Blazing with resentment and dripping now with sweat from the relenting heat of the climbing sun—or was it from tension, or both?—I suddenly felt too young to be cast out of my life and home and too old not to realize what I would be leaving behind.
When I got back to my grandparents’ home, Mamá was there alone on the sidewalk waiting for me, my trunk and conga drum resting at her feet. Silently, I strode up to her and waited—always silent. Our neighbor Pepe had offered to drive me to the airport. “It would save us all the emotional scene at the airport when we had to say our goodbyes,” he had advised us. My whole body shuddered with confusion and anticipation, torn between hope and despair.
Looking up at my bedroom window from the sidewalk for the last time, I noticed the lace curtains shift despite the stillness of the morning air. It was Abuelo looking down at us.
“Make us proud and listen to your Tío Daniel.” My mother’s words brought me back to the sidewalk outside my grandparents’ place. “And for God’s sake, don’t you dare get your uncle angry.” These were the last words I heard my mother call out to me before Pepe pulled up to the curb, quickly put my things in the trunk of his car, and drove us off to the airport.
Poughkeepsie, NY
1958-1962
9
Nobody warned me that flying would be so stressful. The crammed space and the stifling air on the plane was much worse than I ever imagined it would be. From the minute I stepped foot into the airport terminal, I felt suffocated and vulnerable with each tortuous breath I took. The plane cabin closed in on me, and I could just feel the germs settling in my lungs as the other melancholy, sniffling passengers—more soon-to-be exiles—shuffled by my seat.
Ten minutes into my four-hour trip from Havana to New York, the airline attendant took one look at me and crunched up her eyebrows with a show of concern.
“Are you feeling okay, mi hijo?” A motherly smile stretched across her smooth face as she leaned over me and touched my shoulder. She couldn’t have been much older than twenty-three or twenty-four, but she spoke to me as if she were a much older, much wiser, protective mother.
“How long until we get to New York City?” I asked, trying to keep the pooling bile in my stomach from gurgling up past my throat.
“It’s about three and a half hours, hijo. And then you will be in America. You must be very excited.” She was doing her best to calm me down.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” the attendant named Juana asked me again.
“Oy vey,” I mumbled to myself. I wondered how I was going to make it.
“Here. Take this. Hold on to it if you should need it during the flight.” Juana was holding out a small white paper bag and waving it in front of my face.
Embarrassed, I reluctantly accepted the barf-bag from Juana. I held it up in front of my mouth and nose for the next three hours.
Finally, the wheels of the plane touched down, and we were now back on solid ground. The only belongings I brought with me to my new world were an old leather travel trunk and my conga drum. The trunk contained exactly two pairs of new leather shoes, three guayabera shirts, two pairs of cotton pants, my prayer shawl (which Abuelo stuffed in the trunk when he thought I wasn’t paying attention), a new tube of Brylcreem, and my favorite record of Perez Prado’s “Cerezo Rosa.” The old, faded photo of my father on his tricycle and my lucky bolita ticket remained in the breast pocket of my shirt. The one hundred pesos that Abuelo gave me at our last supper was taped securely inside my drum with the rest of my secret savings. A suitcase, a drum, and a couple hundred worthless Cuban pesos were all I had to my name.
The claustrophobic panic of the plane ride took a while to melt away while I waited at the luggage carousel. New York City made Havana look like a backward village in comparison. The bustling movement and confusion, the noise, the smoke and congestion from the traffic, the crowds of people rushing in all different directions, and no sign of the ocean anywhere made me nervous and disoriented. The first impressions of my future were quickly filled with panic and despair. El Jefe was slowly morphing into El Infantil, the baby.
My stomach was in knots, and my nerves were shot to hell. It was all too much for a young boy to take in at once. I was overtaken by shock at the contrast between my former life and my new one, and the romantic thrill of New York City was making me even more anxious than I had anticipated. But still I couldn’t believe I was really in New York…America! I was resolved to not let this move intimidate me. I had made it through a lot worse—the plane ride not withstanding—and I was too worked up to think of anything else but the adventure of it all. I was determined to be brave and embrace this change. After all, I was starting a new life, and I didn’t have the time or patience to feel pity for myself. Not in America. Anyway, I had a gut feeling the numbers would eventually stack up in my favor.
With a heavy sigh, I breathed in all the unfamiliar, mystifying scents of my new home. For the moment, however, it was more fatigue and hunger than anything else that began to overcome me and eat at my frayed nerves.
My uncle Daniel was Mamá’s older brother. I didn’t know much about him. No one ever wanted to talk about him, and when his name was mentioned, everyone quickly and curiously changed the subject. All I could ever discover was that he had some kind of issue that caused a falling out with the family and, apparently, with our whole community. Daniel had simply disappeared, breaking all communication with everyone. He did, though, receive me in his home with open arms, like I was an important VIP visiting from another country. For all intent and purpose, it was impossible to unravel the mystery of why Tío Daniel had moved to New York from Cuba nearly seventeen years earlier all by himself, leaving his entire life behind.
Why?
At least now he seemed to have a comfortable job that he loved, a new American wife, and a beautiful home that sat on two acres of lush land that carpeted the hills surrounding the house on all sides.
How lucky he turned out!
I had no idea how big and diverse New York was until we began driving north toward my uncle’s home. The ride from the airport all the way out to his house in Poughkeepsie seemed to stretch on and on; it took what seemed like forever to get there. The whole island of Cuba could have fit in that stretch of drive from the airport. And the silence—the unnerving, familiar silence—that sat between my estranged uncle and me stifled us the whole way home. Home?
Once outside the city’s borders I watched the unfamiliar scenery of beautiful green rolling hills float by quietly and calmly as I stared out the car’s windshield. My uncle drove, shrouded in his awkward silence, slowly and nervously out of the web of commotion that was Manhattan. His large hands gripped tightly to the leather steering wheel as he drove; I thought his bony knuckles would rip right through his skin. My uncle was clearly not comfortable behind the wheel of the car. In contrast, I couldn’t wait until I could drive—to feel the forward rush of freedom. When we finally pulled into the driveway of his home, Tío Daniel let out an audible gulp of relief.
In this unexpected world into which I was now plunged, the air was markedly different; there was none of the salty sea air or constricting tropical clamminess that I had grown accustomed to in Havana; just a rich, earthy feeling that filtered easily
