The Cuban Club

by Barry Gifford

  When first we see Arleena Mink, an exotic-looking, stunningly beautiful teenage girl, unclothed but covered in strategic places by what appears to be a sheer coating of dark moss, her amazingly long, dark hair entwined around her neck, upper arms, waist and legs, she is not really walking but gliding in a dreary landscape both jungle and swamp. She deftly navigates her way through and beneath hanging moss and reptilian vines, sinuously evading gigantic Venus flytrap types of plants and overgrown vegetation. The only noises come from invisible birds that constantly squawk and screech. Her passage is interrupted briefly by an apparent flashback showing a car stopping on a road next to a swamp, the right front passenger door opening, and a person’s hands and arms holding and then rolling a bundle—presumably containing the body of an infant—down an incline into the murk. The door closes and the car is driven on. We do not see the driver or passenger’s faces.

  Arleena Mink does not utter a sound other than an occasional hiss. Four men carrying rifles, machetes and nets appear, attired in khaki bush jackets and safari hats. They don’t talk much as they plod past waving leaves and wade through brackish shallows. We assume they are hunting for the snake girl, whose existence, we learn from their minimal dialogue, may be only a rumor. Having seen Arleena Mink, however, we know her presence in the swampland is not a myth and she is apparently endeavoring to avoid capture.

  Arleena slithers, slinks and crawls as her pursuers become increasingly frustrated due to biting insects, unidentified moving things rippling the waters, and debilitating heat. The action concludes when one after another of the men are eliminated: the first two sucked under and swallowed by quicksand, the third strangled by a serpent-vine, and the fourth dragged into dense foliage by the hairy arm of an otherwise unseen beast, the victim’s cry muffled by one huge, sharp-clawed paw.

  The snake girl may or may not have even been aware that she was being stalked by men; behaving cautiously is her natural condition. In the last shot of the movie she rises to her full height, stares directly into the camera, her slanted eyes burning and sparkling like black diamonds, and from between her puffy lips darts a shockingly long, whiplike tongue. The forked tip of Arleena Mink’s quivering organ flaps and twists as she emits a sudden, deliciously hideous, spine-shriveling hiss.

  Whenever Roy saw Snake Girl listed in a TV movie guide—without exception in the middle of the night—he watched it. Arleena Mink disappeared from public display after 1944, the year her one film was made. It wasn’t until almost fifty years later that by chance Roy noticed an obituary in Variety that read: “Arleena Mink, actress, born Consuelina Norma Lagarto in Veracruz, Mexico, on January 1, 1930, died June 20 in Asunción, Paraguay. Her husband, Generalissimo Emilio Buenaventura-Schmid, whom she married when she was fifteen years old, preceded her in death, date unknown. Miss Mink’s only film appearance was in Snake Girl, rumored to have been secretly directed in Brazil by Orson Welles, using the name Mauricio de Argentina. Writing in Le Monde (Paris), the eminent critic Edmund Wilson described Snake Girl as ‘an erotic masterpiece, uniquely dark and black and strange. One can easily imagine being bitten by the vixenish, barely pubescent Arleena Mink and expiring without regret.’ ”

  THE VAGARIES OF INCOMPLETENESS

  After they moved from Florida to Chicago, Roy’s mother hired a maid named Wilda Cherokee. Wilda, a sweet-tempered woman in her mid-twenties, had a son, Henry, who, like Roy, was seven years old. When Wilda could find nobody to take care of Henry, which was often, she brought him with her to Roy and his mother’s house. After Roy came home from school he and Henry played together. Roy asked him if he ever got in trouble with his school for being absent so much and Henry said, “Not so much trouble as when I’m there.”

  “How come your last name is the name of an Indian tribe?” Roy asked.

  “My mother’s people are from North Carolina,” Henry said. “They’re part Indians.”

  Roy wished he had a great name like Cherokee and whenever he introduced Henry to someone he always said, “This is Henry Cherokee,” not just Henry.

  “He ain’t an Indian,” said Roy’s friend Tommy Cunningham, “he’s a Negro.”

  “He’s both,” Roy said. “His great-great grandmother was married to a Cherokee chief.”

  “What was the chief’s name?” asked Tommy.

  “Wind-Runs-Behind-Him,” said Henry.

  “You’re makin’ that up.”

  “No, I’m not. My grandmama Florence told me.”

  Roy, Tommy and Henry were standing in the alley behind Roy’s house. Roy and Henry had been playing catch with a taped up hardball when Tommy came out of Jimmy Boyle’s backyard, which he’d been cutting through.

  “How come you’re here?” Tommy asked.

  “His mother works for us,” said Roy.

  “What’s her name, Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring?”

  “Wilda,” said Henry.

  “Can you do a war dance? Say somethin’ in Cherokee,”

  A red Studebaker crept slowly up the alley and parked a couple of houses away behind a garage.

  “That’s Mr. Anderson,” said Roy.

  He waved at the tall, fair-haired man who got out of the car and the man waved back. Mr. Anderson walked over to the boys.

  “Hello, Roy. And you’re Paulie Cunningham’s son, aren’t you? How’s your dad? He hasn’t been around Beeb’s Tavern lately.”

  “He’s in jail,” said Tommy. “But my ma says he’s gettin’ out soon.”

  “Tell him Sven Anderson says hello and that the first one’s on me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And who’s this?” Mr. Anderson said, looking at Henry.

  “This is my friend Henry Cherokee,” said Roy.

  “Do you live around here, Henry?”

  “No.”

  “His mother works for my mother,” Roy said.

  Mr. Anderson fingered a cigarette from an open pack of Lucky Strikes in his shirt pocket, put it between his lips, then took out a green book of matches with the name Beeb’s written on it in white letters, and lit the Lucky.

  “I hired a colored fella to work at the bottling plant,” he said. “Two years ago, I guess it was. He was a good worker. After about six months he didn’t show up one Monday, didn’t call in either. Turned out he’d been shot and killed in a bar Saturday night before.”

  “Henry’s part Indian,” said Roy.

  “His grandfather was a chief,” said Tommy Cunningham.

  “My great-great grandfather,” said Henry. “His name was Wind-Runs-Behind-Him.”

  “That’s poetry, that is,” Mr. Anderson said. “Our names aren’t nearly as colorful, or descriptive. He must have been a fast runner.”

  “I don’t know,” said Henry.

  “Nice meeting you, Henry. It’s not every day I get to meet the great grandson of an Indian chief.”

  Mr. Anderson walked back toward his garage.

  “What’s poetry?” asked Tommy.

  “Words that rhyme,” said Roy.

  “Wind-Runs-Behind-Him don’t rhyme.”

  “What’s your father in jail for?” Henry asked.

  Tommy, who was almost nine and a head taller than Henry, bent over and put his nose on top of Henry’s and said, “He’s a horse thief.”

  Roy thought Tommy might try to beat Henry up so he got ready to hit Tommy in his head with the hardball, but Tommy backed off and began running down the alley.

  “Does his father really steal horses?” asked Henry.

  The sky had clouded over in a hurry.

  “Come on,” said Roy, “let’s play catch before it rains.”

  KING AND COUNTRY

  In January of that year a monumental blizzard hit Chicago, forcing the city to shut down for four days. Virtually all businesses closed except for a few neighborhood bars and liquor stores. Only police, firefighters and emergency services remained available. Residents were advised not to try to drive; the only way around was on foot.

  Roy was
thirteen and by the night of the second day cabin fever compelled him to venture out to visit his friend Jimmy Boyle, who lived a couple of blocks away. Wading down the middle of Ojibway Boulevard through the hip-and even chest-high drifts, Roy encountered a man coming out of Beebs and Glen’s Tavern carrying two fifths of Murphy’s Irish whiskey, one under each arm.

  “I’m goin’ to Peggy Dean’s house and I’m not comin’ out for a week!” he shouted.

  Just before Roy reached Jimmy’s block another man came toward him, also struggling to make a path for himself. He was wearing a purple turban and wrapped around his body were layers of different colored robes, rags and rugs. The man’s barely visible face was brown and bearded. He was pulling a two-wheeled cart laden with what Roy assumed were his belongings, piled high and covered with more rugs and pieces of material. As Roy and the man approached one another, Roy could see that beneath his robes, which reached to his ankles, the man was barefoot.

  “Ah, I saw you from afar!” the man said to Roy, and stopped in front of him.

  The man’s eyes blazed like blue moons in the darkness.

  “You look like a king,” Roy said.

  “I was a king in my own country,” replied the man.

  “Aren’t you afraid your feet will get frostbite?”

  “I come from a strong and powerful people who walk in the footsteps of Arphax, he who lived more than four-hundred years and paved a fiery path. My feet are like unto fine brass, as if they burn in a furnace. My servant Isaiah walked naked and barefoot for three years through a hostile and terrible land. Though I hath cometh out of prison to reign again am I also he who becometh poor.”

  The man began to move forward, dragging his cart.

  “What’s your name?” Roy called after him.

  “To know me,” said the man, “you must first solve the mystery of the seven stars.”

  When Roy got to Jimmy Boyle’s house he told him about the biblical character who said he’d been a king in his own country.

  “His name is Morris Jones,” said Jimmy. “He used to be a fry cook at the Busy Bee on Milwaukee Avenue. He went batshit about a year ago and started tellin’ everyone he was the son of God. He lives under the el over there. My father gives him a buck or two when he sees him.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “He carries a carving knife under his robes. He took it from the diner. Elmer Schuh, who owns the Busy Bee, let him keep it to protect himself.”

  Roy did not see Morris Jones again until the following August. It was a boiling hot day and Morris was sitting in the back seat of a police car parked in front of the el station with his hands cuffed, wearing his purple turban. Roy asked a cop standing next to the car why Morris had been arrested.

  “He carved up a dog and was tryin’ to sell the parts to passengers gettin’ on and off the trains.”

  “Is that against the law?”

  “It is when you’re not wearin’ nothing but a turban.”

  “He was a king in his own country,” Roy said.

  “He should have stayed there,” said the cop.

  The next day Roy told Jimmy Boyle about his having seen Morris being arrested, and what for.

  “He was naked?”

  “Except for his turban.”

  “I don’t think Morris would ever hurt anyone on purpose,” said Jimmy. “He always gave me extra bacon whenever I went into the Busy Bee with my dad.”

  HOUSE OF BAMBOO

  Roy was sitting at the kitchen table eating a ham and cheese sandwich when his mother appeared from the front of the house pushing Marty Bell toward the back door.

  “I hope you don’t mind going out this way, Marty,” she said. “I thought it would be easier since you’re parked in the alley.”

  Marty Bell was one of Roy’s mother’s boyfriends. He wanted to marry her but despite the fact that he made “a good living,” as she said, Roy’s mother would not marry him.

  “Too bad he’s so short,” she had told Roy. “He only comes up to my shoulders. How could I be seen with him?”

  Roy’s mother allowed Marty Bell to kiss her on the cheek before he went out the back door. Just as she closed it behind him, the front doorbell rang. She hurried through the house to answer it and returned less than a minute later to the kitchen accompanied by Bill Crown, another boyfriend of hers. Bill Crown was considerably taller than Marty Bell. His right arm was wrapped around Roy’s mother’s shoulders, and she was smiling.

  “Look, Roy, Bill brought you a present.”

  “Here,” said Bill Crown, “you can practice with this.”

  With his left hand Bill handed Roy a small polo mallet. He knew that Crown played polo on the weekends, but Roy knew practically nothing about the sport, other than it was played on horseback and the participants rode around trying to hit a small, hard wooden ball into a goal. None of his friends knew anything about polo, either.

  “I’d like you and your mother to come out to Oak Brook on Saturday to watch me play. It’ll be a good match.”

  Bill took a scuffed white ball out of a pocket of his brown leather coat and set it on the table.

  “This is from last week’s match,” he said. “You can knock it around the yard.”

  Roy put down his sandwich and held the mallet in both of his hands.

  “Put your hand through the strap when you grip the handle. That way you won’t drop the mallet. It’s made of bamboo. It’ll bend but won’t break.”

  “Thanks,” Roy said. “I have a baseball game on Saturday.”

  “We play on Sundays, too, sometimes. I’ll let you know. You’ll come this Saturday, Kitty, won’t you?”

  “I’ll be happy to,” said Roy’s mother.

  She and Bill Crown left the kitchen. Roy placed the mallet on the floor and finished eating his sandwich.

  The next day, Roy was batting the wooden ball around in front of his house when his friend Johnny Murphy came by.

  “What kind of a club is that?” asked Johnny.

  “A polo mallet. Bill Crown, a friend of my mother’s, gave it to me. You ride horses and sock this ball with it.”

  Roy handed Johnny the mallet.

  “The shaft is made from bamboo and the head is hard wood, like the ball.”

  “Sounds like hockey.”

  “Yeah, only on horseback.”

  “I think just rich guys play polo,” Johnny said. “Maybe he’ll give you a horse.”

  “Uh huh. We can keep it in our apartment.”

  “Is your mother gonna marry him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How many times has she been married?”

  “Twice.”

  “My mother says it’s rough on kids who come from broken homes. Do you want this guy to be your father?”

  “I have a father. I’ve only seen Bill Crown a couple of times. He’s okay.”

  Johnny hit the ball and it rolled into the street.

  “What does your mother like about him?”

  “He’s tall,” Roy said, and went to get the ball.

  THE UNEXPECTED

  “You think Miss Peaches is terrific, you shoulda seen Little Egypt that time Gus Argo and I were in East Saint Louis at Miss Vivian’s Evening in Havana.”

  “The original Little Egypt was a Syrian dame made her bones at the Columbian Exposition in 1890-somethin’. Married a Greek guy owned a restaurant. Other girls stole the name and her act, only they done it dirtier.”

  Roy was in Meschina’s Delicatessen sitting in a booth with Jewish Joe, who wasn’t Jewish, and Al Martin, who was. Roy ran errands for the men when he needed extra money. He was fourteen years old, Joe and Al were both in their forties. They’d done time for making book and extortion, but they never involved Roy or any of the other kids who worked for them in anything the kids knew was illegal. Mostly the men used the boys to deliver messages to people when they didn’t want to use a telephone. The messages were in code. Joe or Al would tell a kid to go over to the Time Out, a bar
on South Mohawk, and tell Big Lloyd, the bartender, “Ali Baba had twenty-five thieves, not forty.” The kid would keep a few newspapers under one arm to make out like he was a newsboy in case any no good law was around, and Big Lloyd would say, “No minors or peddlers allowed, kid. Take the air.”

  For this or similar endeavors, Roy would get five bucks. He got a kick out of the gangster talk but he didn’t consider Jewish Joe or Al Martin real mobsters. They were small-timers hustling a living. Chicago was full of guys like them. Roy figured it was the same in any big city and so long as he didn’t have knowledge of any of the particulars he wouldn’t get in trouble.

  One Friday night Al Martin handed Roy a menu from Meschina’s and told him to take it to 1432 Water Street. A woman would answer the door, a blonde in her late twenties, and Roy should give her the menu. On the way over to Water Street, which was a good sixteen blocks from Meschina’s, Roy examined the menu and saw at the bottom of the second page a telephone number written in pencil. Al said if anybody other than the blonde opened the door Roy should say he’d made a mistake and bring the menu back to Meschina’s.

  “What if somebody chases me?” Roy asked.

  “Run,” said Al. “Don’t drop the menu.”

  Roy lived with his mother and younger sister. His father was dead. Roy’s mother worked as a receptionist at a hospital and Roy worked three nights a week delivering Chinese food on a bicycle. He gave half of the money he made from the Chinese restaurant to his mother. She didn’t know he ran errands for Joe and Al.

  He knocked on the door at 1432 Water but nobody answered right away. It was a cool, windy night, and Roy had not minded the long walk. Jewish Joe and Al Martin and every other denizen of Meschina’s smoked cigarettes and cigars even while they ate, so Roy was glad to be out in the fresh air. He did not smoke because when he began boxing at the YMCA two years before his trainer, Pat Touhy, told him, as he told all the boys, not to smoke, drink alcohol or lift weights.