It was also at this courtyard with the beautiful mermaid fountain that Juan met with members of a small organization he started at the university called “Campus for Kennedy.” By early spring, Juan neared completion of his second full year of college. His grades excelled, but with the campaign long over, he felt a void in his life without commitment to a new cause. Kennedy was preaching the Peace Corps, a real enticement to Juan, yet he felt it was unwise for him to join at that time because leaving for another country with his father still stuck in Cuba seemed incomprehensible to him. Also, his determination to go to law school made him think he would be more useful in the future if first he attained his degree and then decided to utilize his knowledge of the law overseas. So his commitment to a new cause was starting an organization at the university called “Campus for Kennedy.” The purpose of the group would be to discuss the policy decisions of the Kennedy administration and put together a newsletter highlighting the major events of JFK’s New Frontier. Juan typed up a flier and began talking up his idea with friends in the law department. Besides his brother and Guadalupe who pledged support, many other students—including Amanda, Sharkey, and Josephine—showed interest in wanting to stay involved with Kennedy’s presidency, especially as the president’s youth and vitality reflected their generation more so than any previous administration.
On his fliers, Juan specified the mermaid fountain as the meeting point for the weekly discussions, and at the first gathering, Juan was surprised by the turnout of half a dozen interested participants, among them Colin Materberg, former star of the LaSalle Royals basketball team, now a scholarship member on the university’s hoops team and also a pre-law major. When Juan saw Colin show up, his memory recalled the day his senior year when Colin paraded around the biology lab with a test tube brandished as his pinga. That incident had marked Juan’s moment of coming out with Arturo. Now, several years later, Juan felt more mature about himself and his future. Having Colin play a part in “Campus for Kennedy” reminded Juan how far he’d come in the last few years.
During that first meeting in early April of 1961, they focused on Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress, Alianza para el Progreso.
“My brother and I,” Juan told the group, “are soaking up every word of the alliance because its proposals to build partnerships with struggling countries in Latin America are exactly what we’re counting on as a way for Cuba to become stabilized, which in turn will enable our father to leave.”
“I understand that Latin America means Cuba,” said Colin. “But do you really think the President is framing the whole Alliance as a way to persuade Castro to fall in line?”
“Probably not, but it’s the concept, the Alliance’s insistence on peace and unity and cooperation, that appeals to Juan and I,” said Alberto.
“The president certainly seems sincere about what he says. Just listen to him talk. Did you hear him trying to speak Spanish the other day ago?” asked Sharkey. “I’m not criticizing, but that hombre, he really struggled with those words.”
“I look at the fact that he even tried as a sign of his willingness to do whatever it takes to make progress,” said a Cubano student who had joined the discussion. “To me, his decision to use such words as estudiante and campesino indicates how much he cares.”
“Yeah, it really does,” said another student.
“Well, in that same speech, where the President uses all those Spanish words,” said Juan. “I have written down here in my notebook how he also said that Americans wish to extend ‘our special friendship to the people of Cuba . . .’”
That first meeting went on for two hours, with the debate continuing over what America’s role would be in the third world countries of Latin America. After they had exhausted the many angles of the issues, attendees stated they’d return next week and try to bring along new recruits who also admired Kennedy. Juan announced that he and his brother would take responsibility for putting together the first “Campus for Kennedy” newsletter. Attendees were welcome to submit their own “columns” to Juan who would “publish” them in the newsletter.
The following Friday, Juan arrived early to the fountain with a stack of twenty-five newsletters. It was a lazy and warm Friday afternoon—sticky and overcast—as he waited for members of “Campus for Kennedy” to show up. For some reason that day, instead of his focus on the meeting, his mind kept rehashing the rotten memories of the one-night-stand he allowed himself to be lured into on New Year’s Eve. Why the incident surfaced in his mind, he couldn’t say.
As he looked over his notes for the meeting’s possible topics of discussion, he couldn’t stop his mind from sorting through recollections from New Year’s night. He tried to visualize the stranger’s face who had taken him up to a room at the DuPont Plaza. He couldn’t recall any details, not his eye or hair color, not his height or weight. He only remembered the man looked about his age, although he wasn’t even sure about that detail. He hadn’t asked his age, where he was from, or even his name. Nothing remained. Since that night, Juan was afraid the man might one day show up at the hotel store during one of his shifts and demand to be remembered, and Juan feared he wouldn’t be able to acknowledge him because he wasn’t certain the man even existed. As he placed his notes in a folder, his mind replayed the night.
The man had led him up to a fourth floor room. He had had a key. Was he a visitor? A resident who just wanted a room at the DuPont that eve? Again, Juan had asked no questions, just acted on lust. They had wasted no time. Fierce, frantic, and blurry. Forgettable, like a bad movie, no substance of a story. Gone from memory. He began to wonder if he imagined the whole ordeal. An illusion? What did it matter? It was stupid, careless, and not worth the payoff of his desire. All he could take away from the incident, he decided, was to learn from it and be smarter the next time. Maybe the laws of love were not for him to discover and investigate? Not made for him? Maybe he should stick to the laws he studied.
While sitting on the ledge of the fountain, Juan added an idea to his notes and looked up to see Arturo standing before him. His hands were fidgety, his eyes blinking furiously. He looked tired and sad like he’d just come from a funeral.
“Arturo, what are you doing here?”
“I didn’t want to go to your house!”
“That’s all right, you could have,” Juan said.
“No!” asserted Arturo, his hands trembling.
“Please,” said Juan, standing up and trying to take Arturo by the elbow to calm him.
“Get your claws off me, you fuckin’ beast.”
“What are you saying?” asked Juan, stepping back from the anger Arturo displayed.
“I gave you everything. I trusted you!” shouted Arturo. “It’s been eating me up inside since the beginning of the year. I thought I was over you. You, with other men. I saw you at the hotel!”
“Arturo, please, not here.”
Juan was aware of student passersby who were looking in his direction. Luckily, no one he knew from the previous week’s meeting had arrived yet.
“No, you have no idea! No fucking heart!” Arturo began to cry. “I loved you.”
At this point Arturo crumbled to the ground. To hold him up, Juan took him by the arms and led him stumbling to one of the stone benches in the courtyard.
“Why are you here saying these things? Humiliating me like this on campus with people watching?”
“You should be the one apologizing,” Arturo mumbled. “I’m sorry for not being able to forget you. I’m sorry for coming here. But I won’t be sorry for cursing you to hell.”
“For what? Because we didn’t work out? We met in high school, remember Arturo? We were still boys. What is your attachment? I cannot believe this.”
“Well, believe it. I saw you with that guy on New Year’s. I was there. I saw you go up the elevator. It ripped me open.”
“Oh, my God, Arturo. What don’t you understand? Did you think I can’t see other people?”
“Who was he!”<
br />
“I don’t have to discuss this with you.”
“Who was he?”
“I don’t fucking know!” Juan exploded. “That’s the truth. It meant nothing. I don’t care. All I care about is what’s wrong with you at this minute. Just because we’re not together anymore, doesn’t mean I would ever want to see you hurt.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Arturo, and then his sobs became uncontrollable.
Having vented and cried, Arturo finally calmed down, and Juan asked about his family. Arturo said they were doing fine. He said he was finally going to complete his high school diploma, nearly two years after the fact. Juan said he was proud of him. Arturo then apologized for making a scene and asked if Juan wanted him ever to contact him again. Juan said he didn’t know at that moment. Arturo said he would let Juan decide. Juan watched his former flame wipe tears from his eyes and then walk away. A ghost, he thought.
Regaining his focus, Juan greeted members of “Campus for Kennedy” as they started to arrive shortly after Arturo left. Arturo, good riddance, Juan thought. At least I have a purpose for my future.
* * *
Chapter 35
Fierce whistling and shrill orders from his commander woke Florencio. The milicianos on the plantation were handing out pitchforks and directing the laborers to seize their scythes and machetes. Be ready to fight, for word traveled quickly across the island: “Cuba is under attack! The Americans have invaded! A brigadista is landing on the beaches of Larga and Girón in la Bahía de Cochinos, the Bay of Pigs.”
Upon hearing the news, Florencio’s heart buoyed and he thought of freedom, of leaving the island. Was Cuba’s liberation imminent? His surge of joy was not because he despised Fidel or wanted the United States to take over the governing of Cuba. No, he only thought of his sons. Their names he repeated to himself, Juan y Alberto, Juan y Alberto. I will see my sons! When the marines arrive, I will lay down my field weapon. I will plead with the American soldiers to help me, to take me with them to America. They will know I’m a peaceful man who only wants to see my sons, Juan y Alberto.
However, over the next forty-eight hours, Florencio’s initial buoyancy of joy was quickly deflated into despair, visible in the deepened wrinkles on his face. News again spread fast of how the invading force—not comprised of American troops as first believed, but rather of exiled Cubano rebels—had been crushed by Fidel’s army. By the dawn of the third day, the brigadista had surrendered, and now with all the rebel mercenaries imprisoned, Fidel went on television to renounce anyone not supporting La Revolución. From feeling elated, Florencio’s heart plummeted. His joyful refrain of I will see my sons devolved into his somber pondering Will I ever again see my sons? Juan y Alberto.
“Victory has a hundred fathers and defeat is an orphan,” Kennedy told the nation during a live television broadcast in the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs disaster.
While watching the president speak on the day after the brigadista’s surrender, Juan thought the always-confident Kennedy—always radiating his certainty of belief and his breathless ease of energy and optimism—looked burned-out, a leader with his spirit torched. He tried to present himself as calm and in control, but it was evident he was aching with sadness and regret. He looked self-convicted, blaming himself with having been responsible for an operation that left hundreds of young Cubanos dead on the shores of their own country.
Recollecting the night when Cuca’s cousin Victor had visited his grandparents’ house and said he wanted to return to a free Cuba, Juan wondered whether Victor might have been part of the brigadista that had attempted to oust Fidel. Had he been one of the unfortunate killed? Or was he now a prisoner caged up in a Cubano jail cell? Regardless, the whole thing was a debacle, a tragedy, a horrible setback, thought Juan. How could the president be so stupid? Now whatever notion of peace Fidel may have entertained was obliterated, and how could anyone blame El Comandante for being so irate with the U.S. government for acting so arrogant about wanting him dead. Juan traced his fingers over the lettering of his notebook—“I Trust JFK.” He had nothing to write in the pages that night. There would be plenty of difficult things to discuss that week at the “Campus for Kennedy” meeting.
Tengo dolor de estamago, Juan clutched at his stomach. What was this pain he felt? Stranded in Cuba, how must my dear father feel?
The Cubano community in Miami was in an uproar; the whole country was confused. Lucretia was in hysterics, rambling away, her mind disoriented and in a panic.
“Was the U.S. involved in the invasion or not? Why was it a debacle? Who is responsible? Now there will never be peace with Cuba? Castro may be crazy, but Kennedy is muy loco. Why all the deception and misinformation? Ay, Dios mío! American aggression against a communist satellite country, this cannot be happening. This is exactly what the Soviets are craving. I came to this country to avoid this sort of disaster. What in the name of God’s green earth of a civilized world is this Kennedy doing with allowing this to happen? Does he not know anything? Attacking a whole island using a tiny brigadista force of loco exiles, and the tiny mission turns into a tidal disaster, a tidal victory for Castro. This is the beginning of the end of the world. El mundo nada. The Russians are probably sizing up flip-flops, lathering on sunblock lotion, mass-producing sunglasses, preparing for a Caribbean beach party. Does Kennedy not understand the awesome power of nuclear bombs? We will all be rocketed like monkeys into space!”
“Mamá, settle down,” said Juan at his mother’s bedside.
Standing opposite his brother on the other side of the bed, Alberto rubbed his mother’s shoulders to calm her.
She took labored sighs, unable to gain her faculties enough to open the store that Saturday morning, the day after the Bay of Pigs broke in the news. She had called Huberto and Evelina’s house on 30th Avenue at seven o’clock in the morning, and Huberto had answered. She had trouble speaking clearly, saying she had had a nightmare, and now it was coming true, the whole world was flattened, incinerated by a flash of light. She thought she was dying. Her head hurt so bad she couldn’t stand up. She had a fever. Would someone please come over?
Everyone loaded into Abuelo’s baby blue Coupe DeVille, and they sped the six blocks to Lucretia’s house on 29th Avenue.
Juan knelt at his mother’s bedside, but he grew impatient with her babbling. Alberto sighed deeply, thinking his mother’s hysterics had returned again. Their grandparents tried to calm their daughter-in-law with words of encouragement, telling her that she had just experienced a bad dream, that’s all, or perhaps her fever was from a virus going around. What went on between Castro and Kennedy was out of her control, so she needed to calm down. Cuca tried to soothe Lucretia’s nerves by mixing a concoction of crushed aspirins with sprinkles of St. John’s wort and rosemary in half a cup of green tea with lemon.
“Aquí,” said Cuca, giving Lucretia the glass. “Drink this to calm yourself.”
She sat up, took the glass, and took a sip. She then laid her head back down on the pillows on her queen-sized bed. Her breathing returned to normal as she dozed off. Huberto said he would take care of business at the store. He wanted Juan and Alberto tending to their mother, and that’s exactly what both brothers intended to do. Their father had told them to do so in his letters. His request would not go unheeded. There had been moments of connection in the past year between the brothers and their mother. Now her sudden regression. The boys were worried as they watched over her.
Not long after Huberto and Evelina left, Lucretia woke and began to cry out in pain. She grabbed her head and complained of a hacking migraine.
“It feels like something’s in there. Oh, what have I done? What is going to happen to my husband? What will happen to my boys?”
The brothers crouched at her side, trying to comfort her. She began to convulse. Her fever had sprung up again as stubborn as a weed. Cuca made more of her herbal concoction. They covered Lucretia in blankets. She started to shake and sweat. They used towels to dab
away the perspiration on her face. Five hours later, her fever broke. She opened her eyes as though out of a soothing dream, and she spoke in a soft voice that seemed as though she remembered nothing.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“Mamá, are you okay?” said Juan.
“What happened? I feel so lightheaded, so hungry?”
“You need to rest, Señora,” said Cuca, affixing a cool compress to her brow.
“Ay, Dios mío, what time is it? Who opened the store? I must get up?”
“Please, mamá, stop,” said Juan.
“You need to listen to us,” added Alberto, his hand extended to press gently down on her shoulder to indicate she not get up.
“What’s going on? Why are you all here? Why is no one at the store?”
“Don’t worry. Abuelo has taken care of the store today. You probably caught a virus,” said Juan. “The worst has passed. You can be up and around mañana.”
“Oh, mi cabeza. It feels like a rock is inside. Is my head bulging? I can feel it. You must be able to see it?”
“You will be okay, mamá. It’s just a fever. Drink some more of this,” said Juan, holding another glass of Cuca’s green tea concoction to her mouth for sipping.
Within a few minutes, Lucretia had fallen asleep again. The brothers sat in chairs next to her bed. When she awoke, early evening had descended, a gloaming of pink and gray in the room, shadows lunging. Guadalupe had come over to see Alberto, and she waited with the brothers to see if their mother showed signs of further recovery.
Lucretia looked around the room, her eyes clear, no sign of sinewy red in her whites, no gray shadows under her sockets. She sat up and looked at everyone: Juan, Alberto, Guadalupe, and Cuca.
The Ramos Brothers Trust Castro and Kennedy Page 27
