“Is that right?” asked Victor.
“What are things like in Cuba right now?” asked Cuca.
“There’s a sense of fear, of being watched everywhere. No one can be trusted. That’s why I wanted out. The Cuba that Castro promised is not the one developing now.”
“Do you think it’s all Fidel’s fault?” asked Juan.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Victor, running his hand through his sun-lightened hair and over his face. “He’s El Comandante. He has the power. He has to be held responsible for what’s going on. I can’t see it any other way.”
“The embargo is crippling. The U.S. is forcing Fidel into a corner,” commented Juan.
“No one reason can be blamed for what has happened so far. I agree with you that U.S. policy has not helped the situation. But Fidel is intent on turning the island into a communist society. That is not what I supported him for in the beginning. So I had to leave. Now I must oppose him.”
“Oppose him? In what way?” asked Huberto.
“As part of the Cubano exile comunidad, here in Florida and elsewhere. Eisenhower’s administration has been supportive of our efforts so far. And here in Miami, the community is strengthening. We can only hope the next president will back us as well.”
“What do you plan to do?” asked Juan.
“I can’t speak too much about the specifics of what I’m involved in. But if you ask around, you can probably figure out the open secret. Let’s just put it this way: I hope to return to Cuba soon.”
“What do you think of the candidates?” asked Juan.
“Both want to present themselves as anti-Castro. We shall see,” said Victor. “I only want to live in my homeland again, free of corruption and fear, so I will support whoever gives me that opportunity.”
Juan wanted to ask more questions when his grandmother brought in Victor’s plate piled high with a mound of rice and chicken. It was hot and she held it underneath with a hand towel. She set the plate with a fork and knife in Victor’s lap. “That’s enough talk of politics tonight,” she said to the boys and her husband. “This man is hungry, tiene mucho hambre.”
Later that evening after Victor had left and their grandparents and Cuca had gone to sleep, the brothers remained awake. They decided to go in the backyard and pull out two lawn chairs so they could talk without disturbing the house. With summer having passed, the night had an aureole glow instead of a languid stifle, as if starlight didn’t have to pierce through the thickness of so much humidity to reach the earth in order to outline everything with a subtle shine. Around the yard, the gorgeous nightscape appeared to have a glow. The ability to make out the elegant shape of the hibiscus, the mangos, and the avocados made the brothers wish they could sort out the world with just as much beauty and ease.
“What do you take from what Victor was saying? Do you think papá will ever have a chance to leave?” asked Juan with his hands clasped together.
“Someday, he will,” said his brother, tracing the shape of a branch with his squinted eyes. “I don’t know how to do anything else but think positive.”
“You’re good at that?”
“You think so?”
“I wish I could be more like you.”
“Oh, Juan, don’t start with that.”
“The way you handle yourself, the way you don’t let things affect you. You sometimes say so little. It’s a real gift you have, something to be admired,” said Juan, now rubbing his hands. “The things I can learn from mi hermano pequeño, my little brother.”
Alberto chuckled and shook his head at his older brother’s humility. “That doesn’t mean things aren’t eating me up inside. I worry a lot.”
“If you do, you hide it well.”
“We’re not much different. I too am thinking of our father all the time. And when I’m not, I feel guilty that I got Guadalupe on my mind instead of him. Then I start thinking about our home in Cuba, and suddenly Emilia will appear in my memory. You know . . .”
“I hear you,” said Juan.
“And I worry about mamá.”
“She’d take us the rest of our lifetimes to figure out.”
“She’s still our mother.” Alberto let his statement stand on its own in the quietude.
A minute passed.
“Mira, I don’t hate her,” said Juan in a low voice. “Why don’t we leave it at that for tonight? I still need more time before I can really talk to her again.”
“I can respect that,” said Alberto.
Neither spoke for another minute as they examined how the shapes of things seemed to sparkle when a breeze ran over their surface. The leaves on the trees moved in tiny rippling waves.
“You know, we’re really lucky,” said Juan.
“I know.”
“No, I mean, really. Think about if we hadn’t had Cuca all those years bringing us up.”
“She’s a real lady,” said Alberto.
“I admire her more and more these days. She’s gone through a lot with her leg in the condition it’s been in since her birth. She’s never had anyone as far as I know.”
“I’ve never heard one negative word from her. She seems happy.”
“That’s my point. Don’t you ever think it’s sad that she’ll probably go her whole life without anyone?” asked Juan. “What if she isn’t happy? What if deep down inside she has this enormous sadness she’s been hauling around her whole life and no one has cared enough to notice.”
“No sé, Juan. She gets along all right if you ask me. She’s now got a job at the insurance office down the street. She stays busy every minute of every day, helping with Abuela and Abuelo. Cooking and cleaning and working . . .”
“Yeah, maybe that’s the meaning of life. To stay active is true happiness. Don’t allow your mind to think too much. We’ve certainly failed at that, don’t you think?”
“Are you trying to say you’re not happy?”
“No,” said Juan. “I’m real excited about el futuro. I’m studying law, as you know. I want to do something with human or international rights, something where I can impact the big picture. I want to make a difference somehow. Maybe have a voice like Kennedy. I’m not saying I want to be a political figure, but I would like to do something that matters, the way Sharkey’s father is working to extradite Jiménez. What about you?”
“I haven’t figured it out exactly. I like to play the guitar, but I have to be realistic. What can I really be? It sometimes scares me.”
“I’m scared too about what I know about myself.”
Alberto waited a moment before responding: “You don’t have to pretend it’s un secreto. I’m not ashamed of you.”
“I know you’re not.”
“How come you’ve never talked to me about it?”
“What’s there to say?”
They looked out into the yard. The dark outline of the mango tree was a writhing creature, calm and ethereal in its rootedness against the dark sky. The stars overhead seemed to rotate as the brothers tried to keep track of the constellations.
“You know, I’ve never been able to make out the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, or any of the shapes that are supposed to be up there,” said Juan, craning his neck to the sky.
“You’re not patient enough.”
Juan smiled at his brother. “That’s not true.”
Alberto smiled back, and Juan changed the subject: “You know what I’ve been thinking about lately.”
“Tell me.”
“Well, if Abuelo Gabriel hadn’t survived in the Solomon Islands, we wouldn’t be here. If Kennedy had died out there in those same treacherous waters during the war, he’s not running for president.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to put that scenario together,” said Alberto, grinning this time.
“That’s not my point. What I’m trying to say is that the world seems so small, how nothing much really separates us. All the stuff with Fidel that’s happened to us, and now this connection we have with Kenned
y. It just touches me deep in the heart. Makes me want to make the world understand how we’re connected beyond what we know. I can’t believe all the hatred and conflict in the world. I just can’t understand it.”
“That’s because we don’t contribute to it.”
“That doesn’t seem to be enough. Like Kennedy says, we have to persevere and sacrifice. I feel like I could do more. I want to do more. Yet everything is out of my control.”
“That’s why you have to believe in something. Anything.”
“So little brother, what do you believe in?”
Alberto took a moment and then said, “I believe the future is bright.”
They folded the chairs and quietly leaned them against the side of the house. They opened the sliding glass door so as not to allow the sawing noise from the metal rail against the door to echo down the hall into the bedrooms. Even though it was past eleven, Alberto wanted to take a shower. As the water could be heard from the bathroom into their bedroom, Juan crawled into bed and pulled up the sheet to his neck. Tiredness overtook him, and he had an exam in less than nine hours, but he couldn’t settle his mind. He kept contemplating ideas in his head: peace, compassion, understanding. It wasn’t until he started thinking about people—about Castro, about Kennedy, about his father—that he realized the only way the future held promise was if people learned to understand one another. Maybe that’s why he loved his brother so much. A minute later he fell asleep with Arturo on his mind for some unknown reason.
* * *
Chapter 30
Between going to class, working on the campaign, putting hours in at the store, and keeping up with compiling quotes from Kennedy in his notebook, Juan had no time for Arturo. In fact, since Juan started volunteering on the campaign without being able to persuade Arturo to join in and help out, they barely saw each other, and Juan accepted the slow dissolution of their relationship as a clear sign that they were over, both moving on.
It had been well over a year since they finished high school, and still Arturo had made no plans for his future. He was still waiting tables at some cafe down off South Beach. There was nothing really wrong with that, Juan agreed. Sure, he made good tips, and he was popular with the clientele, a great addition to customer service, but all Arturo ever did was complain about his job. “I’m tired of serving people,” he would say. “They’re never satisfied, always whining about something.” When Juan would tell him he needed to finish his last credits to earn his high school equivalency degree and then enroll in the community college, Arturo shoved off the advice and instead chose to brood that too much time had passed and it was now too late. “You’re acting ridiculous again. You can’t really mean what you’re saying,” Juan challenged him. Arturo, however, refused to take responsibility for his situation and do something about it. This did not bode well with Juan who became committed to Kennedy’s call for Americans to persevere. And so as Juan dedicated himself to the campaign, he concluded that Arturo probably would never be able to recognize, nor appreciate, hard work the way he did. That revelation along with the fact that Juan rarely saw Arturo made it easy for Juan to declare that they had split up. Good riddance, Juan concluded, for he had no time to put up with Arturo’s whining.
As the campaign reached the final month’s tail stretch, Juan’s days were long. He would attend his classes in the morning at the University of Miami and then head to the hotel store to work for a few hours before picking up with campaign work in the early evening. Although he was extending himself, he never felt exhaustion kick in because he was motivated with a purpose to see Kennedy victorious.
One afternoon after class—it was the second week of October—he was manning the register at his grandfather and mother’s store at the DuPont Plaza. Afterwards, he planned to walk down Biscayne Boulevard and hand out Kennedy fliers. As he was ringing up a sale for a customer, Senator Smathers came in and saw that Juan was wearing a PT 109 pin. So the Senator asked him what he thought of Kennedy.
The senator watched how Juan immediately lit up with eagerness, like a kid asked about his favorite baseball player, when he began talking about Kennedy and the work he had been doing as a volunteer for the campaign.
“Sounds as though you’re heeding the Kennedy doctrine for serving and giving back,” said Smathers, placing a pack of Marlboros and a bottle of red wine on the counter.
“Yes, I’ve definitely been drawn to his challenge for America and the world to do better,” said Juan, ringing up the items.
“Good kid. You’re the type of young mind that’s needed to ensure a future of peace among peoples and nations.”
“My greatest hope is that Kennedy’s platform for Latin America, Alianza para el Progreso, will stabilize relations with Cuba so that my father will be able to leave the island and join me and my brother here in the states.”
“I see,” said the senator, nodding in understanding. “So your father remains in Cuba? Well, I can tell you that Jack’s Alliance for Progress is certainly one of his prime visions for economic and social stability in Latin countries, Cuba among the foremost.”
“That’s why I’m working so hard to get him elected. I believe peace with Fidel is the only way my father will get out of Cuba. Only Kennedy can make that dream a reality.”
“Well, Jack’ll certainly try. He’s a fine role model for you to follow,” said Smathers, handing Juan a twenty to pay for his cigarettes and wine.
“I agree. I can hardly wait to hear him speak in person next week at the rallies.”
The senator rubbed his chin and stared at Juan. “I tell you what. You come and find me at either of the two venues, and I’ll make it possible you meet Jack. How’s that sound?”
“Oh, senator, that would be a dream come true,” said Juan, and without thinking he continued: “Though, I did sort of meet him before, I think. It was a time when you came in here with a friend that looked just like Kennedy and you had . . .”
Juan pulled back without saying any more when he noticed how Smathers pursed his lips and scratched gently at his cheek, a rehearsed reflex, as though he was preparing how to comment on Juan’s remembrance of the time when he and Jack had come into the store with their women. Then, as though he’d been in a similar, tricky situation like the one Juan had inadvertently put him in, the Senator said with cool, measured confidence, “I don’t recall ever bringing Jack to the DuPont.” Juan knew exactly how Smathers wanted him to interpret his statement and the situation it referred to: it was an ordeal that was over, closed, off limits. Juan promptly returned a subtle little nod that acknowledged he understood: mention of the incident was impertinent and irrelevant to anything. In the next instant, Juan pretended he hadn’t even mentioned what he’d said, and instead he counted back the change due to the senator.
“Okay, then,” said Smathers, stuffing the change in his pocket. “Look for me on the eighteenth, and I’ll introduce you to our next president.”
“Thanks again, senator,” said Juan.
Smathers shoved the cigarettes in his back pocket and grabbed the wine bottle by its neck. He winked at Juan with an acknowledgement of trust before turning to leave. After he had exited the store, Juan’s mother came out from the back office.
“What’s all this chatter with the customers?” she asked in a cheery voice.
“Nada,” he said flatly, his nerves calm as though he was floating on his back in a warm pool.
Earlier in the day at school, Juan had earned a perfect score on an exam, so he was feeling buoyant even before hearing Smathers’ offer to introduce him to Kennedy. His excitement was so brimmed at that very moment that when he heard his mother’s voice, he was surprised not to feel his heart pick up with a pulse of angst.
“No, no, there’s nothing wrong with talking to customers,” she continued in a softer voice. “It’s good, in fact, to build rapport with our clientele. It’s good for business. You’re good at that, Juan.”
A compliment from his mother, he was caught off gu
ard. He let a long second elapse before mumbling, “Gracias.”
“So who was that gentleman? You enjoy his conversation? I’ve seen him in here before.”
“He’s Senator Smathers, a good friend of Kennedy. In fact, I’m almost positive that he once brought Kennedy in here with him over a year ago before anyone knew who he was,” Juan said, again recollecting the day when the two senators were with their mistresses.
“Really?” said his mother.
“Yeah, I’m certain it was Kennedy,” Juan said, knowing that no more detail was necessary. “Regardless, Senator Smathers told me he will formally introduce me to Kennedy at one of the rallies on the eighteenth.”
“He did? That’s great!”
“Problem is, I have a test that morning, so afterwards it will have to be my twelve-thirty class that I skip for the afternoon rally.”
“Yes, of course, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet someone you admire. Just tell your professor. And don’t worry about coming to the store that day.”
Juan looked directly at his mother. His eyes were sparkly with emotion—a blend of calmness, acceptance, forgiveness, understanding. He saw in her brown eyes a similar sentiment. She turned to go back into the office. He said, “Thanks, mamá.”
On the morning of the eighteenth, Juan was barely able to focus in order to take his exam. The entire time he circled his multiple choice answers and composed his short-response essays, he kept thinking about how he was missing Kennedy’s morning rally at the 163rd Street Shopping Center. As soon as he turned in his exam, he rushed to go speak with his professor for his afternoon class. He told him he had to miss the lecture due to his desire to attend the two o’clock Kennedy campaign rally at the Bandshell at North Beach. Then he sprinted off campus to catch the bus.
The route took him from the university in Coral Gables up the coast on Brickell Avenue, which merged on to Biscayne Boulevard all the way to the causeway bridge over Normandy Island. When the causeway became Northeast 71st Street at the corner of Collins Avenue, he jumped off the bus and tossed his backpack over his shoulder and hustled a block north to the outdoor amphitheater of the Bandshell. He moved fast, his heart pounding with anticipation. Sweat poured down his temples and across his cheeks. He dabbed at the streaming perspiration with the back of his hand and wiped it against the bottom hem of his guayabera.
The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy Page 23
