The Prince of los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood (30 page)

The sound of salsa—congas, trumpets, flutes—grew louder and louder as I left the beach and headed toward my family. The party was in full swing when I arrived. My cousin Danita was stepping side to side and back and forth, swaying her wide hips like a cabaret girl at El Tropicana, as she claimed she had
almost
been once, when she was “a little less heavy.” But judging from the sight of her corpulent torso stuffed into a one-piece swimsuit, it was hard to imagine her ever being svelte enough to be a dancer. Regardless, she
did
catch every beat. She grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me in to dance with her, but I squirmed away, complaining I was tired from swimming. Salsa just wasn’t cool—that was what all
los viejos
danced. And besides, despite dancing at Deycita’s
Quinces,
and all the times I’d danced with my
tías,
I still hadn’t learned how to salsa very well.

I spotted
tío
Pepé setting up the domino table and went over to help him. Ten in the morning, and he was probably on his fifth Schlitz, cussing like a madman because he couldn’t keep the table from wobbling. I found a couple bottle caps and wedged them under one of the legs to steady the table. He called me a genius, and to show his appreciation he handed me one of his
butifarras,
homemade Cuban sausages that he was grilling on a hibachi. “
Ay,
Pepé, your sausage is so big and juicy,” Cousin Danita teased him, the first of many sexual double entendres to follow throughout the day, from women and men alike.

“
Mira, al fin
—he came!” Mamá shouted when she spotted Ariel walking toward us through the pine trees. I thought about running up to him and greeting him with a bear hug, but I played it cool, eyeing him cautiously from a distance. Dressed like an old Cuban man from the waist up, he wore a V-neck T-shirt that showed off the San Lázaro medallion nestled in his hairy chest. But his cutoff jean shorts, tight around his thighs, were certainly not old-school Cuban. Neither was Yakson, trotting and panting off-leash alongside him. They were an odd couple: the bug-eyed pug seemed even homelier and pudgier beside Ariel’s statuesque build and machoness, though both had a peculiar gait. Ariel was slightly bowlegged, which I found oddly attractive—his thick, stout calves helped disguise the fact. And both were affectionate: Yakson licking everyone’s sandal-exposed toes as Ariel shook hands enthusiastically with all the men as if they were
his
relatives. The women giggled as he charmed them with hello kisses and compliments, addressing even the fifty-something ladies as
señoritas
.

Yakson dashed toward me, and Ariel came after him. I wondered if Ariel had shown up just because of his affection for Mamá, or if he also wanted to see me again. “
¡Primo!
Good to see you,
broder,
” he said warmly. His teeth reminded me of Chiclets—perfectly white and square and glossy. Knowing what to expect, I didn’t resist his hug. I hugged him right back, felt his ribs and chest against mine. “Man, you look like a movie star! Those must have cost you
un ojo,
” he said, referring to my Ray-Ban sunglasses that he playfully pulled off my head and put on himself. “No, you’re the movie star,
primo,
” I teased back. “No way,
’mano,
Yakson here is the real star.” Ariel laughed as he tried to put the sunglasses on the dog, speaking to him in baby talk: “You love me, don’t you?
Sí-sí-sí
. You love me,
¿verdad?
I know Yakson, I know.” I asked about Yakson as the dog licked Ariel’s strong, fleshy hands. They were also delicate, with perfectly kept fingernails, each lunule like a crescent moon in a fairy tale. “He was a stray . . .” Ariel explained, “. . . ran right up to me at third base in the middle of baseball practice at school. Can you believe that,
primo
?
Así fue
. So I named him Yakson—you know, like Reggie Yakson—you know—from
los
New York
Yanquis
.”

The mystery of the dog’s name was solved, though I didn’t follow baseball, or any sport for that matter. “So what school do you go to?” I asked. “Hialeah High—it’s killer there,
primo,
I love it,” he said. I had never heard anyone use “killer” and
“primo”
in the same sentence. As if reading each other’s minds, we both sat down at the same time, face-to-face at a picnic table crowded with platters of
pastelitos, butifarras,
and
tía
Gloria’s famous pimiento
bocaditos,
which I nibbled at as we talked. “But Hialeah High is
so
Cuban. How could you like it there?” I asked, knowing that Hialeah was known as a school full of Marielito refugees. “Yeah,
primo,
that’s
why
I love it—feels like I never left Cuba. You know it’s not easy fitting in when you come over like I did,
broder
. I am a
cubanaso,
man—those are
mi gente,
” he said, striking his fist against his heart.

“So how come you like Alphaville so much? That’s not very
cubanaso,
” I said. “What do you mean,
primo
? I like what I like, bro—and I love
el
New Wave. Don’t you?” “Yeah, that’s cool. I’m into New Wave too, bro,” I said. We spent a good hour comparing our favorite bands—Adam Ant, Bronski Beat, Blondie. It was obvious that he loved music, and he seemed to know more about it than I did. I supposed there was nothing
wrong
with a
cubanaso
liking New Wave, or wearing puka shells, or loving a pug. I had never met anyone quite like him, but maybe there was nothing to figure out. If I had been born and raised in Cuba, maybe I’d be a lot like Ariel, I thought, as he went on quoting album titles and band members’ names, lyrics, and chart ratings. “We should go to a concert sometime,” I suggested. “I think Depeche Mode is coming to town soon.” “Yeah, I can take us anytime,
primo,
” he said. “Anytime.”

“You got a girlfriend?” I asked, feeling I had to change the subject again. “No. I just broke up with my girl,” he explained, “
Tremenda mujerona,
but man what a pain. Wouldn’t let me do nothing,
broder,
wanted me to call her like every five seconds. I had to let that shit go, you know what I mean?” “Yeah,
broder,
” I played along, answering in his Spanglish. He asked me the same question: “No—no girlfriend,” I told him, and left it at that. “
Mentira,
” he said, “all these
cubanitas
in Miami must be crazy for you,
primo;
they love gringos like you.” I never thought of myself as a gringo, though sometimes I wished I were. Feeling a bit taunted, I asked him what he meant, and he explained: “Nothing,
primo, te estoy jodiendo
. It’s just that—you know—you grew up here. Cuban girls like that. You know good English, you go to a nice private school—you’re different, man. You’re not a New Wave
cubanaso,
like me.” He laughed, but there was a certain mellowness in his eyes, his face. Unlike the rest of my family, Ariel seemed to admire me, my gringoness.

“Close your eyes,
primo,
” Ariel said. “What? No way!” I protested, but he insisted. “Come on.
Anda,
what are you afraid of,
primo
? I’m not going to do anything—don’t be a chicken.” He egged me on until I closed my eyes—against my better judgment. In a flash I felt something creamy all over my lips and chin. I opened my eyes to realize he had smeared one of
tía
Gloria’s
bocaditos
all over my face.
“¡Cabrón!”
I shouted, and reached for a
bocadito
to get my revenge. But before I could, he took off laughing and shouting, “No! No,
primo
! No!” I chased him through the camp, onto the beach, and lunged into the water after him. He was fast, but I caught up, jumped on his back, and crammed the
bocadito
in his mouth. “How do you like it,
cubanaso
?,” I teased him, both of us laughing and panting and splashing each other.

We took off our soaked T-shirts and rinsed our faces. “Keep on eating those
bocaditos
and you’ll lose that beautiful body of yours,” he said, wiping my chin clean with his thumb, standing inches away from me, his eyes the exact blue-green of the sea, the fine hairs on his chest matted against his wet skin. No man’s touch had ever felt like that; no man had called me beautiful like that. I tried not to feel what I knew I was feeling, or want what I knew I was wanting. “
Gracias
. You too,
broder,
” I said, lowering my eyes, not knowing what else to say or do. Ariel didn’t respond. He stared off into the ocean for a moment, his eyes as frozen and lifeless as
el lechón’s
had been. His playful mood had changed. He became agitated and nervous, repeating, “
Vamos. Vamos
. Let’s go. I don’t like being in the water too much. We need to get back.” I wondered if it was something I had said, or hadn’t said, as we plodded through the water toward the shore.

We made our way back to the camp where the men had crowded into a clearing a few yards away from the picnic tables. They were downing Budweisers and shouting playful insults at each other while arguing about how to cook the piglet in something called a
caja china,
which literally meant “Chinese box.” Why not a
caja cubana?
I thought. The closest anyone in my family had been to China was Kim’s Palace in Güecheste. I asked Ariel what it was. “You really don’t know?
Primo,
you don’t know anything,” he said. I shook my head. “It’s the old Cuban way of roasting pigs in a pit in the ground. You’ll see,” he said.

Mamá called the men a bunch of useless drunks. “
Esos borrachos
won’t listen to me,” she said, and asked Ariel to intervene. “Maybe they’ll listen to you.” Ariel broke into the crowd, raising his voice above the other men:
“¿Eh, qué pasa aquí, cojones?
You
viejos
have been away from Cuba so long you forgot how to cook
un lechón
?
Qué pena,
” he teased them. The men admitted it had been a while since any of them had roasted a pig, and complained that the sandy soil kept caving in around the edges. They had to keep digging and digging. By the time Ariel stepped in, the pit had grown to over five feet wide. “Are you going to roast an elephant or a pig?” Ariel continued the banter. The guy who moments ago had touched my face and called me beautiful was suddenly an old-school Cuban just like my father and my
tíos,
the men bantering back at him. “
Mira, mojoncito,
why don’t you go help the women?,”
tío
Mauricio told him, but Ariel remained cool and confident. He grabbed the shovel out of
tío
Pepé’s hands. “Be careful,
señorito,
you might break a sweat,” Pepé said, and took a swig from his beer.

“Come on,
primo,
let’s show these
viejos
how it’s done,” Ariel said. “No way—I don’t know what to do,” I objected, but he assured me it was no big deal. Following his lead, we snapped a few branches and gathered some stones. I placed them around the edges of the pit, working on my hands and knees while he shoveled and shoveled. Drops of his sweat rolled down his spine and shoulders, falling on the ground and on me. As the pit took shape, the remarks from the old men turned into praise:
Mira qué bien. ¡Eres un bárbaro! La verdad que sabe
. After we lined the pit with banana tree leaves, Papá and
tío
Mauricio carried the pig over in the roasting pan, removed the blanket, and set it down in the pit. We slid another, larger pan over the top of the pit, filled it with briquettes, and lit them up. Applause and pats on Ariel’s back—and mine—followed as we wiped our hands on our shorts, taking it all in. Ariel dared to pull two Budweisers out of the cooler and handed me one. “Now that’s a
caja china, primo
.
Salud,
” he cheered and we clinked our cans together. “You mean a
Cuban box,
right?” I joked, and he laughed with his whole body, though not with his eyes, which he kept sternly fixed on mine.

Papá gave us a sidelong glance, but I supposed he figured we had earned a break and said nothing about us drinking beer, or anything else he might have noticed. Instead, he called us over to join the rest of the men:
tío
Pepé, who had worn the same pair of Groucho Marx glasses since I was a kid;
tío
Regino with his thick yellow toenails and ear hair; Abuelo in swim trunks and the oxfords he wore even to the beach; my oldest cousin, Pablo, still a single
solterón
at age forty-something; and
tío
Pipo from the bodega, stuck in the fifties with his Elvis hairdo and a paunch spilling over his spandex shorts. Papá planted his bottle of Pinch whiskey in the sand and they gathered in a ring of lawn chairs around the roasting pig, taking turns engaging in their usual conversation:
Cuba was
un paraíso;
I had to leave everything to Castro
ese hijo de puta. La Revolución
ruined everything—I heard they can’t even make enough sugar anymore! I won’t visit
mi familia—qué va—
not until that bastard Castro is good and dead
.

As usual, I had nothing to add on the topic of Cuba, but Ariel did. He broke into the conversation: “
Bueno, Cuba siempre será Cuba,
Cuba will always be Cuba, and Cubans will always be Cuban,” he said boldly, taking a swig of his second beer. There was a pause as the roundtable of men assessed the boy who had showed them how to build a
caja china
.
“¡Coño, verdad!
You were raised in Cuba,” Papá acknowledged Ariel, then asked him, “Where are you from?” “
Bueno,
I was born in Cienfuegos but we moved to Palmira, and then to Hormiguero when I was nine,” he answered. The focus and tone of the conversation changed immediately. “
¿Mentira?
I was the bookkeeper at the sugar mill in Hormiguero,” Papá said. “Does
el viejo
Antonio still work there? Is he still alive?” Ariel paused before answering, “
Sí, sí, claro,
I remember him. He used to play
dominó
with my father all the time. He was alive when I left.” Then Abuelo asked, “What about my old
casita
? The one on the road to
la loma,
with the white brick and Spanish tile? Is it still there?” “Yes,
la casa
right across from the old Ramirez farm.
Mi primo
Elio and his
familia
live there now,” Ariel said, a bit surprised himself: “
¡Qué cosa!
I didn’t know that was your house.”