she’d stare into the distance for minutes at a time, like that first time at her place.

  I caught myself wishing she’d go back to the cursing.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked her often.

  “Shut up and dance,” was her usual answer, spoken quietly, as if she didn’t really care if I did or not.

  “You can tell me,” I said to her after practice one night. “We’re friends, remember?”

  She kept quiet as she wiped sweat from her face with a towel. She put it aside and sighed. “It’s family stuff, okay? My stepdad’s sick and my mom’s in denial, and I’m caught in the middle. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Ana had always mentioned her stepdad with fondness in her voice, but I didn’t know much about him. I only knew he was Dominican, and that he’d hooked up with Ana’s mom shortly after they’d moved to Williamsburg—away from Ana’s father. And that he’d been a good parent to her. “Look, I’ve been through some medical stuff in my family. If there’s anything I can help with . . . I mean, I’ll listen if you need to talk.”

  “I don’t,” she said.

  I knew what that felt like, so I didn’t push her.

  Our evenings at Chévere became grim, quiet affairs. I wondered why Ana kept working with me. I almost told her not to bother, to take care of her family and forget about our show.

  I might have, if not for the
oh-so-encouraging support of my schoolmates.

  “Give us a twirl now,” Kenna demanded in PE, swinging his finger in the air.

  “I’m going to record your show,” Flavia told me. “Instant YouTube classic!”

  Luke from the band put up a poster on the concert’s Facebook event page. Featuring Rick Gutiérrez, King of Salsa, it said. The comments section sported a dancing cats compilation video—from my own website!—along with the quality humor I had come to expect of my peers (My eyes, they bleed already).

  “I hear you’re dancing at the school concert,” Dad said over breakfast, the day before the show.

  I nearly spilled my cereal. How did he find out?

  “I’ll be there,” he said.

  I did spill my cereal. “What? Why?” Dad never came to these things.

  “I’m happy for you, son,” he said. “You’re exploring your mother’s culture. She would have liked to be there for you.”

  “Um, uh . . .” I sighed. “Thanks for your support, Dad.”

  “I know I’ve been a bit . . . not there for you, these past couple of years,” Dad said. “But recently, you know, watching you dance, I’m realizing some things.” There was red in his cheeks, but he pressed on. “Mom would be so happy for you. So happy to see you having fun.”

  “She’d be happy to see you having fun too,” I said.

  Dad said nothing to this, only nodded, his eyes down on the table. After some time, he said, “You should call Aunt Juanita again sometime.”

  Calling Havana was the last thing on my mind. “It’s crazy expensive.”

  “It’s family,” Dad said. “Don’t worry about the money.”

  “Mom would say that’s putting cash in Fidel’s pocket.” As if I really cared about the bloqueo.

  “Yeah, and how well has that worked?” Dad asked. “Fifty years and he’s still there.”

  I stared at him. He wouldn’t have said such a thing when Mom was around.

  “You forget I lived under communism too,” Dad said. “You can squeeze the country all you want. The guys at the top will steal enough from their own people to sit happy. Take North Korea now—”

  “I’d love to take North Korea,” I cut in quickly, “but I gotta run to class.”

  “I’m looking forward to tomorrow!” Dad said.

  I shuddered. If tomorrow never came, that would be all right with me.

  Unless, of course, it was because of a plague of flesh-eating goo that swept across New York and ate us alive.

  You’ve got to keep perspective.

  chapter five

  SALSA KING

  Tomorrows tend to become todays without much help. Even if you spend the night half awake, twisted up in sweaty sheets, kicking your legs to Alexander Abreu’s voice in your head. Even if you reset your alarm three times and skip breakfast. Even if you text Lettuce Igorov asking if the concert’s been postponed.

  Curtain at 6 he texted back.

  On the plus side, no flesh-eating goo.

  School provided the expected dose of spitballs, witticisms about my upcoming performance, and pantomime on the theme of “Gangnam Style” wherever I went. It seemed the whole school was ready to watch me bomb. The best that can be said of the day was that I managed to keep my lunch down.

  Ana had agreed to meet me at five outside school. When I showed up, she was already there, sitting on a bench by the curb. Legs together, hands in her lap, still—so very still. That stillness seemed incongruous with her punchy outfit of bright red jeans and a white tee.

  “Hey, Rick.” She might have sounded happier to see a parking ticket.

  What happened? I almost asked. But I’d learned not to push her. “Let’s go. They want us for a sound check.”

  A few sophomores were setting up a bake sale inside the auditorium. Overhead, a maze of colored streamers spread wall to wall, the sort of decoration that should be grounds for decollation (look it up).

  Lettuce and the band kids were setting up on stage. They turned when I said hi. A smirk crept onto Mitch’s face. He started to say something—then he noticed Ana. His jaw clicked shut.

  I won’t lie—that felt pretty good.

  “Hey, guys,” Lettuce said, unbearably cheerful, like he’d forgotten this was his fault.

  I introduced Ana to everyone. She seemed to hardly notice them.

  “The jazz guys will finish and we’ll drop the curtain for five minutes,” Lettuce explained. “That’s your cue. You get into position, and the DJ will play your song.”

  I double-checked the space in front of the curtain. There was plenty of room. I glanced at the band kids, gathered my courage, and asked Ana, “Shall we run through it?”

  Ana shook her head, staring past me. “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  In the hallway outside, away from everyone, Ana stopped and leaned against the windowsill, as if supporting a great weight. “Let’s stay here for a bit.”

  “I thought you needed . . .”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Ana looked up at me, met my eyes for the first time that day. And I saw uncertainty in her.

  “Sorry for what?”

  “It’s my stepdad,” she said.

  A chill shot through me.

  “We buried him this morning,” she said.

  I froze.

  You came here from a funeral?

  I didn’t ask that question, though. Not because I was too considerate or too intelligent. Because someone seemed to have dumped ice down my shirt.

  This sensation, it was a memory. An afterimage of a pale morning when I’d picked up coarse damp soil in one hand and tossed it on my mother’s coffin. That morning, I couldn’t make myself speak. Couldn’t even cry. The kids from school, Mom’s students, they cried—but I stood there and I couldn’t. Inert. Locked inside a cold, heavy body.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “What are you even doing here? The show doesn’t matter. We’ll dance some other time.”

  Ana turned on me, sharp. “No!” Then, softer, “No. I need this. I can forget, when I’m dancing.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Let’s go through the steps,” Ana said. “Right here, okay?”

  We did. Ana danced by rote, mechanically. I couldn’t even remember the steps, watching her face.

  In short, we sucked. In a few minutes, we’d suck in front of my whole school.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked.

  “Dance with me,” she said. “Please.”

  She might as well have pointed a gun at my head.

  “Play it cool when you present us,” I told Lettuce before the show. “Whatever you do, don’t oversell us, all right?”

  Half an hour later, the jazz club walked off the stage to polite applause. The curtain descended. Mitch’s voice boomed over the speakers: “And now, ladies and gentlemen! A spectacle never before seen in our school! Straight from the sunny beaches of Cuba! Presenting our very own Salsa King, Rick ‘Cat Guy’ Gutiérrez, and his partner, Ana Cabrera!”

  “Salsa King, huh,” Ana said. As huhs go, it was expressive.

  Applause pitter-pattered. The lights cut out. We walked out into the darkness and took positions on stage a few feet apart, facing each other. Shadows in the gloom.

  My knees shook. I felt cold as a penguin, and about as graceful.

  From the dark auditorium came laughter and cries: “Rick!” “Ricky!” “Meow!”

  Drums rolled. The piano sang out. Havana D’Primera played.

  A spotlight blasted on, bright in my eyes.

  Step, step, slide.

  Step, step, slide.

  I moved by reflex, my body a mirror to Ana’s. Spin to one side. Spin to the other. Shoot my foot out, my hand in the air. Then—

  Then I saw Ana, really saw her. Not her stylish outfit. Not the elegant, effortless way she moved. Those things were no surprise. No. I saw her smile.

  She smiled like a Madison Square Garden spotligh
t. She smiled as if dancing with me were her life’s dream. She smiled like she’d never felt hurt in her life.

  It was a shock, that smile. I tripped, stumbled, shot out my foot to brace myself.

  Ana matched me. She tripped too, except gracefully, with an elegance that said—I meant to do this. Together we fell into the next step, as if nothing had gone wrong.

  The music changed. We approached, locked hands, locked frames, turned round each other—round and round, as Alexander Abreu crooned about the beauty of his homeland.

  At first I plodded from step to step, terrified. But Ana was a solid presence against me, her hand on my shoulder steady and sure. My feet grew light and the beat of the music entered me. Fear left me and I danced.

  Ana had composed a simple, languid choreography for us. It was the story of two lovers drawn together and repelled and drawn together once again, unable to resist though they knew there was no future for them.

  We circled each other and approached warily, and spun apart, and made as if to leave, only to find ourselves locked body against body once again. One rhythm, one being, moving to the steady beat of the salsa bell.

  I missed a few steps, forgot to roll my shoulders for an accent, but the music carried me through, as did Ana’s reassuring hold. I got this urge to sing. To cry out together with Alexander Abreu. I didn’t—I would have lost the beat for sure—but I felt the song pass through me all the same.

  The song culminated. We broke into a complex turn pattern, arms interlaced—she turning under my arm, I ducking under hers. We made a maze of our bodies as if seeking to find a way to break free but unable to do so.

  As the music faded, we gave up the fight. I hooked my elbows over Ana’s and drew her close. We rocked side to side, in time to the last beats of the song.

  I smiled at her.

  She smiled at me.

  Our bodies came to rest but inside me the dance surged, surged, surged. And it felt right, me, being here on stage with Ana, dancing in front of the whole school.

  The lights went out.

  Applause.

  I’d like to say it was thunderous, an ovation. In truth, it was merely decent, even ragged. But ragged applause was better than I’d expected from this audience.

  I was thinking about this when Ana hugged me, there in the dark. Squeezed me tight, her body warm against mine. Put her forehead against mine, skin on sweaty skin. Her breath hot on my lips.