by Paul Volponi
I loved Luis. But sometimes he was absolutely clueless as to what was going on inside of me.
“All of that sounds great,” said Gabriel. “But Julio and his father may need some space, some privacy to resolve whatever the time apart has put between them.”
Uncle Ramon quickly jumped in with his take on things.
“I want to make it clear to you, Julio,” he said. “What your papi did in leaving, that was all about family. It was about you, your sister, and mama. It wasn’t a selfish thing. It was about your future, all of our futures. He did the hard work, took the chances. Now it’s our turn. He never abandoned you or any of us.”
I could tell that Uncle Ramon believed every word he was saying. I could hear the pride he had in being Papi’s brother. And I didn’t want to insult him by not having the same pride in being Papi’s son.
“I know he still loves me,” I said, turning off the transistor.
“That’s right,” said Uncle Ramon. “Remember, Julio, he gave you his name. I’m sure he looks in the mirror and sometimes he sees you staring back.”
I glanced into Gabriel’s rearview mirror. For some reason he’d left it hanging over his head, maybe to convince people this ’59 Buick wasn’t going to be traveling anywhere else but down a dirt road in Cuba. Staring back at me was my own face, in a small, wide frame. There was nothing to see behind us anymore. There was nothing outside the windshield up front either, except for the hope of where we were headed.
“How come I didn’t get your name?” my cousin asked his father.
“Because your mama, since the time she was young, dreamed of having a child named Luis,” he answered.
After a few seconds of silence, I looked Luis up and down and said, “It’s a good thing you were born a boy. With that name, you would have made an even uglier girl.”
Uncle Ramon burst into laughter.
“Oh yeah? You never heard of Luisa? That would have been my name,” said Luis, beginning to blush a bit.
“Sure, we’ll call you that from now on,” said Uncle Ramon, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. “Just make sure to shave the fuzz on that upper lip.”
“Don’t worry, muchacha, there are plenty of razors in Miami,” quipped Gabriel, with a widening grin. “Waxing parlors, too.”
“Ha-ha. That’s so funny,” Luis muttered, sulking.
That put an end to all the talk about me and Papi.
My legs were starting to cramp from being in the tight space of that rear seat. There were shooting pains in both my hamstrings. I didn’t have room to completely straighten them, though. So I clenched my teeth and dealt with it, feeling like they were two giant rubber bands about to snap. I kept changing positions, putting one leg over the other and then back again. Only it didn’t help.
Finally, I found a tiny comfort zone with my left elbow resting against a wooden box of supplies and my right knee jammed up against the back of Gabriel’s seat.
Luis was complaining that his foot had fallen asleep.
“Everything’s pins and needles,” he said, leaning back until he was practically shaking his foot in my face.
That forced me to rearrange myself, losing my good position.
“I hate the feeling of being numb,” Luis said.
“It’s better than cramps,” I told him, annoyed.
Then I went searching desperately for that comfort zone again. But no matter which direction I contorted my body, I couldn’t find it.
The choppy waves continued to slap at us. And after a while, the rocking they delivered started to take on a rhythm. I’m not sure exactly when I drifted off. I just remember opening my eyes sometime later with everything quiet inside the Buick and my legs feeling stiff as boards.
Luis was sleeping across from me, his two hands tucked beneath his head like a makeshift pillow. In the front seat, Uncle Ramon’s head looked heavy, sinking lower every few seconds as he gazed into the darkness beside Gabriel.
I didn’t want to disturb any of them. So I pressed the transistor up to my ear, keeping the volume as low as possible. I was hoping to hear some of the postgame comments and maybe even an interview with Papi. But that was all over with, and there was just a deep-voiced announcer wrapping things up.
The Marlins’ clubhouse was positively brimming with confidence after tonight’s game. The feeling in there was electric. Coming into the Series, there was a lot of bravado on the part of the Miami players. The wild-card team talked big about taking down the mighty Yankees—baseball’s Goliath—with a slingshot of slap hitters and a single stone. But now I think they truly believe it’s possible. A lot of Miami’s younger players are gaining confidence and poise under pressure from the leadership displayed by the team’s veterans. Reliever Julio Ramirez was keeping the team loose by having his three-year-old son, “Little Smoke,” stamp his feet on a Yankees cap. Then there was . . .
I couldn’t listen to another word after hearing that.
I closed my eyes tight, shutting off the radio. Suddenly, it felt like there was a crushing weight on the center of my chest. Without looking, I would have believed it was Papi inside that Buick, jumping up and down on me in a pair of new spikes.
Pretending to be asleep, I sat there in silence, struggling to keep my tears on the inside. I already understood that this weight belonged to me alone. And that if I told Uncle Ramon about Papi’s kid, it would fill up every moment of us being out here, sinking me to the bottom even faster.
15
THE NEXT TIME I opened my eyes it was light outside. The sun was blasting through the windshield. I needed to put a hand in front of my face to cut the harsh glare. Luis was already awake beside me, leaning over into the driver’s seat. But it took me a while to realize that it was Uncle Ramon behind the wheel.
“Look, Julio, my father’s the captain of a ship,” Luis said, as Gabriel caught some shut-eye. “I’m going to steer next.”
Uncle Ramon reached up and adjusted the sun visor before he said, “Son, this isn’t a ship. It’s a floating car. And the only way you’re going to navigate is if you swallow the compass and your nose points north.”
“Why? You let me drive your car in plenty of parking lots,” Luis said, sounding hurt. “I don’t need a stinking license. We’re outlaws.”
“Your job’s to keep track of time, Luis,” said Uncle Ramon, softening his words a bit. “You’re the only one with a good watch. We need to know how long we’ve been out here so we don’t run out of gas. There isn’t exactly a service station around.”
“How long has it been?” I asked.
“Almost thirteen hours,” answered Luis, checking the watch on his belt loop.
“With any luck, one more day at sea for us,” said Uncle Ramon, his hands positioned solidly at ten and two o’clock. “Forget the transistor, Julio. We could be watching the next World Series game in color, on a big flat-screen TV. Maybe even in your papi’s new house. I’ll bet he has a two-car garage, five or six bedrooms, swimming pool, a butler, and a housemaid.”
“Housemaid, huh?” I muttered, with the image of Mama in her maid’s uniform filling my head.
I remembered Mama’s words about Papi. About how there was no way he was alone, living without a woman. Now I knew she was absolutely right. And that could have been the reason she didn’t want to come with us.
“If he doesn’t have one, maybe he could hire Mama. She has experience at that job now,” I sniped.
“Julio, put that anger aside,” Uncle Ramon said. “Your mama did what she needed to do to support her children. I don’t know why my brother didn’t send her money. But I’m sure he had reasons.”
I used to want to believe that, too. Sometimes, especially in the first few years after Papi had gone, I’d talked myself into it. Now I knew what Uncle Ramon didn’t—that I had a half brother. And he didn’t just magically appear. The stork didn’t drop him on
Papi’s doorstep one day. He got here by Papi doing my mama wrong.
“I’ve said enough. I’m done with it,” I told him. “I need to stretch out. I can’t sit here anymore. My legs feel like they’re in knots.”
So I started to climb out the window.
“You going for a swim?” asked Luis. “There could be sharks.”
“Careful, Julio,” said Uncle Ramon.
I wasn’t going into the water. Instead, I made my way across the roof of the Buick and slid down the rear windshield. I sat on the back bumper between the two tail fins, looking at where we’d been, at where I came from. It was the closest thing I could find to being alone. For a second, I thought I heard Luis climbing out his window. But Uncle Ramon probably fished him back, knowing I needed some privacy.
I sat there for maybe twenty minutes, thinking, as I watched the rudder and the wake of white-capped water slipping behind us. Then, before I climbed back inside, I unzipped my pants and took a long piss into the ocean.
Gabriel wiped sleep from his eyes and checked the compass.
“You’re a natural-born navigator,” he told my uncle. “We’re right on course. Why don’t you keep the wheel for a while?”
“It’s pretty simple stuff,” said Uncle Ramon, deflecting the praise. “All there is to do is keep a straight line just left of the needle. The rudder does the rest.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when Luis gave him a long stare.
“Is that so?” my cousin asked.
Uncle Ramon quickly had a response on his tongue. But I could see him pull up short on what he was about to say. Then he hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath, as if he was preparing to swallow his pride.
“I don’t see why you can’t steer for a while later on,” he said, before he exhaled. “As long as the waters stay calm.”
“You mean the way they are right now?” asked Luis, with his eyes lighting up like he’d just lined a pitch into the gap between outfielders.
Uncle Ramon shifted his gaze to Gabriel, who nodded his head. I laughed at watching my uncle try to climb into the backseat as he and Luis switched places. But once we were sitting side by side, the shape and color of Uncle Ramon’s eyes reminded me too much of Papi’s and I stopped laughing.
For the next half hour or so, Luis held the wheel with Gabriel guiding him. Uncle Ramon broke out a supply of PowerBars he’d “borrowed” from Moyano’s secret stash behind the counter in the players’ cafeteria. I enjoyed every bite. Then I used the silver wrapper to reflect the sun into Luis’s eyes as he steered.
“Go on, keep distracting your cousin like that,” Uncle Ramon warned me. “A few degrees off and we could wind up in the Bahamas instead of Miami.”
“That might not be the worst thing in the world,” I said, focusing on the waves in the distance. “We’d still be free, wouldn’t we?”
“Yes, but it would be one more obstacle to your papi’s helping us,” he answered.
“I don’t know how much help I need,” I countered. “I already know how to be a busboy.”
Over the next few hours the sun got much stronger. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky or a shred of wind. After a while, that Buick started to bake. The temperature inside must have gone up at least twenty degrees, with the windshield acting like a giant magnifying glass, intensifying the rays. The air got so heavy I could barely breathe.
Bathed in sweat, I tried to climb onto the roof outside to escape that oven. But as soon as I touched my hand to the green metal, I yanked it back, my fingers burning.
“It’s on fire up there,” I said, pouring some of our drinking water on my hand to ease the pain.
“It’s a piece of sheet metal. You could fry an egg on that roof right now,” said Gabriel, in a tone that suggested I should have known better. “That’s why I brought along what’s under the rear seat.”
I reached down and felt the big plastic tarp. With Luis and me working from opposite windows, we unrolled it across the roof of the Buick. Meanwhile, Uncle Ramon grabbed a bucket meant to bail out the car/boat in case it leaked. He leaned outside and filled it with ocean water, before dumping it onto the tarp. Then my cousin and I stretched ourselves out on the roof, like we were on a beach blanket back home in Matanzas.
Gabriel passed up to us a tube of heavy-duty sunblock, and we rubbed it into our faces and bare chests. It was beautiful riding on top of that Buick, with nothing in sight but the horizon up ahead. Then, out of nowhere, a school of flying fish put on a show for us, jumping out of the water and taking flight before vanishing beneath the waves.
“This is what it’s going to be like in Miami,” Luis said. “The two of us sitting on top of the world like a pair of princes.”
“You think?”
“Of course. Who else is your papi going to spend his time and money on?”
“That’s a good point,” I replied, as the heat building up below that tarp started to seep through to the surface.
16
I WAS LYING flat on my back with my eyes closed when I heard a splash. Then I thought I heard Luis’s voice laughing and full of joy. But after I opened my eyes and the sun’s glare cleared, I realized Luis was still beside me on the roof of that Buick.
“The water feels amazing!” shouted Uncle Ramon, swimming alongside the car/boat. “It’s cold, but it feels great! Did you see my cannonball?”
“No, I missed it,” Luis called back in excitement.
Uncle Ramon’s voice sounded so much younger, and almost exactly like Luis’s, as he floated in the ocean.
“I saw your cannonball!” said Gabriel, laughing out loud from behind the wheel. “You should have seen it, Luis! Your father made a huge splash, bigger than El Presidente lowering himself into his bathtub.”
Uncle Ramon looked so satisfied and free, I couldn’t stay on that roof for another second. So I took off my sneakers, lifted my arms up over my head, and then dove in.
A chill hit every part of me. A million goose bumps tingled on my skin. My eyes were closed as I went down deeper, straight as an arrow. Then my momentum stopped. I knew that I couldn’t be anywhere near the bottom. So I opened my eyes, craning my neck upward. I saw a glimmer of light above me. As a long stream of air bubbles escaped from my nostrils, I propelled myself toward it. I broke the surface and took a deep breath, with the taste of salt water dripping from my lips.
“Neither of you are worried about sharks?” asked Luis.
Uncle Ramon shook his head and said, “There’s no fear in me today. I won’t allow it. And I’m here to protect your cousin.”
“Sharks want whales and barracuda. Not little guppies like us,” I said.
“This is our ocean now,” said Uncle Ramon. “We’ll enjoy it. Right, Julio?”
“We should all be enjoying it,” I answered, swimming toward the Buick.
“I’d love to be out there,” said Luis. “But I’m a terrible swimmer.”
Climbing back into the car/boat, I grabbed the long nylon rope beneath the front seat. I already knew that Uncle Ramon wasn’t getting out of the water if Luis jumped in. So the rest had to be on me.
I took the rope and tied it around Luis’s waist before he handed me the watch from his belt loop for safekeeping.
“This is crazy,” said Luis as I doubled the knot.
“Fishermen in China teach their kids to swim this way,” said Gabriel.
“We’re not going to China. We’re going to Miami,” said Luis, still hesitant. “Are you sure about this?”
Without warning, I shoved Luis into the water.
He came back up to the surface with a cough, spitting out seawater and flailing his arms.
“Relax and you’ll float naturally,” Uncle Ramon told him.
I wouldn’t leave any slack in the rope. At some point Luis stopped swimming and just held on to it.
“Do you want me to pull you in?” I asked.
“Not yet. I want to be as brave as my father,” he answered.
“No fear. Verdad, Luis?” asked Uncle Ramon.
“Verdad,” replied Luis.
Gabriel showed no interest in swimming.
“I’ve been in the water too much in my life,” he said, from the driver’s seat. “If I had my choice, I’d rather learn how to fly. It’s always been a dream of mine.”
Within a few minutes, Luis and Uncle Ramon got out of the ocean. We were all back inside the Buick, looking to escape the sun for a while.
“Enough fun,” said my uncle, with beads of salt water clinging to his bronze shoulder blades. “Now this ocean needs to take us to the States. We must be getting much closer.”
“Maybe halfway,” said Gabriel, studying the horizon.
“It’s been almost twenty hours,” said Luis, before he reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper that was completely drenched. “The girls from the beach at Cárdenas, their phone number—it’s ruined. I can’t read this.”
“Forget about the girls you knew in Cuba,” Uncle Ramon told him. “I know it’s hard to think about at your age, boys, but the women in your future, the ones who are going to have your children one day, they’re what’s important now. Because your own sons are going to be born free. That’s a gift I couldn’t give to you, Luis—a gift my brother’s trying to give us now.”
Deep down, I understood that speech made plenty of sense. But right then, I didn’t want to hear about any gift Papi was giving me. Because I knew now I was at best second-in-line behind his new son. I might have been even third or fourth, if Papi had been super busy since he’d gone. And I resented the fact that I had to risk my ass for freedom while some kid called Little Smoke had it before he took a dump in his first diaper.
A few hours went past, and the waters were getting choppy again. The hottest part of the day was over. But I got a reminder of how intense those rays had been when my back and shoulders touched the seat. I hadn’t used any of Gabriel’s sunblock on those spots. And I could feel the stinging burn now.
