Leaving Glorytown (7 page)

One morning diere was a commotion in Abuela Ana and Abuelo Julian's living room. I was up on the roof, practicing my birdcalls on Pichilingo and Pepe, another friend of mine, who happened to be a mockingbird. I climbed down the avocado tree to see what was going on, only to find my grandparents consoling Tia Carmen, who was in tears. Tio William had been formally accused of conspiring to assist anti-Castro rebels. He'd been arrested by the police that morning and taken to jail.

Tio William stood out as a target. He'd been a successful capitalist, which was suddenly the worst thing anyone could be. He'd even been
president of the Cienfuegos Lion's Club. He played a pivotal role in supporting his extended family, feeding not only his own wife and children, but his parents as well. He was my father's employer, which meant we also depended upon Tío. The same was true of Tío Cholu, who had four children of his own. Many other family members depended in smaller ways on his generosity. Besides, we all loved Tío William. If something bad happened to him, it happened to all of us.

The charges were serious, and we were very worried. But then Abuelo Julian contacted an old friend, a lawyer who was now serving as a prosecutor for Castro's “killing courts.” We called them by that name because they sentenced so many innocent people to death. The accused weren't even allowed to have legal representation. They were charged, summoned to court, found guilty, and either sent to jail or stood up against a wall and shot.

Again, we got lucky. This lawyer friend became our angel. He helped to find Tío William guilty of a lesser offense, condemning him to prison for only two years. My mother sighed with relief. But my father once again swelled with anger that he could barely hold in.

“Why should we consider ourselves lucky that William is going to jail for two years?” he said, disgusted. “Why should he go to prison at all? Before the Revolution, he was a model citizen. Now he's a criminal? It's insane!”

Probably because of this powerful lawyer friend, Tío was allowed to keep his distribution company open while he was in prison. But for how long? Another day, week, or year? We knew that at any moment, the government could step in, close the whole thing down, and confiscate everything: the fleet of trucks, the tools to repair them, the metal
cylinders the gas was delivered in, the building itself. Who was going to say no? My father told me that all over the country, business owners like Tío were losing everything they owned. The Communists were nationalizing everything, he said. When I asked Papa what “nationalize” meant, he said, “It means they're stealing in the name of the state.”

I also heard Papa tell Mama that Tío could be away a lot longer than two years, depending on whether or not he was considered “rehabilitated as a member of the Revolution.”

“How can robbing a man of everything he has worked for, everything he holds dear, possibly win him over to your cause?” Papa raged.

Mama said nothing. What was there to say?

Tío's prison sentence struck terror in me. The grownups tried not to talk about it in front of the children, but I heard enough to know it was bad. Once, I listened as Papa and my uncles talked about how the prison system operated on snitching. If you ratted someone out, you would be rewarded by the guards, but you would be hated by the other prisoners. If you didn't rat, the guards could be brutal, but the prisoners would respect you.

That fall, Esther started kindergarten and I began fifth grade. I walked her to Mariana Grajales Elementary School with my own group consisting of Rolando and Tito—who, even though they were sons of Communists, were still allowed to play with me—and my
primo
, or cousin, Luis, born one month before me. Tito was about ten months older than Rolando, but we were all in the same grade. These three had always walked to school with me, and we formed a phalanx whose job
was to keep each other safe. Esther, our princess, now walked in the middle, protected by all of us.

“Calcines!” said Tito one day as we headed to school. “How come your dad doesn't join the Communist Party, like our dad?”

“What!” I said. “The Communists locked him up in that theater for three whole days during the Bay of Pigs. They took away Tío William. They hired thugs to make everyone's lives miserable. Why would he want anything to do with them?”

“If he was a Communist, he would have a job for life,” Rolando explained.

“You don't have any more than we do,” I retorted. “You still have to carry the same stupid ration books as everyone else, don't you? And don't you get stuck eating the same canned horse meat from Russia as the rest of us?”

“Yeah! And you have to go to those marches all the time!” Luis chimed in.

“Aiee, I hate those marches!” Tito said, rolling his eyes.

“Me, too,” Rolando said. “They're endless! And the blisters!”

“And those speeches!” said Tito. “How many more times is Castro going to promise us that things will get better tomorrow? Why don't they just get better, already?”

“Because,” Rolando explained to his brother, “the worms who don't agree with the Revolution are holding the rest of us back. That's what Dad says, anyway.”

“That's a bunch of crap,” I said. “It's the Communists' own fault that nothing works and nobody has enough food. They just don't want to admit it.”

“That's right,” said Luis. “No one is trying to stop the Communists
from making Cuba a better place. They're just too stupid to get it right.”

“Tell it like it is, primo,” I said. Luis and I slapped each other's palms.

“Ah, whatever,” said Rolando. “Talking about politics gives me a headache.”

“Me, too,” said Tito.

“You know what I miss? Ketchup,” I said.

“Me, too!” said Luis.

“Us, too!” said Tito. “Man, if I had a bottle of ketchup, I would drink the whole thing right now.”

“Gross! I would eat it little by little, to cover up the taste of that horse meat they give us,” I said.

“What's ketchup?” asked Esther.

“You see? This is how bad things are! My poor sister doesn't even know what ketchup is!”

“You know what I miss?” said Luis. “Gum!”

Tito, Rolando, and I groaned. It had been so long since I'd had a piece of gum I'd forgotten all about it.

“What's gum?” Esther asked.

“What's gum, she says!” Luis howled. “Oh, man, Esther hasn't ever had gum!”

“Gum is this great stuff you stick in your mouth and chew but don't swallow,” I explained. We rounded the corner, approaching the school. I kept my voice down, lest anyone hear me wax eloquent on yet another failure of the Communist government: Cuban children's lack of American chewing gum. “It gets all soft in your mouth, and you can blow bubbles with it, and it stays tasty forever!”

“Well, that depends on what kind you get,” Tito reminded me.

“That's true, Calcines,” said Rolando. “Some kinds of gum last longer than others.”

“Me, I like Juicy Fruit!” said Luis. “Oh, man, what I wouldn't give for a stick of that right now!”

“Juicy Fruit is okay,” I allowed. “But I like Big Red better.”

“Will you get me some gum someday, Eduardito?” Esther asked.

“Of course I will,” I assured her. “I promise.”

“Where are you going to get it?” Luis asked. “Get me some, too!”

“Yeah, Calcines!” said Tito. “I want to get in on some of this gum action.”

“No,” I said. “You guys can take care of yourselves. Esther has never had gum. I want her to know what it's like. It's the best stuff in the whole world!”

“Good morning, boys. Good morning, Esther,” said the principal, a blond woman who stood outside every morning to greet the children. “What is the best stuff in the whole world, Eduardo?”

“Nothing, ma'am,” I said. “We were just talking about—uh—”

“About pumpernickel bread,” said Luis quickly.

“Ah, yes. Well, have a good day, and study hard for the glory of the Revolution!” she said, motioning us inside.

We boys said goodbye to one another, promising to meet in front of the school after class was over, as usual. I walked Esther to her room, but before she went in, something possessed me to lean forward and whisper in her ear: “Esther, I promise, someday I'm going to get you all the gum you can chew.”

Esther smiled. For a moment I wished I'd chosen my words more
carefully. Would I be able to live up to my promise? But her faith in me was touching, and it moved me to make yet another one.

“I'm going to take us to America,” I whispered. “That's where the best chewing gum is. Ketchup, too. We'll have all the food we want, and no one will bother us anymore. Don't tell anybody, though, or we'll get in trouble. Okay?”

“Okay!” Esther whispered back. There was no doubt in her mind that her big brother was going to do what he said. She squeezed my hand and gave me a peck on the cheek. Then she turned and went into her classroom, and I went on my way to mine.

Well, I had dug a big hole for myself now. There was not a Calcines yet who had failed to keep his word. I was committed. Now the only question was: How would I do it?

Frankly, I had no idea. But I was sure that something would turn up.

In the meantime, it was back to the same old thing—keeping my head down and making sure I stayed out of trouble. So, with a heavy heart, I went into my own classroom and sat at my desk, resigning myself to another day of Communist propaganda from our teacher.

T
he government's thirty-day allotment of food rations was barely enough to keep one person alive, let alone a whole family, so by the end of each month we'd often run out of rations. This meant we had to scrounge whatever we could on the black market along with whatever fruit was in season that we could find on the trees. We were luckier than others, though, because of Papa's trips to the country on Tuesdays and because Mama was resourceful and always managed to come up with one meal a day. When our bellies rumbled, she would hand Esther and me a piece of hard bread and a cup of sugar water. “No complaining!” Mama would say, but I could see in her eyes that she knew the situation was pathetic.

If it had been possible for our parents to sacrifice any more, they would have. But it wasn't possible. They ate only as much as they needed to stay alive, leaving the rest for us. Most of Abuela Ana's chickens had been slaughtered. There were just a few scrawny survivors now, plus the indomitable Pichilingo. Someday, I worried, it would be his turn for the pot. I knew Abuela was saving him for truly desperate
times. But I couldn't bear to think of eating my old friend, so I prayed that Fidel would die before my rooster lost his head.

The food situation was even worse for my classmate Tito Bemba, whom we all called Quco. I had always liked Quco. He had the biggest pair of lips in Glorytown, and he loved to pucker up and chase the girls around, threatening to kiss them. But he was one of eight children, and I could always tell when his family's rations had run out, because he would sit quietly on the playground instead of playing, in order to conserve energy.

“Quco!” I said to him one day. “What's up? Why are you just sitting here?”

“Aiee, Calcines, man.” He rolled his eyes. “If I stand up too fast, I get dizzy.”

“You're that hungry?”

“You have no idea, Calcines. We haven't had anything to eat for two days. Not a bite.”

“Listen, you come home with me after school,” I said. “Maybe I can get you a little something.”

“Forget it, Calcines. It's nice of you, but I don't want to take food out of your family's mouths.”

“No, really. It's okay. Mama always manages to come up with something.”

Quco finally agreed. I took him home to my place, and we went into the kitchen, where Mama was mixing brown sugar with water—about the only two things we had plenty of. As usual, she greeted me with a big kiss, and she offered Quco a pleasant hello, asking how his family was doing.

“Mama,” I said, “Quco hasn't had anything to eat in two days. Can we give him something?”

“Of course,” Mama said. She went to the freezer and pulled out a tray. “This is all I have right now, boys, but you are welcome to it. It's
durofrio
.”

Durofrio, literally “hard and cold,” was one more trick Mama had come up with to stave off our hunger pangs. It was nothing but brown sugar water, frozen into cubes. But it filled the belly for a little while, and the sugar gave us a little energy boost, though often afterward I would feel even more tired than before. I was disappointed that this was all we had to offer, but Quco's family didn't even have a freezer. His eyes lit up as though he'd just been invited to a banquet.

“Thanks, Señora Calcines!” he said, and promptly helped himself to a piece of ice. I did, too. We stood in the kitchen, sucking on our durofrios and chatting with Mama, until Quco felt a little better. He thanked her and said he would be on his way.