The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy

by Roger Deblanck

“Does Eduardo live here?” Sharkey asked them.

  “Es nuestro padre,” said the older of the two boys.

  “See,” whispered Sharkey to Alberto. “These little fuckin’ Dumbos are Vasquez’s kids.”

  “Donde está su padre?” asked Alberto.

  “Trabajando.”

  “Where does he work?” asked Sharkey.

  “El centro,” said the older boy.

  “Where downtown?”

  “Sharkey, they don’t know where. Let’s go, vamos.”

  “Hold on a second. I’m having fun with these little big-eared bastards,” he said to Alberto before turning back to the boys. “Do you know your father is a torturer and assassin?”

  “Sharkey, what are you doing?”

  “Having some fun,” he said to Alberto and then yelled at the boys again. “Tu padre es un torturador y asesino.”

  At that moment a woman hurried out the front door. She wore a white apron and her face was flushed pink, probably from cooking in the kitchen. She wiped her hands on her apron and stared out to the curb where Sharkey and Alberto stood.

  “What’s going on?” she yelled.

  “Your husband’s un asesino,” shouted Sharkey, as he took off down the street in a sprint. Alberto ran faster and quickly overtook the overweight Sharkey.

  When they turned the corner and caught their breath, Sharkey started laughing. Alberto couldn’t help but laugh with him.

  “You see. We probably taught them the most important thing they’ll ever remember.”

  “Sharkey, I can’t believe you.”

  “What? Their dad’s a criminal. He’s living a second life here in America without any consequences for his past. See, Fidel isn’t so bad after all. Isn’t he trying to make all those asesinos pay for their crimes?”

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  “Then why do so many people hate Fidel?” asked Sharkey.

  “Kennedy doesn’t.”

  “He might not want to hate him. But he has to.”

  “Don’t say that,” said Alberto, running his hand through his hair. “I want my father to get out of there.”

  “He will,” said Sharkey. “Sometime after the holidays, I bet on it.”

  Alberto nodded as he began to think of his father. Then he held up the letter in his hand to show Sharkey. “We’ll have to mail this tomorrow.”

  “There’s always tomorrow,” said Sharkey.

  For Christmas Alberto picked out for Guadalupe a pair of amethyst earrings and a butterfly pendant necklace. He wrapped them in shiny green paper that had prints of mistletoe and silver bells. He used red ribbon and a silver bow to adorn each little jewelry box. Then he stuffed both in a stocking that he had asked his grandmother to stitch “Guadalupe” across the velvet surface of the top cuff.

  On Christmas Eve, he had dinner at home with his brother, grandparents, and Cuca, and later that evening he walked to Guadalupe’s house for hot cocoa and marshmallows. When she answered the door, she appeared to him like an angel, everything he’d fallen in love with. Her hair glistened, her eyelashes curved gracefully, and her heart-shaped face was glowing. He held her presents behind his back when she opened the door.

  “What are you hiding?”

  “A little something.”

  The happiness in her smile made him feel lucky. “Dame, por favor, give me,” she insisted with excitement, as she tried to run around him as he rotated in a circle to keep the stocking from her a second longer.

  “All right, Ms. Impatient,” he said and handed her the gifts. “Merry Christmas.”

  They hugged at the door and then he followed her into the living room where her father and younger sister were pasting pictures into a scrapbook. Her mother hollered greetings from the kitchen as she assembled cut-out gingerbread patterns of snowmen and elves onto a cookie sheet.

  “Merry Christmas, Alberto,” said her father.

  “Thank you, Señor Herrera. Merry Christmas, to you and la familia.”

  As Alberto chatted with her father about school, Guadalupe opened her presents. Instead of tearing off the ribbon and ripping open the paper, she carefully untied and unwrapped them as though savoring the moment of surprise.

  “Oh, Alberto, gracias!” she said, lifting the lid on the earrings.

  “I’m so happy you like them,” he said.

  Then she opened the box with the butterfly necklace. After she put it on, she stared at him and almost cried. “Una mariposa, you know how much I love butterflies.”

  “They’re beautiful, just like you,” he said.

  She rushed to him and planted a kiss on his cheek, and then she went to the bathroom to trade her zirconium studs for the amethysts he gave her. When she returned to the living room with the purple earrings in her lobes, she handed him a thin, square-shaped present.

  “I hope you like it,” she said.

  It was the new Johnny Cash album.

  “Gracias,” he said. “You didn’t have to.”

  “Yes, I did. I wanted to remind you to keep playing your guitar. I know how much it means to you.”

  Three hours later, when it was after eleven, he kissed Guadalupe at the door and started home, his record under his arm. As he walked by the neighborhood houses with their fluorescent lights strung along the eaves and with trees adorned with jewels of light in the front windows, he wondered what he would do after high school. He didn’t have big aspirations like Juan. He did well in school. He was well-liked by his classmates. The teachers liked him. But he didn’t have a plan. He had already sent in an application to attend both the Dade County Community College and the University of Miami. After he graduated, he figured he’d take some college classes no matter what, but he didn’t know what he wanted to study. Besides playing the guitar, he didn’t have an interest in much else. And in recent months, he hadn’t been playing much, and Guadalupe had noticed and sought out a present to inspire him. What a sign of love? It made him want to sing, but playing music made him think, however remotely, about Emilia. Why even bring her into memory, he thought, I now love Guadalupe. His mind reeled in circles like a dog chasing its tail. He was too young and naive to believe in what the future would hold. Everything he believed about his father joining them had not yet come true. How could he possibly put stock in the certainty of anything, if nothing was promised?

  When Alberto got home that evening, his brother was still reading in the living room. Their grandparents and Cuca had gone to sleep, and their presents still remained unopened under the tree. They had decided to share them on Christmas morning. Next to their gifts rested two other boxes, presents for their mother, one from each of her sons.

  “You’re coming with me tomorrow? Right?” asked Alberto.

  “Yes,” said Juan. “First thing in the morning, we’ll surprise her.”

  “She’ll like that.”

  “I think so.”

  “I’ve noticed you didn’t get anything for Arturo this year.”

  “No, we’re through.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “How could he not?”

  “I’m just asking because in the past you guys seem to split up and then reconcile.”

  “I’m smarter and wiser now. I’m moving on. The New Year is upon us. I can’t have his negativity holding me back.”

  Alberto fell asleep that night thinking how lucky he was to have Guadalupe. She seemed to care for him immensely. They trusted each other entirely. He wanted her badly. He loved her dearly. They loved each other intensely.

  * * *

  Chapter 32

  Every New Year’s Day one of the football teams selected to play in the annual Orange Bowl stayed at the DuPont Plaza, and every year the famous floats of the Orange Bowl Parade passed by the front of the hotel on Biscayne Boulevard. That year the University of Missouri played against the U.S. Naval Academy in the bowl game. The Midshipman of Navy had a higher ranking, earning them distinction as the home team, so they chose the DuPont for their weeklong lodgin
g. The Tigers of Missouri, however, won the game by a touchdown that year, 21 – 14.

  On New Year’s Eve, a crazy crowd always packed the hotel. Although the players were on curfew and had to be in their rooms by 10:00 p.m. to rest up for the following day’s game, the evening was just starting for the thousands of revelers in the mezzanine, out at the poolside, and up and down the sidewalk on Biscayne Boulevard. People mingled, flirted, gossiped, cursed, smoked, drank, hooked up, and passed out. Some of the store’s busiest hours of the year occurred on New Year’s Eve, so Juan and Alberto both helped out their mother that night. They always had hundreds of customers come through the store before the midnight hour, and besides customers buying booze or grabbing snacks, aspirin, or Pepto, the biggest seller by far each year was rolls of camera film. People wanted to take pictures of their family, friends, and lovers, and they wanted to make sure that by morning they had enough snapshots left over to capture the flower-bedecked splendor of the floats in the parade.

  Sharkey’s father had gone home to Venezuela for the New Year, leaving the suite to his never-tamed son to plan una fiesta to usher in 1961. He invited friends from school and others he knew from around the hotel. By nine o’clock, Lucretia told Juan and Alberto that she wanted them go up to Sharkey’s party and have fun. Alberto had told Guadalupe to meet him at the store by nine, which she did, and Lucretia urged the couple to go and enjoy the New Year’s celebration together. Juan, however, didn’t want to leave his mother alone in the store, yet she was adamant in her orders for him to go and have a good time.

  “No, no, no, Juan, I’ll hear none of it,” she told him with amiable intent. “Please go and enjoy the rest of the evening. You’ve helped out more than enough.”

  “Are you sure, mamá,” he said. “I don’t want to leave you to run the register by yourself.”

  “I’m fine, chico. Now go before I change my mind,” she joked with a grin on her face.

  “What if I want to stay?”

  “I’m the boss, and I’m sending you out. You don’t have a choice.”

  “I have nothing else to do tonight.”

  “Go find something to do. Hang out with your brother.”

  “Mamá, please, he’s with his lady. I hardly think he needs a chaperone.”

  “Then go find someone else to hang out with.”

  He scratched an itch on his cheek and considered what to say next. “You know, I never talked to you about something.”

  “Juan,” she said gently, “you don’t need to tell your mother things I already know.”

  “You mean . . .”

  “I’m your mother and I’m telling you to go have fun.”

  “Okay,” he said and opened his arms to embrace her.

  She stood before him for a moment and then moved forward and allowed him to take her gently and briefly in his arms. She returned the hug with her own gentle squeeze around his shoulders.

  “Ahora,” she said. “Now, go have some fun.”

  After Juan left the store, he went upstairs to the mezzanine to order a soda. By next year, he thought, I can order my own alcohol. For a second he thought about going up the elevator to Sharkey’s suite, where he could easily secure a drink. Sharkey would have an array of beers and liquors to choose from, but he decided against sitting around in the suite for no other reason than to pass the next few hours till midnight with a vodka he wasn’t supposed to be drinking in the first place. As he stood in line at the bar to order a soda, he caught sight of Senator Smathers, who had a woman on each of his arms, a blonde and a brunette. Juan stared in the senator’s direction. He didn’t think the congressman saw him, but he did. As though coming over to talk with Juan was the top priority on his agenda at that moment, the senator strolled over with his dates in full-sway against him.

  “Hey, taking a break from the sales downstairs?” asked the senator.

  “Yes, it’s slowed a little,” said Juan.

  “What are you having? It’s on me.”

  “Sir, you don’t have to do that.”

  “I don’t have to do anything, but I want to. You always offer exemplary service when I’m downstairs in your store. And you worked so hard to help my dear friend Jack become president. It’s the least I can do.”

  Juan wondered whether the senator was a little buzzed because his eyes looked steely and his long nose a bit red around the nostrils. But it was a credit to the senator’s charm that he knew how to treat people. Perhaps, that’s part of his allure, thought Juan, because almost every time he’d ever seen the senator in the DuPont Plaza, he always had a different woman on his hip. This evening he had two new ones.

  “So what are you having?” asked the senator.

  “A soda is all.”

  “You kidding me? It’s the best night to party of the year. How about I get you a martini?”

  “I’m not twenty-one until next year.”

  “Who fucking cares?”

  “Senator, it’s really all right. I’ll take the soda.”

  “All right, all right,” he said and gave each of his women a kiss on the cheek. “Ladies, this is Juan Ramos. He works downstairs in the gift shop. He also worked like a man possessed on the Kennedy campaign.”

  Both women commented how it was nice to meet him. Both were gorgeous, their lips glossed with fuchsia. They were preparing to compete with each other for the favors of the senator.

  “So what did you think about the election?” Juan decided to ask.

  “Jack pulled it off!”

  “Yes, I’m very happy he did.”

  Smathers nodded his head as if conjuring memories. “We’ve had some good times together, Jack and I. Now his fun is over. But he’s got the vision and drive to make something great out of this country—I say that from my heart. As his friend, I support him one-hundred percent.”

  Juan began to feel extremely confident at that second. “I think you know how much I admire Kennedy. So I have to ask, how does he really feel about Castro and Cuba?”

  Smathers unleashed a loud, chest-curdling laugh and took his hand away from the back of the blonde on his right side and wiped at his mouth with his fingers as though he was preparing to disclose a secret. He hesitated.

  “You must be a really smart kid? You’re at the U., right?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m pre-law.”

  “Well, future Attorney General, you let me know if I can ever pull any strings for you.”

  “That’s really kind of you, senator.”

  “George. Please call me George.”

  It was their turn to order and George requested three martinis and a soda. When they had their drinks, the senator asked Juan, “You have plans for the rest of the evening? If not, feel free to join me and my friends.” He sported a coy grin and raised his eyebrows at both his dates. “You two wouldn’t mind an extra visitor would you?”

  They both responded with seductive giggles that indicated they were okay with the senator’s invitation, but Juan declined, saying he had to join his brother at midnight for fireworks.

  “If you change your mind, we’ll be up in room 504. Just knock and say your name.”

  “Thanks, George.”

  “No problem,” he said and turned to leave before looking back at Juan. “Your question about our president, just listen to his Inaugural Address. It will tell you all you need to know about Cuba.”

  Juan stood by himself to the left of the bar and downed his soda. He had no idea what to do. Not five minutes passed before a young man approached him and inquired whether, indeed, Juan had been speaking to the Florida senator. Juan replied that he knew Mr. Smathers as an acquaintance, on a professional level. When the young man asked if Juan was joining the senator and the women later on, Juan stated that he had no desire to do so. The young man wasted no time in asking Juan whether he wanted to spend the evening with him. Juan pursed his lips with his tongue, put his hand to his mouth, and said he couldn’t see the night unfolding any other way. The man’s face lit up and he
tossed his chin towards the direction of the elevator and told Juan to follow him.

  What Juan didn’t see that evening, as he got on the elevator with the stranger, was that Arturo was watching him from the shadows behind a crowd of people frequenting the other side of the mezzanine bar.

  Up in the suite, Sharkey filled wine glasses and rolled reefers. Intoxicated with the foggy smoke of mellowness and relaxation, the air in the suite could have been canned as a magic calming aerosol and sold to any country in the world as a spray for preventing conflict from ruining peace.

  “The world needs to get high. I bet my soul, there’d be no war,” said Sharkey to Josephine.

  Alberto and Guadalupe had moved one of the end pieces of the sofa nearer to the window to take in the span of the bay. A multitude of lights from the yachts filled the darkness of the indigo surface. The view was like a vigil of pilgrims holding candles as they walked on water. Alberto wrapped his arm around Guadalupe’s shoulder. They usually didn’t drink and if they did, they usually shared a glass of wine. But that night Guadalupe finished an entire glass herself, and Alberto tried to drink more of the second one so she didn’t get too tipsy, too warm. She had on the amethyst earrings and the butterfly necklace he gave her a week earlier at Christmas, and from the minute he met up with her that night, she was giving him hints: holding him a little tighter, offering him extras pecks on the lips and nuzzles on his neck, putting her hands on his stomach, rubbing suggestively.

  Earlier in the week, a hunch told Alberto to purchase a box of prophylactics. Before he left home that night, he crammed one in his wallet. Although they had discussed the matter, they both agreed to let the heat happen, and neither needed to say anything that evening. Everyone in the suite seemed stoned, enveloped in their own world of stupor and torpor, and no one seemed to care what anyone else did. Couples made out in several locations around the suite, nothing unacceptable for the rest to view. But when the touching became unabated, rooms were available, as Sharkey pointed out. By the time the clock ticked towards midnight, Guadalupe slouched in closer under Alberto’s shoulder and then leaned her head backwards and breathed a hot whisper into his ear: “Take me to one of the rooms.”