Cubop City

Luciano “Chano” Pozo, was the greatest rumbero who ever lived.  Legend has it that he could play in one rhythm, sing in another, and dance in a third.  People wouldn’t believe it, then they would go see him at the Conga or the Spotlite or wherever he was playing and listen and watch and be converted. Chano Pozo was the real thing, but even the good can be better, and sometimes, when you least expect it, they can be the best.  In music you can’t be the best all the time, everyone knows that.  Sometimes your head isn’t right or your spirit has crawled up a tree and refuses to be coaxed down.  Sometimes—it’s that simple—you had too much stuff the night before and you can’t play what the music demands of you.  But when it happens you can blow the roof off the place and send the audience into orbit.  With Chano it happened so frequently people thought he could call a saint to mount him at will and then he’d be off, racing into the forest, his hands turned white from the speed and the complexity of the rhythms.  When he came out of the forest, exhausted and dreary, he was on the edge of life itself, and his eyes, if you looked at them directly, could blind you with their fire, lit by Changó’s lightning. Possessed, con el santo encima as they say, Chano was a horse.  For hours he raced up and down mountains, across endless plains, into a night so thick only the saints could enter.

A few days before the feast of Changó, Chano dreamed that a panther was about to bite his neck.  In the dream was a sound of someone laughing. Across the street the beasts of the forest were pacing back and forth, contained by the thick vegetation that divides the past from the present.  The forest is a fearful place.  Everything bad happens there, and everything good too, though many times you cannot tell for years.  If you make a million dollars, is it good or bad?  And if you find a good woman?  And if you cut a man’s throat because he dishonored you?  Only the saints know beforehand and they won’t reveal the truth easily.  Chano could hear the roars of the beasts and he could hear their bodies as they moved through the foliage.

The panther came after Changó, the saint of lightning, had left Chano and returned to his lair in the forest.  The beast stood over Chano’s body, looking fiercely at him with yellow eyes, hungry but fearful of biting flesh as black as his.  When he woke, the panther leaped through the window.  Next to him Cacha was sleeping soundly.  He got up, walked over to the window, opened it, and looked down at the snow-covered sidewalk.  A set of human footprints led from one end of the street to the other then disappeared around the corner into the empty avenue.  Chano lit a cigarette and watched the snow come down, heavy and white like wet cotton.  Nothing like this in Havana, nothing this white or pretty.  He couldn’t remember playing the drums tonight but he knew he had from the tingling in his fingers and the rhythms filling his head like the thunder inside the trunks of hollow trees.

No, it wasn’t the thunder, it was the heart beating inside Cacha’s chest—cu-bop, cu-bop.  That’s what he heard all the time now, whether he was uptown or downtown, whether he was playing or sleeping or eating or making love to another woman.  It was Cacha in his ears, in his head, and in his blood.  She’d told him the same thing happened to her. She could hear his playing, she could feel his hands on her skin all over town.

When he was finished smoking, Chano flicked the butt toward the snow and went back to bed.  He needed the rest.  The next night he was playing at the Conga but first he had to find el Cabito, the dealer who’d sold him the bad weed, and square with him.  He didn’t want that bad energy on him.  The panther—Ekwe pantera—appeared three more times, and each time Chano woke, distraught and confused, wondering what it meant___ bad or good.  Snow came down more thickly and no cars passed, no one was out.  Asleep he’d heard the panther make a deep purr, then the panting again that smelled like raw meat.  In one dream the cat had placed its paw on the bed and sniffed around his throat and still in the dream, Chano invoked Yemayá and the beast moved away into the depths of the forest so that he could see only his yellow eyes.

Of course there’s a forest in New York City.  It’s everywhere, and every tree, every creature has a santo, an orisha if you prefer the Yoruba name, even that stunted tree surrounded by dog shit that grows outside your building.  The moon has a santo, the sun has a santo, the cockroach scurrying across the floor of your living room is a santo’s snack. The santos eat them like pork cracklings, then smack their lips.  Remember that the next time you step on one.

Around noon that day, after Cacha had left the house, he finally roused himself from bed, got dressed, and went to La Palma for breakfast. It had stopped snowing and the sun was out, but the temperature had gone down to the single digits and the wind blew down the avenue like a railroad train.  The fire inside counters the cold from outside, he’d always say to his friends, but that maxim didn’t keep his ears from stinging on his walk to the restaurant.

He sat at this favorite seat, the middle stool at the counter, and asked Simón the cook if he’d seen el Cabito around, but Simón avoided a direct answer, figuring he wasn’t in this world to inform on people’s whereabouts but to cook their food.  In the case of Chano it was two fried eggs, a large slice of pressed Cuban bread with butter, and a café con leche with three sugars.  A side order of ripe plantains.  Plantains for breakfast, you ask?  Yes. Like a South American. That’s what he liked.

A lot of people come around here, Simón, said.  They like my cooking.

When?  Chano asked.

I know there’s bad blood between you two.  Why should I tell you?

Chano gave a quick laugh that didn’t hide his anger.  El Cabito cheated me, he said.  I’m not going to let him get away with that.

You’re a guapo, Simón said.  A hothead.  Forget it.

If you weren’t so old, I’d break your neck for saying that.

Go ahead and break it, Simón said.  You do me a favor.

As Chano ate, the panther came back, fiercer and more threatening than in his dream.  This time it was behind him and had its front paws on his shoulders trying to push him down.  Chano straightened his back and said a prayer to Changó.  Still, he was bothered that a dream animal had made its way into reality and was now stalking him.  He had no idea whether it was a good omen or bad, or, given his life of late, it could be a message from the spirit world to slow down, become a son of Obatalá, the saint of the North, and be virtuous, eat rice pudding, drink coconut milk.

He walked out of the redolent warmth of the restaurant directly into the cold wind of the avenue, but it was Cayo Hueso, his neighborhood in Havana, he carried inside, and the tenement he lived in called El Africa, so tough not even the police dared to enter.  He remembered his mother and his brothers, he remembered the crazy woman who lived on the upstairs floor, screaming for the death of the dictator Machado—¡Muerte al tirano!—and everyone laughing at her until one day she disappeared and was never seen again.  He remembered the boy who called him maricón and tried to take his shoe shine box.  The boy was older by three years and larger than Chano, but Chano was a guapo even then and he hit the boy with three lightning-quick punches that dropped him.  When the boy was down Chano kicked him in the face, the ribs, the groin, and would have killed him had not a man grabbed him and pulled him away.  Chano could still remember the pleasure he felt, like sex, seeing him on the ground, writhing in pain and humiliation.  Then the boy stood, and Chano saw the tears coming out of his eyes, the snot smeared on his cheeks, and shame on his trembling lips.  That’s when the santo dismounted and Chano calmed down, felt the boy’s embarrassment.  The encounter led to the first of many stays at the boys’ reformatory, but nobody called him maricón again and got away with it.  Once you enter the forest you can’t leave it, not for long.

He tried to warm himself by thinking of his mother’s bed.  While she was out earning a living, he’d get under the covers and smell the lilac cologne she wore after her bath and lingered in the sheets mixed with her own womanly scent.  Many afternoons he spent hiding there, watching the shadows lengthen and the dark gather at the corners until he heard the front door open and her voice calling him.  He was not one given to nostalgia, but on frigid days like this it got the better of him, made him frustrated with the life he had and want a different one, a nice apartment downtown, a house in Havana, lots of money and a brand new Cadillac—un Colepato.  He could have that life if he kept playing his drums, making his music.  Eventually he could get his own band, like Machito and Dizzy and Cugat.

¡Qué carajo! Chano said to himself as he walked uptown through the snow.  His shoes were wet and his cheeks stung from the cold wind, and he stoked the fire inside.  There’s nobody in this city can push me around.  He’d find El Cabito sooner or later, but it was too cold to be walking the streets, making the rounds.  The snow was up to his ankles and his toes were numb.  He’d go back to the apartment and wait there for Cacha.  She’d take care of all his longing, make him forget how far away from home he was.  Tonight he’d play his drum and that was best, when the santo would come of out of the forest and mount him, and Cacha would hear him wherever she was.

That’s when he spied his friend Juan Pedro across the street, walking in the other direction, and called to him.  Chano’s voice was diminished by the cold and he had to yell louder before Juan Pedro heard him and crossed the street and said he was going to a big party that had been going on for three days.  Chano changed directions and followed his friend to Mama Mandinga’s apartment.  In those days Mama held parties in her house and charged a cover.  It was a way of making a little money, a way of keeping the spirits up.  There was a live band and lots of liquor and food, but the people came for the dancing, which went on from the moment Mama opened the door till she threw the last partiers out.

By the time Chano and Juan Pedro got there, there were five couples left and the band had stopped playing, except the guitarist who was strumming the chords to a plaintive bolero.  Jeva music, Chano called it, not in a derogatory way.  Women liked boleros, got their juices flowing.  A bolero was a perfect way to end a party if you’d scored.  If not, that music could really crawl inside you and make you miserable.

Mama was sitting on the foyer, her haunches spilling over the sides of a wooden folding chair and she greeted Chano like a prodigal son.  She refused to take his money.  It was not a day to be turning people away simply because they didn’t have the cover.  Mama wanted Chano to get to the drum and play a set to send her clients home on a happy note but Chano refused, saying he didn’t want to waste himself.  He told her he was looking for El Cabito.  Mama misunderstood thinking Chano wanted drugs and scrunched her face, her lower lip curling around a curse word she decided to keep to herself.  She looked down briefly at the cigar box where she kept her money.  No one but Mama touched that box.

He was here yesterday afternoon, she said.  Sat on the couch talking.  You know how he is, like he owns the world.  Then he started dealing and I told him to leave.  Here, in my house, you don’t do drugs.  You hear, Chano?  Cabito’s no good.  Don’t trust a man with a gold tooth.

Chano reminded Mama he himself had two.

Two is not one, she said.

She picked up her cigar box and stood slowly.  She was a big woman, made bigger by the loose house dress she wore.  Se acabó lo que se daba.  Party’s over.  I’m going to bed.  Be careful.  El Cabito was in the war.  He killed a lot of men.  Oggún, the saint of weapons, is on his side.

I’m a son of Changó, Chano said.

That saint is fickle.

Chano gave another quick laugh.  He’d never been afraid of anyone in his life and when you’re unafraid you have every weapon at your disposal.  Juan Pedro was sitting on the couch flirting with a nice-looking mulatta whose boyfriend was smoking reefer out on the street.  That was the boyfriend’s fault.  You never let your woman loose when Juan Pedro’s around.  He’s devoted to women, pretty ones, ugly ones, all kinds.  Tiene labia.  He’s got the talk.  Chano left him there.

There was one more place he could check, el Río Café, but that was way uptown and the cold was getting to him.  His teeth were chattering and the wind went right through the coat he was wearing, a lined gabardine with a leather collar he’d bought more for style than for warmth.  It was best if he went back to his apartment to warm up and rest before his gig.

When he got there Cacha wasn’t there.  Instead he found a presence, not one he could see but one he could feel.  It was Ekwe the panther again with its wild animal smell and its panting like a bellows and a hunger so deep it was bottomless.  Chano took off his shoes, which were wet and stained along the sides with dried salt, and lay on the bed.  The best thing he could do now was sleep for a while and wake up refreshed and ready to play like he’d never played before, smoke those drums, make them talk the language of the forest and make sure Cacha heard it in midtown, where she was shopping with her friends.  He’d brought her from Cuba so she could dance in New York.  That mulatta could move her hips to the music like no one he’d ever seen, and he’d seen plenty.  She was Ochún, the saint of romance and flirtation, with skin the color of honey and eyes of gold, and Chano loved her the first time he saw her.  For a long time he tried to get her to come with him but she refused because he was married, and so she went off with a trumpet player to New Orleans.  He followed after her and smiled that gold smile of his and finally talked her into coming to New York and moving in with him, making many promises they both knew he’d never keep.  The rest is history as they say.  She was sensational and danced her way through all the clubs in the city.  Divórciate, mi negro, she would say to him.  It is me you love.  She was right.  Chano loved Cacha, but he didn’t trust himself.  He loved a lot of women.  He fell asleep thinking of her.

It was close to seven o’clock when he woke.  There was a blue light coming through the window and the apartment was in deep shadow.  He lit a cigarette and lay back in bed, flicking the ashes on the floor.  Cacha wouldn’t be home before he left and that unsettled him.  Everybody’s busy in this town, everybody’s after one thing or another.  He hoped for a good audience; snow never kept people away, or the cold.  This was New York, where people breathed music and danced until the sun came up, just like Havana, except bigger and richer.

He did his push-ups and sit-ups and jumped in the shower, making the water as hot as he could stand it; then he shaved and splashed on some of the cologne Cacha had bought for him—Flor de Blasón, the best.  He put on his gray wool suit and a black tie with diagonal yellow stripes.  Before leaving he rolled a joint, sat on the easy chair and smoked it.  Good stuff, not the crap El Cabito sold him last week.  He saw the forest in all its clarity, every tree delineated, each leaf apart from every other leaf, each vine twirling around itself, each bush growing in its proper place, and all together thick and impenetrable, the dense green mass: the smell of the air, the damp earth, the birds squawking overhead.  No sign of Ekwe the panther.

The marihuana made him impervious to the cold and he charged up Lexington toward El Río determined to find El Cabito.  Deep in the forest, quiet the street, no one outside.  A block away he saw a lone figure under a street light.  It was not a night for strolling.  Maybe it was someone who couldn’t stand to be in the house with a barking wife.  He was dressed in green and yellow and was chewing on a piece of meat on the bone.  Chano knew the sign: Orula, the oldest and wisest saint.  When Chano was a few steps from him, the man stopped chewing and spoke: Es noche de muerte.  It’s a night for death.  He wore a scarf around his face that hid his features and gave him the look of a monk.  There were shadows everywhere and an underlying hum, like that of a machine, coming from the vegetable world where the saints lived.

Under whose authority, Chano asked.  He was bareheaded and the cold was like needles piercing his skin.

The Ifá says.

Chano was at the border of a dream, about to enter and be mounted again.  He struggled with Changó, he couldn’t let it happen now, and the saint got angry and abandoned him.  The man’s voice seemed to come from the sun, the dark inside the sun that only appears at night.  Prepárate, he said.

Prepare myself for what, Chano thought.

He smiled at the man but inside he felt like a hen that can’t lay an egg.  He pushed out his chest, took a deep breath and said, No one gets the better of me, and as he said it he remembered the panther and how it had climbed on him at the restaurant and he had to shake it off.  In the same way he shook off the man and kept walking into the night, which constricted around him.

One hundred yards away he was a small figure amidst the whiteness; two hundred yards away the forest shut behind him.  What you create is yours.  Drunk on palm wine, Obatalá, the saint of the North, made twisted children.

Chano saw the red neon light spilling on the snow before he saw the place.  It was that way always.  He wanted to deal with El Cabito, get some satisfaction, then go to his gig.  He’d play so well Cacha would hear him wherever she was.  Without honor there’s no music and the drums sound dead; without honor you might as well be like a million other fools shitting their pants from the cold.  Chano looked through the window into the Río.  El Cabito was sitting at a corner table with two other men, drinking beer and eating croquetas.  Having a good time, laughing a lot.

Chano entered and headed straight for their table, unsmiling.  He wanted to settle the matter so he could play his drums.  It was that simple.

Cabrón, he said to El Cabito.  Cabrón, you sold me chicken shit and I want my money back.

Still sitting, el Cabito smiled and said, What I sell is what I sell and no one complains.  Ask your girlfriend about that.

What did you say? Chano said.  There was nothing he could see but that mocking smile, the gold tooth glinting with the overhead light of El Río.

She’s had my stuff.  Ask her.

The two men he was sitting with moved away.  They saw the forest close in around Chano and el Cabito and only one of them was coming out.

Chano pushed the table aside and went for him, throwing a wild punch that glanced off his shoulder, then a straight right to the head that caught El Cabito on the cheek and threw him against the wall.  El Cabito was stocky but quick.  In one motion he ducked to avoid Chano’s left hook and pulled a gun from his belt.

When the first bullet hit him, Chano felt as if he’d walked into a brick wall.  He tried to force his way through it and take another swing at El Cabito.  His arm flailed wildly and dropped to his side.  He looked down at his chest but couldn’t see where the bullet entered him.  Then he heard two more shots and felt them thumping into him.  His legs weakened and he couldn’t get enough air in his lungs.  All sounds in the restaurant stopped.  He wanted very badly to see beyond the forest, go back home and rest, but he had no strength left in him and so he sat down on a chair, just to rest a little, get his breath back.  The next shot hit his heart.  Chano’s head slumped and he dropped to the floor where el Cabito put three more bullets into him.  After that all you could hear was Changó’s laughter coming out of the forest.

Sixty blocks away in midtown, Cacha was sniffing a sample of perfume on her inner wrist and chatting by the counter with her two friends about the weather and about men and their ways, how much like boys they are, how they sometimes try to fool others but are only fooling themselves.  Like Chano, Cacha said.  He doesn’t realize it but that man is in my hands.  Ese negro tá pa mi.  She grew quiet a moment and turned inward, her forehead clouding over with dark thoughts.  What if he isn’t?  What if he goes back to his wife?  Then she heard something like Chano’s drumming and the cloud passed as clouds do.  She’d get him to divorce that woman in Cuba; she’d get him to marry her and live in the proper way in a big apartment with rose-colored walls and silk brocade curtains. He with his music, she with her children, drinking the milk of Ochún.  She turned to one of her friends and said, You know, the colder it is, the warmer I feel.

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Cuban-born Pablo Medina is the author of eleven books of poetry, prose, and nonfiction, among them Points of Balance/Puntos de apoyo (2005) and The Cigar Roller (2005).  In January 2008, Medina and fellow poet Mark Statman published a new English version of García Lorca’s Poet in New York. His work has appeared in various languages, among them Spanish, French, German, and Arabic.  Winner of many awards for his writings, Medina has taught in numerous colleges and universities throughout the United States.  Currently, he resides in Las Vegas and teaches writing at UNLV.