The Cat King of Havana

by Tom Crosshill

  Yosvany grinned. “You’re sweet, niña. I’ll see you there.”

  “He can be kind of a dick,” Ana said as we walked to the concert. She didn’t seem to mind.

  The show was at Casa de la Música Galiano, a movie theater converted into a dance hall. Galiano Street, a wide thoroughfare of grand old buildings, cut through the heart of Centro Habana. Groups of young people walked in the street and loitered on the portico-covered sidewalks. There was no line yet—we were early.

  “Yosvany,” Ana muttered as we took our spots in front of the closed gate.

  But the line grew quickly. Within fifteen minutes, there were a dozen people behind us. Within a half hour, a hundred or more. Little clumps of tourists mostly, speaking Italian, Russian, German, and English. Right behind us stood two blond Swiss girls, their German so peculiar I had trouble understanding them at first (not that I was fluent—it had been years since Dad had made the effort to speak his native language with me).

  Watching the growing crowd, I remarked to Ana, “At least we’ll get a good table.”

  That’s when someone brushed past me.

  I turned to see a girl maybe eighteen years old, in a sparkly black jacket and a white miniskirt and skyscraper heels, lips painted a bright cherry red. She’d stepped in front of us in line and now stood chewing gum, thumbing through her smartphone with deliberate nonchalance.

  Ana and I exchanged a look. She mouthed, “jinetera.” I made as if to speak, but Ana shrugged expressively.

  She had a point. Picking a fight with a prostitute didn’t seem like a great way to start the evening.

  Five minutes later one of the Swiss girls poked my shoulder. I looked out at the street.

  A party of some ten women approached. Miniskirts, high heels, gobs of lipstick, all of them.

  Jinetera central.

  The girl in front of us yelled out a rowdy greeting. The party of ten yelled back. They descended upon us in a tidal wave of bodies and perfume. They pushed us back, the whole line, to make room at the front.

  “Oye,” I said, almost involuntarily. “Hey, hey, there’s a line.”

  The women ignored me. One, a girl who couldn’t be that much older than me, eyed me. “You’re cute.”

  “I can understand them,” said one of the Swiss girls in German. “If I had to work here every night, I wouldn’t want to stand in line either.”

  Which deflated my annoyance. I’d been seeing the jineteras as an irritant, much like a fly buzzing about your head. That’s what it was like, going out in Havana: if you were alone at the bar for three minutes, one of them would slide up to you with a sly “Hola, niño.” I hadn’t considered what it must be like, having that as your job.

  It made me wonder how the girls in front of us felt about our stares and muttered comments. If they really didn’t care or pretended.

  Yosvany arrived shortly before the doors opened. He had a friend in tow, a stocky black kid with a shaven head, in a stylish striped shirt and tight jeans.

  “Luis here is the best casinero in Havana,” Yosvany said.

  “What’s up, guys.” Luis clasped my hand, went in for the cheek-kiss with Ana, smooth and cool.

  “We got stopped on an ID check,” Yosvany said. “I thought we wouldn’t make it. Those damn police . . . le pone el de’o a uno.”

  “They liked your pretty face,” Luis said.

  “At least I’m pretty,” Yosvany said. “If we’d told him you were the maricón, not me, they would have let us go at once.”

  Luis only snorted. “I’m out of their league, and they know it.”

  Casa de la Música was a vast, cold, black cavern. You came in at the top, walked down a narrow path between an expanse of tables and two bars. The path descended to a dance floor hemmed in by more tables—and finally, at the far end, the stage.

  When we entered, reggaeton blasted at earsplitting volume. We found a table near the dance floor and I got everybody a beer (these guys didn’t card). By the time I got back to the table, the music had changed to salsa, and Luis took Ana to dance.

  Yosvany and I watched the two of them. Luis was as good as Yosvany had said, his casino smooth and understated. Ana seemed ecstatic.

  “Don’t worry,” Yosvany said. “Luis only goes for boys.”

  “Do you really think it’s okay, calling him what you did?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Maricón.”

  Yosvany only looked at me, shook his head.

  I thought he was ducking the question. But when Luis came back with Ana, Yosvany clinked beers with him and said, “Rick asked me a question and I didn’t know. Do you mind when I call you maricón?”

  I froze. Ana drew in a sharp breath.

  Luis stared at Yosvany for a long moment, his face utterly expressionless. Then he laughed, teeth gleaming. “Not when it’s a comepinga like you.” His eyes stayed on Yosvany, unblinking.

  Yosvany turned to me. “See?”

  “Excuse me.” Luis got up. “I’ve got to go say hi to a friend.”

  “You really are a comepinga,” Ana said to Yosvany when he was gone.

  “What? Why? He doesn’t mind.”

  “Yeah,” Ana said. “Like girls in the street don’t mind when you whistle and tell them how hot they are.”

  Yosvany looked perplexed. “Exactly.”

  “Let me give you a hint,” Ana said. “We do mind.”

  “Maybe you do,” Yosvany said. “The cubanas—”

  “Don’t you think we talk?” Ana asked.

  Yosvany shrugged. “They never asked me not to.”

  “Yeah,” I said. This was familiar ground to me. “Because telling people to leave you alone works great.”

  “Especially when the people bothering you are guys twice your size,” Ana said.

  “I’m not twice Luis’s size,” Yosvany said.

  “You didn’t grow up hearing your friends make gay jokes and thinking—that’s me they’re talking about,” I said.

  Yosvany got up, an abrupt motion. “This is Cuba,” he said. “Things are different here. Many of my friends at school are gay and you know what, they love me. We’re like brothers. I’m going to dance.”

  “Did he . . . ,” Ana began. “Did he really just . . . ?”

  “Use the ‘my best friend is gay’ line? Yes, he did.” I sighed. “I like Yosvany, but man . . . it’s like he’s from the fifties or something.”

  “All right, all right, Mr. Modernity,” Ana said. “You grew up in Peter Cooper Village, not Cuba. Not even the Bronx, all right?”

  “Huh,” I said.

  Ana took a long drink from her beer. “My father was like that, back in San Juan. Always in the street, always with two or three girlfriends at a time. My mom, she knew what she was getting into, marrying him. She figured she would get the macho out of him.”

  “Did she?”

  “I think he wished she had, by the end.” Ana shook her head. “When my stepdad moved in, I was afraid it was going to be the same. I mean, he even kind of looked like my dad, this big, tough Dominican guy. But they were nothing alike. I caught myself wishing my mom had met him first.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  Ana seemed to snap back to the present. “Besides, New York is better, but not that much better. Not walking down the street, not at school, and sure not in the clubs.”

  The music faded then. Los Van Van walked on. We went to rock out by the stage.

  I’d been to some good concerts in my life. Rock bands at Madison Square Garden, great jazz shows at Birdland and Blue Note. This was something else.

  Not just the music—songs cheerful and bittersweet, relentless and leisurely, all with that syncopated Van Van songo sound. Not just the energy of the band. I was close enough to touch singer Mandy Cantero as he did comic rumba kicks in the middle of his signature theme, “El Aparecido,” but that wasn’t all.

  It was that the music took hold of me, burst in through my ears and banged about in my skull and
surged out to my limbs, and made me move. I felt as the dancer in some religious rite, possessed by spirits and helpless to resist. My feet rocked side to side in counterpoint to the beat. My shoulders shook with the cadence of the güiro. My arms swung now as in salsa, now as in rumba, now in patterns of their own invention.

  Toward the end of the show, I noticed there was a girl dancing next to me. A white Cuban girl, short and cute, and alive with movement. I noticed her because she glanced at me once and then again, and smiled.

  I angled toward her and danced with her—not salsa, not touching at all, just matching movement to movement and rhythm to rhythm. When the music entered a calmer section, we did dance salsa, for ten minutes as the band played montuno after montuno, a marathon series of improvisations that kept the song going forever.

  After, the girl hugged me, and held on for quite a while. I thought I might offer to buy her a beer.

  That’s when I saw Ana. She was dancing with some beefy white guy, looking like she was having a great time.

  My mouth clicked shut.

  The Cuban girl gave me a long look, then sidled off through the crowd. And I stood there wondering why I was such a fool.

  Once you spend time in the feline cinematography biz, you realize everything in life has a cat metaphor. An instructive lesson from the animal kingdom.

  If at first you don’t succeed? Watch that video of Mr. Porcelain going for the cornflakes.

  Have a fight with your girlfriend? Cue Sugar and Spice tumbling all over the floor. They screech, scratch, roll in the litter box—then snuggle and lick each other.

  Don’t use an actual litter box. It’s a metaphor.

  The litter box, I mean. Not the snuggling. Or the licking.

  Can’t decide what college to go to? Set two shoe boxes side by side. Watch Ms. Pop-Tart lie down in one, get up, lie down in the other, get up, lie down in the first—then get kicked out because she forgot to save up for tuition (wait, are we still doing metaphors?).

  Spending the summer in Cuba with your crush, who doesn’t want to be your girlfriend?

  That’s a tough one. I may need to go meta on this cat metaphor.

  Back in the early days of CatoTrope, I used to dream of five thousand page views a day. It seemed to me I’d be happy once I hit that level. A rising star in the field of brainless amusement, I’d kick back and bask in my achievements.

  The day came when I broke through five thousand page views. Know what I did? Spent the day redesigning my site for search engine optimization. You know, so I could crack ten thousand sooner.

  Of course, more views means more ad clicks, which means more cash. But still, the point stands.

  When Rachel Snow had dumped me, I had been a klutzy geek. I’d decided to turn my life around. Half a year later I was . . . well, okay, still a geek and still klutzy—but damn it, I could dance. Kids at school had clapped me on the back and called me cool. One girl had given me her number, and another asked me to teach her salsa. Now in Cuba, I had cute girls hugging me tight and giving me suggestive glances.

  Was I doing anything about it? No. I had Ana to moon over.

  I’d had enough of it.

  I made my way back to our table. I found Yosvany there, sitting back and downing his fourth beer (judging by the empties). He nodded his head to the music, chillness itself.

  “I’ve got to do something about Ana,” I told him as soon as I’d sat down. “I can’t keep waiting forever. I’ve got to know.”

  Yosvany lit up like he’d been waiting for me to say this. “Coño, primo, now you’re talking.”

  “The problem is,” I said, “what do I do?”

  “Something big and stylish,” Yosvany said. “Make an impression. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, at least you’ll know.”

  “Style isn’t exactly my expertise,” I said.

  Yosvany clapped my shoulder. “Leave that to me. Tomorrow is the big night. Tomorrow, le damos sin susto.”

  chapter fourteen

  THUGS

  I woke up the next morning thinking of Ana. I turned to ask Yosvany what the plan was, but he was gone, rumpled bed empty.

  My first instinct was distress, that he’d abandoned me on this crucial day. The second was relief. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go through with it. That relief propelled me to the bathroom for a shower.

  The water heater had broken down. Juanita said it might get fixed. Not might get fixed tomorrow or next week—simply “might get fixed.” In New York this might have reduced me to stuttering panic. Here the cool water was a refuge from the oppressive heat.

  By the time I got dressed, Ana was in the kitchen drinking coffee with Yolanda. She didn’t look up when I walked in. I felt a moment of dismay, but then took in Yolanda. She sat with her elbows on the table, leaning forward so that a curtain of hair hid much of her face. Even so I saw the bruise on her cheek, big and splotchy and reddish-blue.

  “What happened?” I blurted. “Was it—” I stopped myself.

  Yolanda glanced up, shook her head, a small motion. “Some thugs . . . they jumped me on the street last night.”

  “Are you all right?” I asked. “Do you need to—”

  “She said it’s nothing.” Ana gave a little shake of her head. “Leave it.”

  “Really, kids, I’m okay.” Yolanda paused, seemed to gather her strength. “Remember how you asked Miranda and me if there was some way you could help?”

  “Tell us,” Ana said.

  “Anything,” I said.

  “I need you to—” Yolanda began, then swallowed. “My friend Lisyani, her mother’s in the hospital. She needs some expensive supplies, maybe a hundred CUC.”

  “That’s no problem,” Ana said.

  “Of course,” I said.

  I would have agreed to anything at that moment.

  Yolanda hesitated. “You can come with me to Lisyani’s. You wanted to see the real Cuba. This is part of it. Just leave the camera at home.”

  A few minutes later, when Yolanda went to get ready, Ana and I spoke quietly.

  “Don’t ask her questions,” she said. “I don’t know if it was Benny—”

  “—yeah—”

  “—I mean that’s what Yosvany guessed, he was ready to rip Benny’s head off, but Yolanda told him he knew nothing and to mind his own business. So I don’t know. But she doesn’t want to talk about it. Don’t force it, okay?”

  I tried to picture Benny enraged, violent—thin, geeky Benny with glasses pushed high on his nose. It was hard. But the failure of my imagination meant nothing.

  “It’s hard, when that happens,” Ana said. “When it’s someone you love . . . I mean, you’re ashamed, don’t want anyone to know . . .”

  I nodded, and wondered just how well Ana knew the feeling.

  Half an hour later we were on the street. The day was another scorcher. Yolanda wore a long-sleeved blouse. Her broad-brimmed hat drooped in a way that might have seemed comical under other circumstances, but it hid her face partway. Ana and I walked on either side of her as if on bodyguard duty.

  “Are we going to a pharmacy?” Ana asked.

  “Let’s pick up Lisyani first.”

  Yolanda’s friend lived at the far end of Habana Vieja. Halfway there, the silence began to wear on our little group. I decided to try and distract Yolanda.

  “I talked to your neighbor Rafaela the other day,” I said. “She told me about why my mother left Cuba.”

  “That’s nice,” Yolanda said.

  “About how our grandfather tried to stop her.”

  Yolanda was silent for a moment. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Really?”

  “Juanita doesn’t talk about that time.” Yolanda shrugged. “Keeping silent is her way. You have to push her if you want answers.”

  I considered Juanita, my aunt, family stalwart and communist functionary. I wasn’t sure how hard I dared push her.

  “Make sure you really want to know,” Ana said. “So your family’s
messed up. Most are. Does it really help to know all the details?”

  I wasn’t sure help was the right word. Here in Cuba, I almost felt like Mom was with me again. Like I could reach across the gap of decades and get to know her in a way that I hadn’t when she’d been alive.

  There was a blast of sound down the street. Lights flashed blue. Yolanda jumped with a little cry.

  A block over, a police Lada rumbled down the street. A moment and it was out of sight.

  “Sorry,” Yolanda said. “Walking with foreigners makes me nervous. Sometimes the cops stop you because they think you’re a jinetera.”

  I nodded as if I believed that explanation.

  “It’s around the corner here,” Yolanda said.

  We turned onto a small, quiet street near the southeast corner of Habana Vieja. Puddles of indeterminate brown liquid collected in potholes of various sizes. The buildings were a dilapidated gray, not a fleck of fresh paint in sight.

  “Look, a park.” Yolanda pointed at an empty lot at the far intersection. There were some flower beds and a bench, an unexpected sight on a street like this. “There are more and more parks in Havana these days.”

  “Really,” I said.

  “When a building falls down, they put a park in.”

  “Because of the bloqueo?” Ana asked. “Because you can’t get any building materials?”

  “Look at this country. The way things are run. You think if they took the bloqueo away tomorrow something would change?” Yolanda shrugged. “Well, maybe some things would. But less than you think. In the meantime, the bloqueo is the Castros’ best friend. Gives them something to blame.” She nodded at the nearest building. “This way.”

  Yolanda pushed open an unfinished plywood door and we entered a dim, narrow hallway. After Yolanda’s tale of collapsed buildings, I gave the ceiling a worried look.

  There was a vaguely chemical smell in the air. “The fumigator,” Yolanda explained. “They come all the time and you have to leave while they spray, and then the house stinks for days.”

  Her friend’s apartment was on the top floor. The door opened on the second knock. A forty-something white woman met us, a mop in one hand, a lit cigarette in another. She greeted Yolanda with an energetic cheek-kiss, then drew her by the shoulders into the light of her living room. She pulled off Yolanda’s hat and studied the bruises on her face with a matter-of-fact clucking of her tongue.