King Bongo

by Thomas Sanchez

  Shines loved his job. It was good money, better than selling peanuts. He had once thought of selling lottery tickets, but he didn’t have the connections for that; a guy needed to have a relative in the government or be a friend of racketeers, it was all the same thing. The problem with the lottery was too many hands were in the stew, taking all the meat out and leaving the seller with nothing but flavored water. No, that was not for Shines. He was an entrepreneur, an optimist, and Cuba was a great country that gave a man like him a break, a man who some said was slow in the head because of what had happened when he was a baby.

  Shines’ mother had been a rummy, and when he was three months old she had passed out once while breast-feeding him. Little skinny-assed naked Shines was alone in his mama’s lap, his lips smacking on her nipple as he sucked, not for milk, but for air. His mama was suffocating him as she snored, her large breasts covering his tiny face. When the neighbors found him he was blue and had stopped breathing. They couldn’t wake his mama up. She was dead, choked on her own vomit.

  Baby Shines was spirited away by the neighborhood women, who delivered him to the altar of a Santera who consulted her Book of Shadows and determined the recipe needed to bring this humble soul back among the living. A spell was put on baby Shines. The Santera rubbed his small body with shark oil, blew cigar smoke up his nostrils, pried his lips open and breathed clouds of cinnamon-scented breath inside his mouth, then covered his face with a wet handkerchief soaked in the tears of a motherless woman. The Santera chanted to a horse beneath the sea; she uncovered Shines’ face, then laid him down before a kid goat tethered to a stake. The goat licked Shines all over, and when it got to licking the baby balls between his legs, Shines’ little chest heaved, his heart started to tick, his lungs began to work, and a crooked smile came onto his lips. The Santera slit the throat of the goat and its blood sprayed over Shines. The goat fell at the side of Shines, its feet twitching, its wide bulging eyes crossing over to darkness as Shines’ eyes once again saw the light.

  Shines was an optimist, he had come back from the dead. In his community he was considered a miracle. Even though he had no parents, he was always welcome at the homes of total strangers to share the meager food on their table. Women believed it was bad luck to turn their back on a miracle child, for if they did all their babies would be stillborn. Childless women were always happy to give Shines a scrap of clothing or a hug, hoping some of his once-upon-a-time magic would bless their wombs. But it appeared that the time Shines had spent over on the dead side of the world as a little baby had left him a touch slow in the head, or so people said. Others said he wasn’t slow at all, just a kid without a mama and papa and nobody to teach him.

  To Shines the feel of shoe leather beneath his fingertips held a kind of magic, because those skins had once housed souls, once belonged to the kingdom of animals. Now Shines kept them alive, kept them in proud shape, kept them ready for the journey of the man whose feet filled them. Shines thought it wasn’t a man’s feet that led him around, but rather the spirit of the animal in the skin of his shoes that determined his final destination.

  Shines was bent right now over shoes that had obviously come up from a dark underworld. He had shined these particular skins many times. The man’s feet didn’t vibrate, they hummed. It was a harmonic sound, like songs murmured by the dead who have had their tongues cut out. The more Shines whipped his shoe-rag across the skins, the stronger the humming grew. This man was an alabbgwanna, a lonely spirit. He was a big spell and he wandered looking for the Goddess of Love. This man walked through Havana with an ax of rejection in his back and an arrow of loss shot through his heart. Shines felt sorry for him, though he knew that others feared him. This man was a restless spirit who wouldn’t take any shit off any man, so Shines kept silent. Only when the man asked a question would Shines dare to speak.

  “What kind of a woman would hire another man to follow her husband around?” the man asked in a whisper.

  Shines rested his rag on the man’s skins and gazed up at him. Behind the man was the brilliant sun, shooting spikes of light all around his head. The man’s eyes were blacked out by the dark lenses of the silver-rimmed sunglasses he always wore, and a black mustache stretched across his upper lip like a burnt worm.

  The man asked the question again. His voice remained low, a kind of hollow breathing, hard to hear in the noise of traffic circling and honking in the streets around the Martí monument.

  Shines snapped his shoe-rag over the man’s skins. On the middle finger of the man’s right hand, which rested against his creased linen slacks, was a ring with a ruby as big as the eye of an angry octopus.

  “Tell me. What kind of woman would pay someone to spy on her husband?”

  “Well, Captain Zapata,” Shines offered, “maybe the woman is trying to triumph over her enemies.”

  “And who might those enemies be?”

  “Could be love devils … or political witches.”

  “Political witches?”

  “There are all kinds of witches.”

  “I know.”

  “Sometimes witches get tangled up, and it’s hard to untangle them, so you need to hire a spy.”

  “A kind of love spy? You’re saying that love can become politics?”

  “I’m saying sometimes love is politics.”

  “And what kind of man would take money to follow a woman’s husband around?”

  “A man who needs money,” Shines said with enthusiasm.

  “Or a man who wants the woman.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know how much he wants her yet. Maybe he is still dreaming. It could get worse if he wakes up.”

  “Let’s say he wakes up. What then?”

  “He might start doing stuff for her.”

  “What kind of stuff?”

  “Stuff he normally wouldn’t do. Could be a tragic story. Like that famous story that all my people know.”

  “There are a million famous stories your people know. How does your story end?”

  “Here’s how it begins.” Shines bore down with his rag on the shoe propped up on the shining box as his words flowed. “A wife is being cheated on. She confronts her husband. He says she’s no longer his yerba dulce. He leaves her. She goes to a Santera for advice. The Santera washes the wife’s eyes out and she sees what to do. She goes to the husband’s new house. In her hands she holds a white candle and a drained coconut shell. She knocks on the husband’s door, but he won’t open up to a spurned wife armed with weapons from a Santera. She beats on the door. When the husband shouts, ‘Go away, witch,’ she presses the coconut shell against the door, capturing his voice. She quickly plugs the hole in the coconut shell with the white candle. The husband’s voice inside the hard shell of its prison screams for freedom. She races to a palm tree and digs furiously until she exposes its roots. She buries the coconut in the roots with only the white candle showing. She lights the candle. She doesn’t have much time now. Before the candle burns down she must find a black chicken. She runs through the neighborhood. But all the chickens pecking in people’s yards are white. She sees black goats, black rabbits, black pigs, and finally a black chicken. She chases it into a house where a man is sitting. She is panting, her dress soaked with sweat, and she screams that she must have the chicken. The man says that’s impossible, the chicken is a member of the family. The wife shouts, ‘I’ll pay anything!’ The man’s children come in; the chicken is cackling, the sweating wife is shouting, the kids don’t like it. The kids surround the chicken, begging their father not to sell their best friend, to sell it would be like selling one of them. The wife slips off her shoulder purse and dumps its contents before the man, an old comb, a few crumpled peso bills, and an ebony-handled knife. The man counts the bills. ‘Not much here,’ he says. He runs his thumb over the knife’s ebony handle. ‘This knife has led an interesting life.’ The wife says, ‘I can’t sell it.’ The man shakes his head. ‘No knife, no chicken.’ The children shout with glee and a little gi
rl hugs the chicken to her. The wife pleads to the man, ‘Sell me the chicken. It’s a matter of life or death.’ The man says, ‘This is a holy chicken, it deserves a holy price.’ The wife shouts, ‘I’ll give you my dress, too. It’s not handmade, it’s store-bought.’ She grabs the dress, ready to pull it off. The man says, ‘I don’t need a dress. My woman left me long ago.’ He looks at the wife standing before him. She has a very broad bottom and thighs like tree trunks, he envies her husband. The wife pulls off her wedding ring and hands it to the man. He gazes at the ring, she gazes at the chicken. The man slips the ring onto his little finger. The wife grabs the knife, snatches the chicken from the little girl’s grasp, and runs from the house back to the palm tree. Beneath the tree, the candle in the coconut has burned down to the hole it was wedged in. Within seconds the hot wax will cave in, opening the hole and allowing the husband’s essence to escape. The wife holds the clucking chicken by the neck against the palm’s trunk. The bird’s clawed feet scratch at the wife’s arms. She plunges the knife into the chicken’s breast. The bird squawks, then the surprised moan of a man bursts from its beak. The wife steps back. The pierced chicken is stuck to the palm. Everything has been done as the Santera instructed. The wife looks down. The wax in the hole of the coconut collapses inward. The hole is open. But it is too late for her husband’s essence to escape back into his body. The spell has been cast.”

  Shines stopped speaking and took a deep breath.

  Zapata said nothing. He gazed at the royal palms lined on both sides of the Martí monument like towering sentries.

  Shines looked up at Zapata. “The day after the wife knifed the chicken her husband was found dead.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Burned to death. He dumped gasoline on himself and lit a cigar for a farewell puff. Went out in a ball of fire.”

  “And the wife?”

  “She got married to the man who sold her the chicken. But she could have married any man she wanted.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “After what happened, every man was afraid to resist her.”

  “You believe this story?”

  “It happened.”

  “You think it could happen again?”

  “A cheating husband can always go up in a ball of fire.”

  Zapata took a cigar out of his coat pocket, bit off the end, struck a match and lit up. He puffed on the cigar, smoke curling from the corners of his mouth like two question marks. He dug into his pocket, then handed Shines a peso.

  Shines grinned broadly. “It’s two pesos today. One for the shine, one for the story.”

  “That’s expensive.”

  “It’s a holy story.”

  Zapata reached into his pocket, then pressed another peso into Shines’ open palm. “It’s worth a holy price.”

  2.

  The Pineapple Field

  I hate this fucking bar.”

  “Then what are we doing here?”

  “Being here is part of the job.” Larry Lizard leaned back in his chair and locked his fat sausage fingers around the cocktail glass in front of him. He gazed contemptuously over at the long bar where people sat chatting and drinking on cushioned stools. Behind the counter, bartenders in tight short-waisted red jackets mixed concoctions in tall glasses. “Fucking ice-cube jockeys,” Lizard said. “They act like they’re checking test tubes for a polio cure every time they blend one of their pukey sugary daiquiris.”

  “What’s the name of this place?”

  Lizard squinted at Johnny PayDay and spit out the answer with disdain. “Floridita.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s one of the smart places to park your ass in the old part of Havana. Socialites, rich tourists, politicians, show business people, famous writers, assholes like that come here.”

  “What about Joe Louis? He’s not an asshole, but he’s famous. Was Joe Louis here?”

  “They don’t let niggers in unless they’re famous. Niggers know that, so they don’t push it. Niggers don’t push it in Cuba.”

  “Not like that place we were in last night. What was it called? The Two Somethings?”

  “The Three Virgins.”

  “It’s not swanky like this.”

  “It’s a fucking pit.”

  “You said the Bad Actor would be there.”

  “Sometimes he is. You’ve got to understand Havana, it’s not like other towns. Here the high people go to low places. Nobody gives a shit about appearances here except the middle-class types. Middle-class Cubans can be even more stuck-up than the Americans. The really rich Cubans and Americans, they stay mostly among their own, behind the walls of their villas or in their private clubs. Keep an eye open, though, and you’ll see them come out to prowl.”

  “I’ve kept a bead on the Bad Actor for two weeks. He’s done nothing unusual. He’s just seedy, diddling that carrot-top teenager he’s with. I didn’t come down here to be a baby-sitter.”

  “You’ll get your shot.”

  PayDay took out a PayDay candy bar and carefully unwrapped it. He bit off a chunk of the caramel slab and washed it down with a swig of beer. He had a lot to think about, he had to get the lay of the land.

  “You see that guy over there?” Lizard nodded toward the end of the bar.

  “The blond guy?”

  “Yeah. The one with the white tennis sweater slung over his shoulders the way a dame would wear a mink stole. You remember him?”

  “No.”

  “He was in the Virgins last night. He’s a very rich guy.”

  “Looks like it.”

  “He’s also a race-car driver. He’s in the Big Malecón Race coming up. Races a Ferrari.”

  “A what?”

  “One of those fast German cars or something.”

  “I’m from Detroit. I don’t care about foreign cars.”

  “You’d better start to care. You’ve got a job to do during the Big Race.”

  “I’m itching for it. I want my pay.”

  Lizard nodded to the bar again. “What about the freckle-faced mulatto the blond guy is talking to? You recognize him?”

  PayDay watched as the freckle-faced mulatto took an envelope from the blond guy and tucked it into his coat pocket.

  “Never seen him before.”

  “He’s famous here. One of the best pitchers in the Cuban League.”

  “I don’t follow baseball, just the fights. Only boxing is real, the rest is just recreation; guys swinging bats, throwing footballs, racing in cars, all dipshits.”

  “Sports are important. Sports are for betting.”

  “That’s the only good part.”

  “It’s the sweet part. After the casinos and the prostitution, sports betting is the biggest moneymaker in Havana.”

  “I made money betting on Joe Louis. I could always pick the round.”

  “What makes you think that nigger was so clean? The Right Guys say Louis would throw his mother to the alligators. He threw that fight to the Kraut.”

  “Max Schmeling? No way. The Brown Bomber would never do a thing like that.”

  “The dough the Right Guys made off of betting that fight went into building the casinos in Havana.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “I hope your aim with a gun is straighter than your line of thinking. Now, like I was saying about the Hurricane Hurler, it’s your job to—”

  A red-jacketed waiter, balancing a silver tray crowded with cocktail glasses, interrupted. “Can I bring you gentlemen some daiquiris?”

  “Daiquiris!” Lizard banged his fist on the table. “Does it look like we’re drinking fucking daiquiris? Bring me another Manhattan, and a beer for my friend, before I take a pink plastic straw from one of those glasses on your tray and stick it up your pink caboose.”

  “Sir, there’s no reason to—”

  Lizard shoved back in his chair and pushed his suit coat to one side, exposing the black handle of an automatic.

  The waiter hustled
away.

  “Like I was saying”—Lizard leaned his chair toward the table again—“that freckle-faced mulatto at the bar is famous. He’s a Sugar King.”

  “He owns a sugar plantation?”

  “Baseball, man, baseball. The Havana Sugar Kings.”

  “I told you I wasn’t interested in bats and gloves.”

  “What about the Yogi? You got to be interested in Yogi Berra, the great Yankee catcher? The whole world loves the Yogi.”

  “Sugar Ray Robinson. I like him.”

  “Another nigger fighter. You like to see niggers beating up white guys. What the hell kind of sport is that?”

  PayDay ran his hand back and forth over the candy wrapper on the table. He stared at the word PayDay as if reading an inscrutable fortune cookie. What did he care about ballplayers and race-car drivers melting in the hot tropical sun? Nothing. But he did want to go out to the dog track. He could take his Betty along, she liked dogs. PayDay reached under the table and rubbed his dick through his pants. He was still sore from a passionate run he’d had with his wife in their room at the Nacional before Lizard called and insisted on meeting downstairs in the lobby.

  “Yeah,” Lizard continued, looking at the freckle-faced man at the bar, “that guy is the only redheaded mulatto in baseball. Father was Irish, mother was African. There were lots of Irish in Cuba early on. Just one block away there’s a street named Calle O’Reilly. It goofs the American tourists up. They think, ‘Where the hell am I? On a street in Boston with everybody speaking Spanish?’ ”

  “So colored guys are allowed in here.”

  “Sure,” snorted Lizard, “if they’re famous. I’m beginning to think you’re a nigger lover. I bet if Yogi Berra was black he’d be your best friend.”

  PayDay picked up the folded candy wrapper, then pulled it slowly between his thumb and trigger finger.

  “The mulatto is called the Havana Hurricane Hurler, but his real name is Mick Stable. He’s going up against our American League All-Stars this Sunday at El Cerro Stadium.”

  PayDay put his hand under the table and rubbed his dick again. It was itchy from riding his wife all afternoon and then not being able to take a shower after, since Lizard had been in such a hurry.