You Can Always Count on Them ...

I am an only child.

I like to think that this is because I broke the mold, but I know better.

What was broken was my parents’ heart seeing their country being destroyed piece by piece, province by province, town by town, street by street, home by home, family by family, person by person. They chose not to bring another child into Castro’s orgy of destruction.

Their mission became to get me out of Cuba. When I was around five years old, I overheard a scary conversation between my mother and a friend who had asked her why she didn’t have any more children. My mother told her friend, sobbing, that she would rather die than bring another life into Cuba to suffer and struggle for no good reason, (“a sufrir y pasar trabajo, por gusto”). She said all she cared about was “getting this kid out of here before they kill him.” She was convinced that my mouth and the revolution were on a collision course. I wasn’t very fond of the olive drabbed “milicianos” thugs who were put in charge of destroying Cuban society and took their mission very seriously. And I had my own mission - joder.

For example, in first grade I was given a revolutionary “talk” a “charla”, at school. One day, probably a Friday, they had us lined up outside in the schoolyard just before the commencement of some revolutionary program and they started counting heads. I took offense to that and said “no me cuentes, que no soy gallina”-"don’t count me, I’m not a hen"-under my breath. I didn't exactly know what that meant, but it sounded pretty rebellious. The revolutionary zealot "teacher" overheard me. After the program, I was taken to the office where they very nicely said what they always said. The same infernal speech…kind of like Obam…but that’s another post… “Mijito, tu sabes….blah, blah, blah, the revolution, blah, blah, blah, Fidel, blah, blah, blah……”

So I didn't blame my mother for the way she felt and I saw her point, but she could at least have gotten me a puppy!?!

Seriously, as I grew older, I always wondered if I would have had kids myself had I not been rescued from the island prison. I really see no point in consciously doing so – as cold and as nihilistic as that sounds, But hey, I’m not a very warm and fuzzy person. I blame Che. They told me to be like him and in a way, I am.

ANYWAY, the reason I bring this up is because the Cuban regime has announced that for the second straight year, the Cuban population has declined. By 1,889. Yes, in a country of 11.2 million people, they can tell you, with totalitarian precision, that in 2007 there were exactly 1,889 less Cubans in Cuba then there were the year before. Not 1,885 not 1,890. Not 2,000, which, by the way, is an immaterial .0168069425%. No, 1,889. EXACTLY.

I wonder how they counted the 5 who were on a Coast Guard cutter on the way back to the Cuban concentration camp after being “intercepted” at sea on December 31, 2007? Would they have been numbers 1,890 to 1,894 or where they included in the 1,889?

Anyway, thanks to my mom, I’m one of the APPROXIMATELY 2,000,000 Cuban exiles that escaped Castro's animal farm or concentration camp-pick your metaphor-and are not counted like livestock or inmates.

Four Freaking Fritas

This afternoon, after lunch, I took a quick little visit over to Babalu Blog to see what was shaking over there.

Then I saw the pictures. Pictures of “fritas”. –with what Marta calls angel hair fries! The aroma seemed to seep out of the screen and go straight to my brain.

I don’t know if Marta is a hypnotist or what, but in her post she swore that the fritas were a time machine. And I can’t tell you if it was the imaginary smell of the pictures on my screen or the subliminal words, but there I was in a bus in Havana with my parents and my aunt.

Back then, there were still real buses in Havana and they smelled of the worst unfiltered diesel fumes. They must have put extra sulfur in that diesel to give it that special burned rotten egg –diesel from a Havana bus smell. My stomach is turning right now from both remembering the diesel fumes and from nostalgia. I swear. “But that’s not important right now.”

So anyway, we were in this bus and I’m nauseous from the fumes. I don’t remember where we were or where we were coming from but I know we were going home. My aunt was a very street wise and astute woman and she ordered us off the bus. So off we went.

You see, there this huge “molote” (group of people) on a street corner. And a huge line. The people were in line buying something-food. Food! Even better – take-out food- the type you didn’t have to use the ration card for, This was a miracle. It meant that we could eat whatever they were selling and save one day of food. This kind of thing didn’t happen everyday.

It was hot and it was getting dark and I could still smell the sulfur in my nostrils only now it was mixed with a sweet greasy smell I had never smelled before. Fritas! Whatever they were, they must be excellent because people were desperate to sink their teeth into one, Or maybe they were just hungry. In those days there was a lot of that going around.

So we get within two or three people from the window. Now, the whole time you were in one of these interminable lines for food, you always ran the risk that they would run out of whatever they were selling and you would have stood in line, for hours, for nothing, so I was nervous. I was a worrywart of a child. I worried a lot, but then again I was a Cuban gusano- I had reason to worry. This time, we would be successful. They would not run out of the greasy (more like rancid) patties they were calling fritas. But as always, there was a problem.

They would only let you buy a frita if there was a person physically there to eat it. And OF COURSE, there was a one-per person limit. The problem was that there were four of us and five mouths to feed because my grandmother was at home and we wanted to bring her a dammed rancid frita, but we couldn’t.

My aunt, the streetwise one, (my parents are saps), pulled a kid out of the crowd to stand in as the fifth person so we could buy five freaking fritas and take one home to my poor grandmother.

The omnipotent frita man behind the barred window decided to exert his revolutionary authority and deny the fifth frita due to headcount fraud. He knew the stand-in from the neighborhood.

Under normal circumstances my father would have forced fed Mr. Omnipotent frita man the four freaking fritas in reverse-that is to say, the next day he would regurgitate them. But we had to sheepishly accept the frita man’s headcount decision and go home. After all, four fritas were better than none. And it wasn’t worth risking an impending get out of hell free card over four greasy patties that probably didn’t even taste good when they were made the month before.

It was a quiet bus ride home. Even my aunt didn’t talk, Two miracles in one afternoon! On the bright side, the potent greasy smell of the fritas drowned out the smell of the sulfured up Havana bus diesel.

When we got home, we proceeded to tell my grandmother the joyous news: We got food! Four fritas and five people. They were getting ready to split the greasy, smelly loot when my dad chimed in “I’m not even hungry anymore” and walked away if a Cuban father huff.

The man looked miserable. Glassy eyed and pissed because he had to swallow his pride and be emasculated by the revolution AGAIN, the old man walked into the darkened living room with his shoulders slouching and his hands twitching perhaps telling the frita man off in his head. But, who cares? Let’s eat!

I took one bite. One bite! I could not eat. Don’t be silly, not because of my father. The Frita was horrible. I started crying. I was threatened, but unlike my father, I had my pride, I would not be forced fed fritas!

Eventually they made me a mayonnaise sandwich. (my favorite to this day) For some reason there was always mayonnaise around.
I don’t know what ever happened to that greasy, smelly, revolutionary frita with one bite, but I can assure you, my father didn’t touch it.