90 Miles to Havana (15 page)

Angelita and I are dancing on a groaning table like its New Year's Eve, as if our revolution is over and Caballo the dictator has grabbed all the desserts and flown away. Now I understand why those people in Havana were throwing chairs through the windows and ripping parking meters out of the ground with their bare hands.

When Caballo finally comes back with the director, they just stand in the back of the room with their arms crossed. The director isn't yelling or commanding us to stop. I guess he's just letting our springs unwind.

It doesn't take long before we are too tired to shout, climb, or sing anymore. Almost all at once and without a word from the director we sit down on the sticky benches and wait for him to walk up to the front of the room.

In a calm, even tone the director reminds us that we are here as guests and that destroying the things that were given to us out of charity and goodwill makes us look like ungrateful, wild animals.

As he speaks many hang their heads, but Marta does not. She stands up and in a calm voice says, “We are not ungrateful, wild animals, and if you don't listen to our complaints about Caballo, this will not be the last time this happens.”

The director looks surprised. “Are you threatening me, young lady?”

Marta stares back at him unfazed.

“There will be no English lessons,” he announces. “No trip to Miami, no breakfast, lunch, or dinner until everything is cleaned up. Romeo!” he yells. Caballo and his gang come back carrying brooms, mops, and buckets. They made us sweep, wash, and polish all day until the cafeteria was actually cleaner than it had ever been. Right before dinner we were sent out with bologna sandwiches while Caballo and his friends sat down to a hot meal in the clean cafeteria.

After our cafeteria revolution, Caballo watched us like a hawk. If he saw more than two people talking he or one of his helpers would swagger over and break up the discussions. We had to pass notes at the baseball games and communicate with hand signals.

While Marta and Angelita tried to think up a more civilized way of getting rid of Caballo, José and Gustavo were busy gathering things from the kitchen and the cleaning closets. They would disappear for hours and wouldn't tell me what they were doing.

“Marta is not going to like this,” I said, when they laid out their plan and asked me to help.

“Neither is Caballo.” Gustavo smiled, his face glowing with pride and anticipation.

Today is the first Sunday of the month and everyone is in bathing suits waiting for the station wagon that brings the new arrivals. Lately, Caballo has been welcoming all newcomers with a personal dunking to make sure they know he is the boss.

When I see the station wagon turn into the camp, I signal by lifting my hat and running my hand through my hair. Gustavo and José are standing by the side door to the kitchen. Gustavo lifts his hat and then they disappear inside. The station wagon drives into the yard and we all rush out to greet the new kids. I make sure to reach the doors first. Instead of yanking them open, I lean into them and cover the handles, stalling so that when Caballo gets there, Gustavo and José are right behind him.

Caballo pulls one of the two newcomers out. We crowd around, pushing real close as he hustles his victim to the pool. With the light touch of experienced pickpockets, Gustavo and José stuff Caballo and the newcomer's pockets with the frozen packets of a powerful red dye that Gustavo made.

Caballo pushes the new kid in and then jumps in after him but no one else joins them. We all stand around the pool as Caballo dunks his hapless victim, and we watch for signs that the dye packets are melting.

At first it's just delicate tendrils radiating red out of their pockets, but then as Caballo thrashes about, long red
fingers dissolve into rich crimson veils, and then turn into a billowing, dangerous-looking cloud.

Spellbound, like spectators at a fireworks display, we shout and point at the vivid, unexpected color. When Caballo sees the red skirt of dye billowing around him he leaps out of the pool, his hair, skin, bathing suit, even his toes are all red. We're laughing as he points at us and orders his friends to grab us, but they're all laughing too. Caballo chases us, but we scatter in every direction. Gustavo smiles at the edge of the crowd because the longer Caballo waits to wash the dye off the longer it will stay on his skin.

The next day Caballo is wearing a long shirt and pants when he comes out to make his announcement. He holds up a piece of paper and reads, “No one will be allowed in the pool until the guilty ones come forward and confess!”

Gustavo and I ducked into the back of the crowd as he finished. Gustavo nodded proudly at Caballo, whose hair, neck, wrists, and hands were still bright red. Gustavo whispered in my ear, “That dye has staying power.”

Now that we can't swim, we're doomed to roast in the sun. For the last four days, a hot and gloomy crowd has been gathering after lunch to watch Caballo splash alone in the cool waters of the pool. There are no trees for shade, and it's as hot as an oven inside the metal buildings. More than once I've heard kids grumbling that the culprits who dyed Caballo should turn themselves in for the good of all. They never complained before, but this time Caballo took away the one privilege that we could not live without.

Angelita and I were helping Dolores in the kitchen when she pulled us aside and said, “All them tricks you been pulling on Caballo, they're not working. He's still here, and
meaner than ever. I hear you can't use the pool now. If it was me, I'd try something else!”

“What else can we do, Dolores?” Angelita asked.

“First off, by now you should know that you don't fight fire with fire; you fight fire with water,” Dolores declared.

“What do you mean?”

Dolores leaned in close and whispered, “Look, I can't be starting no trouble here, but I will tell you this, you're going about it the wrong way. You've got to do it democratic, like we do it here, not like they did it back home. Think about it: what did you get for all that fighting and revolution?”

“A dictator,” Angelita said.

“You got to get everybody together, write petitions, call your congressman! And then vote that scoundrel out! Do it democratic.”

“What's a petition?” I asked.

“I don't think we have a congressman,” Angelita said.

“You don't know what a petition is?” Dolores shook her head and then looked up at the clock. “No time to explain now; I've got to get my shopping list for next week's meals to the director before he leaves,” she said as she tore off her apron. “Go to the library!”

Dolores was heading out the door when Angelita asked, “Are you going to help us?”

Dolores shook her head. “No. I need this job. If they find out I'm putting ideas in your heads, it's good-bye, Dolores.”

“Is that democratic?” Angelita asked sarcastically.

Dolores looked at Angelita as she pushed open the screen door. “It's like I said, Angelita, I need this job.” Then she slammed the door shut.

“Let's go ask Marta,” I said. “She's always reading—she knows everything.”

Marta listened closely while we told her exactly what Dolores had said. When we finished, her fingers went back to weaving the palm fronds into her new hat creation: a broad-brimmed campesino hat with a swan on top.

Finally, Marta put down the hat. “Dolores is right,” she said. “It's not working. We've been doing things the old way, the way we learned it. But he's better at it than we are. We have to learn a new way, the democratic way. That's what we've been looking for.” Marta stood up and paced back and forth behind the bench.

“There are more of us than there are of them. We have to organize everybody, write a petition, and get signatures. We'll find people outside the camp that will listen to us; if they can't help us then maybe they'll know someone else who can.”

“Who's got a pencil?” Marta asked as she dug a piece of paper out of her pocket.

“I do,” I said.

Marta slid the paper over. “Now we can make a plan!”

We made a list of all the things that had to be done, put them in order, and put our initials next to the jobs we thought we could do best. We showed the list to José,
Ramón, and Gustavo so that they could pick their jobs. Finally we talked about what a petition is and what we wanted it to say.

Marta warned us that until we were ready to start, we had to keep our plans a secret.

“I'm sure that Caballo will find out eventually, but we need time to get the names and then make the calls. If we try to make all these calls from the phone in the director's office, Caballo will find out what we are up to and put a stop to it right away. We'll use the pay phone outside the dormitory,” she said.

When everything was ready, Angelita and Marta started collecting signatures for the petitions and telephone numbers, while Ramón and José collected the dimes and nickels we would need for the pay phone. My job was to make little drawings to give to the kids who donated money.

Angelita has been bringing me the paper, mostly airmail stationary, thin as onion skin. I fold it in four and then, using the edge of the picnic table to get it straight, rip it along the folds.

I reach for the small stack of the almost-square blank pieces by my left hand and draw the first thing that comes to mind: Marta's hats, airplanes, the camp station wagon, Caballo with a beard and cigar in his mouth. When I finish a drawing I place it in the pile by my right hand, then reach for another piece of paper.

I'm on my last piece of paper when Angelita bursts out of the dormitory.

She's walking really fast toward the picnic table, looking back at the door every other step.

“Put them away,” she says and then points at my drawings. “Caballo is coming and he's
mad
.”

That's all I need to hear. I collect all my drawings and then slide them under my legs.

I can hear Caballo's footsteps as I start a sun and lollipop tree drawing like I used to do when I was a little kid. Caballo's shadow falls across my smiling sun and then his big hand lands on my box of pastels. They're very soft. If he presses any harder on them they'll turn to dust.

“You think you're so smart—you and your little friends.” He breathes into my face. His skin is blotchy red, the dye is starting to wear off.

I had never looked at Caballo this closely before. The egg we had for breakfast is still wedged in between his teeth and gums, and I never noticed how the little hairs growing in the space between his eyes are trying to make two eyebrows into one.

“I know everything that goes on here!” Caballo says, pointing a pastel green finger back at the camp. He flicks a drop of sweat from the tip of his red nose and leaves a green smudge in between his nostrils. Ever since the pool trick he's been real jumpy and nervous. He looks as if he's been sleeping with one eye open, probably waiting for the next surprise. I almost feel sorry for him, because of what
Angelita told me about bullies. He can't help himself. He's carrying a heavy bag that he can't put down.

He drops a piece of paper on top of my drawing. It's the front page of the petition and the very first name, the first signature, is mine.

“I've known all along. I've been watching you, waiting for the right moment.”

“Where did you get that?” I ask, trying to control my trembling voice.

“I have friends everywhere!” Caballo boasts. “Friends who want to help me, not people like you who sneak around behind my back!”

I can't look up at him so I stare at my hands.

“You better start packing. The car will be here tomorrow afternoon to take you and two other kids to the airport.”

When I don't look up, Caballo asks, “Don't you want to know where you're going?”

When I don't answer, he picks up my box of pencils and chalks. He turns it over in his hands.

“I see you carrying these around with you everywhere you go.”

He wants me to beg him to put them down. When I don't say anything, he drops the box on the ground. As I reach for it, he steps on it. I hear the chalk crunching under his heel.

I want to yell and kick him as hard as I can, but I can't because that's what he wants me to do. He wants me to get
mad and do something, so that then he can squash me like a bug. But the real reason I'm not moving is that he's still too big, and I'm still too scared.

My hand is trembling as I grab my one remaining pastel. He's standing over me, his big fists ready at his sides. I start drawing again and it seems like an eternity before he turns and then walks away. When he's out of sight I get down on my knees and sort through the crushed box. Most of the pastels have turned to dust and almost every pencil has been splintered. I get up and kick the box away. I'm as mad at myself as I am at Caballo. I'm such a coward.

Angelita puts her arm over my shoulder. “I'm sorry about your box, Julian. He shouldn't have done that.”

“It's my fault,” I huff. “I shouldn't have let him ever see it. He knows he can do anything he wants to me and nothing will happen to him!”

“Don't be mad at yourself. I'll find out who's leaving with you, and then we'll know where you're going,” Angelita says.

“Don't bother, Angelita. It doesn't matter. I'm not old enough to go to the orphanage where they sent my brothers.” I ground my last crayon into the paper. “All the kids my age are going to the other place. I'm not going there.” One of the boys that was sent there had written a letter that was passed around. We all read it. He had gone over the last line so many times with his ballpoint pen that he had worn through the paper. “No matter what, don't let them send you here!” It said.

“You have to go,” Angelita says. “They'll make you.”