90 Miles to Havana (10 page)

Dolores smiles and I notice there's a tear in her eye. When she turns to put the picture away, Pepe looks at me and nods toward the door. I feel like I want to give Dolores a hug because of the tear, but I can't. So I back out of the
swinging kitchen door, feeling greasy like a thief. I'll let Pepe explain why I had to go.

When I walk around to the front, Alquilino and Gordo are waiting for me outside. “Did you get them?” Gordo asks.

I pull the twelve boxes out of my shirt and pants and give them to him. Then we walk around to the shady side of the building. “Now I'll go make the deal,” Gordo says as he shoves the boxes into the front of his shirt.

“Are you going to do it right now?” I ask.

“It's got to be today. He doesn't work in the office tomorrow. Give me six,” Gordo says and tucks the boxes under his arm.

Alquilino and Angelita are walking toward us as a kid wearing thick black glasses walks out of the dormitory. Alquilino checks his watch and looks at the kid.

“That must be him,” Gordo says. “He's right on time.” Then he steps out of the shadows.

The kid squints into the bright sunlight and starts walking across the red dirt yard to the office. Alquilino slips the letter he and Angelita wrote on behalf of our possibly arriving uncle into Gordo's hand. Keeping his eyes on his prey, Gordo tucks the letter into his pocket, catches up to Paco, and taps him on the shoulder,
“¿Oye, Paco, como estas?”
Gordo says as if they were long-lost friends. I can see him lifting his shirt to give the kid a glimpse of the cereal boxes. Paco takes the bait; he follows Gordo to the swamp side of the building.

A few minutes later Gordo strolls back around the
corner smiling. “Six boxes to start and then six more when he finishes,” he boasts.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“Wait,” Angelita says. “We have to wait for Paco to type the letter, then wait to get on the trip to Miami so we can mail the letter, then we wait for it to come back.”

That night, right before they turn the lights off, I try to draw a picture of the map on the director's wall but I didn't have an animal or a thing to remember the shape by. So I draw the humped crocodile of my island and three jagged triangles standing on one point: Havana. I could draw Florida easily, but the three triangles remind me of the broken plate, and then I start thinking about my mother. I close my drawing book as fast as I can and then as I slide it under the mattress the lights go out.

“Good night, Alquilino. Good night, Gordo.”

Every Friday after breakfast, Caballo pins up a list with the names of the kids that will be going to Miami on Saturday. Those kids are given two dollars each, crammed into the station wagon, and let loose in Miami for the whole day. They always come back with smiles on their faces and great stories about the huge banana splits they ate and the strange people they met.

Angelita says that Caballo is the one that chooses who goes and who doesn't. If you did or said something he
didn't like or if you didn't give him your dessert from your tray, you could count on not being on the list.

In the morning Marta, one of the older girls, checks the list then turns around disgusted. “This isn't fair!” she says in front of everybody. “Why do I have to be Caballo's friend to go to Miami?” She looks around to see if anyone else agrees with her, but they all look away—no one says a word.

When she sees Caballo standing by the wall, she shakes her head and glares at the crowd. “Look at you, you're like a flock of scared sheep! Bah, bah, bah,” she says, as she pushes into the crowd. That was the first time anyone has objected or said anything about Caballo in public.

Our young English teacher is nothing like the one in my school in Havana. She has long blond hair, smiles all the time, and brings a guitar to class every day.

Because her class is overcrowded, she announces that anyone who can already speak English doesn't have to take the class. When Alquilino and Gordo get up to leave, I don't follow them out. I can understand English pretty well, but I can't speak as well as they can and I like the teacher.

I watch Alquilino walk to the other shaded picnic table where Marta is teaching a group of girls how to weave hats out of palm fronds. They're getting really good at it; they can make them big and floppy or small like a baseball cap with a brim. Marta's hats are the most beautiful; they have swans swimming on top.

The teacher strums a chord on the guitar to get our attention. Then she tells us about the song she is going to teach us, and then patiently pronounces each word for us. I don't know why she picks these strange songs we've never heard of. It would be easier if we could sing the ones we all know by heart, the songs that we listened to every day on the radio and T.V. shows in Havana.

She plays a song about a guy who wishes he had a hammer. No one seems to understand what the song is about but we all sing along just to be polite. In the middle of the hammer song one of the kids starts singing the words to an American song that was playing on the radio in Havana right before we left. Everybody knew it. “She wore an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini,” he sings in a too-high voice, as we drone on, “If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.” After a couple of verses the song starts to sound a lot more interesting.

“If I had a teeny-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini we'd wear it in the morning!” We sing as our teacher plays her guitar and smiles. We make the words match the tune and the song rolls on and on, until we have a huge group singing about a guy with a hammer who wishes he had the teeny-weeny, yellow polka-dot bikini.

Caballo and his friends are standing at the edge of the crowd just watching—definitely not singing. When the teacher stops playing her guitar, we keep on singing. She tries to get us to stop, but we keep singing.

I can tell Caballo doesn't like what's going on. He's pointing at us and talking with his friends. He has a weird look in his eye: angry, but afraid at the same time. Suddenly he and his helpers start running around us, pushing and chasing us, trying to break up our happy singing flock, but there are too many of us and too few of them to keep us apart. When they give up, they trot off to find shade, but we keep singing.

As we walk to the baseball field for our afternoon game, I can hear the song mixing in with the splashing and yelling coming from the pool. The girls weaving the hats are singing it best. Marta has organized them into a choir with high and low parts and now the song sounds like something you would hear in a church.

While I wait for my turn at bat I'm drawing a picture of
El Fideo,
the noodle, up on the pitcher's mound and Pepe at the plate swinging an oversized bat. The barely human jumble of noodly lines I used for the lanky Fideo look just like the way he moves. I smile because it's the fourth inning and I can hear people singing. I know why they're still singing. This is the first time we didn't let Caballo push us around, the very first time that we stuck together and it was us against him.

When I look up from my drawing I see Caballo and four older boys walk up behind Pepe. Caballo grabs the top of Pepe's bat, pulls it out of his hands, and then pushes him
away. Pepe jumps back in front of Caballo. He stands there with his lower lip sticking out, but Caballo just brushes past him and starts pawing at the dirt around the plate.

“Let's see what you got, Fideo!” Caballo yells. Pepe stands next to the plate for a few seconds then he kicks some dirt in Caballo's direction.

Caballo doesn't notice, he's pointing the bat at Fideo. “What are you waiting for?” he yells.

Fideo holds up the glove and announces, “My arm hurts. Who wants to relieve me?”

When nobody volunteers, Gordo starts walking up to the pitcher's mound.

Angelita is trying to wave Gordo away. “Alquilino, don't let him pitch.”

“Why not? He's a good pitcher,” Alquilino answers.

“You don't understand, that's why he shouldn't pitch,” Angelita says and then runs to the mound and I follow her. “Gordo!” she says, “maybe you should let me pitch.”

“No thanks, Angelita! I got this one,” Gordo says confidently.

Angelita leans in close. “Gordo, why do you think nobody wants to pitch to Caballo? You can't win against Caballo; if you strike him out, you'll make him look bad, then he'll get you back.”

Gordo is not listening. “Angelita, this is baseball. It's a game,” he says and smiles at her.

We all know that to Gordo, baseball is not a game. Gordo plays to win and he takes it seriously. That's why he's so good.

Caballo was still kicking at the dirt and rubbing the red dust on the handle of the bat. “Sit down, Angelita,” he yells. I'm going to teach the shrimp a lesson.”

Fideo hands Gordo the glove. “I'm not really a pitcher,” he says, “I just like to wear the glove.” The beat-up pitcher's and catcher's mitts are the only gloves in the camp.

Gordo watches Caballo doing his batting ritual. Every player has one—usually copied from their favorite major leaguer, a pull on the pant leg, the practice swing, and then the batting face. Caballo crowds the plate and points the bat at him menacingly. “What are you waiting for, rag arm?”

“Hey, rag arm! Pitcher's got a rag arm!” Caballo's friends yell from the sideline.

Gordo rears back, and then fires a rising fastball, high and inside, brushing Caballo back on his heels.

“Strike!” the catcher calls.

“You're blind! That was a ball!” Caballo shouts as he swaggers back to the plate. “Hey wild man, you have to do better than that!”

Now Caballo's choir is chanting, “Wild man, wild man!”

Gordo winds up and spins a curveball, straight at Caballo's head. He ducks as the pitch brakes over the inside corner of the plate.

“Strike two!” The catcher sings.

Now Gordo has Caballo in the palm of his hand.

I've watched Gordo pitch to hundreds of batters, and I know when he gets the upper hand on a batter sometimes he'll toy with them, just to show them who's boss, then strike them out. But I'm hoping that Gordo got Angelita's message; it would be best for all of us if he lets him hit the ball.

The cafeteria, pool, and the shaded picnic tables have emptied. The sidelines are packed with hat girls wearing their half-finished creations, and kids in wet bathing suits. Everybody in the camp has lined up to cheer or boo as Caballo struts around home plate, acting as if he's the one in control of the situation. The only ones missing are Dolores and the director.

When Angelita runs out to the mound, I follow her out again.

“Hey, shrimp, you got a sore arm, too?” Caballo yells.

Angelita shakes Gordo's arm. “What's the matter with you?”

“What do you mean?” Gordo asks, as he sweeps the dirt off the rubber.

“You better give him something easy, right down the middle,” Angelita hisses at him.

I wait for Angelita to step back, then I whisper, “Gordo, remember what happened with the almonds!” Gordo looks at me likes he's going to hit me.

“Shut up, Julian. That kid was a snitch—he had it coming.”

I grab his arm. “You knew that if they found out you hit
him they would send us all away! You did it anyway, to show him you're the boss, that you're bigger than him!” I yell into his face not caring if he hits me.

Gordo pulls his hat down over his eyes. His left hand is knotted into a fist so I get ready for the punch, but he spins away toward center field.

“They'll send us away again!” I say to him knowing he's not going to listen to me. Why should he? He's got Caballo right where he wants him; it's his big chance to get him back, be the hero of the camp. I understand how he feels.

When Gordo turns back toward the plate he's got that crazy, mad-bull face, and now I can't talk to him. It's no use. I know Gordo, he's going to strike him out.

“They're going to send us away,” I mumble.

“Baseball is baseball,” I hear him say as I walk back to the bench.

On the mound Gordo is driving his toe into the dirt over and over again, raising a cloud of red dust that drifts toward the plate. The crowd is chanting, “Strike him out, strike him out!” Every kid in the camp, except for Caballo's cronies, is singing and chanting, rooting for Gordo.

When Gordo starts his windup, he kicks his right leg up high. At the peak of his move, he's like a catapult, all wound up and straining to let go. Then his leg drops, and his arm swings around slow, not blurry fast as I expected. Then the ball floats out of his hand, nice and slow, right down the middle.

When Caballo connects, the bat makes a sweet wood on leather sound, and I don't even have to look . . .

“It's gone!” Caballo yells as the ball flies high over the fence, and then drops deep into the swamp.

“Home run!” he bellows. No one else is cheering; the only sound to be heard is the complaints of the red-winged blackbirds rising out of the swamp where the ball fell.